Let's be honest: I wrote XXXXtreme STREET luge in a few hours. (that's a link to a "build your own!" PDF. I may have some pre-assembled copies for sale at some point.) Now, being that it's a game that I wrote, there's actually a fair chunk of thought going into the rules, but still, it's not like it's an agonizing process or anything. It's mostly funny. I didn't playtest it: in fact, it says so right in the book "This is an ashcan, which is indie-gamese for 'I didn't do any playtesting.'"

So we've got an hour to kill at GPNW after playing Sugarfighter Black and we're like "what can we do" and I'm like "we can play XXXXtreme STREET luge." And, much to my surprise, Lukas and Lesley and Joe go "yeah, okay."

We played it. My guy is called "Velocaraptor" or Bob and he works sometimes at the club and he's got a bad complexion and he's really too old to be friends with the rest of the characters. He wants to get a steady job, take a night class at community college, and take a road trip to Providence (birthplace of the Gravity Games, natch.) Other people are likewise. Joe's guy (Gorehammer?) wants to lose his virginity, lose his virginity again, and learn good penmanship. Lukas's guy wants to get a new shift at his job at the Dairy Queen.

The thing that happens is that these characters are kinda losers, but you really get attached to them because they're fundamentally decent and just a little too into their microcelebrity sport. You want to see them get their lives together, like, super-bad, and because the rules are against them, they fail all the time. It was really heart-warming, at least for me, and it was also funny as hell.

For instance:
"Hey, man, so that cop was totally yelling at you. What did you say to him to calm him down?"

"Dude, cops have to deal with all sorts of shit every day: drugs, violence, crime. It's rough. So I just talked to him as one extreme dude to another and we worked it out."

Playing the game has convinced me that playtesting is really over-rated. I've had a lot less fun with a lot more playtested games. What you need is just to make sure that your rules aren't mathematically wonky and that they're definitely doing what you want them to, and probably it'll work out fine from there.

yrs--
--Ben

But how do you stack this observation against the countless observations of people who had rules that sucked very badly before playtesting?

Posted By: Robert BohlBut how do you stack this observation against the countless observations of people who had rules that sucked very badly before playtesting?

Dude, Rob. This is XXXXtreme Street Luge we're talking about here. Design can be a casual game too, y'know. The lugers may claim to be hardcore, but we know the truth.

Posted By: Ben LehmanWhat you need is just to make sure that your rules aren't mathematically wonky and that they're definitely doing what you want them to,

and for most people in most cases, playtesting is gonna be necessary to do those things.

Ben has not actually said "boo on playtesting," folks. He's said what he's said, and I'll quote it again cause I like it:

Posted By: Ben LehmanWhat you need is just to make sure that your rules aren't mathematically wonky and that they're definitely doing what you want them to

XXXXTREME!

Further quote from the game:

"I am like a mix-tape of street luge." -- also Lukas, as his character Laser Beam (leonard).

"I'd love to give you the promotion, Leonard, but you're just too valuable to us as a regular employee." Me, as Leonard's boss at the Dairy Queen.

Come to think of it, Lukas is responsible for about 3/4 of the funny quotes of the session.

yrs--
--Ben

http://playthisthing.com/xxxxtreme-street-luge
in case anyone isn't aware...

Nice. Although I liked the strange-ness of having female characters likened to Vin Diesel in three ways.

Oh, so that's what was going on at the table next to our Bliss Stage game!
If I'd realized that, I would have tried to set up a flashback interlude where pilot Anna Lin and her trusty sidekick Laura met as 10-year olds doing street luge, just before the Bliss hit. Or just after, strapping sleeping adults they didn't like to luge boards and sending them down the steepest streets they can find. On fire.


"Extremeness is the fruitful void." -- Ben Lehman

Just an observation, a friend of mine who was visiting this weekend saw my printed out copy, read it over, and his remark was, "Man, that guy must really hate role-playing games." He isn't a role-player, but likes to play card and board games. He was a big Magic player for awhile.

Also, how do you set-up a Bullshit scene?

I've always thought that the term playtest seemed to long, maybe if we just shortened it to play. . .

Got it. That's how I figured to set up a scene, but just wanted to verify.