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That's Stackpole. It's really obvious the way his fight scenes are all "people moving to a place then people shooting and then repeating."
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Aug 15, 2012 00:42
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Skillness622 posted:Sweet Jesus, you may have single-handedly convinced me to get a BattleCorps subscription. Well, they haven't said a word about my last submission. But my current one involves the swift decline of the Rim Worlds Republic after the fall of Terra. A traitor may or may not be involved. Skillness622 posted:Also, tangentially related to the whole writing-plot-via-gencon thing, which of the authors allegedly used to just play CBT and write up his games as the action sequences? I'd like to say Coleman but I'm not sure. Stackpole did for certain. I still consider his battle scenes well done, he just uses them for the wrong reasons. Robert Thurston absolutely did not (and it shows). I'm not a fan of Thurston so I may be biased. Robert N. Charette doesn't either, and while his battles are weak and occasionally confusing (See: Samsonov's Fake Black Widows attacking Kurita forces in Wolves on the Border, nothing actually came of that scene at all). It doesn't matter though, combat with Charette exists to show you what kind of people his characters are and define them as human beings rather than being a vehicle to keep people from being bored to tears. He's great. Blane Lee Purdue certainly does, but of all the authors I consider him the most well-rounded even if Loren Jaffray is an outrageous Sue. Let's face it, most main characters are. Loren Coleman almost certainly doesn't, since one of his novels features a `Mech losing all its back armor and a couple of jump jets and falling in a river and NOT being destroyed but turning up later to cause trouble (Binding Force, which is still a great standalone novel even if the whole 'Patriots are Terrorists' theme is really overwrought). Victor Milan doesn't, but it doesn't matter at all because he knows the `Mechs and his characters are all really well done. I actually maintain that Cassie Suthorn isn't a Mary Sue since she has realistically crippling mental illnesses. PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Aug 15, 2012 |
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Aug 15, 2012 01:24
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Taerkar posted:For the games that I run I take the approach that the Fed Com civil war explodes outward and draws in all of the states. A Fifth Succession War is hardly an unbelievable thing in the setting. Zaodai posted:Warhammer 40k did that back in the day. It ended up leading to things they had to justify that made absolutely zero sense, and weird times where victories would be negated by other victories in the same round. From what I recall reading there was a point where the Imperial Guard were facing down Chaos for control of a planet/system. Chaos assigned most of their victories to the planet, IG assigned most of their victories to the System. So Chaos won the planet and then it was ruled that because IG won the surrounding space they then just bombed it from orbit and took the planet anyway.
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Aug 15, 2012 02:03
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The FWL's involvement was just getting slapped around a little by the 2nd Donegal and then both sides backing off. Guerrero was a different thing.
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Aug 15, 2012 02:05
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Zaodai posted:Warhammer 40k did that back in the day. It ended up leading to things they had to justify that made absolutely zero sense, and weird times where victories would be negated by other victories in the same round. From what I recall reading there was a point where the Imperial Guard were facing down Chaos for control of a planet/system. Chaos assigned most of their victories to the planet, IG assigned most of their victories to the System. So Chaos won the planet and then it was ruled that because IG won the surrounding space they then just bombed it from orbit and took the planet anyway. Sounds like the 40k people didn't know how to run story tournaments, with L5R its just a big series of tournaments across the world and which ever faction has the most victories out of those tournaments get some story writen for them.
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Aug 15, 2012 02:21
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wargames posted:Sounds like the 40k people didn't know how to run story tournaments, with L5R its just a big series of tournaments across the world and which ever faction has the most victories out of those tournaments get some story writen for them. I think it's more a matter that L5R is allowed to actually advance its story without ruining its setting. 40K's atmosphere of constant apocalypse makes it hard for the Necrons or Orks to win a really big victory, since the Imperium is already teetering on the brink of annihilation and anything too large would push it over the edge of survival (or credibility, if they pretended it could go on like nothing happened). Rokugan's internal factions don't have that level of, shall we say, inherent frailty to them. On any given day, the Lion or whatever are actually sitting fairly pretty: lots of land, strong armies, solid political alliances. You can hammer them pretty hard and still leave them as a viable faction for players to enjoy. Heck, L5R being samurai fiction, a struggle against insurmountable odds for vengeance by a disgraced band of warriors is totally thematic! Basically, you can disband the Akodo and the Lion will persevere, but if Chaos punches through the Cadian Gate, it is literally over. Battletech probably could make the story-tourney schtick work if Catalyst was interested in trying. Any given Successor State trades worlds on a regular basis without being particularly crippled, since their industrial cores lie in insulated inner zones (usually, anyway). Just say that the results of the War of 3093 will be decided by sponsored games held at hobby stores over the next two months and players might be pretty happy with the outcome.
