tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71471087224539100482024-03-13T05:52:27.442-06:00RPG Indesign HobbyistThe works of an indie game design hobbyist, especially focusing on new game designs and D&D.J.A.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09469834689668909830noreply@blogger.comBlogger147125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7147108722453910048.post-67543164837505521682021-10-11T12:40:00.003-06:002021-10-11T12:40:50.584-06:00Bloat & Padding<p> Let's talk about an aspect of game design that is very rarely noticed or understood by the audience.</p><p>Bloat is any content added to a game's rule book that arbitrarily increases its page count and doesn't actually add anything to play.</p><p>Padding is any content added to a game's rule book that arbitrarily increases the amount of time spent playing without actually adding anything to play.</p><p>Good and obvious examples of bloat are the fluff sections of a book; flavor text and art. However, it is also possible to create actual game rules content that either doesn't meaningfully do anything in play, or should not have been needed in the first place.</p><p>Good examples of Padding are XP systems for gaining levels, the gold and treasure distribution of certain games, the turn structure of combat, etc.</p><p>While both bloat and padding may both sound like bad things, given the description, the truth is that they're actually valuable and necessary elements of game design. Like any maligned element of the industry, the problem isn't the design element, but rather the product of bad designers.</p><p>For a closer look at bloat, let's look at another rarely understood game element in the D&D 5e design philosophy: ribbons. A ribbon is any racial or class trait that sounds like it does something in the game, but doesn't actually add anything to play in practice. In essence, ribbons are participation trophies that are used to make players think they're getting more out of a game mechanic than they actually are. A good example of a ribbon feature would be the druid's secret language, druidic. On paper, it works the same as any other language proficiency, but in practice it comes up so rarely that it effectively doesn't exist. Why is this? Because when adventure designers are making an adventure, they can't know what the party composition would be. As such, including an encounter where knowing druidic would be useful would isolate groups that don't include a druid. Then, even if a DM knows their party composition and makes an adventure that shines a light on the druid player via this mechanic, the result is just that the DM tells the druid what the coded information is, and then the druid repeats that information to the group... in which case, the DM might as well have just told the group and not bothered with the druidic element at all. Druid NPCs are so rare that the chances of a druid PC and NPC interacting is almost nil, and even if they do interact, they likely won't have any reason to speak in code. Likewise, the chances of a party containing more than one druid are fairly low, and again, it is unlikely that two PCs would need to speak in a coded language to each other. Thus, the druidic language is a redundant and non-functional mechanic.</p><p>Now, for a better understanding of padding, let's return to my earlier example of the XP system needed to gain levels. In D&D 5th edition, the developers did extensive market research to find out what levels of play were most enjoyable to the most players. When making the XP chart, they reduced the XP threshold for levels people don't like, such as first, and increased the XP threshold on levels people did like such as third and fifth. This allowed people to get out of the lame levels faster, and also forced them to game for longer in the cool levels where most of the fun is available to players. Thus, the XP thresholds are a rule that don't change the game's play at the table, but rather the temporal experience of play. D&D is full of padding, especially in the combat system, that serves only to force people to spend more time in aspects of the game that are understood to be most important or fun.</p><p>Bloat, done badly, can be utterly infuriating however. Let's take Star Trek Adventures for example. The core rule book is about twice as thick as it actually needs to be. This is mostly due to large sections of the book being just fluff; mostly flavor text. The problem with that is they mix rules in with the fluff randomly in a way that doesn't clearly distinguish the rules from the fluff. This makes reading the book a chore, and referencing the rules an infuriating pain in the butt. The rulebook also has a lot of its content duplicated in the form of copy-pasta sections in its second half. All of this makes a book that is hefty and user-unfriendly.</p><p>Padding, done badly, extends play without actually making that play enjoyable. For example, hit points in D&D 5e. As creatures gain levels or CR, their HP totals increase dramatically, but damage dice output doesn't keep up with this growth. The end result is that as the players gain levels they can fight increasingly powerful monsters which take exponentially longer to kill because of their arbitrarily large hit points. The PCs, too, are padded with an excess of hit points so character death is uncommon enough that even that won't normally speed up combat resolution. Now, on some monsters that are fun to fight, this is a good thing. However, monsters that are just giant HP lumps that walk around and hit stuff are crazy boring and are often padded way more than should be necessary. Ogres are a good example of this. The result is a sizeable number of players and DMs who complain about campaign sessions that last for hours consisting of nothing but a single boring fight that just drags on and on.</p><p>So now that we understand what bloat and padding are, let's talk about why they're important, aside from the explanations already given. In a word, money. It's always about money. The main reason games contain bloat and padding is money. See, professional game designers need to convince people to buy and get hooked on playing their games. They also need to turn a profit on sales. I'll let you in on a marketing secret: The better something seems and the lower its price, the more likely we are to assume there's something wrong with it and not buy it. Thus, ironically, in order to make an RPG more accessible to a larger audience, you actually need to sell it for a price that is slightly higher than the product would seem to be worth on the shelf! However, people are unlikely to spend that top dollar if they don't feel like they're getting something tangible that justifies that cost. As such, developers need to find ways to arbitrarily fatten their books with material people will find interesting without overbuilding the game's actual system or content the way BattleTech did. The result is that people who buy the books are less likely to feel buyer's remorse after purchasing, because the book is physically nice enough and heavy enough that the price seems justified. This is where padding comes in; by forcing people to spend more time on the fun parts of the game and less time on the unfun parts of the game, the developers increase the likely hood of a player enjoying themselves and wanting to play more. The more hours, days, weeks, months, years, etc the player gets padded into playing, the more supplemental content can be marketed and sold to that player, which in turn adds more enjoyable content, and perpetuates the cycle.</p><p>I, personally, avoid using bloat and padding in my designs unless they add to the actual gameplay experience. I feel like the profit-motivated aspects of game design are cynical and manipulative, and I just don't like that fact. This attitude has resulted in my single-page-engine philosophy. That is to say, if the full rules of your game system can't fit on a single double sided sheet of paper, your game is either too complex or very inefficiently written. I proved my philosophy to myself a long time ago when I made a simplified D&D engine that stripped away the content from the system and focused on crunch alone. I have followed that design philosophy ever since. The upshot of this, is that my games are not particularly marketable. No sane person would spend 60$ on a single sheet of paper containing the full rules to a game system, no matter how expansive the play experience may be. So I can't really sell my designs. Since I give my content away for free, people are likely to assume it's bad (like a free couch that smells like cat piss) so it's hard to promote to new players. I am OK with this, because I mostly just do this as a hobby, and I feel like the only reason people can do this professionally is the symptom of frankly unethical marketing ploys.</p>J.A.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09469834689668909830noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7147108722453910048.post-43133891918184598832021-10-10T21:54:00.003-06:002021-10-10T21:54:44.575-06:00Slash Hack: Homebrew RPG<p> <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pJJmfsa4_mdGJ7dRyS0IBVJynMFTlMHA/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">HERE'S A FREE PDF!</a></p><p>So some time ago, I was revisiting the Basic line of D&D, by rereading the Rules Cyclopedia cover-to-cover. In it, I was reminded that the original check system, before WotC took over, was roll-under. In that system, every point in your ability score mattered because the ability score was the target number! This meanth that instead of the DM deciding the DC, your character sheet decided that and the DM coul merely modify your stat to make it harder or easier. THAC0 similarly set a target number, but this one to roll over. I liked this player-facing interpretation of D&D, where the numbers are sourced directly from the game piece rather than the administrator's whims. So I decided to make a whole game based around it!</p><p>This game is slash hack. A pun on Black Hack (another basic line homebrew game by other people) and Hack & Slash which is a genre of game. It is a player-facing fantasy RPG. It is strongly influenced by my work on Simple D&D shortly before 5e was released, and the lessons I learned in developing Hearthbreaker.</p><p>Slash Hack has no content currently, but it would be pretty easy to invent material for it, as everything just breaks down into hit count and difficulty modifiers. The hardest things to build would be classes, requiring the GM to invent at least 20 features for the players to choose from each time their character levels.</p><p>Enjoy!</p>J.A.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09469834689668909830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7147108722453910048.post-30061164315416395222021-10-10T20:08:00.001-06:002021-10-10T20:08:06.749-06:00THE BEAST OF EAVES HOLLOW Homebrew Adventure<p> <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1K38lWPRslYTCMJ8PxcY_YW5fy-nqoVfX/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">FREE PDF HERE!!</a></p><p>I was once inspired by Curse of Strahd, I thought the idea of horror D&D sounded cool. Honestly though, I'm not very impressed with that module. The fact is, D&D 5e characters are straight up super heroes, even at first level, and horror comes from feeling powerless. Instead of scary, CoS just feels overall gloomy and depressing. Now, this was shortly before halloween that day, and I decided to revisit the idea of horror D&D. At the same time, I was gushing over a game called One Night Werewolf, which I still adore.</p><p>Match, meet heaven.</p><p>In The Beast of Eaves Hollow, players play pregenerated characters. These characters are classless NPCs built using a set of top secret level-0 rules I invented just for this game. As such, nobody is a super hero. One of the players winds up being a werewolf, and nobody gets to know who it is. The timeline follows day after day as more and more NPCs are found dead, and each night one of the PCs will encounter the werewolf. The players must work together to find a way to put an end to this threat!</p><p>Enjoy.</p>J.A.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09469834689668909830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7147108722453910048.post-71972241218412098362021-10-10T19:57:00.004-06:002021-10-10T19:57:44.744-06:00PUZZLE MANSION Homebrew Adventure<p> <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1P1lWYTy7AXJ7xlNET0fN63COs5KUJzEw/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">FREE PDF!!</a></p><p>So years ago, I played the snot out of and eventually beat a game called The Last Guardian. It's one of the games spiritually related to Ico, along with Shadow of the Colossus. Anyways, like those games, the whole game is a giant puzzle, and it got me thinking: I don't often include puzzles in my adventures do I? That's weird, because I really love puzzles! So of course I had to make a whole campaign that is a puzzle!</p><p>Puzzle Mansion starts out as a fairly typical D&D adventure, but eventually the players find themselves inside an environment full of interactable elements and hidden secrets.</p><p>I've ran the adventure 3 times and it has never gone the same way twice. In one of the runs, the players accidentally blew up the entire mansion.</p><p>So, yeah, it's fun! Enjoy</p>J.A.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09469834689668909830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7147108722453910048.post-87639202183211688822021-10-10T19:41:00.001-06:002021-10-10T19:41:56.708-06:00Hearthbreaker RPG<p> <a href="https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11T_tVBnjT5sPKFqQFH_omMoIHdD0dPFr?usp=sharing" target="_blank">FREE PDFS FOLDER</a></p><p>Hearthbreaker is a professionally designed ultra light RPG I made shortly after the Modular Campaign project (Titanspawn) didn't pan out. It ran for a while until I realized that my base engine was not sustainable if I wanted all content to be equally compatible with all other content. Still, I put work into it. I only ever had one customer and apparently they forgot they even paid for it. The project is over and has been done for over a year now, so I'm making that content free. Enjoy.</p>J.A.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09469834689668909830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7147108722453910048.post-83267136525869266652021-10-10T19:39:00.003-06:002021-10-10T19:39:23.749-06:00TITAN SPAWN Free Homebrew Adventure<p> <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KviS_s2TdYzVWR29TRxCLmfboD5Dq5HX/view?usp=sharing">HERE'S A FREE PDF!</a></p><p>A long time ago, at least three years ago now, I was trying to make content for the Dungeon Master's Guild. Unfortunately, I couldn't convince anyone to join my team in a reasonable span of time. 6 months after I gave up, one of the people I'd approached finally said they were interested in helping, but I'd already moved on to other projects.</p><p>But I did a lot of work in the time leading up to giving up and, since this will never be sold as it's very rough and incomplete, I might as well share it for other people to enjoy!</p><p>This is Titanspawn, a homebrew adventure where the players fight a lot of stuff and hopefully kill a dragon. The adventure can be completed without any combat at all if the players are crafty. If the players are aggressive and stupid, they will almost certainly die.</p><p>Enjoy!</p>J.A.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09469834689668909830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7147108722453910048.post-72942797319723047692021-10-10T19:34:00.001-06:002021-10-10T19:34:09.768-06:00Seas of Blood & Bounty<p> <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hX0u9ZhwfC6hUzqDY-koV-npN8Ybix1t/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">HERE IS A LINK</a></p><p>That link opens the full campaign plan PDF for a setting I ran called Seas of Blood and Bounty. Inspired by Ghosts of Saltmarsh, I built an actual seafaring campaign set in a world of tiny islands. The adventure starts out by allowing players to choose a faction to work for, and then decks them out with a ship and crew, then sends them off into the wild world of professional naval adventuring.</p><p>So far, content was only made for 1st level play. Real life, as always, interfered with the campaign advancing. (I like to do 10 adventures at each character level before the party gains a level.)</p><p>I give you this freely.</p>J.A.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09469834689668909830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7147108722453910048.post-24189221033856940732021-10-10T19:24:00.000-06:002021-10-10T19:24:01.462-06:00General Curiosity D&D Survey<p> As a DM, I am always looking for more information regarding how to improve myself for as many different types of players as possible. To that end, I have revamped my player survey and am posting it to a public platform where just any random person could find it. If you'd like to fill it out and see what the results were from other people, follow this link:</p><p>https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdhglGU3skg0M9Ya-mjlK0SpLGvqp92g_vYkLvyoTz9vM5bXQ/viewform?usp=sf_link</p><p>The survey uses Google Forms and does not request any identifiable information from contributors.</p>J.A.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09469834689668909830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7147108722453910048.post-89487354316444322112021-10-10T19:20:00.001-06:002021-10-10T19:20:33.405-06:00Menu to Adventure: Saltmarsh<p><a href=" https://drive.google.com/file/d/1corVYFEq_jfO3HAQvXKSlarTnmfACYQ-/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">HERE'S A FREE PDF</a></p><p>So, a menu to adventure is essentially a player handout that I make to help players get an idea of what's going on without having to ask me to remind them of every little thing over and over again. It includes a listing of the pantheon for clerics and paladins, basic map of the region, a guide to the local town, and other such useful basic information.</p><p>The example above is my menu to adventure that I used when I ran Ghosts of Saltmarsh in the past. I could have sword I shared it through this blog already, but apparently I didn't.</p>J.A.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09469834689668909830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7147108722453910048.post-18661972711709892192021-10-10T19:11:00.001-06:002021-10-10T19:12:08.779-06:00Star Wars Galactic Standard Calendar<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xRxhOnZ5cqk/YWOO_vmQdHI/AAAAAAAAEAQ/VOifcOTfReEif9cd4fhFL75jnmpIWKMHQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1024/GSC.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="832" data-original-width="1024" height="520" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xRxhOnZ5cqk/YWOO_vmQdHI/AAAAAAAAEAQ/VOifcOTfReEif9cd4fhFL75jnmpIWKMHQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h520/GSC.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Thanks to the Fantasy-Calendar website, (And a lot of conflicting sources) I was able to construct a standard galactic calendar for Star Wars. Here's the link to that. <a href="https://app.fantasy-calendar.com/calendars/aee91caf0ce6bd14c5d4aea524aa7644">https://app.fantasy-calendar.com/calendars/aee91caf0ce6bd14c5d4aea524aa7644</a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">The current date is based on the campaign I'm planning to run, not the final date of the Star Wars canon timeline.</span></div>J.A.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09469834689668909830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7147108722453910048.post-27809619344407427382021-10-10T19:06:00.001-06:002021-10-10T19:11:50.967-06:00Mystaran Calendar<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6AmNVfjOoxE/YWON7HHF1qI/AAAAAAAAEAE/4lUF0JCjB6AhR-zh4xyLhIZKf4tLGbiDACLcBGAsYHQ/s643/Alphatian_Calendar.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="437" data-original-width="643" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6AmNVfjOoxE/YWON7HHF1qI/AAAAAAAAEAE/4lUF0JCjB6AhR-zh4xyLhIZKf4tLGbiDACLcBGAsYHQ/s16000/Alphatian_Calendar.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>Thanks to the Fantasy-Calendar website, i was able to make a semi-interactive calendar fo the Mystara setting of D&D. Here's the link: <a href="https://app.fantasy-calendar.com/calendars/45754d1d6f2d66380c640fa57f0c9e3a">https://app.fantasy-calendar.com/calendars/45754d1d6f2d66380c640fa57f0c9e3a</a></p>J.A.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09469834689668909830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7147108722453910048.post-33257780127908082722021-04-11T16:34:00.006-06:002021-04-24T19:36:23.144-06:00Star Trek Adventures Department Talent Cards<h1 style="text-align: center;"> I have made talent cards for the departmental books. Here are the links.</h1><h1 style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Su_WG0XGmMyEwDbImnNC2GcU-Yv19ax0/view?usp=sharing">Command Department</a></h1><h1 style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Su_WG0XGmMyEwDbImnNC2GcU-Yv19ax0/view?usp=sharing"><br /></a><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CeqbXlptGuIgUEYzhEcIWuUQopqHeot5/view?usp=sharing">Operations Department</a></h1><h1 style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CeqbXlptGuIgUEYzhEcIWuUQopqHeot5/view?usp=sharing"><br /></a><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AQtF7cZxPD2RqFxg536Zzu9LFQ-l_l7u/view?usp=sharing">Sciences Department</a></h1><div><br /></div><h1 style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Hbvd8j4Gaq9P_XDzNyX6_r2gKSmcP_Dh/view?usp=sharing">Command Division Starships</a><br /></h1>J.A.