Anyone remember the DGP "nuggets" system? It was back when GDW had handed over most of the development of their Traveller game to Joe Fugate and crew of DGP. They had been thinking on adventure design a bit. The result was that they designed adventures in the format of "nuggest", which were self contained scenes. I wrote about them once before in relation to campaign play of Battletech. Now I'm thinking of them again, for organizing your scenario in a more general sense.
Each nugget had some thing that would happen, some NPC you could talk to and a place to visit. The new thing was that DGP had sorted these in order, and told you which nugget had to go after the other. It was kind of like the solos, where you had forks in the road where you had to choose were to take the plot. I always thought these nuggets were a sweet idea, but I also never felt they worked as promised.
In Trail of Cthulhu the authors write about how to structure your adventure along a "spine" and then have branches off that tree. Core clues, those that are crucial for the mystery, are forming the spine of the adventure. I have not yet played much ToC, so I have no solid opinion on how well that works. It doesn't read like it would work that well, but maybe it just puts into words what we have been doing all along. The thing is, this is what the nuggets DGP used reminds me of. I guess nobody is surprised that this idea was old.
Now I feel like pulling out some of those old Traveller books and taking a look at them with ToC in the back of my mind. For those who are interested in adventure design, it might be something worth studying. Identifying where you have choke points is very crucial if you want to make sure you don't limit your players, and maybe structuring your scenario in nuggets like that is a good way to find out the logical structure of your design? If you do that, you can then design where to break up the rails, and where to leave them in. I for one am going to take a look at those old nuggets again.
Showing posts with label Battletech. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Battletech. Show all posts
Friday, September 27, 2013
Sunday, January 8, 2012
The last hurrah of the Ronin Wars - Battletech
Today I played in the last battle of our narrative arch of the Ronin Wars. In the setting plot for the Battletech universe, that was a rebellion by old hardliners when the stellar empire of house Kurita let some worlds seced to form a new stellar state. I played the old guard, and this was the last fight as the war was lost.
I knew I wanted to try some of the combined arms aspects of Battletech, so on my side I had once light lance and one company of mechanized infantry. Add to that some buildings, and you have quite a mouthful of new rules if you've only played mech against mech before.
We decided my force wanted to extract three caches of information from the buildings before retreating off world. I sent in my three platoons of infantry towards the buildings and my opponent decided, without knowing, to concentrate his force of heavy mechs on just that cluster of buildings where two of my three caches were. Ouch!
The first platoon ran in, and ran out. While retreating off map they suffered serious losses. Lucky me we had no morale rules! Then they managed to escape they secured a marginal victory for me. After that my commander, in my only mech with any firepower to speak of, got hit by ten long distance missiles in the head. He died, quickly.
After that we diced a lot and my mechs became punched and shot at a lot. In the end one was mobile, but with no weapons left, one was running around with reactor hits and the torso a gaping hole and the last one had no arms and a leg that would fall off if someone looked at it angrily. The last of the infantry died on the edge of the map, gunned down by autocannon fire.
I have no idea of this was how you create a scenario by the book, since I don't own the full rules. Also, I have no idea of this was a scenario where the battlevalues matches up at all. Some guesstimates indicate my force was outgunned somewhat. It was real fun, though!
I really love to play Battletech, since the scenarios become small stories in themselves. Small epics of miserable shots, clumsy pilots and daring escapes. Great drama!
I knew I wanted to try some of the combined arms aspects of Battletech, so on my side I had once light lance and one company of mechanized infantry. Add to that some buildings, and you have quite a mouthful of new rules if you've only played mech against mech before.
We decided my force wanted to extract three caches of information from the buildings before retreating off world. I sent in my three platoons of infantry towards the buildings and my opponent decided, without knowing, to concentrate his force of heavy mechs on just that cluster of buildings where two of my three caches were. Ouch!
The first platoon ran in, and ran out. While retreating off map they suffered serious losses. Lucky me we had no morale rules! Then they managed to escape they secured a marginal victory for me. After that my commander, in my only mech with any firepower to speak of, got hit by ten long distance missiles in the head. He died, quickly.
