Fall of the Republic: Design Notes - Part 3: Playtesting
By Nathanael Tripp

So you want to be a play tester? Think its all fun and games?

Well you are partially right. Play Testing the FotR set was one of the best experiences I have had in my life. But on the other hand it is also one of the most tiring and exhausting. Basically you have two-three weeks to wrack your brain for every possible combination that the new cards can make. For a deck builder this is the epitome of proving your skills to everyone. Being able to show people that you can not only make a set fun, but also balanced, really shows off how thoroughly you were able to play test a set.

When I was asked to write an article about the play testing process I was stumped for a day or two, thinking what I could write about. Then it came to me, why not tell everyone had badly Card Development screwed up and how Play Testing came to the rescue… too bad that didn't happen. What really happened was collaboration between our two groups to find the best solution to any of the problems that arose. Let's break down two of the situations that came up during testing to show just how tricky this testing process can actually be.

1. Galaxies Opera House - Dark
Location-Ground - Coruscant
Build: 3
When your build step starts, search your deck for a Mission card. Show it to your opponent and put it in your hand. Shuffle your deck.
The elite of Coruscant gathered at the Galaxies Opera House for entertainment.

As you can see as originally worded this card was crazy. Being able to search out a specific Mission card each turn was just too good. Just think if you could pull your one copy of Falcon's Needs or Blockade {TPM} just by having this location out. We worked with CD to try and find a suitable fix to keep this card as a mission search ability. But no matter how we tried this card still seemed to create situations that we did not want to be coming up with.

It was then suggested that giving it a "mulligan" effect would not only keep it balanced but give the dark side a more consistent draw mechanic as all previous ones they have has been somewhat clunky. This was an obviously broken/abusive card, but what happens when a abusive situation comes in a much more subtle form? That is where our next card comes in.

2. Card No. 47 - Uncommon
Clone Grenade - Neutral
Equipment-Ground/Character
Build: 2
Pay 0 build points --> Equip.
Equipped Clone unit gets:
* When this unit attacks, do 2 additional damage to the defending unit and 1 damage to this unit.

You can see that this version of Clone Grenade is much different from the final version of the card. Originally CD had it doing auto damage to the unit equipped with it, but PT felt that this really hampered the cards effect and didn't really do what the card was intended to. We advised making the damage to the user a roll effect. Not only did this create a "fun factor" to the card but it also gave clone decks a very powerful card to use to their advantage.

And that is how the card was worded up until the final PT run through when D_LotS found a major problem with the card. Notice that in this version there is no equip cost, which is what started all the trouble. You could pay for the initial cost of this card and then move it all over the board, from character to ground and back again, without having to invest any more build into this. We found out the hard way that this is a bad idea; it lets you boost just the right unit at just the right time for free. It was changed almost immediately to have an equip cost after this was found out.

These were just two of the examples that came to the top of my head when I thought back on the FotR set. And with the change in leadership of the Card Development Committee, we are sure to have a whole new slew of tricky cards to play test in the upcoming set entitled….

Gotcha, going to have to wait just a little longer for that information. But not much longer.

Thoughts or comments? Visit the message board thread for this article here.

About the Author
Nathanael has been a player since May 2002 and is currently the Playtesting Chairperson and a member of the IDC Board. He has written a number of articles for Wizards of the Coast and has been very active with the SWTCG Hope of the Jedi tournament. Nathanael Tripp has been a member of both the Wizards and Rebelbasers forums since January of 2002, posting under the name Ketricel.