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09469834689668909830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7147108722453910048.post-53302524289721320072021-02-09T18:57:00.000-07:002021-02-09T18:57:04.804-07:00Mongoose Traveller 2nd Edition Resource: Starship VTT Tokens!<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Jcgvc1BrUqI/YCM8fYg3dfI/AAAAAAAADvo/Crg0Bdz9f6A2IfoLN2uMA3FN7BiQhvqgQCLcBGAsYHQ/s256/Delphinus%2BClass%2BStarliner.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="256" data-original-width="256" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Jcgvc1BrUqI/YCM8fYg3dfI/AAAAAAAADvo/Crg0Bdz9f6A2IfoLN2uMA3FN7BiQhvqgQCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/Delphinus%2BClass%2BStarliner.png" /></a></div><h1 style="text-align: center;">Here's a <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AMPRevSCTg8gwirUjKm1YrZ604lCl-sJ/view?usp=sharing">LINK</a> to a zip folder of 229 Traveller 2e starship tokens. This zip is current as of Feb 9th 2021.</h1><div>The only ship not accounted for thus far is the LSP Modular Cutter. The art chosen for it broke the style too severely, and looked identical to a normal modular cutter. I also did not make tokens for partial ship components, like starbase structures or ship modules, since they can't function in isolation from their base system.</div><p></p>J.A.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09469834689668909830noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7147108722453910048.post-41648088843999428832021-01-17T03:10:00.002-07:002021-01-17T04:18:16.899-07:00Understanding Battletech<p style="text-align: center;"><i>Disclaimer: </i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>This article is written to be up-to-date, as of January of 2020. Its information may eventually become out of date. In particular, there are currently rumors that older books will be made available in print-on-demand format, which will make previously expensive collectors items much more available to future gamers. New eras and expansions are likely to be published in the coming decade. The books may undergo another formal restructuring, as the current corebook setup is nearly a decade old at this point. The entry point box sets will also likely be replaced by new products in the future. Some of the linked resources may become dead links as the online presence of the brand continues to decay. Etc. Etc. </i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>This was written while I was in the process of getting into the hobby. It is, essentially, my notes to myself to try and sort it all out in a way that makes sense to me, shared in the hopes that it may assist others. It may contain some errors. I'm fine with that. </i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>I'd also like to mention that nobody pays me to write these things, not even advertisers, which I think should be clear considering how I speak pretty negatively of products even in my positive articles, but it should probably be said.</i></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YYqgLi0_05I/X-2R-1BDcCI/AAAAAAAADl0/SiOhOi3rDcAhzOP5LTD0X4VMMLrpW7zjgCLcBGAsYHQ/s700/6dc3e33199407049c8172a19889ed3a9.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="544" data-original-width="700" height="250" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YYqgLi0_05I/X-2R-1BDcCI/AAAAAAAADl0/SiOhOi3rDcAhzOP5LTD0X4VMMLrpW7zjgCLcBGAsYHQ/w320-h250/6dc3e33199407049c8172a19889ed3a9.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #444444;">How Lovely</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><p>You probably know the franchise as "Mech Warrior" from the extremely popular and extremely niche video game series derived from the Battletech franchise. However, the video games are not the heart of the brand, even if they wound up being its face. </p><p>So let's imagine that, like many nerdy kids who grew up in the 90s, you've occasionally seen glimpses of the giant stompy death machines of Battletech, and now you want to poke your head into this corner of the hobby. To you, I say Welcome! And good luck! See, Battletech as a franchise has gone through a number of mutations as the IP has passed hands over the decades, and now it is extremely difficult for people entering the hobby to decipher what products are current, what products are collectors items, and what products are just obsolete junk. It's also hard to tell what products are supposed to be compatible with each other. Cease your mourning however, for I have guidance! I, a hardcore game nerd have navigated the paper jungle of Battletech, and have compiled this guide for you to use! So, proceed and be enlightened! And once you have a lance of your own, shoot me a message and we can roll dice!<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QwVw54BhBNk/X-2SSHIutdI/AAAAAAAADl8/NIf6aFNFeX0L_1X7Oy6P0jWX6l7qLBHvACLcBGAsYHQ/s919/Battledroids%2BBox.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="919" data-original-width="793" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QwVw54BhBNk/X-2SSHIutdI/AAAAAAAADl8/NIf6aFNFeX0L_1X7Oy6P0jWX6l7qLBHvACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Battledroids%2BBox.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #444444;"><i>This guy looks... Familliar.</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><u>History Lesson</u></b></span></p><p>Ok, let's get something perfectly clear right from the start: Battletech is a clunky and imbalanced board game for grognards, about badly designed giant robots kicking the everloving shit out of each other. It is counter intuitive, slow, awkward, old fashioned, over complicated, and wicked fun.</p><p>Over the years, the core IP has belonged to 3 main companies:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>FASA</li><li>WizKids</li><li>Topps (Catalyst Game Labs)</li></ul><p></p><p>FASA was the originator, and started the popular nerd game trend of making their product as obtuse and unapproachable as humanly possible.</p><p>The original game, Battledroids, was released in the 80s, and used mech designs licensed from the Macross franchise. It had nothing to do with Macross, they were literally just too lazy to pay for an artist to make original art and models for their game. Surprisingly, despite getting sued to near-oblivion by George Lucas' lawyers for using his word (droids) they still managed to make enough money to keep publishing the game!</p><p>So they made a new version and called it Battletech. Three guesses what IP inspired that name. Generally speaking, the second edition is considered to be the actual founding game, while Battledroids is seen as sort of a prototype that tragically went to market too early. Since that release, there has been an unending stream of supplemental and updated content released for the game.</p><p>WizKids tried to "restart" the franchise by making a whole new game system and set their events hundreds of years after the Canon FASA timeline. They also scrapped most of the old mech designs (a good move in my opinion) in favor of even dopier ones (oops). This was called Battletech: Dark Ages. They quickly realized that the hardcore fans didn't think that was especially cool, so they also carried on publishing content for "Classic Battletech", licensing that product out to the German publisher FanPro, who opened an American office to provide the English products.</p><p>Not much happened for a while, they published the same kinds of expansions as FASA did, updating some old stuff to be more in-line with other content, and occasionally making Classic BT stats for Dark Age battlemechs. They did eventually make rules compilations books, which made it easier to run the game for everyone involved.</p><p>Then it went to Catalyst Games Labs. Catalyst went about formalizing the rules systems and updating them to a form a modern audience can digest, even if it seems a little "ye olde fashioned" at times. More importantly, they focused in on Classic BT, dropping the clarifying term and getting back to the roots of the game. They truly honor the work that was done by FASA and those who carried the Classic torch through to today, and they hold true to the original vision of the franchise. (Awkward mech designs and all, though the sculpts are a little beefier now thanks to the influence of MechWarrior franchise artists.)</p><p>In addition to these three, you also have Microsoft, which owns the rights to the Mechwarrior video game franchise, fully separate from the Battletech franchise. FASA had a separate subsidiary for their video games, and Microsoft bought those licenses specifically. They make the video games for the most part. Now, so far Microsoft has apparently worked closely with the Battletech guys to keep the two franchises in lockstep together. Hopefully, they continue to have a positive professional relationship for many more decades to come.</p><p>In between all that, there are a number of other companies who have had licenses to make secondary Battletech products, such as figures (formerly Ral Partha, now Iron Wind Metals), toys, a card game, merch, and even a Saturday morning cartoon that blew chunks and got them sued a second time.</p><p>Currently, the franchise is in a state of decay and rejuvenation at the same time. Catalyst Games Labs is a small company and does not have the income to match the production demand of its consumer base. Basically, when they make a product, they do a limited run of that product. Sometimes that run lasts a couple years, sometimes it lasts a couple months. If you don't get in on the ground floor of it, you miss out unless you buy a used copy. Then you're stuck with pdfs. Some of these products, because of their limited availability, can be hundreds or even over a thousand dollars. Just about everything physical BT is a collectors item. One important thing to note though: the PDF record sheet books are actually better than the print versions, because you'll always get better results from an original printout compared to a photocopy, and you don't have to worry about treasuring your masters in a locked safe away from the elements of life.</p><p>That being said, unlike games like D&D, (which reinvent themselves every decade or two) Battletech is shockingly stable and consistent. There have been very few changes to the full rules or to unit stats over time. Rather, new rules are added as optional expansions that can be applied to the game in layers, and starter rules are stripped down versions of the core rules system to ease entry to the hobby. Thus, instead of editions, you have tiers of optional complexity. As such, even products that are like 10-20 years old and found at a garage sale are usually still valid in modern play, and are pretty much guaranteed to still be usable even if they're slightly out of date! The big thing that will stand out is the art. After a while of looking at BT products, you'll be able to estimate the age of the product by simply looking at the design of the mechs.</p><p>The web communities for BT, however, are seriously suffering. Some of the older online communities are now full of broken links, with their last page updates being half a decade ago. Some rely on flash, which is being phased out of internet browser compatibility. I'm trying my hardest to archive whatever is usable from these sites before they become LosTech. If any of it can be shared, I will make it available in the future, either through this blog or as a contribution to The Trove. Key among the lost is the old battletech fiction website, BattleCorps, which had thousands of pages of canon fiction. The whole site is gone with no indication that all the texts will ever be made available in another format in the future. In a way, the franchise has a small hole cut out of it because of this loss. All that remains are 2 volumes of collected fiction in pdf format only hidden on DriveThruRPG.<span></span></p><!--more--><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Xzodmi1HdNw/X-2V-xPnRnI/AAAAAAAADnQ/YTnNip8Kuek3PhtwUfoZsalr-53cQdYoQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/mxblnapvp6131.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Xzodmi1HdNw/X-2V-xPnRnI/AAAAAAAADnQ/YTnNip8Kuek3PhtwUfoZsalr-53cQdYoQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/mxblnapvp6131.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #444444;"><i>The dice show the direction the mech's torso is pointed and its movement modifier.</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><u>The Game Itself</u></b></span></p><p>Ok, that's all fine and dandy, but what is the game itself actually like? Well, I'm not going to go over everything in excruciating detail, but I'll cover the basics in a way that the rule books kind of fail at.</p><p></p><ul><li>First, you need at least 1 miniature (or other object representing a miniature) per player. A standard lance is actually 4 mechs, but just to get started it's best to keep it to a minimum.</li><li>Next you need at least 2d6.</li><li>Then you need two of the officially produced 22"×18" hex maps. There are rules for playing without a board, but that's outside the scope of this article. </li><li>You need a book or pdf of record sheets and a photocopier or printer. (Or use an interactive option from the links section at the end of this article.) Seriously, these are fundamental to the game. DO NOT RECORD ANYTHING ON YOUR BLANKS. Use them as a base to photocopy new sheets to use in game. I'll be honest, outside of the box sets these are a pain to get in hard copy. Luckily, most are available in PDF, and original prints are always better than photocopies anyways. Just be careful to protect those files after you purchase them, or they'll disappear like the digital fart they are.</li><li>You will need a rule book. Any official rulebook is fine. But you'll need to reference it often. This is not a simple game, you are trespassing on deep nerd territory here.</li></ul><div>You can get all that stuff in a box set. That's why they exist! Alright. Let's talk basic game flow.</div><div><ol><li>Players set up two map sheets edge to edge and choose units. (Catalyst did release some high quality double-sheet format maps. Good luck finding those in a store.)</li><li>Players agree to the victory conditions. Usually this is just "destroy all opposing mechs" but players can also create stories and other fun and unique experiences by running battles with different goals, such as king of the hill, capture the flag, escourt duty, etc.</li><li>The players each roll 2d6. Whoever rolled highest wins to go second. That's right. Winner goes second. Fight me. From now on the winner is player A, and the loser is player B.</li><li>Player B chooses an edge of the map and places their units on whole hexes along that edge. Player A has to enter through the opposite edge.</li><li>Play now goes through a series of 5 phases. In each phase, players alternate between each other making declarations or moving units one at a time. (There's a special rule for when there are an uneven number of units)</li><li>The first phase is the movement phase. Player B moves a unit, then player A moves a unit, then player B moves another, etc. This goes until all units have been moved. It is important to note that a unit may be unable to move without actually being destroyed. These units also need to be "moved". To clarify, standing still is considered a movement. Thus, if you have less mobile units you can delay moving your fast guys by having the dopes stand still, forcing your opponent to reveal more of their positioning strategy. At the end of the movement phase, any rolls necessitated by movement are made and the consequences are played out. (In other words, we check to see if anyone fell over.) How much you move adds a modifier to future rolls that makes you harder to hit and also makes it harder for you to hit stuff. To record this, we place d6s as markers with the modifier (a number between 1-5 with 6 as a stand-in for 0) facing up next to the mech it applies to. This also allows us to mark which direction a mech's torso is facing if it isn't pointing the same way as its feet. Yes that's a thing and yes it matters.</li><li>The second phase has players declare attacks. This follows the same process as movement. It is important to note that attacks are not processed on the phase in which they are declared. Attacks are processed in their own phases. We'll get to the consequences of this in a second. As with standing still, not attacking is an attack declaration.</li><li>Alright, now we do the ranged attack execution. Once again, attacks are handled in initiative order. Because attacks are processed separately from declaration, that means they don't have to be processed in the same order of declaration. That doesn't matter as much as one might think because every declared attack gets processed, even if the attacking mech is destroyed this phase, and even if the target mech has already been destroyed. This means it is possible for two mechs to destroy each other simultaneously, which means it is possible for a game to draw with mutual destruction.</li><li>Then we do the physical attack phase, which is the same thing but with wrestling and melee weapons. Again, all declared attacks are processed no matter what. Again, it follows initiative order.</li><li>The fifth phase is the heat phase. Stuff you do, and some things that happen to you, causes your mechs to accumulate heat. If your mech overheats, it goes nova. So, manage your heat carefully. During this phase, accumulated heat is added up, then your heat sinks remove some of it. If your mech shut down due to heat in a previous turn, this is when it tries to restart.</li><li>The end phase resolves a bunch of miscellaneous things but mostly just resets the board for the next turn. A key thing to remember is that mechs lose their movement modifiers and face forward during this phase.</li><li>That ends the first turn. Play begins anew with initiative being rerolled for the next turn of 5 phases (Starting from #5 in this listing). Play continues in this loop until the objective has been achieved. The rules say each turn represents an in-game time of 10 seconds, but in real life a turn can take 5-10 minutes. As such, depending on the number of units on the map, (and the relative skill of the players) a game might take a half hour to several hours.</li></ol><div>And that's the very skeleton basics of how the game is played. Everything in that has complex rules. Movement has torso twisting, arm flipping, different movement modes, terrain effects on movement, and more. Every mech has multiple weapons each with slightly different rules. Mechs have quirks. The mechwarriors have stats that alter how effective their mech is in 2 different dimensions. There's a wide variety of melee attacks aside from basic collisions. If this game sounds kind of clumsy and slow, that's because it is. I'll be honest: it isn't the best designed game ever. But it is still very fun and worthy of play. If this kind of super-nerddome appeals to you, I encourage you to pick up a box set and get in the game.<span><!--more--></span></div></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PoHsquNvdoQ/X-2SbtkKxcI/AAAAAAAADmA/ktmHr5zBG2AwnRHmDyfhUH5zlaMGlfxsQCLcBGAsYHQ/s443/JBtech.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="443" data-original-width="340" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PoHsquNvdoQ/X-2SbtkKxcI/AAAAAAAADmA/ktmHr5zBG2AwnRHmDyfhUH5zlaMGlfxsQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/JBtech.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #444444;"><i>This is very much more anime than later products.</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><u>Product Guide</u></b></span></p><p>The current version of the game has been well managed by Catalyst to update almost everything from older products to the newer, current format of play. That means any old products are now either garbage (record sheet books are a good example) or moderately valuable collectors items (box sets, figures, tech read outs, etc. The game's products are sold in 3 groupings based on how elaborate the rules are. Starter Rules products are the intended entry point to the franchise, are the most readily available, and are the simplest version of the game to learn to play. They are not, however, tournament level play like what you'll see at a convention. Full Rules are the tournament level rules, and do not come in box sets. Rather, these are sold as rules books separate from gaming paraphernalia. Finally, Advanced Rules products go beyond tournament play, adding a whole host of optional and variant rules to represent all kinds of things the game was never meant to represent, like conquering entire star systems and building whole armies. Again, advanced rules products are not sold with any swag, they're just books. Personally, I think getting some merch along with those books in a fancy box set would be awesome, but then again I don't work for those people so what do I know?</p><p>Aside from the mainline products, there are some adjacent products in the franchise, some of which are compatible with the core game, others are not. We'll cover those at the end of the product guide.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-McRXrFBTikw/X-2Sit2rEVI/AAAAAAAADmI/XHxqw_G1b2cAN-HuUgOyYEXGIi23V9hvACLcBGAsYHQ/s424/81Vk5pfhqLL._AC_SX342_.