BattleTech - The Board Game of Armored Combat
BattleTech Game Systems => General BattleTech Discussion => Topic started by: Precentor Scorpio on 18 May 2018, 22:14:28
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Just wondering if the mech record sheet should be modified. Maybe place the modifiers next to the critical components. For example by the hip you would place a 2 and maybe 1/2 MP. Just a though
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We've already got the Warfare Pack which has all the tables from the back of Total Warfare printed on heavy cardstock.
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Additions *I* would throw in would only complicate it, by adding in a few fields for equipment and armor condition and quality for tracking and calculating repairs :)
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lord knows how many times i've had to look up the specifics of hip and gyro crits...
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There are a few changes that I would do UI wise. The main that doesn't require any rule changes are Pips are put into uniformed boxed lines of 5 across or down. If you can't separate the 5 blocks shade every 5th one so its easier at a glance to see how much armor or structure you have or need to mark off at a glance
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What about record sheets on laminated playing cards? I wonder whether the info displayed on the standard sheet could be compressed to fit in roughly half the surface area. If so, it opens a lot of possibilities:
Two full color cards per mech:
- Card 1 Front: Mech picture / data, pilot info, BV / Faction Availability
- Card 1 Back: Weapons + Heat
- Card 2 Front: Armor + hit location chart
- Card 2 Back: Internal structure + crits
A whole lance could be held in a 8-pocket card holder (https://www.amazon.com/BCW-Box-100-8-pocket-Pages/dp/B006QKU652), and cheaply managed with dry-erase markers.
The MUL could be modified to generate ugly black and white versions of these cards (from megamek data?).
For a given era, decks for each of the 5 houses + clans + mercs could be sold, with about 30 mechs each, allowing for duplicates to give a sense of faction availability. For quick play, players separate out card #1, shuffle, and draw cards until the drawn card would put them over the agreed on BV.
I could see this as being a good way to attract new players and promote easier game setup.
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I think Vulp missed it by a hair, or perhaps I missed it when I read it. But, after reading the Op's thoughts there are 2 things that come to mind:
1. Some people are turned off by the recordsheet while others are excited by it
2. I hate looking up critical hit effects
I know that when I first saw the BT rules book back in the 90s I loved all of the apparent details of the game. Going from just video games to seeing this kind of game and all of the data that was needed was a serious draw. I know that the game and it's kind is anything but mainstream, but I suggest that it will never be and attempting to be mainstream and dumbed down as possible will never make it better. Thats what AS is for, to give people a stripped down version of the game that makes it appealing to additional people. I personally would not mind the suggested extra data on the crit locations for the modifiers when it is hit.
I hate looking up critical hits. I simply am not used to most crits as I have rarely had to endure them. When you have played lights most of the time you have played and the opposing players tend to have heavy and assault mechs you don't really get a chance to survive internal damage long enough to deal with chances of critical hits as its just blasted to pieces.
What could help is having a deck of cards that have the various critical hits on them. Have a card for a gyro hit, another for a hip crit and so on that you can pull out and paper clip to your record sheet or just put on the side as a reminder. It would keep additional data off of the record sheet while helping to streamline the process of finding the effects of a critical hit. With the other mini games out there using cards it would be something that non-BT players could recognize, and reduce the number of times that they see people pouring over a rules book, that likely seems massive to them.
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Just wondering if the mech record sheet should be modified. Maybe place the modifiers next to the critical components. For example by the hip you would place a 2 and maybe 1/2 MP. Just a though
I you could fit it without making the thing a total eye chart? Yes. I think it would be a nice quality of life improvement. The TW vehicle sheet works a lot like this, with the hit location chart, motive table, and crit table all printed on the sheet. The difference being (of course), that vehicles have much less information to track on the sheet than 'mechs do.
Do you have a design to show off?