Desperately need a new edition of MWRPG: AToW is a weak link.

[Mohammed As`Zaman Bey]

  As a GM, I would be hesitant to hand a new player a copy of ATOW and tell him to make a character.
Of course, I wouldn't recommend having a new player who is unfamiliar with the genre create a character without at least a short briefing on the BT universe, which pretty much revolves around the Battlemech.

  If I had my druthers I'd druther have divided ATOW into a set of books in one package: 1. The Universe and History; 2. Character Creation; 3. Equipment and Vehicles; 4. Actions and Combat.
Face it, ATOW is one hefty tome. Split into four volumes, I could have a handful of players occupied with doing faction research,  putting their characters and equipment together without requiring each player having their own copy to mess with.

  It it were up to me, I'd put all the information to run a unit, merc or regular, in a single book; All the weights, prices and information for buying, selling, repairing, shipping, transporting and even operating 'Mechs, vehicles, aero and other equipment and their various components.

[Atlas3060]

Why not make a book which contains everything you need for BattleTech's default campaign mode?

Because I doubt this title will ever have one book to bind them, one book to rule them all.
Even IO, the kitchen sink, reached critical mass and split like a cell.
I'm reminded of a quote I'll adapt to this scenario:

"Ask 5 people what's a default campaign to them, you'll get 6 answers."
Heck we're already seeing evidence in that with the constructive discussions with the folks here.

So we have the actual physical concerns of printing a big honkin' book and the difference of player's expectations.
Not even bringing into this what the company itself sees as a direction they want the title to go. I'm not that powerful in psychic powers yet.

Which clumsily leads me to the next thing...

You seem to be assuming that a new edition of the RPG shouldn't duplicate rule systems found in other Core Rulebooks. But why not?

I'm assuming you mean salvage and repair rules from Strat Ops, contract negotiations from books like the FM mercs, etc?
FASA did this and what did we get? Extra books that just echoed earlier things, but contributed very little.

1,000 mile Example: MW2ed has merc company construction rules, so does the Merc Handbook and its successor, the 3055 version.
As a player, I want to make a merc company. Which set should I use?
If they differ in rules, then now I want to know which one "is the right one"?
If they are the same, I just wasted money on books that didn't offer much.

I guess this is why I like the Core rulebooks where they handle the mechanisms, but supplements offer the extras.
Sure the tomes are bulky, but StratOps shows me how thing would be repaired or degrade no matter what era I would play.
RPG book shows me what happens when some player idjot jumps in front of a needler.
I need a game where I repair a Mech? Grab the StratOps, there we go.

Maybe. But to function as a substitute for the RPG, I suspect it would also need:
-repair rules

Already in StratOps, because I could have a campaign without any RPG play whatsoever.
Adding those rules again in a RPG book is superfluous.
I don't know if they'll have anything to supplement what's already in StratOps, but I doubt they need to reinvent the wheel.

-abridged unit generation for RPG folks who don't want to deal with everything

I could have sworn something was open tested for IO, split for the Companion book of course, that handles something like this.
Either way how abridged is abridged in this? Personally I see the epitome of it as "Randomly roll from some RAT, boom your merc force is done."

-a middle ground campaign tracking somewhere between "beans and bullets" and Chaos System

This is where my "5 players, 6 answers" quote would come into play.
Because I've always believe Chaos System to be that middle ground.

-a battle resolution system for RPG people who don't want to bother with the boardgame

I honestly don't even know if this title has something like that. Playing the Mechs without the boardgame.
Well unless we count the old Nova books, but I surely don't.
Now RPG resolution, I'm thinking up something for my own experiment.

-political and planetary events of a non-military (or at least non-battle) nature

And this is the one thing I with AToW really should have cribbed from MW2ed; the weekly/monthly encounter charts.
The encounter charts they have currently work fine for non Mechwarriors dealing with personal things, but nothing higher level.
Hopefully the Companion might have something.

[skiltao]

Mohammed As`Zaman Bey, while that sounds like a good way to break the book up, I'm half afraid that's how the people think stuff is already divided.

