Skill Level of Playtest Group


General Discussion


I'm very curious what the average skill level of playtest groups look like. Those of us active on the forums probably don't represent the average PF player and I always feel a sense of disconnect between what I talk about online and what my players at home see.

To start off, I live in a foreign country where a number of English speakers are always looking for a chance to get together. I suggested Pathfinder and even mentioned the playtest as a chance to try out the new system. I've been playing roleplaying games for more than 20 years, so I dutifully read through the playtest guide cover to cover, organized the game, and helped everyone create characters.

The rest of my players are all new to Pathfinder, with only a handful having played one or two sessions of tabletop roleplaying games. For the most part, I explained the rules as, "You'll be asked to roll dice to overcome challenges, the higher the better." All of my players have the book, and they've mostly read the rules that pertain to their class. I bring up more rules where relevant.

So far, my players have loved the playtest, but I can't be sure if it's just because it's essentially their first real roleplaying experience (which, admittedly, is a little unfair to them as I keep having to change the rules with every update).

So how about the rest of you? What part does "gaming background" have to play in the playtest at your table?

Liberty's Edge

I'm running it for my normal group, who are all very experienced Pathfinder players. Some are more 'rules heavy' than others, but we've all been playing Pathfinder on and off for most of its lifespan as a game (including the better part of two APs for most of them), and other RPGs even longer.


For the official sessions my groups have been mixed. I wanted to see how new to TTRPG players did with the system but I included experienced players to help facilitate. I outlined my specific players in this thread.

I did convert my current Pathfinder First Edition game over to the playtest rules and that group is all experienced players.

Ruzza wrote:
So far, my players have loved the playtest, but I can't be sure if it's just because it's essentially their first real roleplaying experience.

Same here. My players without much TTRPG experience have been positive but it's hard to tell what's the system and what would have been true of another system. I will say that they picked up the basics (action economy, character creation, etc) more quickly than new players who I introduced to Pathfinder First Edition in the past but they did find some secondary rules confusing (shields, resonance, etc). One thing I found interesting was that my experienced players seemed to have more trouble with character creation than my inexperienced players?


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I've got three experienced players one of whom GMs himself and then one complete newbie to TTRPGs (though he is the target audience plays RPG video games like MTG and complicated board games just never had an opportunity for TTRPG).

There have been a few things that the newbie had to learn (mostly terminology) but overall I found the game pretty easy to teach, he picked up the action system immediately which was nice compared to DnD 3/PF1.

The number of times a question has slowed down play is about the same for all players though for the newbie it's not understanding something and for the experienced players it's thinking they understand something that has actually changed.


Bardarok wrote:
...for the experienced players it's thinking they understand something that has actually changed.

I've gotten this a lot. Especially for the action economy. I suppose it's harder to unlearn and learn than to just learn.

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