Playtest Groups Wanted

Playtest Groups Wanted

Originally shared by Jeremy Strandberg

Playtest Groups Wanted

Exciting news!   #Stonetop  is going to be published by Lampblack & Brimstone, with Jason Lutes editing, doing layout, and art directing.

We’re ready for some serious playtesting. Interested?

We’re looking for groups who:

• Play every 2-3 weeks (or more!)

• Can commit to actually playing 3+ sessions

• Are willing to specifically try out certain content

• Will ask questions & provide thoughtful feedback

• Can put up with potentially frequent changes 

If that sounds like you, please speak up in the comments.

If you’re interested in playtesting, but don’t have a group that meets the requirements above, let us know and we’ll see if we can’t put some of y’all together. EDIT: If you do, please post your time zone (e.g. GMT -5) so we help identify possible Hangout groups.

If you’d like to take a look but aren’t really interested in playtesting, that’s cool, too!  Click the #Stonetop  hashtag and check out the content. It might not be totally up-to-date but it’ll give you an idea of what we’re working on.  

50 thoughts on “Playtest Groups Wanted”

  6. Oh, hey Joshua Faller… are you offering to run a group if I can find you players? Or looking to join a group with someone else running?

    (The former would be easier to bring together.)  

  8. Okay, just tagged you and a few potential folks in the original thread. And If nothing comes of that, I’ll keep my ears open. (And feel free to reach out to others if you like.)

  12. Jeremy,

    Yesterday, we played a seven hour session, unfortunately we didn’t use the playbooks… this was because I hadn’t had time to read it all and my son who was playing in the game was leaving for India. It was a last hurrah type of thing. So we used standard DW playbooks.

    But we did use the backgrounds, a lot of the questions and several of the other mechanics, like the journey mechanics, hirelings, and tons of the lore and background.

    It was one of the best single sessions we have ever played and I want to thank you for that.

  13. Chris S that’s great to hear, and I’m glad it went so well for you all. Thanks for sharing!

    If you have a chance, I’d love to hear more about how it went. (No worries though if you don’t have time or just don’t feel like it.)

  15. OK to start it was jut my Kid and I so we did a shared GM thing…took turns establishing the world, and also adhjucated each other’s moves. Like I said before we didn’t have a chance to use the playbooks cause I hadn’t had a chance to review and only had one night to play.

    My Kid played a Ranger called Marick (with a Hawk sidekick)… and I was playing a wizard called Verneer Ravenwood (later we would have a buddy join us and he was playing a insane Halfling Druid) We played 6th level cause we never normally play high level.

    Things that we established with questions:

    the Crinwin stalk the Forest, you could tell they were near because of the shrill croaking noise that they made. We established that they lived in the tree tops, but that there was also a sub species that lived in the water… they were a lower caste. Their ruling caste were more like an intelligent alien race.

    The Crinwin had recently raided the village because they needed to expand their breeding grounds. The village was able to drive them off, but at great cost.

    Fey are vain and greedy, but that you needed to treat the Elder Forrest Folk with deference and respect.

    My kid established that I had spoken to the Crombil recently… (once I looked up what that was I was pretty stoked.) and asked me what it revealed to me: It was that the Pale Hunter’s Hunger knows no limit this cycle, and the Crombil expressed it’s worry that this fortells the end of all that is.

    The Crombil was rampaging through the forest at that point.

    We also learned that the Pale Hunter had a weakness to something called the Lion’s Nail Arrow… an Artifact that Marick’s grandfather gave him before he wandered off into the Great Forest on his 80th birthday. His granddad carried it to protect himself from the Pale Hunter. Marick had lost it in the battle to save the village as he had to use it to save a woman. The Crinwin that he had shot had retreated into the forest.

    We started with Marick coming to a visit to the home that Ravenwood had in the woods. We roleplayed the dinner and me revealing what the Crombil had told me. We talked about his grandfather’s artifact, which is when he let me know that it was lost.

    The next day we traveled to Stonetop. Had a few flavor encounters with townspeople. One of the village women had some broken egg sacks of the Crinwin. Marick used that to get the scent to track location of the tribe that attacked.

    We went out into the woods, managed to avoid patrols and finally found the village of Crinwin. They were building a huge bonfire. And there was some activity that we saw at the temple. The Hawk flew closer and identified the location of the Lion’s Nail Arrow, and an abnormally large humanoid that was tied up in the temple.

    We didn’t feel like we had a good chance of infiltrating in the middle of the day. Decided to go and see if we could find some fey help… so we went to a mushroom circle nearby and I set out some sweet pies I had bought when we were in town, and a thimble of wine.

    we waited and eventually something my Kid named the Hell Imp showed up (I totally tanked the roll on this) Ravenwood managed to convince it to help us in return for the fame associated with saving the world. That the songs sung would be heard for a 100 generation… also gave him another sweet pie.