After that we diced a lot and my mechs became punched and shot at a lot. In the end one was mobile, but with no weapons left, one was running around with reactor hits and the torso a gaping hole and the last one had no arms and a leg that would fall off if someone looked at it angrily. The last of the infantry died on the edge of the map, gunned down by autocannon fire.
I have no idea of this was how you create a scenario by the book, since I don't own the full rules. Also, I have no idea of this was a scenario where the battlevalues matches up at all. Some guesstimates indicate my force was outgunned somewhat. It was real fun, though!
I really love to play Battletech, since the scenarios become small stories in themselves. Small epics of miserable shots, clumsy pilots and daring escapes. Great drama!
Friday, August 26, 2011
Battletech: Random Encounter!
It was time to play another BattleTech scenario today. Last day at work was hell, so I needed something to take my mind of it all. We decided to run a classic lance on lance patrol encounter, in wooded hills.
Once again we visit Zyclone 3, the fought over planet. The Rasalhague have been given it, but Kurita hardliners refuse to give it up.
The Kurita mechs were advancing through woodlands when suddenly there came enemy mechs up over a ridge. Intense fighting took place. First some placed themselves on hills and started to rain down long range missiles, and then others closed for melee all guns blazing. It all ended when the Steiner lance began to fall back, under cover of their leader. Sadly one pilot wanted to launch one more salvo and both him and commander Heinrich MacManus was vaporized, by a direct hit in the head by a laser and a missile ammo explosion, respectively. Fittingly, pilot Brenan Amundsen desperately yelled "Sarge!" and in tears managed to cause an ammo explosion in the Kurita commander's mech as well. Commander Takita's death caused his lance to hesitate and the Steiners could fall back.
Damn, these giant robots are fun!
I find that a simple rules system, with enough quirks and wrinkles, gives a lot of flavour. You roll your 2d6 high is always good. It just took 3 hours, including a lunch break, so it wasn't time killer either.
Naturally I think of this as a roleplayer, and for me the individual pilots and the stories that compel them to fight this fight is always in my mind. Having a pre written story and trying to reenact that in a set of scenarios where there's freedom of movement and action is an interesting challenge. I will probably try to write up our efforts as a campaign, and I will probably try to find ways to play this game on many levels. I have still not managed to get my great project off the ground where you play the domain management game on one level, then pick up your low level characters and do a crawl and have those two be played by different players and have it all interact and create a living, breathing world. Maybe Battletech is worth studying for something like that.
Once again we visit Zyclone 3, the fought over planet. The Rasalhague have been given it, but Kurita hardliners refuse to give it up.
The Kurita mechs were advancing through woodlands when suddenly there came enemy mechs up over a ridge. Intense fighting took place. First some placed themselves on hills and started to rain down long range missiles, and then others closed for melee all guns blazing. It all ended when the Steiner lance began to fall back, under cover of their leader. Sadly one pilot wanted to launch one more salvo and both him and commander Heinrich MacManus was vaporized, by a direct hit in the head by a laser and a missile ammo explosion, respectively. Fittingly, pilot Brenan Amundsen desperately yelled "Sarge!" and in tears managed to cause an ammo explosion in the Kurita commander's mech as well. Commander Takita's death caused his lance to hesitate and the Steiners could fall back.
Damn, these giant robots are fun!
I find that a simple rules system, with enough quirks and wrinkles, gives a lot of flavour. You roll your 2d6 high is always good. It just took 3 hours, including a lunch break, so it wasn't time killer either.
Naturally I think of this as a roleplayer, and for me the individual pilots and the stories that compel them to fight this fight is always in my mind. Having a pre written story and trying to reenact that in a set of scenarios where there's freedom of movement and action is an interesting challenge. I will probably try to write up our efforts as a campaign, and I will probably try to find ways to play this game on many levels. I have still not managed to get my great project off the ground where you play the domain management game on one level, then pick up your low level characters and do a crawl and have those two be played by different players and have it all interact and create a living, breathing world. Maybe Battletech is worth studying for something like that.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Battletech, fantasy and the technological arms race
One thing I find interesting with Battletech, is that there are different levels of technology in the setting, and they all fight over technology as much as for power for its own sake. Sometime an influx of new tech shakes things up a bit, and it influences the capabilities of the other states and factions involved in the conflicts. Why aren't we seeing this in the fantasy worlds of roleplaying?
