Tankards and Broadswords RPG Ready For Playtesting

So after a lot of puttering around and poking at the thing, I think it's finally time to playtest the game. Most of the basic rules for character creation are finished, my weapons and armor rules are done, I have a fair amount of both monsters and magic to throw at any perspective playtest characters. It's now really just a matter of running a playtest game now. Here's what the cover currently looks like:

First, I need to convince my regular Castles & Crusades players to take time off from a session to run a T&B game. This will be difficult since most of them aren't really "gamers" who find new systems all that interesting - if you give them one method for clubbing goblins and taking their stuff, why do they need another method? This is a problem that's plagued casual gamers for decades now, and the answer can still be elusive.

Second, I need to come up with a good scenario. Something that will test the system but won't overly tax the players' ability to understand the rules. I'm considering a fantasy scenario, but honestly that might just take up time getting their head into what's going on rather than playing the adventure and learning the system. A historical or modern game might be fun, but then the magic can't really play into it unless it's a "fantastical history" game. One thought that has crossed my minds is a Heroic Greek era adventure similar to Jason & the Argonauts (and no, I haven't seen the remake, and yes, I'm sure I will at some point). Fight some monsters, sail the seas, take on a wizard or some crap like that.

Third, one thing I want to do to prepare for the playtest is to create a "cheat sheet" for the game that's short enough to go on the back of the character sheet. It'll have to fit on one 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper, landscape layout. Here's the current version of the character sheet:

More to come as things progress. For now, gotta prepare for next weekend's C&C game...