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Dread the coming of the most doctrinally coherent faction in the setting: the OstClan
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Jun 12, 2020 05:27
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Cyrano4747 posted:Gotta be honest I always loves the terrible mechs. They’re just great to saddle a PC unit with to figure out wtf to do with them. I think poo poo like the Hellstar has taught us all BT is a game about making due with what you have and playing around shortcomings, and when you get rid of those you might as well just play craps.
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Jun 12, 2020 06:34
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There's nothing more thematic than a group that has like 1 good mech and 4 pieces of barely functioning crap. You want to use the good mech to it's highest advantage, but it's also a giant target. So your crap needs to draw fire and get work done, but it's crap. Now square that circle or die.
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Jun 12, 2020 07:00
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Defiance Industries posted:You were the one saying that factions should have exclusive weapons and mechs, and that we needed to make sure our plates have dividers so food can't touch. Yes I do think factions should have exclusive weapons and 'Mechs. The "rebuttal" was "I don't want to memorize 500 weapons." I thought it was obvious from my original example but I don't think every faction needs a unique set of weapons, I think that every faction should have a few unique weapons that fit in with its doctrine. Imagine if, in 3050, only one faction got MASC, another one got ER lasers, another got pulse lasers, another one got LB-X autocannons, etc. The 'Mechs would be designed differently and would play differently, at least a little. Defiance Industries posted:Besides the Panther and Jenner being a good team, and the Panther and Dragon being emblematic of the Combine's love of using upgunned lights and overengined heavies instead of mediums? Not every Lyran mech needs to be a 100-ton 2/3 iHGR turret with hardened armor. The Combine uses Panthers, Dragons and Quickdraws in 3025 not because they prefer them to mediums, but because they have no medium 'Mech production lines. All they can produce for 'Mechs in 3025 are those three plus the Charger and the Stinger LAM. By 3058, Luthien Armor Works is producing the Daimyo, Strider, Firestarter Omni, Komodo, Wolf Trap, Blackjack Omni. Throw in the captured Griffin and Wolverine lines on Marduk and they've got a perfectly healthy medium 'Mech industry. If "Dracs don't like mediums" was a thing, then there wouldn't be so many brand-new medium 'Mech designs in the Combine in the 3050s and 60s. Strobe posted:I think you're thinking backwards, to be perfectly honest. The "feel" of those units is "the Draconis Combine has a shitload of these" and all of them were designed when BattleTech as a property was half a step above interstellar-scale Mad Max where everything that worked was pressed into service regardless of how good or useful it is. This is the point right here. There is nothing intrinsic to how you play a Panther or a Dragon that feels like you are playing a Draconis Combine 'Mech. It's a DC 'Mech because that's what they have lying around. What I enjoyed about the Clan Invasion is that you have a clear imbalance in force capabilities that requires differing strategy. The classic "quantity vs. quality" dichotomy. (What I don't like is that because one side is just clearly better than the other, you have to use immersion-breaking rules like battle value to achieve game balance.) The point is that asymmetry makes for strategically interesting play. I'm suggesting that it would further improve the game if major factions had equipment, 'Mechs, special rules, or some combination of the three that translated universe flavour into on-board tactics. And if you want to play a generic faction that has access to everything but specializes in nothing? Play mercs.That ship has sailed for 3025, obviously, but the future is wide open. Remember how TR:3025 talked about things like Hanse Davion liking autocannons, but that didn't really translate into anything except a JagerMech variant (or whatever it was)? Remember how Liaos were supposed to be "sneaky" but that meant absolutely nothing in game terms? Wouldn't it be cool for the in-universe characterizations to actually matter on the game table? Strobe posted:it sounds a lot more from here that you want a collection of specialists in a setting where the generalist has been king for its entire existence. Flavour doesn't mean every 'Mech has to be a specialist. It means factions should feel like factions beyond just a change of paint. A little bit more asymmetry beyond "Davions make the CN9-D Centurion and Kuritas make the WFT-1 Wolf Trap, they're basically the same 'Mech and use identical technology but they have different miniatures." Look, I'm just one guy who used to play Battletech. I'm telling you something that might make me more (re-)engaged in the game. Nobody has to agree with me. They can just keep expanding laterally and making QuadVTOLs and WheelMechs and whatever. To me the quantity detracts from the quality, but I get that other people think differently. I'm still drawn to the game and the lore, which is why I'm arguing on an internet forum about how to improve the game. Saying "that's Battletech, sorry you want something else" ignores the fact that the setting has had two (or three) major paradigm overhauls already to try to keep interest fresh, I don't know why it can't have another.