Imagine a country, which have invented gunpowder or the printing press. They invade another country and suddenly that country is filled with guys with primitive guns. Later on another country creates the telegraph and suddenly the game world have "instant" communication in some parts.
Imagine how cool that could be. Imagine your characters in the midst of it.
I think that part of Battletech could be imported successfully into your fantasy campaign!
Imagine a country, which have invented gunpowder or the printing press. They invade another country and suddenly that country is filled with guys with primitive guns. Later on another country creates the telegraph and suddenly the game world have "instant" communication in some parts.
Imagine how cool that could be. Imagine your characters in the midst of it.
I think that part of Battletech could be imported successfully into your fantasy campaign!
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Battletech: The Dragon holds the line! (and a few thoughts avbout Traveller)
A few days ago we assembled to commanders at my place and fought a Battletech scenario. BT is old school to me, whatever rules you use. My boxed set if the 2nd ed.
Along the border of the Steiner and Kurita empires, worlds have started to rebel, not respecting the deal by Theodore Kurita and ComStar. (this is before the clans. I did say old school, didn't I?). One such planet is Zyclone 3, where the samurai mechwarriors get their orders from the local warlord, that coming down from the mountains are two lances of Steiner mechs. They are spearheading a push toward the industrial centres in the lowlands. "We are redeploying to meet this thread, but you have to Hold the Line until reinforcement arrive and we can defend these vital resources!" Let the battle commence.
I played the Kurita guys, and had one lance of veterans in medium mechs. The Steiners had one light lance and one heavy lance. They were regulars, and the light lance mostly so. Naturally, the first thing that happens in that the heavy mechs stumble and fall while crossing a river! Some giggles in the light lance when that happened. Then I got my LRM and autocannons up on two hills with good visibility on a majority of the battlefield. Missiles started to rain as soon as the Steiners came into view. Two batteries of LRM 15, firing each round for four rounds. Just picture it!
In the end I managed to blow up two enemies, and shoot off the leg one another. It looked like a victory and the other player yielded. This was so fun that I at once started to think about doing a campaign. Naturally that makes you start to think about stories, free form developments and sandboxes. Again.
There are different rules for Battletech campaigns, and some of them have tried to handle the fact that you might want to play in a story line, but also to be the master of your own fate. I have read some of those and been thinking that maybe they can be used got a RPG campaign?
In a BT campaign you use something called tracks, which specify not which troops show up, but their relative size and strength. Also, the terrain is stated in a general case and the outcome can lead you to another track depending on what happened.
If you want to try to game a more controlled story, I don't see why you couldn't use something similar. In Traveller adventures, at least those from DGP, utilized something called nuggets. A nugget was a few resources for an encounter, and it had a dependency tree, i.e. it was connected to nuggets that had to happen before that one, and nuggets you could go into depending on the outcome. I think I'm going to go back and reread some of those old Traveller adventures and see how it worked.
Along the border of the Steiner and Kurita empires, worlds have started to rebel, not respecting the deal by Theodore Kurita and ComStar. (this is before the clans. I did say old school, didn't I?). One such planet is Zyclone 3, where the samurai mechwarriors get their orders from the local warlord, that coming down from the mountains are two lances of Steiner mechs. They are spearheading a push toward the industrial centres in the lowlands. "We are redeploying to meet this thread, but you have to Hold the Line until reinforcement arrive and we can defend these vital resources!" Let the battle commence.
I played the Kurita guys, and had one lance of veterans in medium mechs. The Steiners had one light lance and one heavy lance. They were regulars, and the light lance mostly so. Naturally, the first thing that happens in that the heavy mechs stumble and fall while crossing a river! Some giggles in the light lance when that happened. Then I got my LRM and autocannons up on two hills with good visibility on a majority of the battlefield. Missiles started to rain as soon as the Steiners came into view. Two batteries of LRM 15, firing each round for four rounds. Just picture it!
In the end I managed to blow up two enemies, and shoot off the leg one another. It looked like a victory and the other player yielded. This was so fun that I at once started to think about doing a campaign. Naturally that makes you start to think about stories, free form developments and sandboxes. Again.
