Third Party Publisher Rate of Publication Question

Carln0130

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Surely the question is what produces better scenarios? If the answer is playtesting then you are going to want to see some proof of rigorous playtesting.

Is it luck that 3rd RTR In The Rain is on a knife edge or was it created through rigorous playtesting or was it the skill of the designer?
Funny you should ask. My friend Steve Johns designed it and it was created by collaboration (ie: Playtest and analyzing). Steve is a very good designer, especially of small "tourney sized" scenarios. There were several modifications along the way, and out popped a gem. Did we all know it was going to be THAT good? Only if we want to lie about it. But we had every reason to believe that the end result of Steve's effort would be good. It certainly was.
 

Mister T

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Funny you should ask. My friend Steve Johns designed it and it was created by collaboration (ie: Playtest and analyzing). Steve is a very good designer, especially of small "tourney sized" scenarios. There were several modifications along the way, and out popped a gem. Did we all know it was going to be THAT good? Only if we want to lie about it. But we had every reason to believe that the end result of Steve's effort would be good. It certainly was.
It's not possible indeed to determine whether a scenario will be perfectly balanced like 3rd RTR. However it is possible to put the right ingredients and expertise to ensure with a certain degree of confidence that the product will be reasonably balanced, which you probably did. Take for instance AP6 A decade of war, one of the most successful packs ever produced, i don't think there was a lot left to pure luck.
 

volgaG68

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Besides, some designers can get it right off the hop. I've tested for Lone Canuck, and we were amazed at how few adjustments George's scenarios needed based on our results (for example we played every scenario in one of the Blitzkrieg packs twice, changing sides and had very few recommendations to make).
I agree with this assessment, both specifically and in general. LCP is the only publisher that I have playtested for, namely three scenarios from one of their Ost packs. In all three of them, we were both amazed at how little (if at all) recommendations we had. What revisions these particular scenarios were on, we did not know; it could have been the 2nd or 3rd massaging of the initial design. Who knows? I came away with the following feeling however. Designers like George that have designed many scenarios over many years seem to develop an almost intuitive feel for balance in their blackboard designs. They haven't simply spent one year fine-tuning a one-off scenario pack or module, but they spend many hours of their free time designing, year in and year out for one or two decades. Although LCP is the only one I have playtested for, I have heard the same attribute accorded to several other "names" in scenario design who have designed almost religiously for upwards of twenty years. They seem to have developed through rote an almost intuitive feel for balance in design, and as I have heard related of other designers as well, their scenarios only require a small amount of fine-tuning; i.e. they don't design scenarios that PTers immediately "break" or instantly point out major flaws in. Like anything in life, practice makes perfect (or close enough!).
 

Jacometti

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It would be great if I could design a scenario that went to the last DR/dr...
BUT... I ain't that good.
You could design a scenario that is always decided by a final DR. Just SSR it.

SSR 5: at game end, the Russian and German players each make a DR. The side with the lowest DR wins the game. If the result is a tie, return to Setup.
 

footsteps

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You could design a scenario that is always decided by a final DR. Just SSR it.

SSR 5: at game end, the Russian and German players each make a DR. The side with the lowest DR wins the game. If the result is a tie, return to Setup.
An apt description of hell. Two players eternally trapped in a loop - always playing the same battle, never winning/losing.
 

Michael Dorosh

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An apt description of hell. Two players eternally trapped in a loop - always playing the same battle, never winning/losing.
I don't know about never - did that Medrow feller ever figure out the odds of two DR being equal?
 

RandyT0001

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An apt description of hell. Two players eternally trapped in a loop - always playing the same battle, never winning/losing.
Star Trek: Original Series, "The Alternative Factor" episode. S1E27
 
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