As we finally come to the close of our 3-year long D&D campaign, my friends and I are excited to try something new. I am lucky to have this group of pals, who have been pushing me to finish Bug & Claw so we can play together. While I thought the alpha would be completed by January 2025, unfortunately, a project I can't talk about yet has had me busy since about April last year. In the meantime, however, my friends have helped me playtest some of Bug & Claw's systems!
On collecting feedback
I let folks run through character creation, explore items and some of the other mechanics, as well as ask questions about the lore. What I didn't tell them was intent. In testing, we never want to bias people. So, it's best if you can get folks to speak as freely as possible while they use/play/interact with something, sharing all of their thoughts and questions with you as they do. Thankfully, that's what happened, here.
General notes
Folks kept referring to Bug-kin as various sizes, from massive to tiny. Although I hadn't shared any material with them about size and how mutation has affected bugkin physiology, it made me think I could make this very clear upfront.
I was curious how they would feel about the classless system, but what I wasn't prepared for was how into actual arthropods folks would be. They didn't care about classes but did care about what kind of arthropod they originated from and if that implied any abilities or advantages.
If you start in a certain area where various arthropods are common, could that help narrow down selection for the first release of the game?
Does that matter?
Could the original Ninja Turtles TTRPG be good inspiration for covering a wide gamut of possibilities without literally listing every last one?
Mutation and what that meant greatly interested folks.
If mutations were going to be aesthetic vs functional, they wanted that clearly delineated.
Aesthetic mutations mixed with functional ones made one person feel cheated.
Advantageous vs disadvantageous vs flavour is important to explicitly call out for some folks.
OSR-style play is still a hard-entry for some 5E-style or traditional players
Some folks want to feel as though they can "win."
Imbalance and lethality rubs some folks the wrong way.
If not investing in a character since they could be a throwaway, what should I invest in?
Folks were intrigued by the legacy mechanics and how if you aren't investing in a character you might be investing in the world itself, over time.
Folks discussed how if everyone started with a couple of pre-generated throwaway characters that intentionally die, it may help shake off some of the fear here.
Recommended exploring ways to help people not be so precious.
Resonance and infection tables during character creation were confusing. I have a habit of building complex tables that I should just simplify.
Resonance and infection were confusing to folks who didn't realize these were pools that could go up and down, assuming they were like "harder" set stats like Strength and Dexterity that only go up or down during advancement.
Folks spotted a critical error where two types of Gon generation were listed! I accidentally made folks richer than they should be.
It was unsatisfying to someone to only receive 1-2 items to start with.
Many typical TTRPG items listed felt mundane to folks new to that type of play and it was unclear how they could be useful. An interesting insight about how necessary it is to help introduce people to different game concepts.
Spotted another unclear direction when generating starting mutations.
Discussion around how to roleplay character types you aren't used to.
"If I play a low intelligence character, how do I do that without pissing off everyone else I'm playing with?"
Good feedback from one of the other players/play-testers that stats and roleplay elements can be a lens to pass success and failure through after you know what happens, not to influence play beforehand. Explained it really well, and I am definitely stealing using.
Some discussion around if many of the background professions were important or not and if that was okay.
If I am a basket weaver vs an alchemist, am I going to be disappointed? Could that background and skillset ever help me?
Should all backgrounds be intriguing? Is it okay to start as a mundane role in society? If so, what leads me off to adventure? What's the catalyst to send a basket weaver off adventuring?
Could players decide their own backgrounds as part of the lore? (I think 13th Age does this with how they "reify" backgrounds into mechanics).
Continuous assumptions about lore, despite how much I'd spoken about things to certain folks, really worried me.
The assumption that everything would be over-populated, with tons of egg-laying.
Assumptions about size, everyone being the size of ants.
Assumptions about society.
Assumptions about magic existing in the world.
Great idea offered that different biomes could offer different mutation types.
If you advance your level in certain areas it may lead to different mutation tables, for example.
Synthesizing and actioning
One of my favourite ways to act on design feedback is to "show instead of tell." This means you can sometimes walk people through a more straightforward thing or show it to them instead of explaining it to death. For example, with all the confusion around the size of characters, I iterated on the image from the last post and made this size chart:
Some feedback has led me to dig in on legacy mechanics more, mainly since they affect overworld traversal. I also think it's valid criticism that "generic arthropod" is much less exciting than playing as your favourite insect or sea bug (shrimps is bugs). Therefore, although maybe 20 devlogs ago, I had decided to merge bugkin into generalities and physical characteristics, I will now let origins stand out. Honestly, this may make some aspects of game design and advancement easier for the time being anyway.
Off to build some things new, iterate on the rest, and then test again!
