On 2003-05-04 16:00, Old Dog wrote:
Well, a thread below mentioned ideas to try and bring Battletech to teh Mechwarrior players, and to iron out all the rules that had gone awry over the years. I've chatted about this before, but, here, in my Doggie opinion, are the things you need to do. Note that a couple of these are *expensive*, so, it takes some work.

1) The thing that brings them in is the mechs. The thing that keeps them is the story.
To new players, the current (IE, pre-DW) storyline was too monolithic. They couldn't get in, as teh old people (kaff) knew so much that it was scary.

So, you need a reboot of teh storyline, where new people can join in, but there's enough familiarity for the old players to still get along. 3125 for a year remains my favorite for this for a billion reasons taht I'll prattle on about if anyone really cares.

2) Push teh miniside more.

I know that sounds odd, but, you simply can't let the game go on with foldable cardboard maps and paper chits.

3) Play to teh Table.

Adjust your rules to make the game a bit more simplified, taking tabelterrain into account. Movement is *the* most time consuming aspect of Btech outside of missile strikes, and the one that everyone has to deal with. [snip] Your mech moves 8"? Take a tape measure, count out that much in any direction, and there you go.

4) Missile restrucure

Not that hard, surprisingly. Keep the short-range and long-range designators, but make teh SRMs simply be smaller and weigh less than the long-range version, to make up for teh massive drop in range. Missiles are bought in multiples of 6, and you simply roll 1d6 to see how many did damage. Each group of 6 hits the same location.

For example, you'd have LRM 6, 12, 18, and 24. If a LRM 18 hit someone, roll three hit locations (One for each group of 6), each location rolled takes 1d6 damage. That's one less chart, and this level of grouping would keep SRMs from being such a chore. Streak Launchers would take the d6 part out and just deal 6 per hit.

5) Altering record sheets.

The bubble-method is kind of bad. New players, especially, are bad for filling in boxes in the wrong place, or not enough, or, overall, messing this part up. Toss them out for the old scratch method. Your LA has 16 armor. If it gets hit for 4 damage, put a slash through it, then write 12 beside it. Faster, cleaner, simpler. I'll try to do up what one would look like as an example, simplified for play.

6) Make charts easy, portable, and fit on a single sheet.

7) Minis

Know that a plastic mold costs a LOT of money. Making everything in plastic, while fantastic in theory, hits a BIG wall thanks to this. Take a dozen mechs, designed on teh scale of Mechwarrior, to produce plastic sprues of.

These sprues should be assemblable, rather than pre-molded, to allow for poses, kit bashing, and so on, if at all possible. Even if it's just armpegs and arms with noches, it'll help. Players like to custiomize.

8) The Magazine.

I can't stress how important a magazine for Battletech will be. It doesn't have to be huge, nor expensive, but make it a walking ad with info and go.

9) Slow suppliments

THERE's crazytalk for you, but, I'm serious. A TRO every two years is plenty, especially since it just reproduces the magazine releases, but don't try some crazy release schedule when you're a small company with few writers. Make the minis your profit maker, switching from metal to plastic for any line that sells well enough to justify it, using books as the bonus.

10) Diversity

The last thing I'll mention, here, is to make every faction unique. The easiest ways to do this are in mech design (Only allow certain mechs for certain houses) and technology (Only house X has technology Y)

This builds up a need for people to pick sides more, and will re-arrange the way mechs are thought of. You don't think of 'Light Mechs' and 'Medium Mechs' at this stage, but 'Kurita Mechs' or 'Davion Mechs'. Stay true to your school, you know?

Lots of work to do, sure, but there's no reason that a Battletech rebirth can't happen and succeed.

-- Old Dog, loves the old, but willing to renew.

1) The thing that brings them in is the mechs. The thing that keeps them is the story.

So, you need a reboot of teh storyline, where new people can join in, but there's enough familiarity for the old players to still get along.

2) Push teh miniside more.
I know that sounds odd, but, you simply can't let the game go on with foldable cardboard maps and paper chits. It needs to be in full 3D.

You need mission write-ups, a set of 10-20 missions other than 'Shoot the other guy', all laid out in your main book and ready to use

3) Play to teh Table.
Adjust your rules to make the game a bit more simplified, taking tabel terrain into account. Movement is *the* most time consuming aspect of Btech outside of missile strikes, and the one that everyone has to deal with.

Tree stands, hills, buildings/walls/cliffs, bodies of water, these shouldn't be that hard to work with.

4) Missile restrucure

Missiles are bought in multiples of 6,
and you simply roll 1d6 to see how many did damage.

Each group of 6 hits the same location.
this level of grouping would keep SRMs from being such a chore

5) Altering record sheets.
The bubble-method is kind of bad. New players, especially, are bad for filling in boxes in the wrong place, or not enough, or, overall, messing this part up. Toss them out for the old scratch method.

6) Make charts easy, portable, and fit on a single sheet.

7) Minis
Take a dozen mechs, designed on teh scale of Mechwarrior, to produce plastic sprues of.

. Making brighter colors and much less camo is probably a good idea ... yes, it's not a realistic, but, by golly, it does *look* nice, and it's teh ay the majority goes, these days. Great camoschemes are still acceptable, of course, but make them less the norm.

8) The Magazine.

9) Slow suppliments
THERE's crazytalk for you, but, I'm serious. A TRO every two years is plenty,

10) Diversity
The last thing I'll mention, here, is to make every faction unique. The easiest ways to do this are in mech design (Only allow certain mechs for certain houses) and technology (Only house X has technology Y)

This builds up a need for people to pick sides more, and will re-arrange the way mechs are thought of. You don't think of 'Light Mechs' and 'Medium Mechs' at this stage, but 'Kurita Mechs' or 'Davion Mechs'. Stay true to your school, you know?