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Aug 15, 2012 02:49
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Arquinsiel posted:That was largely because any army other than SPESS MAHREENS was played by adults, whereas the kiddies were running the Imperium via sheer numbers. It works a lot better in more mature groups or when the time ot affect changes is limited. If there is one thing you can count on out of the Battletech community, it is maturity and intelligence. I mean, just look at the Mechwarrior Online forums. 
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Aug 15, 2012 02:54
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Defiance Industries posted:The FWL's involvement was just getting slapped around a little by the 2nd Donegal and then both sides backing off. Guerrero was a different thing. GenericServices posted:Basically, you can disband the Akodo and the Lion will persevere, but if Chaos punches through the Cadian Gate, it is literally over. Zaodai posted:If there is one thing you can count on out of the Battletech community, it is maturity and intelligence.
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Aug 15, 2012 03:36
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It was indeed. However it was like seven years before the actual FCCW so saying that was their involvement is kind of a stretch.
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Aug 15, 2012 03:41
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So, who are we waiting on orders from still? I got mine in this morning before work. Let's get weird.
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Aug 15, 2012 03:50
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They also had Kristen's Krushers faffing around in the Lyran Alliance for most of the war, and Nondi Steiner hated them but good. The one really nice thing about Battletech history is that the wars are so petty and protracted that they hit upon a satisfyingly realistic portrayal of dumbass nations. On the other hand, Victor going "HERP DERP IMMA ABDICATE IN FAVOUR OF TWO HEIRS!" stretches rational belief almost as much as the Jihad.
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Aug 15, 2012 03:53
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Arquinsiel posted:On the other hand, Victor going "HERP DERP IMMA ABDICATE IN FAVOUR OF TWO HEIRS!" stretches rational belief almost as much as the Jihad. He had to. How else could he further his education without opportunity to immerse himself in the will of Blessed Blake? Besides, you can't tell me he wasn't pulling Yvonne and Peter's strings from the background. Yvonne is a doormat and Peter worshiped him.
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Aug 15, 2012 03:57
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I unapologetically love the jihad. It helps that I recognize that most battletech history is already pretty much a escalating series of rear end-pulls, Mary Sues, and blatant author fiat. Never mind that they suddenly remembered that there was a game attached to it and gave everyone an excuse to start blowing the crap out of everyone else. Der Waffle Mous fucked around with this message at 04:16 on Aug 15, 2012 |
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Aug 15, 2012 04:14
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Huh? Peter disliked Victor pretty strongly and Vic had nothing to do with him being Archon. When Peter thought we was being approached to help Victor be Archon again he was like "gently caress you." Morgan Kell and Caesar Steiner were the ones feeding ideas under the table to Peter, though Tharkad showed he was pretty capable solo. Yvonne, I won't dispute. She's the only member of Victor's siblings who likes him (Kat hates him, Peter thinks he's a douchebag, and Arthur thinks he's a traitor). Defiance Industries fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Aug 15, 2012 |
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Aug 15, 2012 04:14
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Ferrosol posted:Go on I challenge you to name three interesting characters from the dark age fiction. I can think of only two Ezekiel Crow and Tassa Kay I would struggle to name any more than that were actually characters I gave a crap about. Julian Davion, Callandre Kell, and Alaric Ward. The last four novels also introduced a slew of Marik characters, and I hear they were some of the best of the Dark Age lot. Callandre Kell is pretty much just concentrated awesome. 
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Aug 15, 2012 04:26
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I remain surprised how many `Mechs seem to be working to give H1 shots at their rear armor. So many delicious targets to choose from!