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="424" data-original-width="342" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-McRXrFBTikw/X-2Sit2rEVI/AAAAAAAADmI/XHxqw_G1b2cAN-HuUgOyYEXGIi23V9hvACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/81Vk5pfhqLL._AC_SX342_.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #444444;"><i>Current as of 2020</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u>Starter Rules (Level 1)</u></b></span></p><p>Some time ago, Catalyst created an Introductory Box Set. It contained 24 plastic mech figures and multiple stapleback booklets of rules, lore, and painting suggestions. It also contained some of the highest quality game boards the franchise has ever seen before or since (actual folding heavy cardboard, rather than simple folded paper). Though this product is now out of print in favor of new box sets, there's enough of them still floating around in the wild that, as of 2020, it shouldn't cost you more than a couple hundred bucks for one in new condition.</p><p>More recently, they abandoned the single box set in favor of a Beginner Box and a Core Box. (Seems having it all in one box together was too intimidating for a lot of people)</p><p>The Beginner Box contains 2 plastic figures and a simplified version of the game rules to get newbies playing ASAP. It is much friendlier and less intimidating than the old Introductory Box Set.</p><p>The Core Box (a name I made up for it just now) is the latest edition of the board game proper. It is sold under the name "Battletech: A Game of Armored Combat".</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sqK9TuHylD8/X-2SxMKVjzI/AAAAAAAADmM/vXHAcy_Yl9E3jSx4HQcF2cJqX7Z7qobtwCLcBGAsYHQ/s499/51twjMQ1F0L._SX379_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="381" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sqK9TuHylD8/X-2SxMKVjzI/AAAAAAAADmM/vXHAcy_Yl9E3jSx4HQcF2cJqX7Z7qobtwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/51twjMQ1F0L._SX379_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="color: #444444;">Current as of 2020</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u>Full Rules (Level 2)</u></b></span></p><p>Both box sets deal exclusively with giant stompy robots, and for a lot of people that's more than enough. However, that isn't the WHOLE game. See, Battletech is an abstract board game system that has the capacity to represent all aspects of a battle, from giant mecha, to infantry, to aircraft, to even spacecraft and orbital bombardments. To get the full rules for representing literally any kind of thing in a game of Battletech, you'll need to get the core rule book, called "Total Warfare". Total Warfare is the official tournament level rule book used by referees at major gaming competitions at conventions around the world.</p><p>Adjacent to Total War is a second corebook that is all about making custom units that are technically valid in the game. This book is called the Tech Manual.</p><p>A more recent and third corebook is also available, called the Mech Manual. It is, essentially, Total War but for mecha units only. That way, if all you have is the board game and mech figures, you can still experience the full rules without having to dig through all the cruft about unit types you don't even have. The Mech Manual is not a tournament book like Total War, but it'll give you a similar experience in your home games. It is also better organized, which is weird for a nerd game book.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kdPx1-sr3Kc/X-2THXWjHUI/AAAAAAAADmY/O5JBhh7coLYs4wp0ZjcM4FlWWRNZVJ6CwCLcBGAsYHQ/s362/280px-967ysls4o82r25slol9pc33ahbumers.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="362" data-original-width="280" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kdPx1-sr3Kc/X-2THXWjHUI/AAAAAAAADmY/O5JBhh7coLYs4wp0ZjcM4FlWWRNZVJ6CwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/280px-967ysls4o82r25slol9pc33ahbumers.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="color: #444444;">Current as of 2020</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u>Advanced Rules (Level 3)</u></b></span></p><p>There are essentially 3 advanced rules books.</p><p>Tactical Operations just adds more of everything to the core combat game. It's a great expansion that allows you to represent warfare in a truly granular sort of way. Currently, tac ops has been split into 2 separate books, one for rules and one for equipment, as the original book was 400+ pages long.</p><p>Strategic Operations contains rules for waging combat within a single star system. Its time scale is set in hours. This book and the other following advanced rules books use a new game system called Battleforce to represent especially large scaled conflicts, rather than defaulting to playing a million games of core battletech. (Newer editions omit Battleforce, as it has been displaced by Alpha Strike)</p><p>Interstellar Operations is the same as Strat-Ops, except it's scaled up even more to represent conflict between multiple star systems and interstellar empires. This book's time scale is set in months.</p><p><b style="font-size: x-large;"><u>Adjacent Products</u></b></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u>RPGs</u></b></span></p><p>Alright, let's talk about the Battletech RPGs right off the bat. The idea of the RPGs, is that they should allow players to roleplay out the scenes that happen between combat, creating a sort of window-trimming to justify the board game's events into an improvised narrative. All four RPGs are valid games, but only Destiny is considered current, the others are just kind of legacy products at this point. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ltslhIKp2oE/YAP-xA8AqqI/AAAAAAAADsg/k17g9N3zTbQIZ1jvqR1hG3xTavjVV1g1wCLcBGAsYHQ/s353/MWRPG.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="353" data-original-width="268" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ltslhIKp2oE/YAP-xA8AqqI/AAAAAAAADsg/k17g9N3zTbQIZ1jvqR1hG3xTavjVV1g1wCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/MWRPG.jpg" /></a></div><br />First there is the original Mechwarrior RPG, which had at least 3 editions since it was originally published in the 90s.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ft_h154LkH4/YAP-UXhTWlI/AAAAAAAADsY/l5L62WptD1UIOypvEyWcI1l-pqusgqbugCLcBGAsYHQ/s362/CBT%2BRPG.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="362" data-original-width="280" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ft_h154LkH4/YAP-UXhTWlI/AAAAAAAADsY/l5L62WptD1UIOypvEyWcI1l-pqusgqbugCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/CBT%2BRPG.jpg" /></a></div><br />Then there's the Classic Battletech RPG by WizKids, still being sold in pdf by Catalyst. It is literally just a renamed copy of MW RPG 3e, with a new cover and some incorporated errata.<p></p><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HFY8g1DdO1Q/YAP-G3wjOsI/AAAAAAAADsU/ch51TCcdS2Y8Jy5OntfRQuwJIxmeWX_FwCLcBGAsYHQ/s362/atow.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="362" data-original-width="280" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HFY8g1DdO1Q/YAP-G3wjOsI/AAAAAAAADsU/ch51TCcdS2Y8Jy5OntfRQuwJIxmeWX_FwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/atow.jpg" /></a></div><br />Catalyst then rewrote the MW RPG from the ground up, creating a fourth edition of the game, albeit a fairly differently balanced and less random one. It is nolonger the official role-playing conduit for the franchise, despite also still being sold. (In PDF format of course, a hardback of the AToW corebook can go for over 1000$ at the moment.) Some fans have a noted disdain for the restructuring of these rules, preferring the 2nd or 3rd edition of the MW RPG.<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nCIizubr1Sw/X-2UAYSUXFI/AAAAAAAADms/Q5HI76sc4qoi8MEWYGafAdjW7283KRjmgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/be01e58d-5beb-571d-907f-b4dcf54287b5.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="770" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nCIizubr1Sw/X-2UAYSUXFI/AAAAAAAADms/Q5HI76sc4qoi8MEWYGafAdjW7283KRjmgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/be01e58d-5beb-571d-907f-b4dcf54287b5.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="color: #444444;">Current as of 2020</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>Most recently, Catalyst has released another RPG called Mechwarrior: Destiny. This game is not an original game system like the other two, nor is it derived from them. Rather, it cannibalizes the Bubblegumshoe system for the Battletech universe. I have no idea how the heck that works, or if it is compatible with the mainline game. Apparently, it is intended to be much simpler and streamlined, with completely original mech scale combat rules. Honestly, at that point, I'd probably just run the BT universe using the Mongoose Traveller 2nd edition rules.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PL1I5rizGi0/YAIFXdHtJ3I/AAAAAAAADoU/2UkrUUbjctkXahy5wzKRlASLF5L7tVmiACLcBGAsYHQ/s659/%2524_57__18563.1506041382.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="659" data-original-width="494" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PL1I5rizGi0/YAIFXdHtJ3I/AAAAAAAADoU/2UkrUUbjctkXahy5wzKRlASLF5L7tVmiACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/%2524_57__18563.1506041382.jpeg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="color: #444444;">Current as of 2020</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u>Campaign Operations</u></b></span></p><p>Next up is Campaign Operations, which is a sort of stand-alone book in the style of the advanced rule books, but without any real rules. Rather, Camp-Ops gives guidance on how to create and manage ongoing multi-session narratives of a series of Battletech games. This book is conceptually compatible with all other Battletech products, but works best as a tool to help bridge the gap between the RPG products and the mainline games, especially when advanced rules are in use.</p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u></u></b></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hG7USZkOVZs/YAIFlT94qcI/AAAAAAAADoY/FNPWZpmKEJI-9jdIk6rUzLf3_UmaGI_HACLcBGAsYHQ/s630/pic4936606.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="485" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hG7USZkOVZs/YAIFlT94qcI/AAAAAAAADoY/FNPWZpmKEJI-9jdIk6rUzLf3_UmaGI_HACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/pic4936606.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="color: #444444;">Current as of 2020</i></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u></u></b></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u><br />Alpha Strike</u></b></span><p></p><p>The third adjacent product I think we need to talk about, is called Alpha Strike. This is a rules light contemporary reinterpretation of Battletech as a wargame. It is designed to handle far more units and be more efficient with time management. A battle that would take hours in CBT might take minutes in AS. Alpha Strike is an evolution from the Battleforce rules that debuted in the advanced rule books. It is not readily compatible with any other BT products except the figures and maybe Camp-Ops. That said, in the years since its publication, AS has displaced the wargame rules, and is currently being pushed as THE Battletech wargame, as opposed to the mainline board game. It can be very hard to find a hardback copy of AS rules, and good condition copies can be worth a lot.</p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u></u></b></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e-MpO7Ahp8A/YAIF3Wti65I/AAAAAAAADok/mqb8p47eZiMeztN5a572SrShhAr0W79ywCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/battletechcards.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1267" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e-MpO7Ahp8A/YAIF3Wti65I/AAAAAAAADok/mqb8p47eZiMeztN5a572SrShhAr0W79ywCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/battletechcards.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #444444;"><i>Ah, it looks so much like the 90s I can smell the cheap cardboard.</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u></u></b></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u><br />MechWarrior Card Game</u></b></span><p></p><p>There also used to be a card game. It is out of print. The cards are collectors items of a sort, but only valuable to a dwindling coven of elder nerds.</p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u></u></b></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-B0H6-_nuJS4/YAIGIlv8cvI/AAAAAAAADow/w7BspFIeC7cjWRbEPkyXfqAbWNlYPBffACLcBGAsYHQ/s840/Wilson%2527s_Hussars_MechWarrior.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="840" data-original-width="691" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-B0H6-_nuJS4/YAIGIlv8cvI/AAAAAAAADow/w7BspFIeC7cjWRbEPkyXfqAbWNlYPBffACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Wilson%2527s_Hussars_MechWarrior.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #444444;"><i>NGL, Mechwarrior fashion is an excuse for sexist writing in the early novels.</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u></u></b></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u><br />Fiction</u></b></span><p></p><p>Aside from actual gaming products, Battletech is distinguished from most other games by having a deep and richly detailed fiction element. This fiction is more than just a tie-in product or a justification for the game. If anything, the game is an expression of the fiction in a way. Most battletech communities online will spend a great deal more time talking about the fiction as compared to the actual game. There are 3 main branches of Battletech fiction: Technical Readouts, Sourcebooks, and Novels.</p><p><b><u></u></b></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-C1xsRHWTN1I/YAIGaSOE7KI/AAAAAAAADo4/ErLr0fVrCtI-JJOVKmk78e41mvtKnYapACLcBGAsYHQ/s1023/E-CAT35136_BatleTech_Technical_Readout_Clan_Invasion_1024x1024.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="788" data-original-width="1023" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-C1xsRHWTN1I/YAIGaSOE7KI/AAAAAAAADo4/ErLr0fVrCtI-JJOVKmk78e41mvtKnYapACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/E-CAT35136_BatleTech_Technical_Readout_Clan_Invasion_1024x1024.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #444444;"><i>The latest TROs use named eras instead of starting years.</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><u></u></b></div><b><u><br />Technical Readouts</u></b><p></p><p>Technical readouts give you the in-universe details about the technology used during a certain time period or by a certain faction. They don't give much in the way of usable game stats, but they will tell you things like, "The Timber Wolf is known as the Mad Cat to the Inner Sphere. When it was first encountered, the targeting computer struggled to identify it, confusing it for a hybrid between a marauder (MAD) and a catapult (CAT) causing its identification name to flick back and forth between the two designations."</p><p><b><u></u></b></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hrItMxfArUY/YAIGpTboQdI/AAAAAAAADo8/WFGiR1Z1FfY6YTH00PVLZupAmsdQEUycQCLcBGAsYHQ/s368/280px-3j00lyrzpsg2rynxjw6qbqum4ttgzeh.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="368" data-original-width="280" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hrItMxfArUY/YAIGpTboQdI/AAAAAAAADo8/WFGiR1Z1FfY6YTH00PVLZupAmsdQEUycQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/280px-3j00lyrzpsg2rynxjw6qbqum4ttgzeh.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #444444;"><i>The game has moved away from these in favor of smaller PDFs.</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><u></u></b></div><b><u><br />Sourcebooks</u></b><p></p><p>Sourcebooks are everything you'd expect given the name. Just like for an RPG, sourcebooks tell you all about factions, places, time periods, historic events, etc. They're kind of like fiction textbooks. Unlike tabletop RPGs however, BT sourcebooks lack much usable game info. They're more for entertainment, and the pictures are often used as inspiration for how to paint one's own units to suit their favorite faction.</p><p><b><u></u></b></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4oOFILKCg8M/YAIHAsW1DxI/AAAAAAAADpI/YA5akIZfgcQmB4Y1jL5JahiELLnZdCqqgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/iupbkpfqni821.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4oOFILKCg8M/YAIHAsW1DxI/AAAAAAAADpI/YA5akIZfgcQmB4Y1jL5JahiELLnZdCqqgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/iupbkpfqni821.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #444444;"><i>Pictured is the Warrior Trilogy, the foundation for the whole setting's history.</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><u></u></b></div><b><u><br />Novels</u></b><p></p><p>Then you have the novels. The original novels were published in the 80s and for FASA Battletech, and... well, they're rough. Some of the writing is kind of ham fisted and tone deaf. Then you have the Dark Ages books, which I know nothing about. Finally, you have the current classic Battletech books which are being written to fit the Catalyst Labs interpretation of the setting. The novels expand on the lore in a way the board games simply do not, and a lot of them really tie the narrative of the Mechwarrior videogames to the lore of the Battletech setting. You will hear a lot of people compare the BT novels to Game of Thrones. This is only true in the most superficial of ways. The writing isn't THAT good, but it's passable pulp that brings the lore in the other fiction books to life.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Fiy6OCjTESk/YAPouV6csqI/AAAAAAAADrQ/l0GdLSjwBZYBapPar9C2M271zhnlQIhzQCLcBGAsYHQ/s336/Lostech.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="260" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Fiy6OCjTESk/YAPouV6csqI/AAAAAAAADrQ/l0GdLSjwBZYBapPar9C2M271zhnlQIhzQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Lostech.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #444444;"><i>Get it? Eh? Eh?</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u>Obsolete(ish) Products</u></b></span></p><p>Ok, let's talk about the products you might run across that aren't as applicable to modern play as one might hope. These are old rules expansions that either got absorbed into more unified rule books later on, or turned into a different game system entirely.</p><p><b><u></u></b></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bTSbOGXUsL4/YAPptj0B1ZI/AAAAAAAADrc/oFAcN3nFm6A1Y_Bqh7Kg8IzHp-NZ3bPbQCLcBGAsYHQ/s280/Citytech.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="245" data-original-width="280" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bTSbOGXUsL4/YAPptj0B1ZI/AAAAAAAADrc/oFAcN3nFm6A1Y_Bqh7Kg8IzHp-NZ3bPbQCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/Citytech.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #444444;"><i>Early rules expansions were conceived as standalone board games.</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><u></u></b></div><b><u><br />CityTech</u></b><p></p><p>A boxed set expanding on the classic BattleTech boardgame but also playable as a stand-alone game, CityTech provided rules for tanks, infantry and buildings in addition to the standard game rules. It also presented a number of additional BattleMech designs and tanks. All of this would later be compiled into the Battletech Compendiums, which would later be corrected and reorganized to be published as Total Warfare.</p><p><b><u></u></b></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lzfBffLs2vQ/YAPpwo-79kI/AAAAAAAADrg/7X96nEYj81UF4DeNg8-3rW6o7g3bAdXfQCLcBGAsYHQ/s280/Aerotech.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="261" data-original-width="280" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lzfBffLs2vQ/YAPpwo-79kI/AAAAAAAADrg/7X96nEYj81UF4DeNg8-3rW6o7g3bAdXfQCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/Aerotech.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #444444;"><i>Pictured is the first AeroTech, I like its box more.</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><u></u></b></div><b><u><br />AeroTech (1 & 2)</u></b><p></p><p>The first AeroTech was a box set expansion that added rules for aerospace operations that supposedly lead up to the ground battles the original game represents. They dealt with orbital and aerial combat involving individual fighters, Land-Air Mechs (LAMs), and a later supplement added dropships and jumpships. AeroTech 1 would eventually become obsolete as it was replaced by BattleSpace, which expanded the content to include warships and even interstellar war. Aerotech 1 is largely obsolete.</p><p>AeroTech 2 displaced BattleSpace by fully integrating the aerospace and interstellar combat rules with the core BattleTech rules in a coherent way. Like the others in this section, these rules were eventually absorbed into the rules compilations books, which then became the content used to make the current corebooks. However, most of the orbital and interstellar combat elements have been moved to advanced rules books, specifically Strategic Operations and Interstellar Operations.</p><p><b><u></u></b></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4gdGYYLJ6DE/YAPpzZWGSeI/AAAAAAAADrk/Ra2iSJxRQ8Uzw676whQq1ecPGvUVSmTSwCLcBGAsYHQ/s365/Battletroops.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="365" data-original-width="280" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4gdGYYLJ6DE/YAPpzZWGSeI/AAAAAAAADrk/Ra2iSJxRQ8Uzw676whQq1ecPGvUVSmTSwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Battletroops.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #444444;"><i>Never published as a box set, people had to be inventive for minis.