Far No Longer

[Hominid Mk II]

I mean, can you imagine the outrage about how it takes all the fun from not knowing how the current sourcebooks turn out?)

That's true, but it really shouldn't be. One way or another, to quote John Maynard Keynes: "In the long run we are all dead.". Do the details of exactly how really matter that much?

[HABeas2]

That's true, but it really shouldn't be. One way or another, to quote John Maynard Keynes: "In the long run we are all dead.". Do the details of exactly how really matter that much?

And yet, the Dark Age was long reviled because it told us how the next 80 years of BT history was going to end...and I was run out on a rail for suggesting a time skip to 3250 after IlClan. So...yeah.

- Herb

[Dihm]

The more Tetatae I have in my life, the better it is.  Thank you

[Hominid Mk II]

 

[Daryk]

Opposable thumbs FTW! 

[Daemion]

And yet, the Dark Age was long reviled because it told us how the next 80 years of BT history was going to end...and I was run out on a rail for suggesting a time skip to 3250 after IlClan. So...yeah.

- Herb

 

I actually liked the ilClan time-jump idea.  Just goes to show I'm very much in any minority when it comes to these boards.

[HABeas2]

 

I actually liked the ilClan time-jump idea.  Just goes to show I'm very much in any minority when it comes to these boards.

To be fair, my plan was less of a jump than a fast-forward approach, in which the history between both would get explained before we got to the 3250 point, but.... ah, well. Taking the long way it is!

- Herb

[BATTLEMASTER]

The more Tetatae I have in my life, the better it is.  Thank you

I couldn't help but think of a certain Little Golden Book title I saw awhile back when I saw that image:

"The Humans Are Dead...  We Are the Humans Now"

[Cannonshop]

To be fair, my plan was less of a jump than a fast-forward approach, in which the history between both would get explained before we got to the 3250 point, but.... ah, well. Taking the long way it is!

- Herb

considering the mess they're going to have to clean up now? well...

[HABeas2]

considering the mess they're going to have to clean up now? well...

A clean universe isn't a very interesting one anyway.

- Herb

[Cannonshop]

A clean universe isn't a very interesting one anyway.

- Herb

true dat.  but the kind of mess matters as much as the mess.

[HABeas2]

true dat.  but the kind of mess matters as much as the mess.

Sure can. But at least I don't have any say in any of it, so that's a good thing, right?

- Herb

[Cannonshop]

Sure can. But at least I don't have any say in any of it, so that's a good thing, right?

- Herb

it's not QUITE as good as the fact that I don't have a say.  (I'm, if you recall, worse).

[HABeas2]

it's not QUITE as good as the fact that I don't have a say.  (I'm, if you recall, worse).

Oh, way worse, yeah!

- Herb

[Cannonshop]

Oh, way worse, yeah!

- Herb

Indeed. why do you think I dropped out of the freelancer pool?  when you observe in hardcopy your shortcomings to the degree I had (have) them, and the better options out there?  makes perfect sense.  OTOH, you supervised one of the most important eras in the setting (Profitably), your term covered one of the game's biggest growth periods, I might not have liked some of your decisions, but the balance-sheet doesn't lie.  You don't have anything to be ashamed of.

and I still love the track system you did with Flashpoint.  It was like a primer on how to design a campaign that keeps players coming back.

[HABeas2]

and I still love the track system you did with Flashpoint.  It was like a primer on how to design a campaign that keeps players coming back.

Credit where it's due there: Chris Trossen pioneered that system with Operation: Stiletto. I merely followed in his footsteps, and added in that popularity system that ultimately got abandoned.

- Herb

[Cannonshop]

Credit where it's due there: Chris Trossen pioneered that system with Operation: Stiletto. I merely followed in his footsteps, and added in that popularity system that ultimately got abandoned.

- Herb

well, I liked it.  It made things you did on the table matter, setting up non-combat objectives that could turn a win into a loss if you did it in certain ways? excellent. 

I would've loved to see something like that applied to Clan-centric products, "Won a trial, but you did it dishonorably? you just screwed yourself."

would've been a nice change from every scenario  descending into a kill-all grinder.