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Jun 12, 2020 15:44
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and I'm sorry you won't be happy with BattleTech.
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They're actively doing this in 3145/3150. House Kurita favors Hardened Armor so much that it's nearly exclusive to them, the Capellans use more Stealth Armor units than anyone, House Davion seems to have taken a liking to laser reflective armor and the Commonwealth and FWL still kinda feel up in the air since the Wolf Empire moved in and kicked their teeth in. Once they resolve whatever they're planning with the Republic of the Sphere and finally tell us the Smoke Jaguars are the ilClan and that Devlin Stone really was responsible for the Clarion Call we'll see what happens, but 3150 is shaping up to be genuinely fun and interesting.
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Jun 12, 2020 16:03
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It sounds like you want the special regiment rules, except you want just one so that every unit plays the same. I will stick with extra ASFs, off-map movement and a -1 on weight rolls for my regiment over all Lyran units being defined by the same LYRANS STAND STILL rule.
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Jun 12, 2020 18:30
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Defiance Industries posted:I'm pretty sure they were always going to try and do some kind of serious damage to all of interstellar civilization. Blakism is, at its core, a doomsday cult, and has been since the early days of the game. I wouldn't be surprised if the HPG blackout of the Dark Age setting was originally part of the story, but probably as a final weapon instead of an opening move like in MWDA. The Blakists, left reeling, decide that the Blessed Blake would rather the holy HPG technology be destroyed than left in the hands of blasphemers, so they flip a big switch from "HPG go" to "HPG stop" Ok am I misreading this: Wizkids designs Dark Age clix game and in the instruction manual it says there was a Jihad and then an HPG blackout without saying what it was about. And so every published story about the Jihad is retroactivly filling in the non-story of the Dark Age box set?
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Jun 12, 2020 19:22
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WizKids wanted to sell robot Mage Knight blind boxes and had control over the IP at the time, yes. The Dark Ages weren't very well thought out but after a decade of work they've polished up nicely.
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Jun 12, 2020 19:41
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Baron Porkface posted:Ok am I misreading this: Wizkids designs Dark Age clix game and in the instruction manual it says there was a Jihad and then an HPG blackout without saying what it was about. And so every published story about the Jihad is retroactivly filling in the non-story of the Dark Age box set? FASA had a novel publishing deal with Roc that fell through when FASA folded, and the timeline was stuck in "Forever '67" for a few years after. After the Dark Age lore was established, the Battletech writers had to backfill events without a line novel series like Blood of Kerensky or Twilight of the Clans to guide people through the major plot beats and character motivations. They had plans for a Comstar-Wobbie war for the next arc that got vastly expanded in scope (and stretched credulity because lol at blindsiding everyone with dozens of bullshit divisions) to meet the "only Stone could have saved us from certain death" Dark Age narrative.
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Jun 12, 2020 19:50
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When MWDA launched, I think we'd just got TRO:3067 (the worst TRO) and the FCCW sourcebook was still a few months out. MWDA told us that it was suddenly 3135 and we were all supposed to play as these six factions and that's it. It was a bit of a low for the game.
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Jun 12, 2020 19:50
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Letting Devlin Stone, secret Word of Blake sleeper agent*, defeat the Word of Blake to reestablish the Not-Quite-The-Terran-Hegemony like the Word of Blake wanted was a masterstroke. Pity ComStar folded before the Republic could make them part of the official government, they almost won. Leave it to ComStar to crash and burn on a reentry 400 years in the making. * This may not be true, but it's as much fun as Secret Wobbie Victor Davion, so I hope it is.
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Jun 12, 2020 19:58
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PoptartsNinja posted:WizKids wanted to sell robot Mage Knight blind boxes and had control over the IP at the time, yes. I'm not understanding the mage knight connection. Isn't Mage Knight a traditional board game that doesn't lend itself to randomized collectibles?
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Jun 12, 2020 20:17
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Baron Porkface posted:I'm not understanding the mage knight connection. Isn't Mage Knight a traditional board game that doesn't lend itself to randomized collectibles? No, MWDA is basically a reskinned Mage Knight, right down to your guys keeling over and dying if they move two turns in a row. PoptartsNinja posted:Letting Devlin Stone, secret Word of Blake sleeper agent*, defeat the Word of Blake to reestablish the Not-Quite-The-Terran-Hegemony like the Word of Blake wanted was a masterstroke. Pity ComStar folded before the Republic could make them part of the official government, they almost won. My favorite conspiracy theory is still "Katherine Steiner-Davion cut class one day and met a super-strong insane cyborg Precentor who murdered all her family members for her." Defiance Industries fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Jun 12, 2020 |
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Jun 12, 2020 20:22
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Baron Porkface posted:I'm not understanding the mage knight connection. Isn't Mage Knight a traditional board game that doesn't lend itself to randomized collectibles? The Mage Knight board game is based on a collectible figures game from years earlier.