</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><u></u></b></div><b><u><br />BattleTroops</u></b><p></p><p>The BattleTroops Rulebook contains the guidelines that allow players to conduct infantry-based small unit actions in the BattleTech Universe of the pre-Clan Invasion era in the Inner Sphere. Focusing on small unit actions, the system bridges the gap between the MechWarrior/RPG 1st or 2nd edition and the BattleMech-based Classic BattleTech, it uses an original set of rules and deals with several situations allowing a good range of versatility. The Total Warfare book currently includes rules for infantry alongside all other vehicle types, for any era.</p><p><b><u></u></b></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cHWHBUnJNMA/YAPp24eXglI/AAAAAAAADro/78hnePymbJEBIDs_o3Z1qik_lF0hqviOgCLcBGAsYHQ/s512/Battleforce.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="460" data-original-width="512" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cHWHBUnJNMA/YAPp24eXglI/AAAAAAAADro/78hnePymbJEBIDs_o3Z1qik_lF0hqviOgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Battleforce.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #444444;"><i>You can still get BF2 as a standalone game in pdf format.</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><u></u></b></div><b><u><br />BattleForce</u></b><p></p><p>Published in 1989, based on BattleTech 2nd Edition, BattleForce is a boardgame that is set on a larger scale. Instead of individual vehicles, players control lance-sized units; the map scale and timescale per turn was enlarged accordingly. "A game of Small Unit Actions in the 31st Century", featuring mapsheets that, while printed to the same physical size as BattleTech hexes, represented 180 m of ground space (later changed to 90 m). Turns are similarly scaled up, representing 60 seconds of time. BattleForce was the first BattleTech game to introduce a game wide level of abstraction, grouping 'Mechs, vehicles and air support into single units at the Lance level. Doing away with record sheets and instead aggregating unit damage to a simple set of steps recorded on the counter itself, BattleForce is intended for the convenient staging of battles between regiment sized forces. BattleForce uses a unique type of playing piece that allows the use of limited military intelligence and playability to come together in one game. Three levels of information are available for each piece; whether it is a 'Mech, AeroSpace Fighter, or tank; whether a lance is recon, light, medium, etc.; and whether the piece represents green, regular, veteran, or elite experience level. This system recreates the fog of war, and calls for the intelligent use of your diverse forces. The BattleForce scale of play has carried through into the current Strategic Operations rulebook.</p><p>Although BF rules are still present in the corebooks, ever since Alpha Strike was developed, Catalyst has been moving away from these rules and the general tabletop wargame play of CBT in favor of AS for wargaming, preferring to leave CBT as the boardgame experience and BF as a vestigial remnant attached to that monolith. BF is a very different beast than AS however, with AS being an efficient way of running lots of units individually, rather than moving a few unites that represent many individuals in a scaled up and abstract form with limited information. As such, because BF still provides something unique to the franchise, especially in extremely large-scale campaign play, it is unlikely to disappear.</p><p><b></b></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0xdDELqa9aY/YAPp5umdaOI/AAAAAAAADrs/3JrIKMnkl64uI6giZcKmE4tGZR54d2lNQCLcBGAsYHQ/s512/Battlespace.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="408" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0xdDELqa9aY/YAPp5umdaOI/AAAAAAAADrs/3JrIKMnkl64uI6giZcKmE4tGZR54d2lNQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Battlespace.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #444444;"><i>This is probably the most obsolete product in the article.</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b></b></div><b><br />BattleSpace</b><p></p><p>This was a space combat game set in the BattleTech universe, replacing the outdated AeroTech. It expanded the latter's concepts and incorporated information from the DropShips and JumpShips sourcebook and other Clan Invasion era publications, focusing on WarShips instead of aerospace fighters. It would in turn later be replaced by AeroTech 2; the most recent and up-to-date edition of the aerospace and space combat rules is spread over the most recent set of rulebooks (Total Warfare, Tech Manual, Tactical Operations, and Strategic Operations). The rules have since undergone considerable change, to the point where the stats for capital ships as published in the original version of the Technical Readout: 3057 (which was conceived as a companion Technical Readout for BattleSpace) had to be changed.</p><p><b><u></u></b></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Hwely8f-h1Y/YAPqTDDV_cI/AAAAAAAADr8/r-A35_MQJqAIeVvpOwW6rBcm-JMamr2tQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1200/clix.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Hwely8f-h1Y/YAPqTDDV_cI/AAAAAAAADr8/r-A35_MQJqAIeVvpOwW6rBcm-JMamr2tQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/clix.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #444444;"><i>The figures for this game were so bad, they put me off of the hobby for a decade.</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><u></u></b></div><b><u><br />Clix</u></b><p></p><p>Clix is a miniatures wargaming system developed by WizKids. It is characterized by the use of a dial wheel in the base of miniature figurines. The dial can be turned to reveal hidden information, representing the changing statistics of the figurine as the game progresses. This has been rebranded into the Combat Dial System by WizKids. It was used for the MechWarrior: Dark Age Miniature Set. There are currently no in-print games that use this system, and all such products are collectors items.</p><p>The sculpts for this game are derided for their low quality, both in the design and in the materials they were cast from. While admittedly some of the CBT sculpts aren't much better, it is important to note that a lot of that was based on art made in the 80s and early 90s because mecha anime really appeared in the West, while these were all made after 2000 when artists should have known better and the aesthetic in the Mechwarrior games proved as much. The plastic used was rubbery, which prevented it from holding fine details. As such, the models were blobby, which made it very difficult to repaint them and make it look good.<span></span></p><!--more--><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-t-tjdGUT9Jk/X-2Uyv3_HMI/AAAAAAAADm4/FhTyp4FzFtAHbDOwZFa1MQxq3aLf9jV4gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/inner_sphere_map__alt_3025__by_spake759_ddqb13x-fullview.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1079" data-original-width="1280" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-t-tjdGUT9Jk/X-2Uyv3_HMI/AAAAAAAADm4/FhTyp4FzFtAHbDOwZFa1MQxq3aLf9jV4gCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/inner_sphere_map__alt_3025__by_spake759_ddqb13x-fullview.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #444444;"><i>A map of the inner sphere, shortly before the clan invasion.</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><u>Lore Guide</u></b></span></p><p>Ok, so let's do a rundown of the lore of the setting, which we've kind of touched on a little earlier in this article. Let's start with an overview of what Battletech is all about.</p><p>The game's lore centers on the events of human civilization spreading out into the stars faster than is economically sustainable. Civilization then begins a centuries-long technological backslide as war destroys infrastructure and kills specialists. Central to these futuristic conflicts are the battlemechs, which are roughly 16 meter tall walking armored fighting vehicles. Many are humanoid in appearance. The people who operate these giant murder engines are called Mechwarriors. Battlemechs connect to their mechwarrior's mind using a neuro helmet, which allows its AI component to interpret the mechwarrior's commands and execute them, while also using their brain to help process information. This is how battlemechs have a center of balance and don't fall over the instant they get hit by a missile. Most war in the battletech universe (up to the Jihad era) is resolved by having small groups of battlemechs (called a lance or a star) and a few support units duke it out away from civilization. This format of war began because the technology was becoming unsustainably more advanced than the people who were maintaining and fielding it, and people just couldn't handle the consequences of destroying any more infrastructure. (After all, what good is it to conquer a planet and then not be able to profit from it because the people are now dying of starvation?) Because of this mode of combat, battlemechs become incredibly valuable family heirlooms, passed down through generations of warrior families. The total loss of a single battlemech and its Mechwarrior can be utterly crippling to a planet's ability to defend itself as an independent entity. Eventually, battlefield salvage of disabled battlemechs and other LosTech (lost technology) becomes more valuable than some planets. The mechwarriors themselves come to be a sort of higher class of people, roughly analogous to medieval knights, but even more flamboyant and with no code of honor.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-L-Fc8LgTirY/X-2VMtEGmKI/AAAAAAAADnA/vcmy-Ew2D6sb1AEbJdy68Y6wDODM6kBQACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/d4gvzbr-88cb44b8-f4eb-46fb-ae2e-9270237f4223.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1784" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-L-Fc8LgTirY/X-2VMtEGmKI/AAAAAAAADnA/vcmy-Ew2D6sb1AEbJdy68Y6wDODM6kBQACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/d4gvzbr-88cb44b8-f4eb-46fb-ae2e-9270237f4223.png" width="320" /></a></div><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u>Timeline</u></b></span></p><p>Ok, now that you have an idea of the premise, let's go over an overall timeline. The timeline is broken up into named eras. Each era technically represents a time period in which players can stage their games, changing which units are available to field, what factions exist, and who's fighting who and where and why. In total, there are 12 definitive eras, though they are grouped into larger era categories.</p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u></u></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-odpSBSTu0Uk/YAIHOSpKDCI/AAAAAAAADpM/Y729KKPt0jkJ4bpKNf22nckHIdGmhNDFwCLcBGAsYHQ/s200/starleague_on.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-odpSBSTu0Uk/YAIHOSpKDCI/AAAAAAAADpM/Y729KKPt0jkJ4bpKNf22nckHIdGmhNDFwCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/starleague_on.png" /></a></u></b></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u><br />Age of War and Star League (2005 - 2780)</u></b></span><p></p><p>The story goes like this: Some guys invent a fusion reactor. GM gets into the space race and gets us to and back from Mars with a fusion rocket. Using ideas invented by the guys who made the fusion reactor theory, we invented jump drive. Within years, humanity had colonized systems in a sphere outward from Sol to 30 lightyears. From now on, this region is called the inner sphere. The Terran Hegemony couldn't handle the economic stress of sustaining all that mess, so it collapsed into infighting, and the space navy decided to just establish order with themselves as the leaders. That went OK, but also eventually wasn't going to work out on its own, leading to the formation of a new galactic civilization called the Star League, which was basically the Federation of Planets from Star Trek, but corrupt and dysfunctional because they forced the periphery states to join by threat of violence. 200 years of peace follow. This is a technological golden age for humanity. During that time, the Star League becomes feudal, which really is just a big warning sign for what happens next. (Hint: Those periphery states never got over being subjugated)</p><p>This era is technically divided into two eras, 2005-2570 is the Age of War, while 2571-2790 is Star League.</p><p>The Age of War, itself, is divided into 3 sub-eras of its own. 2005-2242 is the First Exodus. 2242-2398 is the Second Exodus. 2398-2370 is the Age of War proper.</p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u></u></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RU8lkeuTpRA/YAIIR2hWH1I/AAAAAAAADpo/0L1omUn6oJQ8APABshTJtn8MDNDysiZygCLcBGAsYHQ/s200/successionwar_on.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RU8lkeuTpRA/YAIIR2hWH1I/AAAAAAAADpo/0L1omUn6oJQ8APABshTJtn8MDNDysiZygCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/successionwar_on.png" /></a></u></b></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u><br />Succession Wars (2781 - 3049)</u></b></span><p></p><p>The lord of the Star League and his entire family are killed in an attempted coup. Their superhero-general-guy wages a war to unseat the usurper. The successor states, the great houses of the Star League, disband the superhero general's army, then disband the star league, then get down to starting a new stone age the violent way. Superhero general packs up his followers and leaves to start his own pointless infighting but with hookers and blackjack. His son takes a portion of those jerks even farther away to try and rebuild something of what once was. During this period, there is a series of 4 major conflicts; the first, second, third, and fourth succession war, each respectively.</p><p>The succession Wars is divided into 2 lesser eras. 2781-2900 is the Early Succession Wars, while 2301-3049 are the Late Succession Wars.</p><p>Oddly, the four individual wars are not treated as separate eras unto themselves. The Late Succession Wars era actually begins partway through the 3rd SW. Their exact dates are as follows.</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>The First Succession War spanned 2186-2821.</li><li>The Second Succession War spanned 2830-2864.</li><li>The Third Succession War spanned 2866-3025.</li><li>The Fourth Succession War spanned 3028-3030.</li></ul><p></p><p>Each succession war was separated by a short span of unstable peace. The era is as a whole, likewise, bookended by short periods of relative stability.</p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u></u></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FQVdGE616EQ/YAIIlIJpxII/AAAAAAAADp0/oHl-IAeKSP8vE2cq1VA9Yyd91e8QD3VDgCLcBGAsYHQ/s200/claninvasion_on.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FQVdGE616EQ/YAIIlIJpxII/AAAAAAAADp0/oHl-IAeKSP8vE2cq1VA9Yyd91e8QD3VDgCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/claninvasion_on.png" /></a></u></b></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u><br />Clan Invasion (3050 - 3061)</u></b></span><p></p><p>A bunch of tribal warrior people calling themselves The Clans attack out of nowhere, interrupting some perfectly good infighting between near post-apocalyptic space empires. These guys are really good at war, and they have better tech in every single way. The successor states half-abandon their petty squabbles to face these new attackers, with two factions combining into the Federated Commonwealth. SURPRISE! The clans are actually the descendants of those jerks the Superhero General took out to the middle of nowhere a couple decades ago! They're trying to start a new Star League! WITH VIOLENCE! Who could resist such a tempting offer? They get their asses kicked because they can't economically sustain a long-term interstellar war. Their tech is awesome but expensive, and their soldiers are awesome but not easily replaced once lost.</p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u></u></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fOgrDXUPoyA/YAIIqQ9USJI/AAAAAAAADp4/MK0E1l10BC4TAfrH0j3bkJtb0RagbudLQCLcBGAsYHQ/s200/civilwar_on.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fOgrDXUPoyA/YAIIqQ9USJI/AAAAAAAADp4/MK0E1l10BC4TAfrH0j3bkJtb0RagbudLQCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/civilwar_on.png" /></a></u></b></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u><br />Civil War (3062 - 3067)</u></b></span><p></p><p>The inner sphere manages to completely exterminate the most aggressive clan. The other clans take note. With the main threat dealt with, everyone goes back to killing each other, because why learn a lesson when you can keep banging your head against a brick wall instead?! That's pretty much it. The Federated Commonwealth splits up as each house is sucked into its own separate civil war, and then they go to war with each other again.</p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u></u></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wz5ewIm8b40/YAIHYEnilrI/AAAAAAAADpU/DFmo-i0HVForrJIwo5coLyvxJH4avTjogCLcBGAsYHQ/s200/jihad_on.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wz5ewIm8b40/YAIHYEnilrI/AAAAAAAADpU/DFmo-i0HVForrJIwo5coLyvxJH4avTjogCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/jihad_on.png" /></a></u></b></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u><br />Jihad (3068 - 3080)</u></b></span><p></p><p>This'll take a touch of explanation. So back in the Clan Invasion days, the first point where the clans were turned back was at planet Tukayyid, where an organization called Comstar (Aptly nicknamed "Space AT&T" by the fans) canned them hard. Comstar is a business and a religion that focuses on providing interstellar communications across the sphere and periphery. Their goal is to get the inner sphere fighting so bad, they can swoop in with a new Star League of their own as the galaxy's saviors. The Jihad is when a splinter faction loses their patience and just start bombing shit. They use nukes for the first time in over a millennium. For the first time in centuries, full scale war happens and the people of the galaxy are horrified.</p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u></u></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HC4EnOhx1Yk/YAIHzanseYI/AAAAAAAADpg/klZb3aDF31YWJ4hBaVOqGwTstWLuDxDfQCLcBGAsYHQ/s200/darkage_on.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HC4EnOhx1Yk/YAIHzanseYI/AAAAAAAADpg/klZb3aDF31YWJ4hBaVOqGwTstWLuDxDfQCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/darkage_on.png" /></a></u></b></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u><br />Dark Age (3081-3150)</u></b></span><p></p><p>Things start to look up in the aftermath of the Jihad. A new IS wide government called the Republic of the Sphere forms from the chaos that was the heart of the inner sphere. Then things go pear-shaped in a hurry as interstellar communications collapse and takes all of civilization with it. Everyone goes back to war. (This is why you pay your phone bill!) That's why it's called a dark age, not because of a loss of tech, but because the communications shut down essentially leaves everyone in the dark. For some reason, they decide gothic robot football players is a cool aesthetic for all their mechs.</p><p>This is divided into 2 lesser eras. 3081–3130 is the Formation of the Republic. 3131–3150 is the Dark Age proper.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qSQwo3qEv0g/YAP0IAS10OI/AAAAAAAADsI/0fBJg_YIBYc_XxXC2itATlAKL3B6bIflQCLcBGAsYHQ/s309/IlClan.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="309" data-original-width="275" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qSQwo3qEv0g/YAP0IAS10OI/AAAAAAAADsI/0fBJg_YIBYc_XxXC2itATlAKL3B6bIflQCLcBGAsYHQ/w178-h200/IlClan.png" width="178" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u>ilClan (3150+)</u></b></span><p></p><p>In 3150, the Republic of the Sphere was crumbling inside of the Fortress Republic after infighting between various Inner Sphere, Clan, and Republic splinter factions, within and without the Republic. An unidentified clan would take this opportunity and make a race towards Terra to restore the Star League with a Clan-based styling. The ilClan is the Clan term for the "Clan of all Clans", determined by which Clan manages to capture the cradle of humanity: Terra. The senior Khan of the ilClan would then become ilKhan in perpetuity, and all future ilKhans would be chosen from the ilClan. In essence, the concept of ilClan determines which Clan the new First Lord of the resurrected Star League would descend from.</p><p>This is the current era in development by CGL. It has no definitive end state yet.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zC6Wix9R_vE/X-2VdAUNutI/AAAAAAAADnI/Vm9vfxwKXqAlzd2jYdnCjPXCJ7mDY1AgACLcBGAsYHQ/s1250/974304ce66f6ee6fab451c7f73ebee7492c6e00dc3ae024a428230a1951af3eeu6987.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1250" data-original-width="992" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zC6Wix9R_vE/X-2VdAUNutI/AAAAAAAADnI/Vm9vfxwKXqAlzd2jYdnCjPXCJ7mDY1AgACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/974304ce66f6ee6fab451c7f73ebee7492c6e00dc3ae024a428230a1951af3eeu6987.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #444444;"><i>This is, without a doubt, the most complex part of the game.