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Aug 15, 2012 04:30
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PoptartsNinja posted:He had to. How else could he further his education without opportunity to immerse himself in the will of Blessed Blake? Besides, you can't tell me he wasn't pulling Yvonne and Peter's strings from the background. Yvonne is a doormat and Peter worshiped him. Crazy Joe Wilson posted:Julian Davion, Callandre Kell, and Alaric Ward. The last four novels also introduced a slew of Marik characters, and I hear they were some of the best of the Dark Age lot. Callandre Kell is pretty much just concentrated awesome. 
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Aug 15, 2012 04:34
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PoptartsNinja posted:I remain surprised how many `Mechs seem to be working to give H1 shots at their rear armor. So many delicious targets to choose from!
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Aug 15, 2012 04:36
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PoptartsNinja posted:I remain surprised how many `Mechs seem to be working to give H1 shots at their rear armor. So many delicious targets to choose from! Crack a mech's tough outer shell to get at the delicious interior! On a side note, anyone remember those Warheads sour hard candies?
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Aug 15, 2012 04:36
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PoptartsNinja posted:I remain surprised how many `Mechs seem to be working to give H1 shots at their rear armor. So many delicious targets to choose from!  but but THEY should be the ones shooting at H1s rear armor not the other way around. GOOOOOONHOOOOOOOUSE.
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Aug 15, 2012 04:54
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landcollector posted:Crack a mech's tough outer shell to get at the delicious interior! On a side note, anyone remember those Warheads sour hard candies? How can I forget? I got hooked one summer and ate so many I gave myself a chemical burn on my tongue.
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Aug 15, 2012 05:08
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AtomikKrab posted:
I don't know, I thought everybody was running around to get back shots. In fact, I ran 9 hexes in order to get a back shot.
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Aug 15, 2012 05:32
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Sometimes I just go "gently caress it. This mech has great shots anyways. doesn't matter if I give it more." but somehow I doubt that's the case here.
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Aug 15, 2012 05:37
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Arquinsiel posted:Do you mean Alaric Wolf? If so: Seriously, who thought that guy was a good idea for the story? How did they even talk about him with the other co-writers? "Hey we have this great idea for a clan guy, you know how Katrina was part of Clan Wolf for a bit? Let's have them take some of her genetic material and mix it with some of her brother's genetic material. This won't sound weird or at all!" 
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Aug 15, 2012 06:37
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Wales Grey posted:Seriously, who thought that guy was a good idea for the story? How did they even talk about him with the other co-writers? "Hey we have this great idea for a clan guy, you know how Katrina was part of Clan Wolf for a bit? Let's have them take some of her genetic material and mix it with some of her brother's genetic material. This won't sound weird or at all!" Well it doesn't because the clans did that all the time, the weird is WHY HER.
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Aug 15, 2012 06:41
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Arquinsiel posted:Partially this, but the Cadian Gate was retconned from being a literal giant gate on the surface of the planet Cadia which kept untold horrors of archeotech trapped inside it to being a more hypothetical "magic space lane" through which Chaos had to come because... I dunno? That campaign killed off a few characters and Chaos did actually win. The joke floating around for a while was that time froze with Abbadon's foot over the doorstep because the Chaos gods didn't know how to react to winning for once. But that's the exact problem, time just froze there and they've kinda wandered off and not addressed any of it, at least to my knowledge. Is the Eye of Terror expanding now? Is the Imperium having to divert resources to contain the mess, thereby weakening other sectors? Who knows? It'd be like if Operation Guerrero went off and then nobody ever bothered mentioning the FedCom split like a ripe melon. It feels hollow to tell players they "won" and then tack on nonsense like "but the Imperium still controls the space around Cadia so it's not yet certain!" I give Battletech credit for at least trying to push their storyline forward, even if they sometimes... misstep. I'm somewhat on the side of wanting a fiction reboot, but I can't imagine the level of screaming the fanbase would emit. It's always seemed like one of the more conservative, and that says something in wargaming circles. Oh, well, enough rambling about pseudo-related shenanigans. Back to hoping the Mars and Athena properly pull their weight. Last round was pretty decent, but I want dead 'Mechs!
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Aug 15, 2012 06:59
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40k wrote itself into a corner by saying Big, Terrible Things will happen at the end of the millennium and then more or less approaching it asymptotically. Way back they were skipping centuries left and right, but now it's 40999 or some such and you're lucky if they move things forward a week because they haven't figured out something big enough to be worth the hype that isn't going to ruin half the setting or worse yet involve someone actually winning.
