[E.rpg] Alpha playtest

Well, over the weekend I finally got my friends together to playtest my project E.rpg, my old fantasy heartbreaker that I'm reworking.

I ran 2 sessions. The first session had a couple of strikes against it and didn't go so well. First, I didn't prepare as well as I should have. That wouldn't have been that bad, if it wasn't for the other issues that came up. Second, one of the 3 guys that showed up didn't realize we were planning to test out my project, and wasn't thrilled about trying something new. He's a pretty hard core gamist, and I think he doesn't like new systems because he needs time to figure out how to work them. And finally, one of the other guys had to bring his 6 year son along, who quickly got bored playing games by himself.

So what ended up happening was that I had one guy who was into the session, and 2 who were either distracted or uninterested. Getting started was also a bit rough because I had to walk them through the system. Afterwards, however, I got some feedback from the one guy who was into it, so I guess I got what I needed out of the session.

The second session went alot better. I met privately with another friend who wasn't able to make it to the other session. I ran him through a short scenerio. It went alot better because we didn't have any outside distractions, and I was able to get some good feedback.

What I really wanted feedback on was my combat system, which I think will be the heart of the game. They answered all my questions, but during play I didn't feel they really took advantage of the all the options I tried to implant in it, which hindered the quality of the feedback. Maybe they just weren't use to them, or maybe the features aren't as big of deals as I thought they would be. I'm not sure if I should have been more upfront ahead of time with what I was hoping would happen. I ran the session like a normal game and then just asked them what they thought about it (I did have specific questions, however). Most of the info I got from the session was from watching them during play. My big feature was the initiative system, and even though they said afterwards that it was good, during play they didn't really seem into it. Again, maybe they just weren't use to it, we'll see. After I tweak things I'll get them to play a second session of it and see how things go.