-1, Universe and History: Era Digest or Report
-2, Character Generation: A Time of War
-3, Equipment and Vehicles: TROs
-4, Actions and Combat: RPG Quickstart
-5, Running a unit: Campaign Companion

Because I doubt this title will ever have one book to bind them, one book to rule them all.

FASA1607, BattleTech's first RPG, fits almost everything you need into 145 pages. (The only thing missing is how much damage each 'Mech weapon does.) If Catalyst made an equivalent book, I'm sure they'd pad it out more, but there's no reason it should reach IO's size.

Do you find no value in crafting a point-of-entry book so that someone new to BattleTech doesn't need to invest in (and hunt through) multiple other massive Corebooks?

I do not think that a point-of-entry product should need any supplements just to cover the one type of campaign its audience most expects it to handle. (Yes, some people have expressed a preference for non-default campaigns, and yes it is possible to make aToW support non-default campaigns. But everybody acknowledges that MechWarriors are the heroes of BattleTech, and even a quick glance through aToW's chargen reveals an obvious focus on vehicular military campaigns.)

I guess this is why I like the Core rulebooks where they handle the mechanisms, but supplements offer the extras.

It seems to me that TacOps is nothing but extras. Ditto for the "Alternate Eras" chapter of IO. And you must admit that the repair & maintenance rules don't really belong sandwiched between BattleForce and BattleSpace - so with the Core Rulebook series reaching completion, why not move stuff around to make the next generation of books more useful?

Either way how abridged is abridged in this? Personally I see the epitome of it as "Randomly roll from some RAT, boom your merc force is done."

I imagine something like the system from the first and second editions of the RPG, with some provision for administrative, support and security personnel, and whatever else the GM might want rough guidelines for.

I've always believe Chaos System to be that middle ground.

What system are you picturing as being even simpler than the Chaos system, that Chaos Campaigns fall in the middle?

Now RPG resolution, I'm thinking up something for my own experiment.

If you come up with something workable, I'd be curious to see it. (Some other thread though.)

[Kitsune413]

I like the system and have never had a problem with new players understanding it.

I've never thought it is particularly lacking in anything. Though I own all the core rulebook.

I don't know if the complaints in the thread are particularly realistic. I think that they have done a good job with the core rulebooks. If you want to know the weight of a mechs arm that's an incredibly specific request that doesn't need to be covered in the core rules.

Needing total warfare, or the techmanual, or strat ops is fine considering how specific and technical those rules are.

Atow has everything you need to know to be a person in the world. If you want to know what the galaxy is composed of and how long it takes to get somewhere... you are in luck. You are in a system willing to provide that kind of granularity. In a massive tome.

But you definitely don't need to know those things to play a game of atow.

[skiltao]

You are saying that it is "fine" to require 1200 pages of rules to handle what other editions have managed in a tenth of the space. Are you sure you want to say that? ???

[Kitsune413]

You are saying that it is "fine" to require 1200 pages of rules to handle what other editions have managed in a tenth of the space. Are you sure you want to say that? ???

Of course.

Battletech is a giant robot simulator board game. It is complicated.

I've played all of the editions of mechwarrior. All of them have crazy conversion rules that make them a pain to integrate with regular battletech.

Atow's mission was clear. Make an rpg that was compatible with battletech. They did it.

There are tons of things that I like about 4th edition better than Atow. But Atow does what it does beautifully.

If you are playing battletech and you want to repair a battle damaged mech. If you are into that kind of thing then you are probably an enthusiast. If your a battletech enthusiast that wants to fix things then you are going to want Strat Ops.

If you don't want Strat Ops then you aren't into Battle Mech repair simulation... and so you don't need an abstract version. Just have the guy roll his technician roll and if he hits it then roll out in a mech.

The OP wanted to know how much a mech Arm Weighed so he knew how much he could fill a dropship. That's accountant tech. He wants strat ops.

What he might not want is the cost of strat ops so maybe suggesting that an abstract book be in the Atow book makes sense. But an abstract book isn't going to tell you how much a mechs Arm weighs and how to fill a dropship with it.