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Aug 15, 2012 07:22
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dis astranagant posted:40k wrote itself into a corner by saying Big, Terrible Things will happen at the end of the millennium and then more or less approaching it asymptotically. Way back they were skipping centuries left and right, but now it's 40999 or some such and you're lucky if they move things forward a week because they haven't figured out something big enough to be worth the hype that isn't going to ruin half the setting or worse yet involve someone actually winning.
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Aug 15, 2012 07:29
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The real problem is that it's called "Warhammer 40k" and they don't want to change it to "Warhammer 41k". But it's dumb anyway because one thing they've established very thoroughly is that the 40k universe is really, really big. I mean, there's supposed to be 100 chapters of space marines and even if you scour all the fiction and list every chapter ever mentioned anywhere, there's still several hundred that have never even been mentioned. Basically they recognized just how big a galaxy is and even huge shattering stuff like the Eye of Terror still only affects a comparatively small area. As with the Hive Fleets and etc. They always left the setting open enough that players could invent their own chapters of marines, planets to fight on, lost tribes of eldar, or whatever, and nobody could say "nuh uh that's not in the books" because like 80% of the galaxy isn't in the books. Of course it's still an over-the-top ridiculous setting (even more-so than Battletech), so really GW could do any crazy-rear end thing they wanted and it'd fit right in. Anyway. Based on the orders currently posted in the discussion doc, Y6 is the only one presenting his back to H1, and that's for debatably good reasons. Y9, Y10, and Y12 are all getting into his rear arc and I think taking backshots on him. Y3 is jumping to 1330 facing north, but according to PTN's custom firing arc diagram/rules, H1 wont be in his rear arc. Y5's orders aren't valid but if they were, he'd be protecting his rear arc. So I don't know what PTN's talking about it's just Y6. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 08:11 on Aug 15, 2012 |
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Aug 15, 2012 08:09
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Leperflesh posted:The real problem is that it's called "Warhammer 40k" and they don't want to change it to "Warhammer 41k". At least 1000 active chapters, and chapters do get destroyed fairly often.
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Aug 15, 2012 08:21
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DarthXaos posted:Battletech should have a metaplot reboot and do it L5R style where major storyline decisions are determined by the results of tournaments. PoptartsNinja posted:My only real concerns with the Jihad come from my issues with 'shaking a tree just to see what falls out', and the lack of character-driven stories.
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Aug 15, 2012 09:54
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I'm rather surprised that so many people seem to be praising the L5R tournament system as a vehicle for Metaplot, given how universally, bitterly, and viciously I've heard most L5R fans I've spoken to complain about it ruining the story. But then, most of them are also RPG players, or exclusively so. Perhaps that explains it. Additionally, I've heard of quite a bit of abuse in the L5R tournament system, such as when the Mantis absorbed the fervently independent Fox Clan despite Fox victories, or nearly everything to do with the Spider clan's ascension. To get a bit more on track, I'd personally prefer that the Battletech universe remain in the hands of at least semi-professional authors, with only some influence at the max. Perhaps a system like this very thread could work, with players and tournaments deciding individual skirmishes and battlegrounds, influencing but not deciding the main story. Things just seem to get incoherent otherwise.
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Aug 15, 2012 10:20
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Wales Grey posted:Seriously, who thought that guy was a good idea for the story? How did they even talk about him with the other co-writers? "Hey we have this great idea for a clan guy, you know how Katrina was part of Clan Wolf for a bit? Let's have them take some of her genetic material and mix it with some of her brother's genetic material. This won't sound weird or at all!" It's pretty par for the course for the morning soap opera that is Battletech. This is a universe with body double spies, secret long-thought dead characters re-emerging as someone else, sibling rivalries, etc. The Clan Wolf-Katherine Steiner-Davion connection now at least has a little more continuation. quote:I usually say this when grognards whine about the unconventional style of the Jihad plot sourcebooks, but the loss of the paperback publishing contract with Roc after FASA went south utterly hosed things up for the writers. Being reduced to short stories and small in-character bits in the sourcebooks and Battlecorps for new fiction sucks, but at least guarantees that the exploits of Jeremiah Rose will never be inflicted upon the general populace again. So is that what happened to the paperback books? I was wondering why they never managed to get a paper copy of "A Bonfire of Worlds" out.
