Ran a playtest of a new system – the Alien RPG by Free League. It is a really good system for one-shots. This particular scenario was probably not written for 4 hours but it can be adjusted with a little work.
While it is a pretty good adventure, it is a little cliched with a lot of standard characters you would expect from the movies. This also incorporates much of the new mythos from the new movies, rather than sticking to the standard “biug hunt” xenomorphs.
Not only did I have a group that had not played the RPG but also many had not seen most of the movies. It’s important to know that because terms like Weyland-Yutani and the like goes right over people’s heads if they don’t know what they are.
From this playtest, I determined two things. First, I needed a way to keep track of everyone’s stress. Secondly, the character sheets and cards provided are not enough. There is nothing on the character sheets or cards to associate skills with attributes and new players needs to see the relationship.