Surveys and Playtesting Questions

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Surveys and Playtesting Questions
« on: February 18, 2021, 04:58:22 PM »
Hello, everyone!

So, I am currently working on a PbtA hack that I'm very excited about, and I've already tried it out with a couple of friends. Next week I'm going to do my first full session with my usual group, and eventually I'd like to open up playtesting to others as well. In order to get the most useful feedback from playtesting, I'd like to distribute a survey of some kind, and I was wondering if anyone had any advice about how to come up with useful questions and prompts for playtesters.

How have you done it for your own games in the past? What worked and what didn't? Are there any existing resources on this topic that you could direct me to? I know what kinds of reactions/interactions I'm going for, but this is one case where I probably wouldn't want to use leading questions.

Re: Surveys and Playtesting Questions
« Reply #1 on: April 04, 2021, 02:02:01 AM »
I actually use Microsoft forms to gather feedback from my players when I DM, they allow for anonymous responses, essay answers, multiple choice (with fill in the blank options), or scaled answers.

If I were receiving playtesting responses, I would do a pattern of multiple choice questions followed by optional essay areas. That way if people were feeling a bit lazy you could still get some semblance of a response from the multiple choice with room followed for elaboration.

Topics that would I would consider useful for playtesting would be:

Engagement
Immersiveness
Coherence
Perceived genre
Presence of tension (or lack therof)
Organization
Grammar and spelling
Vocabulary choices

There are a lot more that I'm missing too, but those are off the top of my head.