We've played two sessions of the Beta playtest rules. I currently have three players. Only one has any extensive experience with Hero System. I've GMed Champions and Hero System, so I have a lot of math chops for the power design. We've had an initial character development by email, a face to face session of finalizing development, and two face-to-face play sessions.

Solo or solitaire play appeared very early in RPG history, and yet I often considered it marginal or beta play. I certainly saw it that way until about 2010, especially the second round of Ronnies and the contest/event 01/01/11 organized by Em and Eppy. By then, I’d wholly revised my similar thinking about twosie play, so was more open-minded about solo play and was even working on Cathedral at that point.

I'd given some thought to this playtesting group, including how it had inadvertently stress-tested the lower limit of player number. Difficult as that was, because I do not like stress-testing, it wasn't the main thing on my mind. I was worried that the actual editor of the game and its interiors artist were still not quite in tune with how the game itself was played.

This is always the toughest time for playtesters, because it's no longer about "cool, an idea," but about "oh crap, saying/teaching it this way is pure miscommunication." The poor players are like my hands which are trying to read Braille but are unfortunately picking up the waffle iron instead.