He doesn't want am abstract repair system. He wants a mech arm weight simulator and drops hip transportation simulator.

Those don't need to clutter up ATOW. Every rpg system has sourcebooks. ATOW is a mechwarrior/infantry soldier/adventurer explorer simulator in a line of other simulators.

[ColBosch]

Just a side note, AToW is MechWarrior, 4th Edition. The CBT:RPG by FanPro was just MechWarrior, Third Edition with a name change.

[Kitsune413]

Just a side note, AToW is MechWarrior, 4th Edition. The CBT:RPG by FanPro was just MechWarrior, Third Edition with a name change.

You are right. I meant third edition.

[Atlas3060]

Do you find no value in crafting a point-of-entry book so that someone new to BattleTech doesn't need to invest in (and hunt through) multiple other massive Corebooks?

I'll admit my bias due to how long I've been playing not only this game, but others.
So my idea of a point-of-entry book would be a better version of the quick start rules.

Small amounts of templates, a mission, and some variants of that mission to give it multiple play-ability.
From there the neophyte would benefit more from an experienced player (the GM), eventually getting their own books.
Then the student becomes the master.

So if anything I'd like to see the Quickstart download be better and be that point of entry the player needs.

It seems to me that TacOps is nothing but extras. Ditto for the "Alternate Eras" chapter of IO. And you must admit that the repair & maintenance rules don't really belong sandwiched between BattleForce and BattleSpace - so with the Core Rulebook series reaching completion, why not move stuff around to make the next generation of books more useful?

That's exactly what TacOps and IO are; the former is the extra toy box for Total Warfare, the latter is "all the things".

Now I will admit that the repair rules chapter could have been moved, but I still agree with where it was in terms of scaling.
Strategic Operations is just that: you're beyond the mere skirmish fighting. Repairs and refits work best in that scale of where you are in the war.

As for a new generation of these books; well never say never but I just imagined the writers screaming as if they saw some Eldritch horror at that thought.  ;)
I mean 10+ years and we're still awaiting the Core books to be done with IO and the recent progeny it spawned.

Huh, who knew that books could have kids while we're waiting for them to be finished?

What system are you picturing as being even simpler than the Chaos system, that Chaos Campaigns fall in the middle?

Once again maybe its due to how I play, but my levels of complexity go as such:

Beer and Pretzel Easy: "Okay how many of your mechs survived? Alright they are automagically repaired". Maybe if you want to add tension, put down a die roll for something simple like ammo refills.

Abstract Campaign: Using Chaos Campaign, I work through different fights with my force. Hoping the next scenario won't bankrupt me.

Beans and Bullets Strat Ops: "Alright if I sell off these gyros from the busted Vindicator, I might get enough to cover the repairs on my Hunchback's gyro!"

Then again my group tends to play fast and loose with "campaigns".
One player was disinterested in our play after we summed up it as, "Random fights strung together with a small story."

If you come up with something workable, I'd be curious to see it. (Some other thread though.)

Oh of course, I'll let you know.
One thing I want to do is still work within the established printing.
See how I can make it easier for folks to take in and play.

[Kitsune413]

Time for ATOW alphastrike

[IronSphinx]

Time for ATOW alphastrike

Preach it!  O0

[PurpleDragon]

Time for ATOW alphastrike

Groooooaaaaaaannnnn
 

[VictorMorson]

  As a GM, I would be hesitant to hand a new player a copy of ATOW and tell him to make a character.
Of course, I wouldn't recommend having a new player who is unfamiliar with the genre create a character without at least a short briefing on the BT universe, which pretty much revolves around the Battlemech.

  If I had my druthers I'd druther have divided ATOW into a set of books in one package: 1. The Universe and History; 2. Character Creation; 3. Equipment and Vehicles; 4. Actions and Combat.
Face it, ATOW is one hefty tome. Split into four volumes, I could have a handful of players occupied with doing faction research,  putting their characters and equipment together without requiring each player having their own copy to mess with.