    So the Hell Imp agrees, we go back to the village, the Imp makes us Invisible telling us that as long as we take no over action that we would stay invisible. We sneak to the base of the tree and Marick climbs up.

    In the temple Marick sees a Highborn Crinwin Temple Master, and tied to the wall bound in cold iron arm and leg irons with a cold iron muzzle an Elder Fey Lord.

    Marick tries to get the Fey Lord down, and ended up losing his invisibility… Marick fights with the Temple Master and ends up killing him. He removes the Fey Lord’s gag, and they begin to haggle about favors. The Fey Lord agrees to allow for himself to lend his aid when the time was right, in exchange for three children from the village becoming Fey. Marick demanded that they children MUST want to go, and that the Baron needed to give three months and three days before coming for them. The Fey Lord agrees… as Marick was getting him down, the Hell Imp jumps up on his chest and begins to whisper in the Baron’s ear. Marick grabs him and throws him to the ground, not allowing him to talk to the Baron. The imp in super pissed, and when they get down Ravenwood trying to smooth things over told Marick that he had made a promise to the Imp… the Boy smiled at me and said… Yes YOU made a deal with the Imp… not me.

    So I had to smooth that over and managed to… The Baron gave Marick a Silver Flute that he was to play three times when he wanted to summon him. And we had recovered the Lion’s Nail Arrow.

    At this point we were struggling to think of where to go with it next… so we went out to get some dinner…. I will post part two soon.

  16. I’m somewhat late to the party, I know, but Jeremy Strandberg are you still looking for playtesters?

    I’ve been keeping track of Stonetop for a while and am very about the low localised folkloric fantasy vibe (feels very Wardstone Chronicles and more than a little Chronicles of Prydain).

    Some of my friends have been asking about Dungeon World, and others share my love of Stonetop’s genre/aesthetic, and so since I’ll probably run DW for them soon I figured I should probably see if I can run actual Stonetop and maybe be helpful to the playtesting process.

  19. Hey Jeremy Strandberg​. Thanks for the great feedback you left on my previous post today.

    I run a gamers club of about 20 high school kids. If you are wanting feedback from ages 14 to 20, I would love to help out. We have 3 groups that will be starting a new season in this month.

  20. Hey Andrew Huffaker… that sounds great.

    How do y’all go about choosing the games to play? Like, do a bunch of folks pitch games and you see where there’s interest? Or, like, 2-3 people just choose what they’re running and folks divvy up among them? Or something else?

  23. Andrew Huffaker you’re submitting now! If you can more-or-less commit to running at least 3 sessions with a more-or-less stable group, let me know and I’ll send you the invite.

  25. Andrew Huffaker Just sent an invite to G+ playtest community. If you don’t see it in your notifications, click this link and choose to join.

    Inside, you’ll find a link to the Dropbox folder with all the current materials. I think you download them all at once into a zip file from Dropbox.

    Stonetop Playtest

  27. Jeremy, are you still looking for play test groups? We have a weekly group that has been playing Dungeon World. We would be interested in trying Stonetop and providing whatever feedback you request.

  34. Hi, I would love to take part in a stonetop game. The whole thing is put together so well and I really like the theme. I’m in the GMT+2 timezone (Germany)

  37. Alberto García-Casillas cool! Let me know if your group agrees, and I’ll add you in.

    Alternately, Hans Müller is GMT+2 and looking for a game… if one of you can find 1 or 2 others interested in an ongoing game, that could work, too! Let me know!

  38. Hi Jeremy Strandberg . Finally I have joined my group and we have agreed to chango our standard Dungeon World campaign to a new Stonetop one.

    I’m eager to start it with them and help to you to make the best Stonetop game possible. I’m delighted.

  40. I’ve been interested in getting in on this playtest for a while, but have been unable to get buy in from my group. I think I get too wrapped up in specific facets of stonetop and am failing to pitch it in an engaging way. Without a set of playtest rules, how has everyone pitched this game to their group? Thanks!

  42. I just started geting into DW with a couple friends, and while looking for ideas came across Freebooters and Stonetop. Looks very interesting; if you’re still looking for playtesters, please sign me up.

  43. Nick Emanuel sure, definitely still looking for playtesters. Do you have a group on board to play? I’ve been asking folks to commit to playing at least 3 sessions and feedback. Is that something your group would be down for?

  44. Jeremy Strandberg Myself and two others, for sure are onboard. All of us have played tabletops in the past, but are all new to the PBtA ways. We usually get together every 2 weeks, 3 sessions and feedback/ questions are totally cool.

  50. Since this is still pinned, I’m hoping you’re still looking for folks. I’d love to give the game a try, and I’ve got interested players, though we likely won’t be able to play for a month or so — we’ve got an ongoing DW game to wrap up first. Should I check back in when we’re free?

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