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Jun 12, 2020 20:26
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Fun fact: although the timejump and WoB attack on the Inner Sphere was announced in mid-2001, it wasn't called the Jihad until 2002 for some mysterious reason 
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Jun 12, 2020 22:13
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Remember that giant list of releasaes I wowed at a couple pages ago? Add to it. Mechwarrior: Destiny (the psuedo-Time of War replacement) is out in PDF and print. edit: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/317268/MechWarrior-Destiny SirFozzie fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Jun 12, 2020 |
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Jun 12, 2020 23:02
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MW: Destiny is really good.
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Jun 12, 2020 23:15
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I bought it and I hope I don't regret it like A Time of War
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Jun 12, 2020 23:32
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If you didn't like AToW, there's a good chance you will enjoy this. It is the complete opposite in terms of design philosophy.
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Jun 12, 2020 23:42
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Defiance Industries posted:If you didn't like AToW, there's a good chance you will enjoy this. It is the complete opposite in terms of design philosophy. Clarify please.
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Jun 12, 2020 23:58
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A Time of War has the same amount of granularity for people as BT does for mechs. MW:D is basically a collaborative storytelling game that's not interested in tracking if you have exactly the right number of C-Bills to buy the exact number of weapon reloads you have written down on your sheet.
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Jun 13, 2020 00:05
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Yeah, I've given the on-foot rules a read think that in spite of their recent history Catalyst actually managed to pull something decent off. It definitely seems to be made with more care than AToW and their recent Shadowrun offerings. I've read Cosmic Patrol and Shadowrun: Anarchy, and it's a clear evolution from that. I think that aside from Anarchy being a nightmare of lack of proofreading and poor editing, it's an interesting branch of RPG style. Also, so far Destiny seems fine as far as editing goes and the art is good - I recognize a bunch of the pieces from earlier products but the stuff I don't recognize is also good stuff. So I like stuff that can play fast and loose with a focus on the story, but I also like crunchy stuff. I'm the weirdo that likes both GURPS and FATE depending on what the game is. A Time of War is on the crunchier side of things but I didn't like essentially any of the mechanics. Destiny is on the other end of things but the mechanics don't make me want to throw the book out so far. Some quick notes I took so far: The resolution system is always an opposed roll. The player rolls 2d6 + skill + linked attribute + mods versus the GM's 2d6, 3d6, or 4d6 based on difficulty. For an attribute-only check, you roll 2d6 + 2*attribute + mods instead. Edge can be spent to reroll one or both of your dice, or one or all of the GM's dice. Untrained tests use a 0 for the skill bonus and are auto failures if the difficulty is hard. Attack rolls are made the same way but are opposed by 2d6 + 2*reflex of target + mods. The list of modifiers is fairly small and restrained. Physical or fatigue damage is divided into rows. Checking off an entire roll adds a penalty to the character. Checking off an entire row of physical damage points results in a consciousness roll. All of this is well-presented on the character sheet. Ranges are abstracted into 3 bands - close, near, and far - for personal combat. Correspondingly, movement is abstract. One move gets you from close to near, and three gets you from near to far. Time is abstract as well. Weapons have a simple set of stats including damage, damage type, and if they can fire into a particular range band and what penalties they incur if any. Most weapons just have a statline but several have special effects, like needlers doing reduced armor damage and full auto weapons being able to hit multiple targets. Armor gives you boxes of health plus other bonuses and penalties such as fixed damage resistance or reflex penalties depending on the type, rather than the nightmarish system AToW had. If players agree, KIA isn't dead, but instead surviving with some penalty. There are several options provided. Inventory items are abstract, something that came down the chain from Cosmic Patrol. It's up to the players and GM to determine what the capabilities and uses of something is from the name. Comments: IMO Plot Points AND Edge still being things seems a bit weird. This was a thing in Shadowrun: Anarchy as well. Abstract inventory items made sense in Cosmic Patrol because it was incredibly pulpy and being able to go wild with weird gadgets was part of the fun, but I don't know how much I like that in BattleTech. As in the previous games with a similar system, character cues feel more useful if you're playing a premade character than when you're making up a character of your own. I like the usage of cues on the mission briefing, though. IMO, tags and cues are far more useful on GM-facing content than player-facing content I think I have to run a game of this to really get a feel for it, but so far I tentatively like it. Edit: Here's what the blank character sheet looks like to get an example of the level of character complexity:   Also there's a sheet for integrating the game with Classic BattleTech or Alpha Strike play  I assume sharing this is okay because there are or will be character sheet PDFs out there BattleMaster fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Jun 13, 2020 |
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Jun 13, 2020 00:40
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Destiny goes out of its way to present a GM-Player cooperative experience rather than an adversarial one. That's something that if you're used to D&D or traditional BattleTech just Isn't How Things Are Done so it can take a bit to get used to the idea that a GM is not trying to kill you.