</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u>Factions</u></b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;">The most complex part of the game's lore, however, are the different factions. See, unlike other franchises with intentional fanbase division, the factions in Battletech are not rigid and permanent. They change, blend, and mutate based on the era of play. Even within a single era, factions might change forms between the beginning and end of that time period. This makes talking about the factions really difficult. To complicate matters, the inner sphere isn't the entirety of settled space, there are other regions beyond the sphere, called the periphery, that also have their own factions. And to make things even worse, there are lesser factions that act as components of or overlap with the greater factions, such as specific mercenary units or rebel organizations! I'll... try to go over it all. In simplified terms. And I'm not going into sub-factions, either, just the big players.</p><p><b style="font-size: large;"><u></u></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-size: large;"><u><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3aHwoivSCzI/YAIOeAGF-NI/AAAAAAAADqU/oA42y6NcjLIRIY4h6dC4mukb6GbNGKMCACLcBGAsYHQ/s500/d4ys9jr-a4260956-9a58-4a2f-bb12-8a97501630d0.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3aHwoivSCzI/YAIOeAGF-NI/AAAAAAAADqU/oA42y6NcjLIRIY4h6dC4mukb6GbNGKMCACLcBGAsYHQ/w200-h200/d4ys9jr-a4260956-9a58-4a2f-bb12-8a97501630d0.png" width="200" /></a></u></b></div><b style="font-size: large;"><u><br />Capellan Confederation (House Liao)</u></b><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Originally settled by people from Terra’s Asian nations, one can see the roots of Chinese and Russian culture in people of House Liao’s Capellan Confederation. The smallest of the five Great Houses after centuries of unrelenting warfare, House Liao has come to embrace the harsh reality of police state politics and ruthless control to ensure their nation’s survival against its enemies. The Maskirovka, the Capellan secret police, keeps a cold and calculating eye on the Confederation’s people, who must earn their rights to be citizens, rather than expect such privileges from birth.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Nearly shattered by House Davion in the Fourth Succession War, the Confederation teetered on the edge of extinction until its latest Chancellor, Sun-Tzu Liao, rose to form the Trinity Alliance with the Magistracy of Canopus and the Taurian Concordat and reclaim much of what his realm lost in the Fourth Succession War. After bringing the renegade St. Ives Compact back into the fold during his wildly successful Xin Sheng political movement, Sun-Tzu’s reign promised the Confederation a return to its former glory—until the Word of Blake Jihad erupted and soon engulfed his state in a new Sphere-spanning war.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Although the Confederation effectively stands alone against the Blakeist menace, with only its allies in the Magistracy of Canopus for support, House Liao has maintained its determination to survive the worst that war can throw at it. For the people of this realm, the needs of the state will always take precedence over those of its individuals. This fact is as evident in the seemingly fanatical nature of the Capellan soldiery as it is in the open market communism that dominates the nation’s economy.</span></p><!--/data/user/0/com.samsung.android.app.notes/files/clipdata/clipdata_bodytext_210115_143804_780.sdocx--><p></p><p><span><b><u><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></u></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><u><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-B_sAMeZ1ZkI/YAIOiroGLaI/AAAAAAAADqY/EOrN2ZqY3kYzpdFz9CbQImJpDESvaMvdQCLcBGAsYHQ/s333/Draccombine.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="322" data-original-width="333" height="193" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-B_sAMeZ1ZkI/YAIOiroGLaI/AAAAAAAADqY/EOrN2ZqY3kYzpdFz9CbQImJpDESvaMvdQCLcBGAsYHQ/w200-h193/Draccombine.gif" width="200" /></a></span></u></b></div><b><u><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />Draconis Combine (House Kurita)</span></u></b><p></p><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><span>Patterned on the culture of feudal Japan, and ruled by a hierarchy of warlords loyal to the shogunate ideals of the ruling House Kurita, the Draconis Combine is a realm whose warriors and citizenry embrace the tenets of bushido—the ancient Japanese Way of the Warrior. To the people of the Combine, honor and duty are the very cornerstones of society, without which there can be nothing. While these social mores have made the Combine’s military one of the most fearsome and fanatical on the battlefield, it was the modernist reforms of Coordinator Theodore Kurita that transformed the DCMS into an even more deadly force.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><span>Hard pressed during the Clan invasion—to the point where their own capital of Luthien teetered on the brink of a Clan occupation—the “Dragon” repaid its would-be conquerors by leading the charge to Annihilate Clan Smoke Jaguar. Today the Combine is riddled with internal enemies in the form of the subversive Black Dragon Society, while fighting a war of attrition against the Word of Blake. Thus, Coordinator Hohiro Kurita and his supreme warlord, Kanrei Kiyomori Minamoto, now struggle to achieve the twin goals of unifying their realm while turning back the deadly Word of Blake offensive.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><span>A particularly harsh and xenophobic society, the Draconis Combine maintains a socialist market economy and a rigid leadership divided into social castes. Militarily, the Draconis Combine Mustered Soldiery continues to struggle with the competing ideals of personal honor and glory, and the need to function as a unit against a determined enemy. Thus, in battle it is as common to see a lone Combine warrior challenge a superior force as it is to see entire formations combine their might to bring down an enemy.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span><span><b><u><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></u></b></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><u><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xs6P6fM8B9c/YAIOmpTsNzI/AAAAAAAADqc/AjV4NzJjPdA-YVncIDKJs_Plv3THb4edwCLcBGAsYHQ/s333/Federated_Suns_Logo.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="332" data-original-width="333" height="199" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xs6P6fM8B9c/YAIOmpTsNzI/AAAAAAAADqc/AjV4NzJjPdA-YVncIDKJs_Plv3THb4edwCLcBGAsYHQ/w200-h199/Federated_Suns_Logo.png" width="200" /></a></span></u></b></div><b><u><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />Federated Suns (House Davion)</span></u></b><p></p><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><span><span>Seen by many as a realm that glorifies warfare, House Davion’s Federated Suns has one of the Inner Sphere’s most capable military forces, and their First Prince is seen as one of the mightiest rulers in the Sphere. Primarily settled and ruled by descendants of Terra’s Western Europe, the Federated Suns has adopted a nobility system based on feudal England and France, and professes the ideals of personal freedom and rule of law above all else.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><span><span>House Davion’s archenemies are its neighbors, House Liao’s Capellan Confederation and House Kurita’s Draconis Combine. During the Fourth Succession War, the Federated Suns united with House Steiner’s Lyran Commonwealth to create the Federated Commonwealth. Under this union, Houses Davion and Steiner conquered half the Confederation, and went on to challenge the might of House Kurita in the War of 3039. But this alliance eventually sundered during the FedCom Civil War in the 3060s. Now threatened by the Word of Blake and their Jihad, the Federated Suns once more stands beside its old enemies, united against a common threat.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><span><span>The Federated Suns is very liberal when it comes to personal freedom and trade, with a free market economy that allows its citizens to pursue personal profit. Militarily, they prefer combined-arms warfare and strategic initiative, valuing the virtues of logistics and maneuvering over brute force and savagery.</span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: 16px;"><span><!--/data/user/0/com.samsung.android.app.notes/files/clipdata/clipdata_bodytext_210115_144152_122.sdocx--></span></span><p></p><p><span><span><span><b><u><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></u></b></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><u><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K4wgAA02hA4/YAIOq32Ke2I/AAAAAAAADqg/-6xzW08-8Z4tyiT72FaztSatZrhSB6K0ACLcBGAsYHQ/s256/BattleTech_-_Free_Worlds_League_-_Marik.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="256" data-original-width="256" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K4wgAA02hA4/YAIOq32Ke2I/AAAAAAAADqg/-6xzW08-8Z4tyiT72FaztSatZrhSB6K0ACLcBGAsYHQ/w200-h200/BattleTech_-_Free_Worlds_League_-_Marik.png" width="200" /></a></span></u></b></div><b><u><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />Free Worlds League (House Marik)</span></u></b><p></p><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span><span><span><span>Unlike the other feudal realms of the Inner Sphere, the Free Worlds League is—at least on paper—a democracy. Although largely run by the Marik family for centuries (due to various circumstances and the provisions of an “emergency resolution” passed in the late 2700s), the League is actually a conglomerate of many smaller states and planets that allied long ago, and stands today as the oldest of the Successor States.</span></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span><span><span><span>Though internally divisive by nature and riddled with bureaucracy, the League has existed in relative peace for many years, and even escaped the worst of the Fourth Succession War. A civil war nearly sundered the realm in the 3030s, but the League recovered and gradually rose in stature over the decades since, fighting only a small and very effective war in 3057 while harboring the breakaway Word of Blake after that group’s formation. Becoming the arms dealer for the Inner Sphere after the Clans’ arrival, the Free Worlds’ industry and economy boomed, but with the start of the Jihad, even the people of the League were not immune. Shocked to learn that their Captain-General, Thomas Marik, was actually an impostor set on the throne by ComStar many decades ago, the League has begun to unravel at its seams. Today, at least three leaders have risen with a claim to the title of Captain-General, putting the entire realm on the verge of collapse.</span></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span><span><span><span>Defining itself as a nation of tolerance and open-mindedness, it comes as little surprise that the Free Worlds League also maintains an open market capitalist economy, which has helped to make it one of the most economically and socially progressive powers in the Inner Sphere. However, with a military made up of regional forces, the performance of its troops can vary with the political situation at home.</span></span></span></span></p><p></p><p><span><span><span><span><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u></u></b></span></span></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gWDJkd3Oakc/YAIOuMNjDlI/AAAAAAAADqo/a5xtpduxoHcilD5yakCWMlBRCeA6gwB6QCLcBGAsYHQ/s500/20151210205601%2521House_Steiner_Logo.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="408" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gWDJkd3Oakc/YAIOuMNjDlI/AAAAAAAADqo/a5xtpduxoHcilD5yakCWMlBRCeA6gwB6QCLcBGAsYHQ/w163-h200/20151210205601%2521House_Steiner_Logo.jpg" width="163" /></a></u></b></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u><br />Lyran Commonwealth/Alliance (House Steiner)</u></b></span><p></p><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span><span><span><span><span>Originally known as the Lyran Commonwealth, House Steiner’s Lyran Alliance is widely recognized as a nation of merchants and industrialists first, and warriors a distant second. Settled and dominated by predominantly Germanic and Scottish cultures, and ruled by the Steiner family through a combination of political intrigue and brute economic force, the Lyran state is united in the pursuit of status and wealth.</span></span></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span><span><span><span><span>Often on the defensive in the Succession Wars, House Steiner’s peace initiatives sparked the creation of the Federated Commonwealth, but when the Clans invaded, the Lyran half of that alliance suffered the bulk of their assault. The strain of this event and others led to the sundering of the Federated Commonwealth, the birth of the Lyran Alliance, and the eruption of the FedCom Civil War. In the wake of that conflict, the battered Alliance hoped to reclaim its lost glories under a new Archon, only to see the start of the Word of Blake Jihad firsthand with a surprise assault on their own capital world of Tharkad.</span></span></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span><span><span><span><span>Like the Federated Suns, the Lyran state enjoys an open market economy that boasts centuries of stability and success, boosted by the presence of some of the Inner Sphere’s most industrialized worlds. Although the reforms of the Federated Commonwealth era improved Lyran martial prowess, the influence of the socalled “social generals” and widespread confidence in “bigger equals better” firepower has returned House Steiner’s realm to a time when it was widely seen as militarily inept. Indeed, the Lyran solution to most problems is typically negotiation, barter, or covert action—but with their resources and wealth, the armies of House Steiner can often field heavier and more numerous forces than their enemies, producing a virtual wall of steel against an enemy advance</span></span></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span><span><span><span><span><b><u></u></b></span></span></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span><span><span><b><u><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oqs9a0p-uvA/YAQEIcOdrsI/AAAAAAAADs0/Z5-f0fpEd4AMPF7z3x05pmCwcVnF2wvbQCLcBGAsYHQ/s217/FRR.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="217" data-original-width="200" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oqs9a0p-uvA/YAQEIcOdrsI/AAAAAAAADs0/Z5-f0fpEd4AMPF7z3x05pmCwcVnF2wvbQCLcBGAsYHQ/w184-h200/FRR.jpg" width="184" /></a></u></b></span></span></span></div><span><span><span><b><u><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Free Rasalhague Republic / Rasalhague Dominion</span></u></b></span></span></span><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span><span><span><span><span>Scandinavian cultural template. Created from wayward provinces on both sides of the Kurita/Steiner border after the Fourth Succession War. At the time of its inception it was the sixth major Inner Sphere power, just after the five Successor States, but it was overrun by the Clans save for six worlds shortly after its creation. Eventually rejoined with its occupied territories in the formation of the Rasalhague Dominion.</span></span></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span><span><span><span><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u></u></b></span></span></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span><span><span><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rDOMvmbi3oU/YAQLUGqItzI/AAAAAAAADuE/5mNXE1WjMQQrKN_XlHJ0mYFna_7TCN9IgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2224/mercs.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1062" data-original-width="2224" height="96" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rDOMvmbi3oU/YAQLUGqItzI/AAAAAAAADuE/5mNXE1WjMQQrKN_XlHJ0mYFna_7TCN9IgCLcBGAsYHQ/w200-h96/mercs.png" width="200" /></a></u></b></span></span></span></span></div><span><span><span><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u><br />Mercenaries</u></b></span></span></span></span><p></p><p>Mercenaries are an important part of the BattleTech fictional universe; the Inner Sphere and Periphery have many private military companies.</p><p></p><p>A Mercenary is a soldier for hire, a warrior who fights not for a particular cause or goal but for material gain. In the Inner Sphere, private, contracted military units have been doing a lot of the fighting. Some are only in it for the cash, some for principle, but, whatever the reason, mercenary forces run the gamut from some the most disreputable to some the most elite troops available. Many mercenary companies do not survive their first battle, but dozens have gone on to become successful, trusted units that form key parts of their employers' defenses.</p><p>As the various mercenary factions are independent and competing businesses, it is quite rare for them to work as a faction together. Nonetheless, some of the companies are quite powerful and their actions have influenced the history of the known universe.</p><p>Mercenary companies vary in size from very small platoons or lance-sized units up to forces comprising multiple regiments with supporting warships; backed by arms-manufacturers and the like.</p><p><span><span></span></span></p><p>Attitudes differ among mercenary companies. Some like to live in the spotlight, actively pursuing battle, whether for fame or for money, such as Ace Darwin's Whipits, the Bad Dreams, the Black Heart Roses, Blanc's Coyotes, Black Omen, the Fighting Shamrocks, etc. Others prefer to avoid the limelight, like Vinson's Vigilantes, the Broadstreet Bullies, Black Angus’s Boys, Clifton's Rangers, The Furies, Heavyhell Raisers, the Hsien Hotheads, etc. Still more serve the wishes and commands of tyrants.</p><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span><span><span><span><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u></u></b></span></span></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span><span><span><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JNwtjT6O6W0/YAQF0UEml3I/AAAAAAAADtA/tR6QLbyXtBQGEKu2oV_l4nGMEND1TMtCwCLcBGAsYHQ/s322/Clan_Logo.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="322" data-original-width="212" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JNwtjT6O6W0/YAQF0UEml3I/AAAAAAAADtA/tR6QLbyXtBQGEKu2oV_l4nGMEND1TMtCwCLcBGAsYHQ/w132-h200/Clan_Logo.jpg" width="132" /></a></u></b></span></span></span></span></div><p></p><p></p><p><b><u><span style="font-size: medium;">The Clans</span></u></b></p><p>There are 23 official clans, though which ones are extant vary given the era. The Clans of BattleTech were originally descended from the self-exiled remnants of the Star League Defense Force (SLDF), who had departed the Inner Sphere after Stefan Amaris brought about the downfall of the Star League. General Aleksandr Kerensky led his forces to a hidden destination far from the Great Houses because he believed that a catastrophic war was inevitable, one that even the once mighty Star League army would be powerless to stop. After much infighting between the members of the former SLDF, Aleksandr's son Nicholas Kerensky took command of the exiles, reorganizing them into twenty Clans of warriors leading and protecting their attendant civilian castes.</p><p>While the Inner Sphere was mired in the destructive Succession Wars, the Clans experienced a technological renaissance. When they returned to the Inner Sphere, 250 years after their ancestors' departure, the Great Houses were mostly powerless to stop the massive Clan Invasion. But after their loss at Tukayyid, internal tensions within the Clans and an alliance between the Great Houses drew the invasion to a standstill.</p><p>After the Truce of Tukayyid had dissolved along with the reborn Star League, the Clans would be permanently fractured as a whole. Instead resuming the rightful trek on Terra, a civil war based on territorial status and resentment was started among the Clan Homeworlds. This war would cause the remaining Invading Clans to be ejected out of the homeworlds as the Home Clans would abandon the old Crusader-Warden views for more brutal and self-protective ones instead, seeing the Inner Sphere as irredeemably tainted. With both sides swearing off all contact from each other, the hatred has now shifted from one of ideology to territorial.</p><p>The clans are as follows: </p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Blood Spirit</li><li>Burrock</li><li>Cloud Cobra</li><li>Coyote</li><li>Diamond Shark</li><li>Fire Mandrill</li><li>Ghost Bear</li><li>Goliath Scorpion</li><li>Hell's Horses</li><li>Ice Hellion</li><li>Jade Falcon</li><li>Jade Wolf</li><li>Mongoose</li><li>Nova Cat</li><li>Smoke Jaguar</li><li>Snow Raven</li><li>Star Adder</li><li>Steel Viper</li><li>Stone Lion</li><li>Widowmaker</li><li>Wolf</li><li>Wolf-In-Exile</li><li>Wolverine</li></ol><p></p><p></p><p><span><span><span><span><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u></u></b></span></span></span></span></span></p><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span><span><span><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wYqyLV8Y-Z0/YAQDszQLi7I/AAAAAAAADss/Ki0Yhwxi6r4MS_WC0lcapnmnG2pTJbSGQCLcBGAsYHQ/s256/comstar.