  It it were up to me, I'd put all the information to run a unit, merc or regular, in a single book; All the weights, prices and information for buying, selling, repairing, shipping, transporting and even operating 'Mechs, vehicles, aero and other equipment and their various components.

This would have been a huge help, or failing that, very specific reference pages that tell you in no uncertain terms where to look if you want something specific.  Hell, if they were to release a "master index" of every single rule and where to find them, I'd be all over that, because nothing sucks worse than juggling through about 20 books to find a simple answer on things.

Well almost nothing.  Trying to get through A Time of War's chargen or advanced rules for things is close.  I am /still/ unclear how Battle Armor vs Battle Armor combat works on the RPG scale.

You are saying that it is "fine" to require 1200 pages of rules to handle what other editions have managed in a tenth of the space. Are you sure you want to say that? ???

This is really the biggest problem.  I guarantee that 99% of the detail could be kept barring a few ludicrous things WITHOUT it being insanely long.  It's very awkwardly formatted, far more than 3rd Edition or 2nd Edition even.

[VictorMorson]

  As a longtime GM (since the 1970s) I've seen far better organized game rules for huge games -I played Squad Leader.
  I'm running my third campaign using ATOW and I still have to spend time going over the characters' spread sheets to make sure they did the math correctly. I use a 4 gig collection of out of print BT books in pdf format on my notebook, downloaded from a torrent site in order to look up information not included in ATOW and to avoid needing a handtruck to haul those books around, like one of our other GMs does (he has every BT publication, every novel and an almost complete collection of Battle Technology magazines).

  ATOW includes minutiae like battery life but not 'Mech component weights -My players don't care about the life of their night scopes but are interested in filling their dropship to capacity without me having to make something up (I assigned each actuator 1% of a 'Mech's weight, btw, just to be simple) because that's what the players wanted.

This is really for anyone interested, but here's a complex hardware index on google docs we built from scratch:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1C9F0FvodvltX1qAIKxEcw6S_f2yfVHYou89RBw7uxMA/edit?usp=sharing

I also included a template for our dropship, one of our loaded oddball dropships (it's been a long, long running game), and a character sheet too.  The character sheet is hybrid'ed to work with Storytelling, but it could easily be converted back to straight AtoW.

If this stuff helps anyone, glad to help.  We spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to make this work within the rules. 

PS:  The "U" column is Used; you set the Total number, then just enter in "used" when you use ammo or parts, so it's easy to restock (and the weight still calculates); that's only necessary if you're using the dropship sheets though, you can just ignore almost all of it if you're just looking for an equipment reference to print.

[Kitsune413]

  I am /still/ unclear how Battle Armor vs Battle Armor combat works on the RPG scale.

Total warfare rules.

[Atlas3060]

FASA1607, BattleTech's first RPG, fits almost everything you need into 145 pages. (The only thing missing is how much damage each 'Mech weapon does.) If Catalyst made an equivalent book, I'm sure they'd pad it out more, but there's no reason it should reach IO's size.

Currently going through that book and in my opinion, it makes a fine precursor to a campaign companion.
However as an RPG it is anemic.
Even the book starts out with "Planning a Mech Unit", the book itself is a fancy pilot generator.
Now there are some things that AToW took from it that I do appreciate, but then left out neat things like the random encounters generator.

I imagine something like the system from the first and second editions of the RPG, with some provision for administrative, support and security personnel, and whatever else the GM might want rough guidelines for.

FM Mercenaries would be a decent place to start then.
The rules would be closer to something like MW3RPG, but the admin/support/tech pool stuff was nice to read at least for me.

Total warfare rules.

Actually yeah that would be how I play it at my table.

Time for ATOW alphastrike

I wonder how fast template grunts die if you pit them against each other?
Or use squad combat rules for small engagements?
More research will be needed in order to sate my curiosity on this.

[skiltao]

This is really the biggest problem.  I guarantee that 99% of the detail could be kept barring a few ludicrous things WITHOUT it being insanely long.  It's very awkwardly formatted, far more than 3rd Edition or 2nd Edition even.

