In the very many years since I actively posted to any blog, I have done a good bit of tabletop game design. I ran a Kickstarter! I wrote up half a dozen games! But I don't really do playtesting because I always think a) I'm not important enough to ask people to do that labor for me and b) I don't really want to do the labor even if I have people. There's a certain fatalism there, where I assume nothing I do will or can be successful. That's a self-fulfilling prophecy, of course.
However, I now have a few people willing to playtest my games, any and all of them, and that's...intimidating? I have to have a thing! And it has to work well enough to give it a try! And then I have to honor their labor and make changes! And try again! Those are big steps, and big responsibilities.
I'm starting, we're starting, with a game I wrote probably 13 or so years ago called City of Gray Shadows, which is about cats five thousand years ago in dusty cities doing cat things and trying to win freedom from the capricious "gods" who are, of course, just the humans who are all around them. I think...well, I don't know what to think. The players seem interested? I have to make some adjustments before we play in three days, which ought to be quick and can be deeply rough. I should make up quick summary sheets of how to play. I need to make them characters so I can explore as much of the system as possible in a go. Did I mention it uses playing cards instead of dice?
It's frightful. But I'm going to do it. Should have been done ages ago, but if the best time to do it is then, the second best time is NOW. Now is what I have.
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