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="256" data-original-width="256" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wYqyLV8Y-Z0/YAQDszQLi7I/AAAAAAAADss/Ki0Yhwxi6r4MS_WC0lcapnmnG2pTJbSGQCLcBGAsYHQ/w200-h200/comstar.png" width="200" /></a></u></b></span></span></span></span></div><span><span><span><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u><br />ComStar</u></b></span></span></span></span><p></p><p>This quasi-religious sect evolved out of the Star League's Communications Ministry under Jerome Blake. Controlling all interstellar communication and acting as a supranational arbitrator, mediator and banking house, they regard themselves as the saviors of humanity and keepers of LosTech. Later revealed as devious schemers who ruthlessly misused their trusted position to manipulate others, they have secretly maintained a strong army with cutting edge technology.</p><p></p><p><span><span></span></span></p><p>The radical splinter group Word of Blake eventually separates from the order to form an independent sect. Word of Blake later instigates the Jihad, a cataclysmic total war against all of humanity and secular ComStar.<span></span></p><!--more--><p></p></div><div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><u><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Dh5-K-TVzPE/YAIKkhZGB3I/AAAAAAAADqI/0hn1FojkipUmtOxN41CF0Q-99-UqNEpiQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/BattleMech.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="248" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Dh5-K-TVzPE/YAIKkhZGB3I/AAAAAAAADqI/0hn1FojkipUmtOxN41CF0Q-99-UqNEpiQCLcBGAsYHQ/w248-h320/BattleMech.gif" width="248" /></a></div></u></b></span><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><u>Resources</u></b></span></p>Ok, so let's pretend you've actually read all that, and now you want to get in on the hobby. Cool. Here's a bunch of links to get you rolling. I always try yo make something available that my readers can use.<p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://store.catalystgamelabs.com/"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BDHURhwOtn0/YAQIzaJb0VI/AAAAAAAADtQ/ayp_Be7Eegod3cY4NqGu54uD5jvNbX0QgCLcBGAsYHQ/s450/CGL.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="231" data-original-width="450" height="103" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BDHURhwOtn0/YAQIzaJb0VI/AAAAAAAADtQ/ayp_Be7Eegod3cY4NqGu54uD5jvNbX0QgCLcBGAsYHQ/w200-h103/CGL.png" width="200" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />Catalyst Store</span><p></p><p style="text-align: left;">This first link is pretty obvious. That said, this isn't actually the best place to buy BT stuff. It's run by a third party company, and they don't do a very good job at it. Apparently, Catalyst isn't in much of a financial position to fix that situation at the moment.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?filters=0_0_10132_0_0&term=BattleTech"><b></b></a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V8djCGSgScg/YAQI8nRt2cI/AAAAAAAADtY/Mmek36Rp30wS44r6UWZuMk4aObRyKBGlwCLcBGAsYHQ/s650/DTRPG.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="138" data-original-width="650" height="43" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V8djCGSgScg/YAQI8nRt2cI/AAAAAAAADtY/Mmek36Rp30wS44r6UWZuMk4aObRyKBGlwCLcBGAsYHQ/w200-h43/DTRPG.png" width="200" /></a></b></div><b><br />DriveThru RPG</b><p></p><p style="text-align: left;">If you really want to buy Battletech products, this is the place to go. It has pretty much everything that's still considered contemporary and valid. It has very old stuff and very new stuff. Almost all in PDF of course, but some- SOME -products are available in hardcopy. As always with the current iteration of the game, very limited quantities if you want to hold an actual book you didn't print out yourself.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.ironwindmetals.com/index.php"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p-WH_i_wOas/YAQJGI0sxAI/AAAAAAAADtg/lJ7ULqSXziQiVfqY8oFOqFRnLSH48QtmgCLcBGAsYHQ/s367/IWM.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="137" data-original-width="367" height="74" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p-WH_i_wOas/YAQJGI0sxAI/AAAAAAAADtg/lJ7ULqSXziQiVfqY8oFOqFRnLSH48QtmgCLcBGAsYHQ/w200-h74/IWM.jpg" width="200" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />Iron Wind Metals</span><p></p><p style="text-align: left;">While Catalyst does produce, on rare occasion, plastic miniatures, these are in very limited number and are not their main production focus. Rather, if you want minis, you'll have to go through this company. They make miniatures even for mechs that haven't seen an official publication in 15+ years! If you want to expand your collection, especially if you want non-mech vehicles, this is the place to be. The only mechs they don't cast are the ones FASA got sued into oblivion over.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://bg.battletech.com/"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ukmjTkhfvzo/YAQJcDFQL5I/AAAAAAAADtw/uWUFl-3VLQIqhGcRWoG3CwHCOW2qkKdUgCLcBGAsYHQ/s677/BT.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="216" data-original-width="677" height="64" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ukmjTkhfvzo/YAQJcDFQL5I/AAAAAAAADtw/uWUFl-3VLQIqhGcRWoG3CwHCOW2qkKdUgCLcBGAsYHQ/w200-h64/BT.png" width="200" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />Battletech.com</span><p></p><p style="text-align: left;">This one is a bit of a tragedy. Ostensibly the main franchise website, it is an example of the decaying element of the franchise. It is randomly out of date, full of broken links and missing pictures, half the website has a different layout... it's just kind of a mess and really shows its age. That said, there's still an important element here. <a href="https://bg.battletech.com/new-to-the-board-game/">New To Battletech?</a> has free PDFs and advice to people who want to get started in the hobby. Not sure the game is for you? Check out the free introductory rules!</p><p><a href="https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Main_Page"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></a></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4pDyuNZZtfc/YAQIoXSIvuI/AAAAAAAADtM/NNU32vGUyhoNKU659iPc8dnXRs0sjTUKACLcBGAsYHQ/s708/Sarna.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="708" height="71" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4pDyuNZZtfc/YAQIoXSIvuI/AAAAAAAADtM/NNU32vGUyhoNKU659iPc8dnXRs0sjTUKACLcBGAsYHQ/w200-h71/Sarna.jpg" width="200" /></a></span></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Main_Page">Sarna</a></span></p><p></p><p>This is one of the most important communities in the BT hobby. It is a news site that keeps tabs on the franchise and its makers, a wiki that collects both in-universe and real-life game lore, and a forum for gamers to gather and talk about the game.</p><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.masterunitlist.info/"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1OSEhbDOx9w/YAQKCZoL0QI/AAAAAAAADt4/cmyjQNpcLlcfFy9xUZO6OtdyUpAWqR78QCLcBGAsYHQ/s328/MUL.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="312" data-original-width="328" height="190" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1OSEhbDOx9w/YAQKCZoL0QI/AAAAAAAADt4/cmyjQNpcLlcfFy9xUZO6OtdyUpAWqR78QCLcBGAsYHQ/w200-h190/MUL.gif" width="200" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />Master Unit List</span><p></p><p style="text-align: left;">Is a categorical listing of every game piece ever published for Battletech, including all variants. It includes a printable record card to use any unit in Alpha Strike, and also a BV table for using the unit in more formal or tournament style play of Classic BT. The only downside is that you kind of need to have some idea of what you're searching for before it shows any results at all.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://play.google.com/store/apps/details%3Fid%3Dhu.psicore.mfportable%26hl%3Den_CA%26gl%3DUS%26referrer%3Dutm_source%253Dgoogle%2526utm_medium%253Dorganic%2526utm_term%253Dmech%2Bfactory%26pcampaignid%3DAPPU_1_oyn4X760NMnE0PEP_YaJgAY&ved=2ahUKEwj-kYLLhozuAhVJIjQIHX1DAmAQ5IQBMAB6BAgCEAQ&usg=AOvVaw0yruIIL5m_ZCmzNAEqFbdL"><span style="font-size: medium;">Mech Factory</span></a></p><p style="text-align: left;">This is an android app that contains technical readout information and printable record sheets for pretty much every unit on the Master Unit List. You'll need a Bluetooth capable phone and printer to make use of the record sheets, but other than that, this is an indispensable resource for people who play the game a lot.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://flechs.net/"><span style="font-size: medium;">Flechs</span></a></p><p style="text-align: left;">Is a newcomer to the hobby, but is pretty damn cool. They make visual gaming aids- including an app that has automated and interactive record sheets! Everything they're making is pretty new, and who knows if any of it will take off. I hope it all does! If you come to this articles a few years from now, this might either all be central to the hobby or a faded memory attached to a broken link.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://camospecs.com/"><span style="font-size: medium;">Camo Specs</span></a></p><p style="text-align: left;">This site is full of painting guides for in-universe factions and such. Great for people who are in the hobby for the miniatures aspect.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/view/catalystdemoteam/"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Demo Team</span></a></p><p style="text-align: left;">This is the group of people who are responsible for the official public play aspect of Catalyst Games Labs products. It is nowhere near as organized (or as disorganized) as other similar official play programs, such as the D&D Adventurers League. As I write this, I imagine these folks are getting pretty antsy as we near a full year in covid lockdown. Hope they're ready to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps when the cons start up again. They'll probably need volunteers then too.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://isatlas.teamspam.net/"><span style="font-size: medium;">Inner Sphere Atlas</span></a></p><p style="text-align: left;">This is a lore archive website that gives detailed information about all of the inhabited planets in the inner sphere. Some pages are more detailed than others. Looks like its maps component depended on flash to function. We shall see if the loss of flash will mark the end or rebirth of this website in the coming years.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://battletech.rpg.hu/dynmech/planets/ismap_standalone.php?era_id=1&id=1943"><span style="font-size: medium;">Interstellar Cartography</span></a></p><p style="text-align: left;">But never fear! While Inner Sphere Atlas has the raw data about every planet in the game, this interactive inner sphere map can show you how it all connects! You can even choose your era!</p><a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/637090/BATTLETECH/"><span style="font-size: medium;">Battletech on Steam</span><br /></a><p style="text-align: left;">This is the currently available and x64 compatible Battletech tactical game. It is not the same as the board game, but it's also fun and a good way to get your stompy mecha fix without turning to FPS games like MechWarrior.</p><p></p></div><p></p>J.A.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09469834689668909830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7147108722453910048.post-56990224589823372302020-07-02T19:40:00.000-06:002020-07-02T19:40:56.835-06:00Star Trek Adventures Probability Analysis<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UpNcsoBNNiM/Xv6LVqBCBxI/AAAAAAAADcY/KBliCpLgu6kTDV_Fg_kdQo1DFQfFLiEwQCK4BGAsYHg/s1655/Probs.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="404" data-original-width="1655" height="157" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UpNcsoBNNiM/Xv6LVqBCBxI/AAAAAAAADcY/KBliCpLgu6kTDV_Fg_kdQo1DFQfFLiEwQCK4BGAsYHg/w640-h157/Probs.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This has to be the prettiest output I've ever seen.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>Well. I've done it. It took a solid 12 hours of hard work. I had to learn things about probability and excel I never knew before. I have seriously grown as a human being. I present to you a PDF document that can tell you exactly, given the number of dice being rolled, the target number, and the DC your are rolling against, what your chances of success are. In decimal format. Ignoring crits.</div><div><br /></div><div>With this document, a savvy GM can plot the challenge of the tasks presented to the players and intentionally drain metacurrency resources, or demand threat feed, as they see fit.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><font size="6"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ulAdNC8dupLyCvfzFCV6U7tp6t-BEOi9/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Here's The Document</a></font></div>J.A.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09469834689668909830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7147108722453910048.post-75213729199464751652020-06-26T23:43:00.000-06:002020-06-27T00:28:07.602-06:00Star Trek Adventures Ship Stat Analysis<div style="text-align: center;"><font size="6"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tWFh19M-iLdMDJ2UniJPSp0AxAOZvTLE/view?usp=sharing">Free PDF!</a></font></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span>Well, I got down to doing some technical investigation of how starships are designed for STA. I broke them down by category, era, and scale, and found the average for each group's systems and departments.</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span>But why? What use is this?</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yzLH6Iefu10/XvbZlxoKeiI/AAAAAAAADZs/-g2PAnVdl44paS8H6bIjbJ-uL1yC5QXzQCK4BGAsYHg/s800/Curry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="150" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yzLH6Iefu10/XvbZlxoKeiI/AAAAAAAADZs/-g2PAnVdl44paS8H6bIjbJ-uL1yC5QXzQCK4BGAsYHg/w200-h150/Curry.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OX58JZ6-NG4/XvbaC_at-ZI/AAAAAAAADaA/fiOnItwjaswmuElW4FXgXUfTxnP9HGn0wCK4BGAsYHg/s1920/Saladin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1054" data-original-width="1920" height="110" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OX58JZ6-NG4/XvbaC_at-ZI/AAAAAAAADaA/fiOnItwjaswmuElW4FXgXUfTxnP9HGn0wCK4BGAsYHg/w200-h110/Saladin.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LGlRegSUM-Q/XvbaS58m0CI/AAAAAAAADaU/Ykvp3eXEIncrOX5UQB35rgg9Sr3x0v2bgCK4BGAsYHg/s1920/Chimera.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1920" height="100" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LGlRegSUM-Q/XvbaS58m0CI/AAAAAAAADaU/Ykvp3eXEIncrOX5UQB35rgg9Sr3x0v2bgCK4BGAsYHg/w200-h100/Chimera.png" width="200" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3GDOxFRl5yA/XvbaflIoDjI/AAAAAAAADak/XnKS84uWUKMTUaGR4ZYwIDHE9UrYmxHngCK4BGAsYHg/s1440/FASA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1440" height="150" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3GDOxFRl5yA/XvbaflIoDjI/AAAAAAAADak/XnKS84uWUKMTUaGR4ZYwIDHE9UrYmxHngCK4BGAsYHg/w200-h150/FASA.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span>Homebrew. This information is used as a guideline to create new content that is in-line with that provided by the game. Using this as a basis, I could make a Curry-Type, a Saladin Class, a Chimera Class,<br /> or one of those origami nightmares from the FASA game. For example...</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span>Departments always get 3 points, with the following exceptions:</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><span>Pre-TNG scale 1 shuttles get 2 points.</span></li><li><span>Scale 2 Shuttles get 4.</span></li></ol><div>Anyways, yeah, give it a look!</div></div>J.A.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09469834689668909830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7147108722453910048.post-66310927459741620712020-06-26T00:09:00.000-06:002020-06-26T00:09:53.115-06:00A Reply.<div style="text-align: center;"><b><u><span style="font-size: xx-large;">Go read </span><a href="https://www.womenatwarp.com/an-open-letter-to-the-star-trek-community/" style="font-size: xx-large;">this</a><span style="font-size: xx-large;">. Then come back.</span></u></b></div><div><br /></div><div><ol style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Droid Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 0px; outline: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 0px 20px; vertical-align: baseline;"><li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">All beings deserve equal liberty. That has not happened and it is a tragedy. We must make the vision of true philosophical equality a reality.</li><li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">You do. I have spread your message.</li><li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">No. I will speak out against it, I shall fight against it, I shall point it out, deride it, and attack it. But I shall never silence a fellow human, now matter what they have to say.</li><li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A dude thought he could get away with kneeling on a fellow human's neck for almost 9 minutes while people filmed him. He believed that because for a long time, that's the way it was. Not any more. It must change. It is changing. If you don't understand that, you are an idiot.</li><li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">People are only truly accountable to themselves. I do not put any other person above myself for any reason. I do not put myself above any other people for any reason. I expect the same from everyone else.</li><li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In many ways, much of what is being done is not my place to be involved. My philosophy is too individualist to fully support every part of the movement without being a hypocrite. I do what is appropriate, but no more than that. I am anarchic, not communist, and this movement incorporates many communistic beliefs that I, frankly, oppose.</li></ol></div>J.A.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09469834689668909830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7147108722453910048.post-75664828071706026282020-06-24T11:14:00.002-06:002020-06-24T11:16:20.493-06:00Star Trek Adventures Roll20 Tokens Pack!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DSYKYODX6Hk/XvOJXOedDUI/AAAAAAAADYg/mnc_rgDeFxo4Ow6EJOHIrj-UT7VRtL6aQCK4BGAsYHg/s427/tokens.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="287" data-original-width="427" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DSYKYODX6Hk/XvOJXOedDUI/AAAAAAAADYg/mnc_rgDeFxo4Ow6EJOHIrj-UT7VRtL6aQCK4BGAsYHg/s320/tokens.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><font size="6"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xxNMaSLLWZ06tXGgQXGiiYzffTFqyugG/view?usp=sharing">FREE STUFF!!!</a></font></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">The above is a zipo file containing hundreds of tokens fro playing Star Trek Adventures over Roll20. They were created using <a href="http://rolladvantage.com/tokenstamp/">Token Stamp 2</a> but I went and did all the work for you. The only thing that's really missing is tokens for the Gamma quadrant Dominion ships, because I couldn't find pictures for any of them, really. Enjoy!</div>J.A.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09469834689668909830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7147108722453910048.post-55433189316548568432020-06-23T03:09:00.002-06:002020-06-24T11:06:34.602-06:00Star Trek Operations Notes<div style="text-align: center;"><font size="6"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bb8IrS4qW6Snfw0bxQjxjc82L2_hvT0S/view?usp=drivesdk" target="_blank">FREE STUFF</a></font></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Well, the third part of my notes series is done. This one contains significantly more personal commentary than the last two, mainly because I had more room for it. There was a lot of fluff in this book and very little crunch. What game material that was added consisted primarily of content, not rules. Even so, the Red Alert rules for miniature PvP and wargame combat gave me a lot to think about regarding my earlier notes. I may need to do a reread and put out revised versions of those notes documents to reflect my expanded understanding.</div>J.A.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09469834689668909830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7147108722453910048.post-13858167599157479522020-06-17T20:59:00.002-06:002020-09-17T14:00:32.498-06:00Kiss and a Slap: Star Trek Adventures Review<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aOw-OZD3Gyc/XufR0XCgOqI/AAAAAAAADUo/t0e7RP69iq06SN36gkMoszX3Vl8Dx9zQwCK4BGAsYHg/s996/Cover.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="996" data-original-width="708" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aOw-OZD3Gyc/XufR0XCgOqI/AAAAAAAADUo/t0e7RP69iq06SN36gkMoszX3Vl8Dx9zQwCK4BGAsYHg/s320/Cover.jpg" /></a></div><div><br /></div>For those new to the blog, which is almost certainly almost everyone who comes to my blog, I rarely do reviews. When I do, I do them in a format called "Kiss and a Slap". That's where I list 10 things I hate about the product, and then 10 things I love about it. The idea is to give an honest review that admits the shortcomings of a product in the format of constructive criticism. Normally, I just review adventures, but today I'm tackling a bigger beast. I'm going to review a whole goddamn game system. Because I CANNOT stay silent about this game! Now, before I get to it, I'm going to head off some of the flack I might get for my criticism of someone's favorite game. I believe the following:<div><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Nothing is perfect.