Author Topic: Setting up a RPG in battletech with a Crescent Hawks Inception school inspired i  (Read 2332 times)

guardiandashi

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Ok si i know its old, but i kind of liked the way CHI started off with the school.
So i was trying to come up with a similar intro on a campaign im thinking of running some friends through.

With that said, my initial thought is to make up chars using ATOW, and have them all be basically all at the end of stage 3 school on say -3025ish.  Then have them have some cash, and do a little training to get used to the system. And they can use stores and shops to pick up gear around the campus.

I don't actually mind giving them "bonus" xp by running through a mini or intro adventure at the school.

Any suggestions?

PreacherPatriot1776

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That's how I did it with my group. They are fresh out of the academy and have received their first mission. It worked out well. I did the point buy while following the life path. I didn't let me players take the negatives to attributes and some traits, so they only got the positive stuff.

Dunia

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I did just that with my short campaign. As my players did not now o that game, I played through the entire stor, with some additions.

First Adventure:
One of the player, areally spoiled, female,lyran noble has begged her parents to attend this school and they of course, saying yes to anything for their precious daughter sends her to Chara to attend the Pacifica Training Acadamy, which is  in my campaign set up at the last years of the 3rd Succession War. (Lyran Infantry/Communication soldier)

The other player wanted to come from Outworlds Alliance and have a merc father, so I made her the daughter of the Commander of the Crescent Hawks and she starts her part of the campaign with her father having helped the Archon and as a reward is allowed to send his daughter to the P.T.A. (O.A Mechwarrior and hobby mechtech)

Here they meet and a bunch of various NPCs, like the drill sargeant (Clint Eastwoods character from Heartbreak Ridge), the senior mechtech who is a bit too friendly and buddy-ish with the recruits instead of being an officer and a bunch of NPCs as well as a Comstar reporter (played by my third player) who is at the academy to make a news segment on the antastic training of the new generation of Lyran military, now that the war is over.

This session is mostly just to start the minicampaign and letting them know the main npcs an feel at home in the rulesystem and with their characters. A few skill rolls are made to see who wins the track around the drill seageants beloved obstacle course etc...


Session 2:
The merc father arrives to the academy together with Mr Kell (of Kell Hounds) and the Mechwarrior player is given a small data storage and told to hold it for her father a little time and not show it to anyone else. Various skill contests for the charactersfor training assignments and a new un on the obstacle course. Lots of social rolls to befriend various soldiers in their platoon and to befriend the Comstar journalist.

Session 3:
There are some Lyran noble girls who has decided that the O.A mechwarrior recruit should better go home and not attend a lyran school. She is not even a noble. Just a common lowlife. So they start to force other rectuits to sabotage the player's equipment and ability to succeed. A detective story starts with the players asking for help from the cmstar journalist to investigate and they manage to build listening devices and record the bad students and order is restored.

Session 4:
Autumn Holiday, the players take the train from the base to the nearby town. Here they try to find something to do and ffinds a wilderness scout who has a shop that sells all things survival. He tells them that he knows a village who has asked him for help, but as he is unable to do it, he hires the players. They travel to the village, ad learns that a bunch of men who works in a mine a bit away from the village has not returned home for the weekend and their families miss them. Being good soldiers, the players (and the journalist whom they has befriended after last adventure) go to investigate.
They find the mine and dead people who looks bitten/eaten by animals. In the mine there are a few orangutang like animals who has set up a nest. It appears that they are the culprits. But the players then realize that the dead people were shot beore the animals starts to eat the bodies. They investigate urther and learns that it was  the company owning the mine who killed the workers after the miners ound very precious metals and as part of the contract the miners recieve a ppart o a share... the company did not want to share their inerals and killed them.

Session 5:
Courtroom drama in the aftermath of  last adventure. Players really loved this.

Session 6: 
The nearby baron and her brother learned that the players have done good things against a corrupt company and invites the players to their semi-anual masquerade party. The players go there and as the baroness is in the same age, they start to befriend her, who see great potential in them. She invites them to stay a couple of days and during one night, a Free Sky terrorist tries to bomb the mansio. But is discovered by the players and stopped.

Session 7:
More school based mock fighting with laser tag weapons against other students. Standard take - Objective on a map and hold it, Use computers to disable automatic defenses etc.

Session 8:
Mechwarriors dad comes and tell her that her mother will come to the planet now that she has sold her business back in OA. Player happy. No real adventure. Just a lot of social stuff vs NPCs.  My players love that stuff.

Session 9:
Winter break. Players go to the capital as mecwarriors mom has arrived. All players are invited as they are the mechwarrior's best friend.
Rex Tillerson (from the game) is introduuced as "uncle rex" a good riend of the family and he always loved the mechwarrior PC when she was a small girl
Here they visit Comstar's main acility and have a short tour (as much as Comstar wish to show).