There are different rules for Battletech campaigns, and some of them have tried to handle the fact that you might want to play in a story line, but also to be the master of your own fate. I have read some of those and been thinking that maybe they can be used got a RPG campaign?
In a BT campaign you use something called tracks, which specify not which troops show up, but their relative size and strength. Also, the terrain is stated in a general case and the outcome can lead you to another track depending on what happened.
If you want to try to game a more controlled story, I don't see why you couldn't use something similar. In Traveller adventures, at least those from DGP, utilized something called nuggets. A nugget was a few resources for an encounter, and it had a dependency tree, i.e. it was connected to nuggets that had to happen before that one, and nuggets you could go into depending on the outcome. I think I'm going to go back and reread some of those old Traveller adventures and see how it worked.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
15 games - the list
"So, just name me 15 games you've played. The first ones that pop into your mind"
"Like, any kind of game?"
"Yeah, any kind. You don't even have to have liked them."
"I could probably mention 50 rpgs, just like that."
"But, would it be the first ones to pop into your mind?"
"Well, I don't know. My mind just wanders, sometimes."
"So, just name 15 games, any games. It could be interesting to see how many of those 50 you really could think of, eh?"
"What he heck!"
1. Tunnels & Trolls
2. Dungeons & Dragons
3. Stormbringer
4. World of Synnibarr
5. WHFRP
6. Advanced Squad Leader
7. Diplomacy
8. DBA
9. Call of Cthulhu
10. Zork
11. nethack
12. Grand Prix Legends
13. Junta
14. Hacker
15. Battletech
"That was just a mess!"
"Yeah, not the first ones you would have thought would be on the list, would you?"
"Well, some of them. Why on earth was I thinking of *bleep!* just now?"
"Like, any kind of game?"
"Yeah, any kind. You don't even have to have liked them."
"I could probably mention 50 rpgs, just like that."
"But, would it be the first ones to pop into your mind?"
"Well, I don't know. My mind just wanders, sometimes."
"So, just name 15 games, any games. It could be interesting to see how many of those 50 you really could think of, eh?"
"What he heck!"
1. Tunnels & Trolls
2. Dungeons & Dragons
3. Stormbringer
4. World of Synnibarr
5. WHFRP
6. Advanced Squad Leader
7. Diplomacy
8. DBA
9. Call of Cthulhu
10. Zork
11. nethack
12. Grand Prix Legends
13. Junta
14. Hacker
15. Battletech
"That was just a mess!"
"Yeah, not the first ones you would have thought would be on the list, would you?"
"Well, some of them. Why on earth was I thinking of *bleep!* just now?"
Friday, December 18, 2009
Actual Play - Battletech
Ever since Chgowiz started to write about Battletech and Mechwarrior, I have once again felt the stirring to play a game of tank fighting. When I first bought the game, back in the day, we sat down on the living room floor at my friend's place. It tooks us 8 hours to read the rules, set up a game, puzzle over the rules and fight two minutes of real action.
Today I sat down again, and once again it took ages to get moving. I think the game is fairly easy, but still I managed to forget firing modifiers for the moving target at our first fire combat phase! We redid it, and it happened exactly the same way as when I needed 3+ to hit, instead of 8+. Kind if fitting.
We fought with one lance each, the first scenario in the new slick introductory rule book. Go and grab it online, it's free! The scenario was really good, with a excellent use of the basic maps and a interesting mix of mechs. We both engine hits, and heat was then a constant problem. I also managed to destroy one leg on one of the weaker opponents. Rolling 9 on hit location table for left leg is something I did all the time. I wonder if I have to re-calibrate my weapons. They all seem to fire way to low and left.
It was my second fight since my Battletech interest was re-ignited. Now I will try one more time before getting serious about it. I think I learned how fun, and frustrating, it can be with criticals, how important resource management is to have fun, and how fun it is to make things go "boom!" once in a while. Hopefully those lessons can be brought to bear in my roleplaying as well.
Today I sat down again, and once again it took ages to get moving. I think the game is fairly easy, but still I managed to forget firing modifiers for the moving target at our first fire combat phase! We redid it, and it happened exactly the same way as when I needed 3+ to hit, instead of 8+. Kind if fitting.