</li><li>Nothing is sacred.</li><li>All things are deserving of criticism.</li><li>Anything that can be improved should be improved.</li><li>your feelings are meaningless.</li></ol>OK! Let's dig in!</div><div> <br /><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q_jUAhSxDjk/XufR9YJxqSI/AAAAAAAADU0/IWFqJlc5_x8vuM3jFJSs01E1oAlYuG9FACK4BGAsYHg/s2408/Slaps.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="2408" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q_jUAhSxDjk/XufR9YJxqSI/AAAAAAAADU0/IWFqJlc5_x8vuM3jFJSs01E1oAlYuG9FACK4BGAsYHg/w400-h180/Slaps.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div><h2 style="text-align: center;">The Slaps</h2><div><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><b>It's so fluffy I'm gonna DIE!</b> Look, I get it, Star Trek is massively overwhelming to people new to the fandom. It's hard to get people onboard with Trek content. The lore is intimidating. And I can understand dedicating a section of the book to conveying the fundamental basics of the setting to new audiences. That's fine. What is definitely <b>NOT</b> fine, is that it is jumbled up and mixed in with the rules text of the game throughout the goddamned book!!! At first, it starts out reading like an admiral addressing you as a captain who is going to be in charge of a new ship. That's OK, a framing device works. But they don't stick to it. It's like they repeatedly forgot they even had a framing device in the first place. They dedicate multiple pages of setting explanation just to follow it with one paragraph of rules <b>with no visual distinction between the two or even a heading to mark the actual rule.</b> To confuse matters more, they have 2 types of sidebars in the book; purple and pink. Pink ones are USUALLY fluff, and purple ones are USUALLY rules... except some rules are in pink sidebars and some purple sidebars contain no crunch whatsoever. The end result is that you have to read everything- EVERY-FUCKING-THING, just to make sure you didn't miss something, and I guarantee you, you will miss something. Now, don't get me wrong, this isn't the worst I've ever seen. That award goes to Polaris. (Not the french one.) But this is a close second place.</li><li><b>Disorganization in the extreme.</b> Here's how it reads: <i>Here's some fluff! Here's a rule! By the way, before we finish explaining that rule, here's a note about another rule that sometimes applies to this rule. Here's some fluff! Oh by the way, here's the rest of a rule we started explaining a few pages ago. And here's a list of all those side rules that keep interrupting the main rules explanations! More fluff. Here's the end of that other rule we didn't finish explaining earlier. Oh, by the way, in another 100 pages there's a stray sentence that clarifies something on this page.</i> <b>It is a god damn outrageous mess.</b> It makes the game nearly incomprehensible to new players. Watching Modiphius play their own game, it's clear that even they don't fully understand it, since they forget something different in every episode. (Like, for example, resistance being rolled in challenge dice, not a flat penalty) A perfect example of their disorganization is that multiple playable alien species, some of the MOST ICONIC species, including Klingon and Romulan, are in the back of the goddamn book, rather than in line with the playable species section at the start of the book!</li><li><b>Muddled language.</b> Throughout the book, they make it clear that their task resolution system is called a <b>Task</b>. Fine, good, that's easy to understand. (Except that 25% of the time they accidentally call it a check!) Later, in combat, it is revealed that each player can make a minor action and a task on their turn. OK, so that means they can do a thing that requires no roll and a thing that requires a roll, right? NOPE! Not all combat tasks require a roll! That means combat tasks and normal tasks are two separate mechanics that share the same word! So you can take a task that makes you make a task! <b>Fucking brilliant! Genius!</b> And if you only have minor actions and no other type of action, why include the adjective "minor"? That's fucking idiotic! There's a reason I changed the terminology to major and minor actions in my <a href="https://rpgindesign.blogspot.com/2020/06/star-trek-adventures-rules-notes.html">notes</a>. Another example of poor language is regarding terrain effects. Throughout the book, they imply that terrain effects are applicable specifically to zones, and are separate from scene traits. One sentence hidden amongst the copypasta jungle that is the GM section bluntly states that terrain effects are just traits. <b>HOLY FUCKING SHIT WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST SAY SO INSTEAD OF BENDING OVER BACKWARDS TO AVOID YOUR OWN DAMN TERMINOLOGY?!</b> And this slap isn't done yet, either! Yet another example of poor language is the word "Spend". They never define the meaning of this word in mechanical terms or the conditions under which a spend may be invoked, but they use the term throughout the book as if it should be plainly fucking obvious! And you know what? It probably would be for fans of other 2d20 games, who are familiar with the system, but this game is appealing to people who don't game and have never heard of 2d20 in their fucking lives! Acknowledge the reality of your damn audience, you pretentious pricks! Yet more terminology that gets confusing; traits can apply to a character, a situation, the environment, and equipment. That sounds good, right? Here's the wonky thing: Equipment are traits. That means equipment are traits that can have traits. It gets weirder. Groups of NPCs can be traits, who have equipment in the form of traits, which might have traits of it's own. I'm not a fan of babushka doll mechanics.</li><li><b>Never, EVER give one player authority over the other players!</b> This game violates a fundamental game design theory principal: <b>If</b> <b>you give a player authority over the other players, they will invariably abuse it.</b> This game practically demands that a player be given the position of captain of the ship. This is a one-way trip to a fucking disaster show. It gives absolutely no warning or alternative options. Even worse, the designers are clearly aware of this fact, because not once in any of their live plays do they show a player captain, the GM always makes them an NPC! Always! If you know it's a fucking bad idea, why do you promote it to people who have no experience that would tell them so?!</li><li><b>Copypasta! Copypasta everywhere!</b> One obnoxious thing about this book is that, later on, beginning about halfway through, any time it references a previously explained rule, it copies the text from earlier in full, followed by explanations, expansions, or addenda. This makes it really hard to read because I don't want to waste my time rereading shit I already know, but I also don't want to miss out on the book finally explaining a rule in full. I get the impression this happens to a lot of people, and they wind up skipping the copied sections completely, as the most forgotten rules are the ones that are hidden at the end of a copypasta chunk. This is why you don't redundantly copypasta your own rules. If you have to reference back to a rule, give a page number or a heading title and let the reader go find it if they need a refresher. My god what inefficient writing.</li><li><b>The task resolution system fucking sucks.</b> OK, let's get down to brass tacks and talk crunch. The D&D task resolution system is simple: Roll 1d20, add ability modifier, check if proficiency applies, add proficiency mod if necessary, compare result to DC. 5 steps. Quick and easy. Most of those steps are done simultaneously if the player knows what all of their stat mods and proficiencies are off the top of their head. STA's task resolution system is <b>17 fucking steps long</b>. Don't believe me? Go download my <a href="https://rpgindesign.blogspot.com/2020/06/star-trek-adventures-rules-notes.html">notes</a>, I break it down in there for you. This is obnoxious, and it doesn't actually achieve anything of relevance. The individual dice still have a flat distribution, so play is still arbitrarily swingy, it just doesn't have easily predictable success percentages because it's a dice pool system. It doesn't even do what dice pool systems are supposed to do either, since the cap is 5d20!! The whole idea of a dice pool system is that you roll handfulls of dice to feel obnoxiously powerful! Way to go on completely missing the point of your own resolution system!</li><li><b>Combat is a drag.</b> I hate single turn combat. I think it takes for fucking ever and achieves very little. At the end of the day, all that matters in combat is: Did we win and how much did that win cost us? That's it. And I don't feel like spending an hour or two obsessing over the minutiae of how the players got to that result. Especially in Star Trek. I don't know if you've ever seen the show, but combat was always a last resort. Almost no episodes had the characters pulling phasers, and when they did it was usually just an exchange or two and then the fight was over. The characters were, above all, peace focused, genuinely concerned with achieving positive social relationships! They aren't soldiers, they're paramilitary explorers, scientists and politicians! Sure, they defend the Federation from interstellar threats when necessary, but their main tools in combating said threats are their minds and their words, with weapons only being drawn in response to violence. This isn't fucking D&D, guys, there's no loot to be collected from the corpses, no XP to be earned from slaying foul beasts, and no treasure chest behind the guardian! The game kind of acknowledges this, as a character's reputation can be easily dragged down by resorting to violence needlessly.</li><li><b>Internally inconsistent rules.</b> OK, this is primarily a complaint from my simulationist and minimalist tendencies. Not all people will agree with me on this, but I think it is a huge mistake to have NPCs and PCs follow different rules. Plain and simple, it's a goddamn mistake. First off, it results in rules bloat- a problem this game already suffers from severely- as you need to explain one set of rules for player characters, and then a whole different set of rules for NPCs. Secondly, it means NPCs can do things players cannot, or vice versa, even if that NPC is technically identical to the PC. Eventually, someone at the table will make tactical decisions regarding an NPC based on the assumption that they are just as capable as the PCs, and that strategy will be wrong. Nothing is more blatant than the rules regarding NPC starships. When NPCs target PC ships, they always hit a system on a breach, even if they weren't aiming at a specific system. If the players target a ship without aiming at a system and score a breach, that ship goes through a completely different track of damage effects. Another example is that PC starships get turns equal to the number of PCs on the bridge. NPC starships get a number of turns equal to the scale of their ship. That means a scale 3 ship with 6 PCs aboard will always annihilate an identical twin NPC of their own ship! Or how minor NPCs can't take the Avoid an Injury spend, while major NPCs can do it limitlessly! (Notable NPCs can use the spend once, but there's no clarification if they can use the Recover action to regain that use) Most of this is an easy fix. Either run NPCs equally to PCs, or apply NPC rules to the PCs. (For example, allow NPCs to use the nonspecific targeting breach track for PC ships, and limit PC ship turns to ship scale so the captain has to decide which crew should act and when.) But that shouldn't be necessary!</li><li><b>Warp factor schmorp schmactor.</b> The game does not give a damn about travel times or distances. The game is designed with the assumption that play opens with a ship arriving in a system, doing stuff in that system, and then ends with the ship warping out of that system. Nevermind episodes that happened while on the move at warp, or in multiple systems! Maybe I'm just being a simulationist again, but I kinda want to see more than just the missions! I kinda want to give my players a taste of what starfleet life would feel like, off the clock! What kinds of times we're looking at, how people keep themselves occupied aboard a giant negative pressure submarine! That kind of stuff! This game doesn't care. The closest it gets to caring is that it states a sector is 20 lightyears across, gives a listing of how fast each warp factor is, and gives you a sector map of the alpha and beta quadrants. The only thing that's missing is the MAXIMUM WARP OF EACH SPACEFRAME. Which leaves the GM in the homebrewing lurch. So much for supporting different styles of play. It also states that warping out of a system costs power equal to the warp factor chosen, which puts unusual limits on certain spaceframes that should be faster, and enables certain ships to go faster than they should be able to. Stated along with that rule is that you can pursue a ship at warp by spending 1 more power than they did, but it gives no explanation of what happens when you catch up to them!</li><li><b>False promise regarding alternate playstyles.</b> The book repeatedly makes a point of saying it supports alternate playstyles, such as lower decks, or different eras of play. The problem? There's little to no content support for that! For example, let's say I wanted to play an ENT era game. There's no NX-01 spaceframe! Or spaceframes for any other vessels from that era! Let's say I wanted to play a lower decks game, what would the characters do other than just get bossed around by the bridge crew NPCs? Even with the expansion books, this idea that "any kind of Star Trek game can be played with these rules" is patently false, unless the GM puts up some serious work to make relevant content for such play. Frankly, I think the developers have an absurdly narrow vision of the potential for the setting.</li><li><b>Challenge Dice are retarded. </b>Somehow I ALWAYS wind up with an 11th complaint! The game calls d6s "challenge dice". No, they are never used to determine how challenging something is, or to resolve a challenge. Rather, they are invariably used to determine the effectiveness of a player's actions. Weird ass name aside, (should really be chaos dice or something) the way they roll is also idiotic. See, instead of rolling for their face value, each face has a value stored on a table somewhere in the CRB. 1=1, 2=2, 3=0, 4=0, 5=1+effect, 6=1+effect. The effects are neat, but it is not necessary to completely rewrite the way the dice roll just to justify that. The real reason they reduce the die roll values, is because player character <strike>HP</strike> er... Stress... can be between 8 and 17 points. With such low survivability values, the damage output had to be reduced, but they seriously could have come up with a better system. (<i>For example, you could just say that the result gets divided in half, rounded down, and 6s generate an effect. Super simple. 1=0, 2=1, 3=1, 4=2, 5=2, 6=3+E.</i>)</li></ol><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7fFMDWfPcME/XufSTn4195I/AAAAAAAADVM/lYqP_NMD8GkN-7erNcbameuh9io1kOFBgCK4BGAsYHg/s750/Kisses.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="750" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7fFMDWfPcME/XufSTn4195I/AAAAAAAADVM/lYqP_NMD8GkN-7erNcbameuh9io1kOFBgCK4BGAsYHg/w400-h200/Kisses.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></div><h2 style="text-align: center;">The Kisses</h2><div><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><b>It FEELS like Trek!</b> Oh my god do they get the feeling right! The whole book is in LCARS style, and the art has a unified aesthetic! The content matches the attitude of Star Trek, and everything about it just feels right! Moreso than any other RPG incarnation of Star Trek, they nail the mood like it's nobody's business! If you love Trek, this book will enchant you so hard the system's failings will seem mild by comparison.</li><li><b>Highest quality production I've ever seen.</b> A woven spine separate from the hardback spine, full bleed white-on-black pages, a unified aesthetic, this book is a god damn masterpiece. It is beautiful, it is durable, it is easily one of the highest quality gaming products I've ever bought! Truly magnificent.</li><li><b>Chargen and ship creation are fun!</b> It's an absolute blast to make up characters in this game system! The lifepath system actually produces characters who are relevant to play, unlike other Sci-Fi games that produce mostly hodgepodge nobodies. (I'm looking at you, Traveller) The addition of mission profiles significantly expands the statistical variety of ships available to the players! (And, I'm not sure, but I think you're supposed to apply them to NPC spaceframes as well maybe?) Despite the complexity of the rest of the game to understand and play, getting started is super easy and enjoyable. Gold star for that.</li><li><b>Modiphius is actually really cool.</b> You know how WotC is only nice when they're engaging in a marketing ploy? Yeah. Modiphius is actually just nice. Bought the Core Rule Book? Contact them with proof of purchase, and they'll send you the PDF for free! Bought the PDF? They'll set you up with a discount on the CRB! They offer an extensive free-to-play and publicly accessible living campaign! Their website offers a variety of free products, including an introduction PDF that can get people playing ASAP with far less fluff! Their staff are personally active, not only on their official communities, but also on the major fan communities as well, and the company divests itself of responsibility for their actions, so they can unofficially say whatever they want and not worry about losing their jobs just because it wasn't vetted first. (Within reason. I'm sure if one of them started posting swastikas all over the place, he'd be short on employment rather swiftly.) The staff who make the game are also the people who play the game, and part of their marketing is to show their in-house games to the public via their youtube channel, which gives a great insight into what they intend this thing to play like! Just, in every way shape and form, Modiphius is simply <i>cool</i>.</li><li><b>Supporting characters are a genius mechanic.</b> In Star Trek, there are often many more characters than there are in the average gaming group. Often, characters must be split up in different simultaneous situations. STA handles this by giving each ship a crew support score, which is a resource players can spend to create slightly less advanced characters to fill in the gaps, or to participate in scenes where they would otherwise be unavailable. For example, let's say an away team gets sent down to investigate some spooky ruins. The Chief of Security's player says that given the risk of a Romulan attack, he should remain aboard, and so he spends 1 crew support to create a supporting character, a security officer under his department, whom he sends down on the away mission. Now, whenever the scene switches back and forth between the ship and the away team, that player still gets to be involved, if even at a slightly reduced competency in one instance. Another example is to use crew support to fill roles the players don't want to do. For example, if nobody is interested in medicine, they could make the Chief Medical Officer a supporting character. Then, whenever someone needs healing they just spend a crew support and transport that character on to the scene! I also have an idea for the command role issue. I've been thinking about making the CO an NPC, and then making the XO a supporting character. Because supporting characters are shared by all players, the XO stands as an option for anyone who wants to take a turn in the big chair for a scene or two, without forcing everyone to serve just one player all the time, and still having a superior officer available that the GM can use to keep things in check.</li><li><b>Metacurrencies are fun.</b> The game features 3 metacurrencies. Determination, Momentum, and Threat. Players gain determination whenever the GM takes a value from their character sheet and makes it into a complication, or when they refuse the complication and question that value, forcing it to be changed at the end of the adventure. They can spend determination to do a small range of very powerful effects only by invoking and roleplaying out how their values motivate them to greatness in the current situation. Determination is an excellent system for encouraging and rewarding real roleplay, and also for developing characters over time. Momentum, (poorly named) is a currency generated whenever the player rolls more successes than the required difficulty on a task. They can spend these points on an insanely long list of fancy effects that can alter the game. Most momentum spends can only be done as part of a task, but some can just be done willy-nilly. The players share a group momentum pool, which means everyone gets a say in who spends it and when, keeping off-turn players engaged, as nobody wants to see their hard-earned momentum wasted frivolously. Finally, pretty much anything the players can spend momentum on can be paid for by giving the GM threat points, in addition to the 2 per PC the GM gets at the start of every adventure. The GM can spend these threat points to dramatically alter the situation. This game strongly opposes the illusionist method of DMing where the GM can call blue bolts of lightning from the sky on a whim. Instead, the GM's ultimate power ends the moment play begins. From that point forward, the only way they can alter the scenario is by spending threat or through the actions of their own NPCs. The goal of the GM is to spend all that threat by the end of the adventure, but ideally in a manner that challenges the players rather than annihilating them.