Agreed. But since all CGL's corebooks are like that to some extent, I can't imagine it'd be easy for them to fix; and like IronSphinx said, the market might not support a new edition of the RPG.

If you don't want Strat Ops then you aren't into Battle Mech repair simulation... and so you don't need an abstract version.
<snip>
What he might not want is the cost of strat ops so maybe suggesting that an abstract book be in the Atow book makes sense. But an abstract book isn't going to tell you how much a mechs Arm weighs and how to fill a dropship with it.
<snip>
Those don't need to clutter up ATOW.

Things like the weight of a 'Mechs arm can (and have) been handled in concisely abstract ways, and not everybody is "all or nothing" into repairs & maintenance. ATOW is already cluttered - if abstract campaign rules aren't among that clutter, then it's failing to deliver the essential aesthetics of a BattleTech RPG campaign.

I agree that thorough rules would fit best in the Campaign Companion; that's one reason I've suggested that the Companion fill the "point of entry" role instead of ATOW. (This would reposition ATOW as a supplement for highly detailed chargen and personal combat, the same way the other Corebooks act as highly detailed expansions to other types of play.)

I'll admit my bias due to how long I've been playing not only this game, but others.
So my idea of a point-of-entry book would be a better version of the quick start rules.
<snip>
As for a new generation of these books; well never say never but I just imagined the writers screaming as if they saw some Eldritch horror at that thought.  ;)

Okay, but that doesn't answer the question: do you, or do you not, see the value in a point-of-entry product containing within itself all the essentials for archetypal MechWarrior campaigning?

Once the last book in the all-encompassing Core Rulebooks is out, CGL will move on to years of supplements which expand beyond that Core - they're not going to fit perfectly within the Corebook organization, so (perhaps beginning with the Campaign Companion) I don't see why we should  expect them to; and nobody complains about how the Introductory Box overlaps with Total Warfare--if repeating a small amount of content from a Corebook would make a point-of-entry product a better product, why not do it?

Small amounts of templates, a mission, and some variants of that mission to give it multiple play-ability.
<snip>
One thing I want to do is still work within the established printing.
See how I can make it easier for folks to take in and play.

Fair enough. As an aside, I want to mention that I find aToW's NPC templates completely unusable (2x-3x as many stats as I use for Pathfinder NPCs, and I consider Pathfinder to be going a bit overboard). "ATOW alpha strike" stats would be infinitely better.

Beer and Pretzel Easy: "Okay how many of your mechs survived? Alright they are automagically repaired". Maybe if you want to add tension, put down a die roll for something simple like ammo refills.

Currently going through that book and in my opinion, it makes a fine precursor to a campaign companion.
<snip>
FM Mercenaries would be a decent place to start then.
The rules would be closer to something like MW3RPG, but the admin/support/tech pool stuff was nice to read at least for me.

I don't normally consider "no tracking system at all" (your beer & pretzels level) to be a tracking system, but I get where you're coming from.

I suggested a mid-level because I've seen people ask for resource tracking more complex than Chaos Campaign but less complex than the FM:Mercs series. For example, I like the idea of tracking how good my administrative team is, but I have no desire to track their skills individually, and I certainly don't want to track individual salaries for anyone except the Player Characters.

However as an RPG it is anemic.
Even the book starts out with "Planning a Mech Unit", the book itself is a fancy pilot generator.

You say that, but when you make a character in MW1e, everything you've added to that character actually does something. ATOW can't make the same claim.

[Kitsune413]

Things like the weight of a 'Mechs arm can (and have) been handled in concisely abstract ways, and not everybody is "all or nothing" into repairs & maintenance. ATOW is already cluttered - if abstract campaign rules aren't among that clutter, then it's failing to deliver the essential aesthetics of a BattleTech RPG campaign.

There are players who will not ever care about repairing mechs. Then there are going to be a lot of players who don't want to bother with playing mechwarrior who are going to want to repair things. So having a separate book that goes into granular detail about repairing and simulating things makes a lot of sense.

You can't play with Mechs and Vehicles without total warfare rules. Atow adds an additional, optional, level of granularity to being a MechWarrior.

