I playtested 5150: Star Navy at Millenniumcon in Round Rock last week. I had four participants (I'd planned for up to eight) who had never played the rules before. I got a chance to trot out many of my spaceships, including models from Starfleet Wars/Galactic Knights, Stardate: 3000, and Star Frontiers, and other miscellaneous minis.
Given that the last time I ran a game at Millcon, it was full, I was expecting more players. As it was, about half of the spaceship minis I brought stayed in their box, but I did break out the asteroids and make use of the escape pods in this game.
The scenario was that each player commanded a small fleet of Free Company (i.e. mercenary) fleets, which all had heard about an unarmed and unescorted cargo fleet (run by the referee). The players' ships all show up at the same time, and hilarity ensues as they fight and/or assist one another.
The players all seemed to picke up the game very quickly. Long story short: I'm happy with the rules, but disappointed with the scenario I ran. I'll explain what I mean in a later post.
Still, I'm grateful to the players who took the time to sit at my table, and I hope they enjoyed playing my game, as there were a lot of cool scenarios going on at the same time that they could have played instead.
Designing a good scenario is always challenging, and even more so when you don't know how many players there will be!
ReplyDeleteI posted a couple more pictures on my blog here.
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