[idea weenie]

Credit where it's due there: Chris Trossen pioneered that system with Operation: Stiletto. I merely followed in his footsteps, and added in that popularity system that ultimately got abandoned.

- Herb

The popularity system was actually quite nice.  If you win using overwhelming force/odds you got an overall bonus, but nowhere near as much as if you used a more number-balanced force.  So no landing a Warlord Mk2 load of troops when the defenders can easily fit into a Leopard.  Popularity rules allowed the GM to tell the players, "Yes you won, but did you have to use a sledgehammer?"

It was also useful for modeling how garrison contracts could be depending on source of the force doing the garrisoning.  An Inner Sphere force might just have a few complainers at the fence, while a unit that just came from the Periphery might have hostile attacks get the benefit of local guides simply because the locals don't trust the mercenary unit (or actually have extra units added to the hostile forces).


The only nitpick I have for Operation Flashpoint is that no matter what side the players initially chose, eventually have it be the wrong side.  They take the Davion-aligned side?  Eventually the planet becomes an armed camp whose sole purpose is to equip and send troops off to fight the Clans, effectively martial law over the entire planet (what Kowloon could be in an evil universe).  They take the Steiner-aligned side?  The guy in charge winds up hiring mercenaries for everything and turning the planet into the worst aspects of a company town, and working to extract as much money as possible (robber baron capitalism at its worst).

[HABeas2]

The only nitpick I have for Operation Flashpoint is that no matter what side the players initially chose, eventually have it be the wrong side.  They take the Davion-aligned side?  Eventually the planet becomes an armed camp whose sole purpose is to equip and send troops off to fight the Clans, effectively martial law over the entire planet (what Kowloon could be in an evil universe).  They take the Steiner-aligned side?  The guy in charge winds up hiring mercenaries for everything and turning the planet into the worst aspects of a company town, and working to extract as much money as possible (robber baron capitalism at its worst).

That's a suggested outcome, or is that how you saw it was written?

With the Kaumberg TtS now out there, you can get a handle on even more details than before, including how things turned out after the Civil War and Jihad eras. So, if anyone wanted to campaign on my little world of wealthy woodworker-warriors, well... just let me know how it goes!

- Herb

[idea weenie]

That's a suggested outcome, or is that how you saw it was written?

With the Kaumberg TtS now out there, you can get a handle on even more details than before, including how things turned out after the Civil War and Jihad eras. So, if anyone wanted to campaign on my little world of wealthy woodworker-warriors, well... just let me know how it goes!

- Herb

That is how I saw it as being written, where one side was 'right' and the other 'wrong'.  By making both sides able to be 'wrong', it lets the players have a fairly easy time in the beginning of the campaign, then have to join the underdogs to undo the government they created.  With one side being 'right' the players have a 50-50 chance of picking correctly and the campaign ending early thanks to the PC force hunting down the smaller side.

By making it where both sides can be 'wrong', this extends the campaign as the players can see that they backed the wrong group (though suspicious glares are often sent at the GM), and now have to fight the controlling group.  Each of the two opposing controlling groups will have their respective advantages (highly skilled troops for one side, well-equipped troops on the other), and the players must overcome those advantages however possible (i.e. popularity rules)

[HABeas2]

That is how I saw it as being written, where one side was 'right' and the other 'wrong'.  By making both sides able to be 'wrong', it lets the players have a fairly easy time in the beginning of the campaign, then have to join the underdogs to undo the government they created.  With one side being 'right' the players have a 50-50 chance of picking correctly and the campaign ending early thanks to the PC force hunting down the smaller side.

Hmmm. There *may* have been a subconscious bias on my part; the book was written based on a rejected novel pitch I'd made, which was rooted in my home game at the time, and the pro-FedSuns side (House Hasseldorf) was the one who hired the PCs. The LeSat family were just taking advantage of some pretty thin reasoning to find a way to try and divest the Haseldorfs of their lands, which included the capital city and thus gave the Hasseldorfs what the LeSats saw as an undue sway over the planetary government. Starting a civil war on the planet that had to tie into the greater civil war, though, was inevitably going to make one pro-Katrina and the other pro-Victor by default, and since the novelists were writing Victor's camp as "superhero good guys" (TM) and Katrina's camp as "evil ice queen loyalists," well, there was probably no way the LeSats were coming out of that as the "right side" either way. But the design mandate for the Operations book had to allow for players to be on either side, so I tried to give the LeSats some breaks in there...