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Aug 15, 2012 13:49
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Sandono posted:I'm rather surprised that so many people seem to be praising the L5R tournament system as a vehicle for Metaplot, given how universally, bitterly, and viciously I've heard most L5R fans I've spoken to complain about it ruining the story. But then, most of them are also RPG players, or exclusively so. Perhaps that explains it. The big thing with L5R was that they usually had a list of things that wins could be put towards. For instance, the whole rise of the Spider wasn't entirely a story prize from the tournaments, how successful it was and which clans had secret spider members in them were. But the writers picked who those were, and Spider was never going to fail entirely after it won the right to exist (from previous tournament results). Similarly, the Fox won a lot of tournaments, but was a small, underplayed faction. Mantis was larger, won more, and threw everything into getting Fox and Centipede. Fox was pissed, but they lost. People bitch about ruining the storylines, because the writers are very GRRM about killing heroes off when needed. There was one writer who killed someone who had a card in the game in nearly every story she wrote. It was crazy fantasy samurai fiction though, expecting people to not die gloriously or to obvious traitors is stupid.
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Aug 15, 2012 14:37
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dis astranagant posted:40k wrote itself into a corner by saying Big, Terrible Things will happen at the end of the millennium and then more or less approaching it asymptotically. Way back they were skipping centuries left and right, but now it's 40999 or some such and you're lucky if they move things forward a week because they haven't figured out something big enough to be worth the hype that isn't going to ruin half the setting or worse yet involve someone actually winning.
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Aug 15, 2012 15:23
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Arquinsiel posted:40k was never about "big things happen at X in the future" and was always "everything is hosed RIGHT NOW!" The storyline advancement was just a side effect of them getting big enough to run campaigns and making the mistake of having the same Ork invade the same planet twice.... at the same time. 6th edition is just out in the last couple of months, and the date on the timeline is still 998 M41, same as it was back in 2nd ed, a solid 15+ years ago now. Funny thing is, Battletech is still in stasis, as every great shift is immediately countered with a return to "Equal-sized areas with different colors and symbols and 20th century cultural cognates all trying to kill each other" and so there's this illusion of movement that is, frankly, unsatisfying. Would it really be so difficult to flip the script a bit and have had the Federated Commonwealth absorb the Capellan Confederation and stabilize and face off against XYZ (the clans, another real bloc, whatever)? Or, you know, your pick of some other large-scale restructuring of the Inner Sphere as first sliced up in the 80s. It seemed like they were heading that way, and then got scared and decided to go back to the same old formula. It would be like the transition from WWI/WWII into the Cold War (except it could be hot, since there was no equivalent of MAD). You could still have big, stompy mechs shooting each other. Frankly, I find this level of stasis oppressing to the point that it interferes with enjoying these game, and it's especially bad since so many games nowadays are subject to it.
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Aug 15, 2012 16:32
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In a way, that makes the Battletech universe really depressing. Everyones shooting everyone else because a few nobles didnt like each other, hundreds of thousands are killed in a war they probably care nothing about, worlds are razed, and in the end absolutely nothing has changed except maybe the name they swear loyalty to.
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Aug 15, 2012 17:06
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That's feudalism for you.
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Aug 15, 2012 17:16
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Great Beer posted:in the end absolutely nothing has changed except maybe the name they swear loyalty to. You also forgot the part where regimental (and sometimes even battalion) commanders launch massive raids or even planetary invasions in the name of their liege lord for personal reasons and/or without their liege lord's knowledge. As much as I love Victor Milan's work, the only thing unusual about Hearts of Chaos was the fact that the Black Dragons had five regiments of troops; not that they launched a secret invasion of the Federated Commonwealth.
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Aug 15, 2012 18:02
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AtomikKrab posted:At least 1000 active chapters, and chapters do get destroyed fairly often. Yeah I dropped a zero somehow, I meant 1000. I always appreciated that aspect, though, the explicit invitation to fans to create their own content. Of course it does mean you get "furry marines" and people sculpting tits onto their marines and all that bullshit, but whatever, I get to design my own chapter and paint scheme and nobody can say boo about it.
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Aug 15, 2012 18:27
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