The vast majority of mechwarrior players are going to want to be mechwarriors. Or special forces operatives. (OR special forces Lam operatives. And then you tell them no.)

So why is it ok to not provide rules to play with mechs, which the vast majority of players are going to do, when it isn't ok to not provide repair rules?

If the answer is that historically that's where the rules have lived then that's silly.

Tons of battletech players want that repair granularity without deciding that he needs to know that his mechwarrior(s) have transit disorientation syndrome, are illiterate, have a bad reputation in several star systems but have combat sense... and exceptional attribute... and a LAM drivers license. And a Sniper Rifle... (tell them no!)

[VictorMorson]

Given Sniper Rifles are more or less legal in a lot of spots and aren't all that good, I don't think I'd actually tell players no to a sniper rifle.  Even early.

[Atlas3060]

Okay, but that doesn't answer the question: do you, or do you not, see the value in a point-of-entry product containing within itself all the essentials for archetypal MechWarrior campaigning?

Oh I see value in point of entry products, when where we are entering is the main focus of the whole title.
However I see a point of entry book for Mechwarrior campaigning to go as well as Battletroops, Battlespace, and other "point of entry" expansions that tried to expand away from the robots.

Now this is all assuming that maybe the Campaign Companion just dumps coolant all over itself, screws up, and can't contribute worth a damn to Mechwarrior campaigning. Personally I don't see that happening, but for the sake of your question I'm going to roll with it.

I don't see value in CGL putting yet another book down for the RPG/Mechwarrior focused campaigning that the already established core rulebooks could already do.

Once the last book in the all-encompassing Core Rulebooks is out, CGL will move on to years of supplements which expand beyond that Core - they're not going to fit perfectly within the Corebook organization, so (perhaps beginning with the Campaign Companion) I don't see why we should  expect them to; and nobody complains about how the Introductory Box overlaps with Total Warfare--if repeating a small amount of content from a Corebook would make a point-of-entry product a better product, why not do it?

Yeah but the difference between an Intro box set and this nebulous "Simple Campaign book" your championing is the focus of the units.
No one complains about Intro boxes covering over Total Warfare ground because giant robots are the star of the show.
Not the pilots, not the merchants, not even the lords and masters in the Human Sphere.

As much as a "Mech Campaigning for Simple rules" is a neat idea, and it is, I can't see CGL going back and making another "simpler" rulebook after Campaign Companion. Mainly because it seems that the focus they want to shift into for simple games is Chaos Campaign.

Fair enough. As an aside, I want to mention that I find aToW's NPC templates completely unusable (2x-3x as many stats as I use for Pathfinder NPCs, and I consider Pathfinder to be going a bit overboard). "ATOW alpha strike" stats would be infinitely better.

You say that, but when you make a character in MW1e, everything you've added to that character actually does something. ATOW can't make the same claim.

This is the part of our discussion which really confuses me.
You praise MW1e characters, a system which if you aren't a Mechwarrior/scout/tech then you are tough out of luck.
Then say that AToW Template NPCs are completely unusable, but templates like the grunt have maybe 10 skills max.
Even out of those 10, you're going to use 3, maybe 4 in combat? The rest are either career or other skills which are useful outside of combat.

If anything, MW1e sheets would be decent thug templates.
AToW characters can do something, they do it well and if not better than MW1e folks.
Especially since there's specializations and actual consequences to affiliations.
Also they are more diverse so I don't have to be constrained into the "class" system of Mechwarrior/Tech/Scout that the 1st edition did.

I'm still standing by my claim that MW1e is a fancy pilot creator, not a full blooded RPG system.
Rereading that book further enforces my belief on that.
After MW3RPG/CBTRPG the game system tried to break away from the "Oh yeah the Mechs have pilots" mentality.
It started feeling like a true role playing game.

I'm not saying your wrong in liking MW1e, it did its job in the 3025 simple timeframe we had back in the day.
If your table likes running that for other stuff too, more power to you.
I'm just offering you good luck when battle armor comes along, or someone wants to be a trader in the system.

