Refuge Playtest One - Postmortem

So the first Refuge playtest is complete. Verdict: great success!

We convened at seven to give it a go, and spent the first hour-and-a-half getting familiar with the system and making characters. By quarter-to-nine we were ready for the first combat encounter, and by nine-thirty we called it a (productive!) night.

Reading the Rules

Only one person looked over the rules before coming, and having never played an RPG, she had no idea what she was reading. As the godforsaken Mumford & Sons song goes, "it was not [her] fault, but mine." I'll have to do a rewrite to make it more user-friendly for newbies. After we got the requisite jokes out of the way, things went relatively smoothly. I read over the architecture and explained things to everyone, and then we started going over charcter creation.

Character Creation

A bit rough, I'll admit. I can whip up a new character in under five minutes, but for people with no experience in RPGs, it's always a slog for newcomers to a very crunchy game. That was exacerbated by a lack of printouts. If I'd had five copies of the Quick Start Guide, things would have been a lot smoother. Probably could have cut twenty minutes off of chargen. But that would have meant another half-an-hour and another six bucks at the library printer.

I glossed over the notion of class and non-class skills, but it wasn't really necessary to bring up. Quite a few of the rules were delivered on a need-to-know basis; that probably helped shave off time.

I should probably make "loadouts" for the character classes, just gear in a package instead of just tossing the equipment list at them and telling them which ones to pick.

We then took a dinnner break for 10-15 minutes and got ready for the opening encounter.

The Combat Encounter

A simple warehouse, two level 5 mooks - I'll probably make it a little more interesting for the final draft in In the Cold Light of Day - one armed with a grenade. The scout stormed in in berzerker mode and closed the distance to the first mook and hit him. Everyone else gathered at the door and started taking potshots at the first mook.

Seeing a great opportunity, the mook threw a grenade at the squares where everyone had gathered, provoking a reflex action for the party. The Soldier and the Support ran to each side and avoided most of the damage. The Ambassador ran back through the door and slammed it shut, successfully avoiding the blast. A pretty clever move. The Soldier fired wildly in the general direction of the first mook, but resolutely fired from the hip and didn't hit a thing. Support fired an aimed burst and hit the trooper, killing him.

The Ambassador poked his head through the door and made an Persuade attempt at the other mook to ensure a surrender. First one didn't work, second one did. End of encounter. All in all, about ten or eleven turns in forty-five-or-so minutes. So not too bad, especially considering almost no one had played an RPG before.

Things I've learned and questions I've been left with about the system and role-playing games in general:

The Good:

• The game seems relatively easy to pick up, at least for a tactical combat RPG. Only one of the players had any experience with role-playing games, and we managed to get acquainted with the system, create characters and make it through a ten-turn encounter within a single two-and-a-half hour session.
• Question: What's average for a d20-style first session? Is this slower than an average first session for new players, faster or comparable? Will investigate further.
• I expect that things will get smoother as time goes on, both as the players get more used to the system and as I grow as a GM and instructor on the system. I was pretty much flying by the seat of my pants.
• It was possible - and indeed, relatively simple - for players to off a character four levels higher than they were, and to cow another into surrender. That's good, keeps things interesting. Low-level characters will always be dangerous for higher ones.

The Bad:

• Combat seemed less lethal than I'd anticipated. I held a few rolls on behalf of the PCs, but perhaps three or four hits from the PCs is reasonable for a middle-tier enemy.
• Even though this was a dream encounter - the last encounter in the campaign will be the same as the first - I didn't want to kill off all the players unceremoniously with a single grenade.
• On the bright side, it means that most players won't be immediately killed upon entering combat for the first time. They'll get a chance to rectify their mistakes before being dropped.
• Needs more - hah, never though I'd say this - rules, especially for morale and the use of non-combat skills in combat.
• I ended up freewheeling a handful of these instances. It seems like non-combat skills might be more helpful than I'd expected.
• Considering the difficulty one of the non-RPG players had had with the Quick Start Guide, it's likely I'll have to do a rewrite to make it more noob-friendly.

The Ugly:

• Combat modifiers - aiming, mostly - were a bit of a fustercluck. Part of the issue is that folks didn't add together their total skill score and were re-adding modifiers every roll... For people who are good at the system, I don't think it should be too much trouble, but for people on their first run-through it might have been a bit too intensive.
• It's good that the rules are very modular. Perhaps I'll come up with different presets of rules for newer players, as well as experienced ones. Will think...