We fought with one lance each, the first scenario in the new slick introductory rule book. Go and grab it online, it's free! The scenario was really good, with a excellent use of the basic maps and a interesting mix of mechs. We both engine hits, and heat was then a constant problem. I also managed to destroy one leg on one of the weaker opponents. Rolling 9 on hit location table for left leg is something I did all the time. I wonder if I have to re-calibrate my weapons. They all seem to fire way to low and left.
It was my second fight since my Battletech interest was re-ignited. Now I will try one more time before getting serious about it. I think I learned how fun, and frustrating, it can be with criticals, how important resource management is to have fun, and how fun it is to make things go "boom!" once in a while. Hopefully those lessons can be brought to bear in my roleplaying as well.
Monday, October 19, 2009
The future sure is filled with history!
Today I feel far from great, with the great autumn cold coming on, so I hope I'm not to rambling or to unfocused today. It will pass. I hope.
If you have read what I've written lately, you know that I have gotten back into Battletech again. I have, due to that, been looking a lot at the official Classic Battletech site for information on the game, and on the setting.
Back in the days I never got the impression there was a world. You and a friend had 12 meter tall robots throwing hot lead and plasma at each other. Do you need anything more? Apparently those hints in my 2nd ed rulebook about some futuristic power blocs or whatnot, had been developed further in sourcebooks. I never saw anything except a myriad of Techical Readouts, which meant even more mechs. I never felt the need for more mechs, since I did have rules for creating more on my own. Why would I buy a book of mechs when I could design them myself? That was part of the fun, right?
Now when I browse the BT site, my eyes almost glaze over from the information overload. While it's extremely generous of Catalyst game labs to provide so much goodies from the OOP back catalog for free, I don't know if I want it! But, I still want to give them a pat on the back for being so forthcoming with previews, outtakes and whole OOP books online. Even someone who just want to browse around, or find inspiration for personal futuristic campaigns can go nuts and enjoy.
So why wouldn't you want to read the background books? Well, I always feel a bit daunted by the challenge if I see that I need to read a huge pile of imagined (future) history textbook to "get" a setting. Game settings with a very rich backstory are nice, in a way. You know that a game book will feel like a meaty piece of entertainment even if you don't get to play much. For those of us that get to play less than we want, it's nice to have some other use of the game books we buy. But, on the other hand it's sometimes a little bit to much. Where do I start? What do I need to start? How much do I need to know to be able to play in tournaments? You get the picture.
Battletech sure is fun, and the setting have some good drama and amazing scenes with excellent special effects and stunning visuals. Will I drown in it? Time will tell.
If you have read what I've written lately, you know that I have gotten back into Battletech again. I have, due to that, been looking a lot at the official Classic Battletech site for information on the game, and on the setting.
Back in the days I never got the impression there was a world. You and a friend had 12 meter tall robots throwing hot lead and plasma at each other. Do you need anything more? Apparently those hints in my 2nd ed rulebook about some futuristic power blocs or whatnot, had been developed further in sourcebooks. I never saw anything except a myriad of Techical Readouts, which meant even more mechs. I never felt the need for more mechs, since I did have rules for creating more on my own. Why would I buy a book of mechs when I could design them myself? That was part of the fun, right?
Now when I browse the BT site, my eyes almost glaze over from the information overload. While it's extremely generous of Catalyst game labs to provide so much goodies from the OOP back catalog for free, I don't know if I want it! But, I still want to give them a pat on the back for being so forthcoming with previews, outtakes and whole OOP books online. Even someone who just want to browse around, or find inspiration for personal futuristic campaigns can go nuts and enjoy.
So why wouldn't you want to read the background books? Well, I always feel a bit daunted by the challenge if I see that I need to read a huge pile of imagined (future) history textbook to "get" a setting. Game settings with a very rich backstory are nice, in a way. You know that a game book will feel like a meaty piece of entertainment even if you don't get to play much. For those of us that get to play less than we want, it's nice to have some other use of the game books we buy. But, on the other hand it's sometimes a little bit to much. Where do I start? What do I need to start? How much do I need to know to be able to play in tournaments? You get the picture.