It all loops back to what I said earlier: RPGs have always been weak in the Battletech stable of products.
They are either pilot generators or decent RPG engines that the hardcore RPG crowd just can't get behind.
The latter because this just isn't the focus for the overall title.

[Kitsune413]

Given Sniper Rifles are more or less legal in a lot of spots and aren't all that good, I don't think I'd actually tell players no to a sniper rifle.  Even early.

Players can buy sniper rifles all day. It isn't until they intend to be a sniper and pilot a land air mech that I think they had better be a word of Blake rom operative... or a death commando... or a double agent word of Blake rom death commando.

[solmanian]

Military career and training aren't straight forward. Sometimes you're offered to go to a "bonus" course, that isn't directly related to your MOS, simply because there's a spot open and the brass wants to reward you without doing something that would involve a pay raise or a promotion. The most common is medic training, because that's something that could be considered useful no matter where you serve. For ground units, training with support weapons is also common, even if those weapons aren't something they would commonly use. Anti-terror courses are also a thing, though they still have stringent physical requirement (but most combat-ready personnel should already be at that level of fitness). It's doubly so for OCS graduates, where the reality of combined arms command and combat isn't a question of "if" but more of "when", so they are very likely to receive advanced training in various fields.

[Kitsune413]

Land air mech pilots are cross trained. They are trained to pilot two very advanced and very different units.

So a Mechwarrior who is cross trained as a counter terrorist assault trooper or an aerospace pilot who is cross trained as a combat medic I think is probable and still creates a 'Human Being'

Mech, aerospace pilot, combat medic, snipers... it is battletech. If you built a 50 or 60 year old...

[skiltao]

Kitsune413, I agree with most of what you say in your post, but wanted to address two points specifically:

There are players who will not ever care about repairing mechs.

Any given player will only care about a few things in ATOW. Most players won't care about most of the book anyways; "repairing mechs" isn't special that way.

So why is it ok to not provide rules to play with mechs

I never said that was okay. I wouldn't want to include anything even as complex as the Quickstart rules, but the gamemaster should have some kind of guidelines for resolving vehicular combat.

[solmanian]

Land air mech pilots are cross trained. They are trained to pilot two very advanced and very different units.

So a Mechwarrior who is cross trained as a counter terrorist assault trooper or an aerospace pilot who is cross trained as a combat medic I think is probable and still creates a 'Human Being'

Mech, aerospace pilot, combat medic, snipers... it is battletech. If you built a 50 or 60 year old...

They don't have to max everything...

And what are "medics" and "snipers" in ATOW besides guys with MedTech and Small Arms skills? Two skills that you'll pick up anyways through the "Basic training" field... As for backstory? His mom was a veterinarian and dad took him hunting a lot. it doesn't have to be exotic.

Those couple of decades before you become an adult, you can pick up all kinds of skills if you apply yourself, and most BT characters, canon or player generated, won't be couch potatoes living in their parents basement.

[IronSphinx]

and most BT characters, canon or player generated, won't be couch potatoes living in their parents basement.

AToW has a 'gamer' track in the life paths?  ;)

[VictorMorson]

Players can buy sniper rifles all day. It isn't until they intend to be a sniper and pilot a land air mech that I think they had better be a word of Blake rom operative... or a death commando... or a double agent word of Blake rom death commando.

In theory depending on the era, they could also be a rich member of the Combine piloting a Stinger LAM, they were in production up until the Clans ran them over.  Would require a pretty big commitment to starting gear for a really God-awful 'mech though.  LAM or not, it's atrocious.

[Atlas3060]

AToW has a 'gamer' track in the life paths?  ;)

Ne'er do well Module ;)
Too bad the module"ToD: Subscription fee warrior" was rejected.

[Kitsune413]

I was referring to a player character attempting to make a Mary Sue.

I fully expect a mechwarrior to be able to fire a rifle and bandaid a person...

It's the moment that person is performing a heart transplant in the field with no equipment after he just flushed his land air mechs coolant that it becomes an issue. Hence the reference to a large amount of negative quirks that have little actual effect on a characters combat capabilities.