</li><li><b>Traits are brilliant.</b> The game is really easy to prep for, because a scene is just a description of a situation and environment, followed by a list of words or short phrases that describe the traits that affect gameplay in the scene. For example, if the players are surviving on a desert world, the scene might just have the trait, "Overwhelming heat" as a complication. A player could make a task to find shelter and, on a success, spend momentum to remove that complication, indicating that he found suitable cover for the party. But if he rolled a 20 as well in the process, the GM might add a new complication, stating that as it grows dark, the planet begins to become "unbearably cold". Gameplay proceeds like that, with players and GM modifying the traits of the scene and characters in the scene to resolve the central problem that scene represents. My only nitpick here is that the GMing section gives 0 support to a first time GM how to prep a game at all. Sad, but not unexpected.</li><li><b>Zone based combat is brilliant.</b> I switched to zone combat a long time ago when I started abandoning gridded combat. Zones are a super easy way to manage an environment without having to draw anything, which makes it perfect for voice-only theater of the mind roleplay, sucha s the kinds of games I've been playing online during this pandemic. I also love how zones are just subdivisions of the environment, and the terrain effects in those zones are just environment traits attached to those zones! Very easy to remember what is where, and why, and how it all connects and interacts. I would have preferred a little more guidance on the maximum and minimum sizes for zones in personal combat, given that they have an actual mechanical impact on throw range and non-electronic communication range, but I think they wanted to inspire GMs to experiment through play.</li><li><b>It's an excellent product line.</b> The expansion books actually expand the game, both mechanically and thematically, for both players and GMs. That means every book you buy in this line contains something genuinely useful for everyone at your table. (Yes, even content from the adventure books could be cannibalized by a creative homebrewer to make cool new stuff.)</li><li>Uh... huh... well this has never happened to me before, but I really cannot think of a 10th item. I know that makes it look like this game sucks, or like I hate it, but... I'm actually a huge fan! The positives I've listed are infinitely more important than the complaints- most of my complaints aren't even about the game anyways, but rather the editing of the book. So uh... yeah. Go buy it.</li></ol></div></div></div>J.A.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09469834689668909830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7147108722453910048.post-27084169116499101792020-06-17T00:30:00.003-06:002020-06-24T11:05:51.160-06:00Star Trek Adventures Command Notes<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZlgseNPwKoeOhm2FYnhwv3d7lJBEfGXo/view?usp=drivesdk"><font size="6">FREE STUFF!</font></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Hey there! Remember my compressed rules notes for the Star Trek Adventures CRB? Well now I've done it for the Command sourcebook as well! Enjoy!</div>J.A.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09469834689668909830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7147108722453910048.post-10751019267030608392020-06-15T05:00:00.001-06:002020-06-15T05:00:02.363-06:00The Value of Genuine SuccessI'm going to say a whole bunch of extremely unpopular opinions here. Get ready to have your modern gaming sensibilities threatened.<br />
<br />
The RPG Renaissance is Bullshit.<br />
<br />
Since 2012 with the appearance of D&D Next, which progressed to 5th edition around the same time Critical Role found its audience, the RPG hobby has experienced a massive growth. Thousands upon thousands of new players of all ages are discovering D&D for the first time right now. In general, this is a good thing, I think. It means the RPG industry is getting a much needed influx of cash to perpetuate professional game design in a previously oversaturated and underfunded market. It also means gamers now have more options of where to play and who to play with than they ever did in the past. That's the good in the RPG renaissance. Full stop. There's some bad.<div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Hipster (contemporary subculture) - Wikipedia" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/27/Hipster%2C_Newtown%2C_hipster_beard%2C_retro_watch%2C_colourful_glasses.jpg/220px-Hipster%2C_Newtown%2C_hipster_beard%2C_retro_watch%2C_colourful_glasses.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Oh god, what has my generation done?!<br /></i></td></tr></tbody></table>
<br />
I'm a millennial. I was born in 1988. I remember a time when nobody I knew and no schools in town had computers. I remember when cell phones were weird things you only saw in movies about New York business people. I remember riding bikes, swimming in a lake, building tree forts, and actual chalk boards in class.<br />
<br />
In a span of 30 years, we went from that to <i>THIS.</i> And this just keeps getting wilder. Every house has MULTIPLE computers of varying forms, all of which are interconnected by a variety of methods. We manage our lives with pocket computers with full touch screen interface. 3D graphics have reached a point of near-photo-realism. We now live in a time where a new born child will learn to type before they learn to ride a bike or swim.<br />
<br />
That insane change of culture and technology had a pretty big impact on my generation. Mostly we just feel confused and overwhelmed, but also excited, but also worried about where the future might take us. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTPZWG5eLf8">This song</a> adequately expresses my feeling of being left behind and lost in the tidal wave of technological progress.<div><br /></div><div>...But people keep criticizing my generation, saying that technology has given us inappropriate expectations of life. That we seek instant gratification, that we believe we deserve good things by virtue of being alive. That kind of stuff. I used to scoff at those articles. I'm not like that. My friends aren't like that.<br />
<br />
D&D has taught me that me and my friends are statistical outliers. We are the weirdos of my generation. Me and most of the other financially poor kids with conservative parents. For the majority of millennials, all of that criticism is 100% true. I have learned this through interacting with new players my age and younger and comparing their beliefs and attitudes to my own and those of older generations of gamers. The difference is striking, but it appears most clearly in how people expect a D&D game to be run today. To understand that, you need to understand Matt Mercer a little bit.</div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Matthew Mercer — Opinions/Segments — HPCritical" height="221" src="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c6dd2977980b37122efee1c/5c8c3deb652dea144804f3a4/5e372076ced5384d70c2ab6e/1580671303151/Mathew%2BMercer%252C%2BMatt%2BMercer%252C%2BD%2526D%252C%2BDungeons%2Band%2BDragons%252C%2BHPCritical.jpg?format=2500w" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>*swoon*</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>
<br />
Now, I like Mercer. A lot. He is the best DM for that show, and he really makes it what it is. Hell, he's probably the most talented DM I've ever watched. He has had a profound impact on popularizing D&D, more so than any other celebrity DM at the moment. He is an incredible DM who has shown talent at running very large games efficiently, and even running satisfying solo-player games for newbies within 30 minutes. Every DM has something to learn from Mercer.<br />
<br />
But more importantly, he is a professional voice actor. A performer. The games he runs are not really <i>games,</i> so much as they are <i>shows</i>. Thousands of people tuned in every week to watch him and his players (also professional actors) improvise an exciting narrative within the framework of a fairly heavily customized 5th edition D&D system. And these people take that experience away and want to become a part of something like that. So they go and play D&D for real. And while Mercer has been very vocal about the fact that most people's games won't (and shouldn't) look like his show, that message isn't getting out anywhere near on the same level as the influence of the show, and it fails to address the core problem of the expectations Critical Role has set for thousands of people.<br />
<br />
The core problem? People are coming to the table expecting roleplay. When you present them with a game, they feel neglected and cheated. They want to tell stories, not overcome legitimate challenges. They want to experience an emergent narrative, not plan the logistics of a 10 day sea trip to the next city. They have mistaken the roleplay, the performance element of D&D as its core and primary purpose, its main function.<br />
<br />
But that's not D&D. In fact, that's not even RPGs in general. There's a whole separate hobby community for that.</div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="CW Renews 'Whose Line Is It Anyway?,' 'Masters of Illusion,' 'Penn ..." height="214" src="https://pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/wl507_lancebass_0005b-e1539108523101.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The kings of roleplay at work.</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>
<br />
It's just called roleplay. There's whole forums and chat services dedicated to it.<br />
<br />
There's also collaborative fiction communities as well.<br />
<br />
But very few people know about that. And the folks on Critical Role are playing D&D, sort-of. And D&D is part of the cultural consciousness. So people gravitate to what they know, even if they don't really understand it.<br />
<br />
If all you want to do is tell fun stories and improv act with your friends, I have to ask: why do you need a game system? Or character sheets? Or dice? What does that add aside from the chance of anticlimactic results and narrative breaking limitations?<br />
<br />
Now, I love roleplay! I've spent countless hours participating in wiki, chat, and forum RPs, and even did a little live RP play when I got older. I still sometimes go back and dabble in it from time to time. And I've gotta say: that hobby needs a renaissance! They are really struggling to remain active and relevant, much the same as how RPGs were 10 years ago. And RP is still core to the RPG experience, it is in the name after all, but it's not the only or primary purpose of play. I've also gotta say, I think the RP hobby has a lot more of what the new D&D players are really looking for than D&D proper can deliver on.</div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Sometimes you have to wonder | NOT SURE IF NEWS OR CRASS ..." height="300" src="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fd/c8/e5/fdc8e5fc463bde043546f6e74458095e.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Surprise! It's all crass entertainment! Hooray!</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>
<br />
But, culture changes in stupid ways, and this is how the hobbies are evolving. Standard RP is dying out while RPGs abandon the G in their name.<br />
<br />
Typical.<br />
<br />
Kind of like how what was once country music would now be called folk, what was rock would now be called country, what was metal would now be called rock, and metal has become some ridiculous caricature of itself.</div><div><br /></div><div>The ignorance of the masses defines the nature of the culture we live in.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Personally though, I believe this hobby is inherently about playing a Game with a capital G. I am a GM. I am not here to suck your dick or blow smoke up your ass, I'm here to present you with meaningful challenges that you can overcome using your own ingenuity, teamwork, and dedication. I am here to give you the experience of a well-earned meaningful success, an experience that you can learn from, grow from, and take with you into the rest of your life.</div><div><br /></div><div>And hopefully, I'll learn something from you in the process as well.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="d20 Mixed Media by Joseph Semith" height="130" src="https://images.fineartamerica.com/images/artworkimages/mediumlarge/2/d20-joseph-semith.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Come with me, and you'll be, in a world of arbitrary dungeons!</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>J.A.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09469834689668909830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7147108722453910048.post-18824645174551737252020-06-12T17:22:00.001-06:002020-06-12T17:23:52.665-06:00STA Player Reference Sheet<div style="text-align: center;"><font size="6"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1njO4C_lmzn7fN-V6joE_EySxFcEbznBs/view?usp=sharing">MORE FREE STUFF</a></font><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">The above is a link to a player reference sheet. It uses the language from <a href="https://rpgindesign.blogspot.com/2020/06/star-trek-adventures-rules-notes.html">my notes</a>, so unless you're familiar with that, it may seem a little confusing. It lists alll actions, all spends, the task resolution process, a guide to attributes and disciplines, and a reference fro challenge dice.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Also, in case you're interested, <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lii2_h2iiYu41GYDrrXDZvew8WXXuaZN/view?usp=sharing">here's a blank version of it</a>! Go ahead and make your own nice-looking things.</div>J.A.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09469834689668909830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7147108722453910048.post-19476231149705872612020-06-10T15:25:00.006-06:002021-04-24T19:38:30.115-06:00Star Trek Adventures Talent Cards<div style="text-align: center;"><font size="6">MORE FREE STUFF!!!</font></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xBpB7IiHzVs/XuFPgKYiu_I/AAAAAAAADRg/aVQzAWKpBhIGqS7yrj5zz91nDazPjz8SACK4BGAsYHg/s464/Disclaimer.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="464" data-original-width="374" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xBpB7IiHzVs/XuFPgKYiu_I/AAAAAAAADRg/aVQzAWKpBhIGqS7yrj5zz91nDazPjz8SACK4BGAsYHg/s320/Disclaimer.png" /></a></div><div><br /></div>So, I was browsing the Modiphius forums for the first time recently, and stumbled across <a href="https://forums.modiphius.com/t/star-trek-adventures-talent-cards/7161">this topic</a> about cards made to represent talents. For those not in the know, talents are just STA's version of feats. The problem is that the official character sheet gives you only enough room to write the names of the talents, not what they do. This is problematic, because STA is finnicky and has arbitrarily convoluted rules. The talents are no less elaborate. As a consequence, pretty much everyone always forgets how their talents work all the time and have to look it up whenever they think they should use it. As such, giving players handy-dandy reference cards is the way to go!<div><br /></div><div>Now, I'm a little more advanced than the folks who made that topic. I put out real money to have the best software for making digital and print products from my own home.</div><div><br /></div><div>So I made my own.</div><div><br /></div><div>They're PDF format, so they should be ready to print from any computer to any printer. No fiddling about with settings to get that one perfect print. Additionally, I included every talent, including species, career, etc. I divided the document into character talent cards and ship talent cards, just because you're likely to have to print multiple copies of character cards, but starship ones are less numerous in play.</div><div><br /></div><div>I am currently planning on making cards for the other books that have talents as well; specifically for the new species available in the quadrant books, the new character talents in the division books, and the new starship talents in the command book. (People seem to be saying that there's more starship stuff in the other division books, but I can't see it?)</div><div><br /></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XJ7M0e2qgiE9KGbYF5D3VY4VuhYGzDFX/view?usp=sharing"><font size="4">STA Character Talent Cards</font></a></li><li><font size="4"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1R4TGIm_q5YRcIJ3enAGHyOxTX3vPTTVW/view?usp=sharing">STA Starship Talent Cards</a></font></li><li><font size="4"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/11z03D_VPfzYbahHqbWZygLgmSd88rXbO/view?usp=sharing">Blank Card RTF</a> (In case you want to make your own.)</font><br /></li></ul><div><font size="4"><br /></font></div></div><div><font size="2">About making your own cards with the RTF. When you copy text into the image cells, the table will go wonky. You need to change the paste type to image, and then change the text wrapping to "above text". This allows you to move it around without affecting any formatting.</font></div><div><font size="2"><br /></font></div><h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">EDIT: Department Cards</span></h1><div style="text-align: center;">The following link will take you to a post where I present my department book talent cards. The quadrant books are next on the chopping block.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><h1 style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://rpgindesign.blogspot.com/2021/04/star-trek-adventures-department-talent.html"><span style="font-size: x-large;">LINK</span></a></h1>J.A.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09469834689668909830noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7147108722453910048.post-26299587772934774942020-06-07T11:18:00.002-06:002020-06-07T11:22:42.450-06:00Star Trek Adventures Rules Notes<div style="text-align: center;"><font size="6"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Vw-ccfsR9YnjjNEWVWHMkzlkQDRE34Xi/view?usp=drivesdk" target="_blank">FREE STUFF</a></font></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">OK, so, I really love Star Trek Adventures. It's a pretty bangin' game for a franchise tie-in TTRPG. It is far from perfect,but certainly an enjoyable play, so it gets a pass.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And the book is of excellent quality too, with a woven spine separate from the cover spine and impressive production value on every page!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But you know what doesn't get a passing grade?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The writing.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Oh god, the writing. Flaws I have seen:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Inconsistent language. Is task resolution called a "task" or a "check" people? Get your language straight.</li><li>Muddled language. Tasks are a type of action on your turn, but are also the task resolution system. This means you can take a task that makes you make a task. Buhwhaa?!</li><li>Redundant writing. Every rule in the book is copypasta'd somewhere else in the book at least once. Some rules are triple copied.</li><li>Skatterbrained rules explanation. Every time they try to explain a rule, it gets interrupted by a half-explanation of a related rule, then the text moves on without finishing the explanation of the initial rule until much later on in the book!</li><li>Flavorful but misleading headings. The headings are fun to read if you read this as a book. But if you're trying to find the rule about spending momentum for bonus damage, the table of contents might as well be someone's shopping list!</li><li>Flavor text overload. They have sidebars all over the book. Half of them are pink, meaning they're fluff, the other half are purple, meaning they're actually more rules content. EXCEPT for some of the pink sidebars that contain rules, some of the purple sidebars that contain fluff, and some main text sections that are not rules content either. You basically have to read everything to make sure you didn't miss something.</li><li>Disorganized information. Did you know half of the book's playable species are actually in the DM section at the back of the book?! Without any warning or indication of such earlier on?? How convenient and useful!!! The whole book is like that.</li></ul><div><br /></div><div>So anyways, they can't write to save their lives. So, here, my gift to you, and the fruit of two months of reading and rereading this thing until its pages are nearly falling out. My notes. The entire rule system, sorted, organized, and stripped of fluff and specific play content. Just the systems you need to know to run the game.</div><div><br /></div><div>You're welcome.</div></div>J.A.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09469834689668909830noreply@blogger.com0