Ok, I don't know if there are any other GMs out there like me, but when a company labels a product as "beta," to me that is saying, "take these rules and beat them into a pulp." So I am going to be attempting to do just that. I have come up with a system and some goals that I would like to accomplish, and I would also like other ideas of things to do to really give the rules a once over (Besides grammatically. You do your thing grammar people, I respect you, but I'm not one of you.)

Goals

1. Observe how fast a group of new gamers pick up the rules sight unseen.

2. Test every single Career/Specialization at least once, with more play time given to things that seem unbalanced or broken.

3. See how much the players can take. How hard can I hit them before an inevitable TPK.

4. Test high level play.

5. Test the force system with every single class at least once.

Method.

I want my players to have the feel of being in the Outer Rim, hence I developed this system.

For the Beta at least, I am going to run this as a sort of competitive RPG. Me, the GM, against the players. This will give them the feel of always running from something like a lot of the characters on the Outer Rim might feel. I as the GM am going to try and stress the players characters to the max. I want to kill them. Not because I am a sadistic GM who enjoys that, the opposite usually, but because I want to know how far they can be pushed in a normal game setting.

Every time a character dies, the player may make a new one. The new character has to be of a different career, and then later a different specialization than their original character, and the new character receives an amount of bonus XP above the old, effectively letting us play into the higher levels of gameplay while still allowing me to push them a lot.

Offer some sort of reward to the player who lives the longest. I don't know what yet, but something substantial enough that it will create some infighting among the players. All of my players are close college buddies, but I still want them to have some sort of reason to be backstabbing and infighting like one might find in the Outer Rim.

I hope that the above method and states goals will allow me to push the system, discover flaws, and examine lots of different aspects of the game in a real play setting. Currently we have a Pathfinder game running, so this is going to happen on weekends and whenever we can get to it. What do you think?

Interesting. I like your methods. I might try somethings

This sounds intriguing. I will run this by my group and see if I can sell 'em on it. I can certainly see the playtesting merits in playing with the safeties off. And the XP bonus for new characters makes death easier for a lot of players to handle.

I'm thinking a good reward for longest surviving character would be some sort of long lasting impact on future EotE games. Maybe this character becomes an important NPC, or influences the another group's powerbase significantly. Or allow the player to make-up an unrelated, but important NPC or faction to feature prominently in later games. Or perhaps and item, place, or starship of some importance? I know at least of my players would be thrilled to have that sort of authorship as game reward.

Yeah I have kept non of this from my players. I have been very upfront with the fact that I want to push the system. Of course this is a double edged sword. I have a player who generously restrains himself during normal play, but is a genius at creating OP'd characters, so have also let him know that he can take his safeties off and try and break the game as much as possible.

I like it. I might try a few ideas you threw out there. I have been brain storming on a few ideas….so this helps!

Damocles346 said:

Isn't that the goal of Beta Testing? To not only see how much the GM can break the game, but to see how much the players can? Frankly, I believe that if you CAN'T make a character broken in one area, then the system already has issues.(Of course, the character being broken in that one area? Expect him to be helpless in one or more other areas..)

Not personally keen on characters being broken in any area, though it is obviously legitimate in testing of a system. It also doesn't fit the setting either. The heroes seem to be generally competent (certain derptastic moments aside), rather than super specialised. The real problems, however, are when someone makes a character who is broken in one area, and then finds a way to use that to approach every problem faced in a game, or it totally breaks the feeling of the setting.

borithan said:

Correct, such as Druids in 3.5. They tank, they heal, they have decent diplomatic skills!! (Said in the voice of Billy Mayes) Basically, anything that makes the game boring for the majority of players and the GM is something that is breaking the game. There are a few odd people out there that think that being supper invincible good at everything types of characters is fun, but they always suck the fun out of the game for the rest of the people. I gave my player reign to look for that kind of stuff so we can report it. I don't even particularly care if they fix it or not. Sometimes having a cool feature in a game comes down to a little note in the GM's section saying, "Under certain conditions this <really freaking cool thing> is broken, here is how to avoid that situation."

Regardless, it is good to know about them.

Amen Damocles. There will always be players who find a means of exploiting a system - but blatant "system breaks" that occur even when you're not trying should be found and reworked.