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Jun 13, 2020 00:58
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BattleMaster posted:I assume sharing this is okay because there are or will be character sheet PDFs out there As a general rule, blank sheets for BT are intended for redistribution.
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Jun 13, 2020 01:00
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I'm thinking of pulling the trigger. If I played HBS battletech should I skip the intro box and go straight to the core set?
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Jun 13, 2020 02:34
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Baron Porkface posted:I'm thinking of pulling the trigger. If I played HBS battletech should I skip the intro box and go straight to the core set? HBS won't really prepare you for the table-top game, but you can skip the intro box either way.
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Jun 13, 2020 02:36
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Beginner Box with two 'Mechs is a really stripped down version of the rules on half-sheets. Until about a week ago it was the only way to get the Griffin miniature, but that came out in metal recently so you can skip it entirely and not miss anything.
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Jun 13, 2020 03:13
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I got it because two minis and a map sheet for 20 was okay by me. But I'd definitely just skip to the core game.
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Jun 13, 2020 03:47
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The current core box is arguably the best one they've ever made, both in terms of contents and miniature quality.
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Jun 13, 2020 04:23
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The Beginner Box also has exclusive maps, which are nice to have (and standees, if you care).
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Jun 13, 2020 05:26
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Strobe posted:s. Until about a week ago it was the only way to get the Griffin miniature, but that came out in metal recently What does "come out" mean in this context, since this game is a zillion years old and unoffical minis are part of the culture?
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Jun 13, 2020 08:28
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Before I grab a copy of MW: Destiny from Drive Thru RPG, can anyone remind me if it was included in the Kickstarter? There's so much stuff and I tried to parse my emails but failed miserably.
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Jun 13, 2020 16:03
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DrPop posted:Before I grab a copy of MW: Destiny from Drive Thru RPG, can anyone remind me if it was included in the Kickstarter? There's so much stuff and I tried to parse my emails but failed miserably. MW: Destiny is included in the Kickstarter if you specifically bought a digital or physical copy as part of the Kickstarter campaign. I did, but they haven't sent me a digital key yet.
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Jun 13, 2020 16:40
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Baron Porkface posted:What does "come out" mean in this context, since this game is a zillion years old and unoffical minis are part of the culture? Ironwind Metals released (or is shortly releasing) a metal version of the same Griffin model from the Beginner Box, made/mastered from the same 3D file.
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Jun 13, 2020 17:02
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Wow the ironwind site is terrible, I can't figure out how to navigate to this particular Griffon mini
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Jun 13, 2020 23:50
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Baron Porkface posted:Wow the ironwind site is terrible, I can't figure out how to navigate to this particular Griffon mini It might not actually be on the IWM store yet? I know it exists becaues I've seen one in the wild. It looks like they're currently on Aries Miniatures. Realistically the beginner box is still the cheaper way to get one.
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Jun 14, 2020 00:14
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The Griffin 1N isn't the mech in their art, it's this sculpt from 2015. https://store.ironwindmetals.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=9115&osCsid=293jqbbril9bkdet86lln1tji4
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Jun 14, 2020 00:18
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Defiance Industries posted:The Griffin 1N isn't the mech in their art, it's this sculpt from 2015. Product number says 20-5184, which is not that one. The Primitive Griffin is the GRF-1A.
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Jun 14, 2020 00:25
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What rules information do I need to coherently read poptarts’ LP?
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Jun 15, 2020 04:27
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Baron Porkface posted:What rules information do I need to coherently read poptarts’ LP? None if you're not playing, they explain everything pretty well in the updates, IMO.
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Jun 15, 2020 14:45
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