My comments were also satirical.

But when I'm saying Sniper I also don't mean he took the rifle skill. I've got the rifle skill at 1 in real life and I'm not making any headshots while riding in a moving helicopter any time soon.

So yeah. If your character is a child soldier who grew up shooting people's with rifles and found a lam in a lostech cache before being picked up to go to the academy... then I guess it makes sense.

But that's not the guy we are talking about. We are talking about that white collar dude... who throws up when his jumpship teleports. Has a charisma of 1 but somehow wasn't kicked out of the academy. Who has combat sense even though he grew up in the federated suns... but not in the outback.

Played by that player with the narcissistic personality disorder.

[skiltao]

Now this is all assuming that maybe the Campaign Companion just dumps coolant all over itself, screws up, and can't contribute worth a damn to Mechwarrior campaigning. Personally I don't see that happening, but for the sake of your question I'm going to roll with it.
<snip>
As much as a "Mech Campaigning for Simple rules" is a neat idea, and it is, I can't see CGL going back and making another "simpler" rulebook after Campaign Companion. Mainly because it seems that the focus they want to shift into for simple games is Chaos Campaign.

That's not what I said, and not what I asked.

I don't see value in CGL putting yet another book down for the RPG/Mechwarrior focused campaigning that the already established core rulebooks could already do.

The established corebooks do not already do this. ATOW fails on its own, Strat Ops fails on its own. They need other books to work. Total Warfare contains all the rules relevant to itself; all you need to add is Mech stats. What I'm proposing is that the Campaign Companion 1) be likewise self-contained, so that it can work as a point-of-entry product, and 2) substitute for (without focusing on) the RPG for people who find ATOW's focus unsuitable to their RPGing needs.

You seem to believe that the BattleTech game line should have only a single point of entry, and there is no market, or even possible market, for anything but the boxed set. Even though RPGs are obviously a whole wide market unto themselves. You do recall that campaign/merc generation books have been the most robust line outside of TROs for essentially BT's whole life, right? And that "merc company campaign" is the traditional way a long-term group maintains interest in playing BT games?

What possible downside is there to designing the Campaign Companion so that it's functional and playable when bought on its own?

Then say that AToW Template NPCs are completely unusable, but templates like the grunt have maybe 10 skills max.
Even out of those 10, you're going to use 3, maybe 4 in combat? The rest are either career or other skills which are useful outside of combat.

8 attributes, 10 skills, some traits, some equipment... a "thug template" should only give me the numbers I actually need. If the rest of the Thug's stats are more or less "regular joe," then there should be a "regular joe" template I can stack onto it *if and only if* needed.

actual consequences to affiliations.

In-game allegiances and obligations are "actual consequences." Equipment rarity is an "actual consequence." Chargen modifiers aren't.

This is the part of our discussion which really confuses me.
You praise MW1e characters, a system which if you aren't a Mechwarrior/scout/tech then you are tough out of luck.
Especially since there's specializations and <snip>
AToW characters can do something, they do it well and if not better than MW1e folks.
<snip>
Also they are more diverse so I don't have to be constrained into the "class" system of Mechwarrior/Tech/Scout that the 1st edition did.

I'm still standing by my claim that MW1e is a fancy pilot creator, not a full blooded RPG system.
<snip>
After MW3RPG/CBTRPG the game system tried to break away from the "Oh yeah the Mechs have pilots" mentality.
It started feeling like a true role playing game.
<snip>
I'm just offering you good luck when battle armor comes along, or someone wants to be a trader in the system.

You know that most of ATOW's skills and skill-fragments come from the 2nd edition RPG's Companion, right?

Both MW1e and ATOW have chargen, personal combat, and personal equipment; MW1e has more RPG rule mechanics than just that. What's ATOW got? Not rules for being a trader, and I thought I saw a complaint in this very thread about it not handling battle armor... Other than the skills and skill-fragments which have direct roots or equivalents in MW1e, what skills does ATOW actually give you guidelines for their use?