- Joined
- Dec 29, 2015
I've been playing the tabletop Battletech board game for nigh on 15 years now. I was a playtester for the more recent Catalyst Games Labs version of the Battletech RPG. I've been wanting to run a game with this RPG for a couple years now. I ran one shortly when the game came out and I and my players had a blast playing a fake Roman chain gang Mechwarriors. So, with that said...
In the far future there is nothing but war. With some periods of peace. And only humans.
Many of you are probably loosely familiar with the game, through PC games or the Mechassault games on XBOX. Or hey, you could have been a player of the board game in the past.
The core rulebook is “A Time of War”, which I can provide for interested players. It contains, surprise, the character creation rules as well as lots and lots and lots of fluff. 30 years of fiction has quite developed the universe and lore.
Warning: Character creation has lots of wiggle room to create just about anything from space janitor to Mechwarrior, but it can take a long time and a lot of math. And even then, your character could die within five minutes to a single bullet. Despite being part of the playtesting and doing nothing but character generation, CGL took in very, very little advice. A character starts with 5000 xp to spend, but a player must immediately spend 820 to speak a language and be able to see things? It's hilarious. And I'm not going to house rule that away because I'm a bastard.
A few questions for potential players:
As in question 1, what would the potential players want to play? Traditional Mech jockeys, or something less explody?
Resources:
Quick start rules can be found here.
MegaMek, for Mechwarrior battles.
Sarna.net, the semi-official Wiki for the entire universe.
Oh, and for the horrid attempt at a cartoon in the early 90 for the game, enjoy. Also enjoy the “Hey look we can do GGI sorta!” parts of it.
In the far future there is nothing but war. With some periods of peace. And only humans.
Many of you are probably loosely familiar with the game, through PC games or the Mechassault games on XBOX. Or hey, you could have been a player of the board game in the past.
The core rulebook is “A Time of War”, which I can provide for interested players. It contains, surprise, the character creation rules as well as lots and lots and lots of fluff. 30 years of fiction has quite developed the universe and lore.
Warning: Character creation has lots of wiggle room to create just about anything from space janitor to Mechwarrior, but it can take a long time and a lot of math. And even then, your character could die within five minutes to a single bullet. Despite being part of the playtesting and doing nothing but character generation, CGL took in very, very little advice. A character starts with 5000 xp to spend, but a player must immediately spend 820 to speak a language and be able to see things? It's hilarious. And I'm not going to house rule that away because I'm a bastard.
A few questions for potential players:
- Play by post or real time? If the party will consist mostly of Mechwarriors, battles can be done on a map using a Java program called MegaMek.
As in question 1, what would the potential players want to play? Traditional Mech jockeys, or something less explody?
- What era (provided in the book) and party type? Here's a few ideas I was thinking of running.
- a. Black hearts and mines: The Shen-se Tian pirate group is taking advantage of the wars being waged by the major Inner Sphere powers against each other. Do you keep up your dastardly ways? Do you find a place to set up a permanent base? Do you carve out a Bandit Kingdom?
- Clan Jade Kiwi: Washouts from the Clan Sibkos, warriors band together and form a mercenary group that specializes in tracking down foes, and are masters of harassment warfare.
- For Blood and Coin: The most basic campaign where everyone's part of a mercenary company.
- For King and Country: Everyone's part of an Inner Sphere nation and serve in the military of one of the Inner Sphere or Periphery powers (Magistracy of Canopus: The true Matriarchy that oppresses men and has comestically-altered people to look like catgirls and nekojin!).
- For Honor and Glory: Service to a Clan (for the Mechwarrior PC gamer nostalgia).
Resources:
Quick start rules can be found here.
MegaMek, for Mechwarrior battles.
Sarna.net, the semi-official Wiki for the entire universe.
Oh, and for the horrid attempt at a cartoon in the early 90 for the game, enjoy. Also enjoy the “Hey look we can do GGI sorta!” parts of it.