Then I had that final Track, wherein the post-war government is telling BOTH sides of the greater civil war to get lost when they try to come in after the party's all over, so that no matter who picked the "wrong" side before, they had a chance for redemption if they could find a way to get in on that action.

Now, if I *REALLY* wanted to establish the LeSats are totally wrong, I might have had them go extinct soon after those events (my original novel pitch ended with the LeSat family leadership dead, and no mention at all of how it fit into the greater war), but instead, as of the Dark Age, they were back, allied with another House, and strong enough to give the Hasseldorfs trouble again. It's VERY likely they both had to put aside their differences in the Jihad anyway, since Kaumberg's defense forces were thrown into that whole mess against Democracy Now, followed by an Archonette who didn't want to relinquish his power after the crisis abated. There may have been some extra drama not covered at that point. Can't remember all the details now.

But, hey, the point of the Operations books, like the Chaos Track system that followed, was to give the GMs more flexibility and allow play on both sides of the fight, with some hooks tossed in for ideas on follow-ups based on the outcome. The only trouble is, BT is, at least officially, a one-timeline kind of universe, so the "historical outcome" always ends up being whatever the writers agree to as time goes on.

Which is why my fun projects nowadays always have to be off the beaten path and deniable. Like having the alien bird folk taking over the Inner Sphere, or seeing an alternate history in which the SLDF never left, and nobody ever heard of ComStar/the Word of Blake, the Clans, a "Second Star League," or a Republic of the Sphere!

Or, you know, whatever the hell is going on in that far-away nebula out there...

- Herb

[Daemion]

Hmmm. There *may* have been a subconscious bias on my part; the book was written based on a rejected novel pitch I'd made, which was rooted in my home game at the time, and the pro-FedSuns side (House Hasseldorf) was the one who hired the PCs. The LeSat family were just taking advantage of some pretty thin reasoning to find a way to try and divest the Haseldorfs of their lands, which included the capital city and thus gave the Hasseldorfs what the LeSats saw as an undue sway over the planetary government. Starting a civil war on the planet that had to tie into the greater civil war, though, was inevitably going to make one pro-Katrina and the other pro-Victor by default, and since the novelists were writing Victor's camp as "superhero good guys" (TM) and Katrina's camp as "evil ice queen loyalists," well, there was probably no way the LeSats were coming out of that as the "right side" either way. But the design mandate for the Operations book had to allow for players to be on either side, so I tried to give the LeSats some breaks in there...

Then I had that final Track, wherein the post-war government is telling BOTH sides of the greater civil war to get lost when they try to come in after the party's all over, so that no matter who picked the "wrong" side before, they had a chance for redemption if they could find a way to get in on that action.

- Herb

Good example of local politics and trouble for fun and profit on a singular world.   Emphasizes the Neo Feudalism which is supposed to define the setting which can lead to minor conflicts.  And!  You took player agency in picking a world to build up and make a campaign around.  I haven't acquired Campaign Operations to see if the current crop of PiC have given players a place to make this happen, but I wish the introductory products would have made a little more emphasis on this. 

You don't have to be an interstellar merc company to see combat.  Mercs can form on a planet and run local operations without seeing a jumper.  As a vassal on a planet, you may have to run perpetual honor duels.  Rebel groups fighting the system maybe running pirate operations.  Dispossessed vassals might have a grudge and sell out their services or turn pirate.  All kinds of fun to be had on a single planet.

(Aside- As much as I like the Touring the Stars series, and the FedCom Civil War sourcebook, I almost want CatLabs to scale back on the planets with history, leaving a large part of the list of worlds in any given nation untouched beyond a typical system archetype one would find in, say, the FedSuns outback, or the Duchy of Oriente.  Give agency back to the players as well as the writers.)

