Re: [GZG] Beta Playtest Rules

On 9/22/05, gzg-l-request@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
<gzg-l-request@lists.csua.berkeley.edu> wrote:

> Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 12:23:23 -0500
> From: Doug Evans <devans@nebraska.edu>

> "One for the first 2 B2s, one for the B1s" will mean a change of play
as
> well as of record keeping, as most players I know just lump all dice
on a
> target, as long as those dice give the same results with the same
roll,
> i.e., sixes are two points of damage and reroll...

Oerjan's description of what we in the playtest group need is great.
However, I think that the playtest group could live with all beam dice
lumped together if it's going to speed play for the playtesters, and
if slowing down play will _limit the number of playtests_.

The important part is to get playtest feedback. If keeping track of
beam rolls is going to reduce the chance of players playtesting the
rules, I think we could live without that level of detail in favour of
more playtest results. What Oerjan listed is optimal.

We do need to know what weapons did what damage, though. We need to
know if, for instance, a new weapon is overpowered/underpowered. And,
to stress something Oerjan said, we need to know by way of hard
numbers. We've seen a number of people stress that such-and-such a
weapon is way overpowered, when in fact it does massive amounts of
damage when it hits but misses most of the time. Oerjan made it very
clear when he said that people remember the big hit and forget all the
times the weapon missed.

That's why we need detailed damage, to weigh the overall performance
of each weapon system against each other.

Detail is the key. A playtest result that says, "We tried the fighter
rules last night. Didn't like it. Fighters are too powerful with
them," or, "We played SV versus UN last night, and the UN kicked butt!
Great work!" is of little to no use. We need data to see if the rules
are working, or have bugs in them.

I'll add one other thing to Oerjan's missive. If you provide comments
from the players, please indicate which player played what side. If
Bob said the UN were too weak, it may make a difference to know that
Bob was the UN player and was handily beaten by Doug playing the SV
(and it means something else if Bob was the SV player saying the same
thing).

While we're on the subject of playtests, I haven't received much
feedback at all on the Phalon playtest rules from the SG2 crowd...

Allan

--
Allan Goodall		 http://www.hyperbear.com
agoodall@hyperbear.com
awgoodall@gmail.com

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