Well, I blew it. Missed a whole month of posting. In my defense, Work + Grad School + Parenthood + State Guard = OneTiredOldDragoon. I could go on about life, but hey, you guys have Geek Dad for that, right? I continue to burn myself out on all of the above while trying desperately to relax here and there. It ain't easy. I can't turn my worry off. So... when I can ponder gaming, what am I pondering?
Well, as everyone has seen before in this blog, I love gaming of all types but I have a particular love of Battletech and the wonderful universe that has been created to go along with it. Specifically, I love what has come to be called "Mad Max" Battletech - the Third Succession War and thereabouts. Your 'Mech is an heirloom over a century old, repair parts get fought over, battles are almost ritualistic and MechWarriors are knights and nobility by virtue of owning a 'Mech, and the whole thing feels like A Game of Thrones with giant robots. Or Dune with giant robots. Or both. With a side of Thunderdome.
I've searched long and hard for the "perfect" Battletech. I keep coming to different conclusions, mostly because different ways of playing fit different styles of story. The ultra-crunchy Solaris VII rules are great for duels between warriors on The Game World, but would make for ridiclously slow play at the company level or above. Standard Battletech grinds at company level, but runs fairly smooth in lance-on-lance engagements. The new Alpha Strike game could do battalion-level engagements with ease, but loses some of the detail and crunch a lot of Battletech players love. Each has its own applicability. Add on top of this the question of what RPG system to use... you've got a good little gaming conundrum. MechWarrior 1e had the atmosphere, but a bit of a clunky system. 2e had math that was easily broken at character creation, but was otherwise easy to run and easy to learn. 3e had wonderful lifepath options, but a hideously overcomplex skill-points-to-skill-bonus mechanic on top of a 2D10 resolution system that was not immediately compatible with Battletech.
The other night it occurred to me... Something I'd love to try for a campaign. Bear with me. So, Stars Without Number uses a d20 task resolution but with 2d6 skill rolls, with skills starting at 0 and each level representing a great amount of improvement over the last, yes? OK. Adventurer, Conqueror, King has a chart for figuring out where in the grand scheme of things your class level places you. Alpha Stike (and Battletech) have benchmarks for skills for the average MechWarriors at Green, Regular, Veteran, Elite, etc....
So... Use SWN as a base. Use the level equivalencies from ACKS. Use Alpha Stike as your 'Mech combat engine. Voila... A fast-playing, old-school-feeling Battletech roleplaying game that does not require a spreadsheet for character creation (A Time of War, I'm looking at YOU) and has a simple enough 'Mech combat to be dropped in on a whim just like a random encounter might be in old school D&D. You can get your 'Mech on without devoting a whole day to a large battle...
Will I ever get to try this? I'm not sure. Bobby Dean and I have written a perfectly usable version of MechWarrior grafting what we liked about 1e and 2e together into a single game and adding our own touches. We still need to playtest it. This was just something I was thinking about when trying to sleep the other night...