Which is why my fun projects nowadays always have to be off the beaten path and deniable. Like having the alien bird folk taking over the Inner Sphere, or seeing an alternate history in which the SLDF never left, and nobody ever heard of ComStar/the Word of Blake, the Clans, a "Second Star League," or a Republic of the Sphere!

Or, you know, whatever the hell is going on in that far-away nebula out there...

- Herb

Was any consideration ever given to a CritterTech joke product?  And, if it was discarded, was it for any legal reasons?

[HABeas2]

(Aside- As much as I like the Touring the Stars series, and the FedCom Civil War sourcebook, I almost want CatLabs to scale back on the planets with history, leaving a large part of the list of worlds in any given nation untouched beyond a typical system archetype one would find in, say, the FedSuns outback, or the Duchy of Oriente.  Give agency back to the players as well as the writers.)

Well, for starters, with over 2,000 worlds in the universe to fight over, the likelihood that they will all get a TtS are somewhere near slim to none, so there's always someplace for a GM to play. And that's if your GM even sticks to the script to begin with (my own version of Kandersteg looks way different from the TTS that came out about it, I'm pretty sure, but that was a campaign I played decades ago now, so...no big, anyway). The ones CGL is producing are just showing off examples from worlds that may have had a sighting in the universe (or, in many cases, have actually VANISHED from the universe along the way...in which case, the 2K worlds is more like 3K, since we're talking dead places as well as living ones).

So, there's plenty of places to pick for whole-cloth scenarios; and you don't always have to stick to the canon, anyway. Cat knows *I* certainly don't!

Was any consideration ever given to a CritterTech joke product?  And, if it was discarded, was it for any legal reasons?

You mean like the actual CritterTek product? That wasn't even done in-house in the FASA days, when the rights to BT belonged to just one company. And it was mostly just a cute reiteration of the original BT rules with anthroid animals taking the place of humans, and baseball taking the place of warfare. Either way, I don't even know what legal issues, if any, there might have been had we tried, but no, I never considered it anyway, nor did I see it proposed by anyone during my tenure.

- Herb

[Gorgon]

Thank you for sharing this, Herb. I just discovered this two days ago and, wow, what a ride!
I always liked Far Country and the Tetatae, I think I've read it more often than any other BT novel. You've captured the spirit of it quite nicely. I'm surprised it turned out so well for all involved - no one died (on screen) and only one merc ended up in the wheel chair. Not too bad, certainly the most peaceful mis-jump induced human -  tetatae encounter.

And your illustrations were just icying on this bird shaped cake!

[HABeas2]

Thank you for sharing this, Herb. I just discovered this two days ago and, wow, what a ride!
I always liked Far Country and the Tetatae, I think I've read it more often than any other BT novel. You've captured the spirit of it quite nicely. I'm surprised it turned out so well for all involved - no one died (on screen) and only one merc ended up in the wheel chair. Not too bad, certainly the most peaceful mis-jump induced human -  tetatae encounter.

Thank you very much, Gorgon! As this was, essentially, a choose-your-own AToW-based adventure (if you've not seen the adventure module itself, it's over on the Fan Scenarios board in 3 downloadable PDFs), I have to say even I was surprised how very little violence we got. I was near certain that someone would opt to shoot at the aliens somewhere along the line, and yet cooler heads prevailed in the voting phases.

And your illustrations were just icying on this bird shaped cake!

Thank you kindly! I'm no Matt Plog, I know, but I had fun working on those sketches and such.

- Herb

[Gorgon]

Thank you very much, Gorgon! As this was, essentially, a choose-your-own AToW-based adventure (if you've not seen the adventure module itself, it's over on the Fan Scenarios board in 3 downloadable PDFs), I have to say even I was surprised how very little violence we got. I was near certain that someone would opt to shoot at the aliens somewhere along the line, and yet cooler heads prevailed in the voting phases.

- Herb

The adventure is great! I have not yet badgered my RPG group into playing anywhere near the BT universe, but I'm gonna mine your stuff for ideas none the less!

[HABeas2]

The adventure is great! I have not yet badgered my RPG group into playing anywhere near the BT universe, but I'm gonna mine your stuff for ideas none the less!

Thanks, Gorgon! If you find any of it useful and/or fun, then I've done my (pro-bono) job right!

- Herb