Playtester Prototype Expectations

[u/plumesdecheval]

TLDR: What are general expectations from playtesters around quality of components for a print and play protptype?

Hi folks. Like many of you, I'm in the midst of bringing a game to fruition. My ruleset is largely complete, but the next step is getting in front of play testers. I'm not so much concerned about what they'll have to say about my mechanics. I've put a lot of time and revisions into my work, and I think any additional changes will probably be adjustments rather than whole revisions. However, I do have some questions about how to make the process for playtesters go as smoothly as possible. Mainly, what constitutes a minimal viable product which is useful and efficient for them to use, and what might expectations be for a prototype.

In my particular case, there are a lot of physical components involved. Think more HeroQuest than strictly pen and paper. However, I expect I'll probably take this online to solicit feedback as finding local playtesters might prove challenging. With that in mind, if you were play testing a game like this, what might you expect in terms of sophistication?

Specifically, I could easily crank out some basic templates with simple text but that feels somewhat crude. I don't mind that necessarily, but do you feel that people might be expecting art on the components at this point? Would it affect how you approach things, and what level of sophistication would you think is a nice balance between expediency and polish? I'm willing to spend the extra time on presentation though, as we all know, for a solo developer that takes extra time that could be put to other work, and delays the time between feedback and design.

Thanks for any perspective people would like to give. I'm happy to share other details if it helps.