Battletech sure is fun, and the setting have some good drama and amazing scenes with excellent special effects and stunning visuals. Will I drown in it? Time will tell.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Battletech, still fun ten years later
I'm sorry I haven't been posting as frequently as I would have wished. With no gaming happening regularly in real life I get lot less food for though. Hopefully it will pick up somewhat soonish, though.
Now for a fun game night yesterday! I bought Battletech 2nd ed some day back in the late eighties, and played one game with a friend. It was very slow and we found it very cumbersome. Today I wonder how we managed to get that impression! Thanks to some talk about the Battletech universe lately (check out microMechWarrior!), I dug out my old box and started reading.
God knows I find all kinds of anime or manga with mecha boring. I really can't understand what's so cool about those robots. But, for some reason the setting of Battletech seem less silly to me. I sure am strange. Fire up about those big robots, I decided to bring the game to games night at the club.
I decided to build two teams of exactly the same mechs, since I could find an opponent who wanted to play but didn't want the fiddly bits like choosing a mech and filling out the form. In the end we had one 20 ton Stinger, a 55 ton Shadow Hawk and a 65 ton Crusader each. Putting down the two maps from the Battletech box, we started from one side each and without a scenario we just tried to beat the living daylights out of each other. It was quite enjoyable!
The only problem we had with the rules were that we missed that LRMs should be rolled for in packs of five, and how many missiles were really fired in a salvo. The former problem just meant we had to roll less dice when we noticed it, but the latter was only resolved by looking at examples, as it wasn't explained well in the rules. We checked the newest quick start rules and strangely enough they were not very informative on this subject.
It was cool to see a critical success on my Crusader. Soon I had to adapt to the fact that I had an reactor which was leaking and helped heat my mech 5 pts every turn! Ouch. Then my Shadow Hawk got pummeled by LRM fire from the opponent Crusader and looked kind of beat up. Revenge was sweet though, when I managed to shoot off one leg and totally maim the other on my opponet's Stinger. If someone can tell me how to use, and survive in, light mechs please do!
After we had been fighting a while one guy came over and admitted that he and his old friends had been playing MechWarrior quite a lot when they where younger. This game have been everywhere.
Now I feel tempted to start a Battletech campaign!
Now for a fun game night yesterday! I bought Battletech 2nd ed some day back in the late eighties, and played one game with a friend. It was very slow and we found it very cumbersome. Today I wonder how we managed to get that impression! Thanks to some talk about the Battletech universe lately (check out microMechWarrior!), I dug out my old box and started reading.
God knows I find all kinds of anime or manga with mecha boring. I really can't understand what's so cool about those robots. But, for some reason the setting of Battletech seem less silly to me. I sure am strange. Fire up about those big robots, I decided to bring the game to games night at the club.
I decided to build two teams of exactly the same mechs, since I could find an opponent who wanted to play but didn't want the fiddly bits like choosing a mech and filling out the form. In the end we had one 20 ton Stinger, a 55 ton Shadow Hawk and a 65 ton Crusader each. Putting down the two maps from the Battletech box, we started from one side each and without a scenario we just tried to beat the living daylights out of each other. It was quite enjoyable!
The only problem we had with the rules were that we missed that LRMs should be rolled for in packs of five, and how many missiles were really fired in a salvo. The former problem just meant we had to roll less dice when we noticed it, but the latter was only resolved by looking at examples, as it wasn't explained well in the rules. We checked the newest quick start rules and strangely enough they were not very informative on this subject.
It was cool to see a critical success on my Crusader. Soon I had to adapt to the fact that I had an reactor which was leaking and helped heat my mech 5 pts every turn! Ouch. Then my Shadow Hawk got pummeled by LRM fire from the opponent Crusader and looked kind of beat up. Revenge was sweet though, when I managed to shoot off one leg and totally maim the other on my opponet's Stinger. If someone can tell me how to use, and survive in, light mechs please do!
After we had been fighting a while one guy came over and admitted that he and his old friends had been playing MechWarrior quite a lot when they where younger. This game have been everywhere.
Now I feel tempted to start a Battletech campaign!
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