Session 10:
Comstar who knows about the players after courthouse session and saving the baron (as well as can be used as they have been allowed to befriend the CS pc) is asked t do a small merc mission for "an employee" and is sent to a small ippie community as they are said to brainwash those who go there and "a concerned amily" wants to locate a member who joined the movement.

Here they get to now the hippies who acts a little funny (they have a barn that is forbidden to enter) they are true communists (as you enter, you give all your possessions to the group and you work and becomes happy because if it) and abhor most technology. They have a tractor and some books, but nothing more. Players try to discover whatt is in the barn and after sneaking in, learns that it is a very angry dog who was ortured by previous owner and one o the camp leaders have animal empathy and tries to make it trust humans again.

Later they learn that the three leaders have found a Star League shelter and use the camp as a disguise. They are trying to loot this shelter and sell the stuff on black market. After two weeks they return to comstar with info. Comstar makes sure (without players knowledge) that the tech gets in their hands. The hippie leaders are killed in an "ROM-inspired accident".



Se
My mother and father met in a Mechwarrior RPG game, I am a Battletech Born Brat :)

Dunia

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Session 11:
More school stuff. Mocked battles and social interactions.

Session 12:
Players are offered a job in the capital by LIC. They are to pose as starport electricians to infiltrate a warehouse and set up listenig/video devices. They learn that this is a pirategng, smufggling in Locust mechs and military. What players dont know, is that Comstar is helping pirates to get onto the planet in order to act as the ones killing the hippie leaderhip as a false lead.
Players finds our locusts. After they report back, Comstar manages tpo alert the pirates who manages to flee with two of them.

Session 13-14:
School stuff mock missions.

Session 15:
A flood is threatening many villages in a far-off region. Government is asking school for assistace. All players have good survival skills and medtech. They are sent to the camps as nurses and travels between the various refugee camps caring for people. In one camp they discover people missing who vanishes from all records as if they never existed. it appears that a black market organ harvest ring is using the catastrophe for their own dark eeds. Players take help from LIC and stops this criminal group.

Session 15 ½ (we had just 3 hours to play)
Lot of social play and Solaris season starts with Duncan Fisher visitbing the planet on his way to solaris Players love him (I used his typical way of talking you hear in mechwarrior mercenaries). Comstar PC has to take an extended leave from campaign due to family stuff.

Session 16:
School ball, and all teenage stuff with dresses, why some boys wont ask them... more problems rom disgruntled noble recruits from session 3 is back. (one o them is an enemy of one o the players)

Session 17:
All acadamies send their best soldiers to Chara and PTA. to ight as i this was a Battletech variant o Harry Potter and the goblet o fire, without supernaural elements of course.

Session 18:
Standard school stuff is cut short as the communication soldier PC manages to find a SOS from a group of students that they are under attack by pirates. Players are chosen to lead a group of older students to investigate. Finds that the pirates from session 12 is back. They manage to infiltrtrate the enemy base and start up one of the locusts that managed to flee.
After mech on mech battle with pirates, who did not realize that someone could steal their mech from their base, the pirates are defeated.

Session 19:
More school mock fights

Session 20:
Mock fihts interrupted by Kurita forces, students have to flee, mech warrior was in mech training and fights with her stinger vs Kurita lance with 4 jenners.
She takes lot of damage, manages to criple one, mechtech officer uses his mech to aif her, but he orders her to flee. Many students flee out from their base.
Players run far away with a few students and build up a small base. Comm soldier sets up radio antennas and camouflages them. They can now listen to news from the planet.

Session 21:
Survival stuff, huting animals, tryning to capture wild sheep in order to have food. Hard to do that with one player having animal antipathy :)

Session 22:
One NPC that fled with them gets hurt and wound is infected, they have to sneak to nearby village and build up trust in order to get med supplies and blanets and stuff

Session 23:
Scouting on what happens on academy.

Session 24
Investigating the old piratebase from session 18: and reuse this as a secodary fallback base.

Session 25
Comstar PC (played by GM) manages to send a message to the players with a video link, which shows a small roadside police station and that Rex Tillerman and his commando is taken as prisoner. Players travel to this place and break him free and steals back his mech.

Session 26:
On their way back with Rex to their base, they fnd an old wreck of a Hi-Scout vehicle that has been crashed here since mid-3rd SW, and a few drones, they start to clean it out from various critters and starts to repair it by raiding a gas station/garage. Rex tells the player that is is vital that the player tries to decode wat is on the data storage which was given to her in session 2. they need to go to the capital in order to break into a museum  or visiting comstar to read the data.

Session 27:
This friday's adventure: going to the capital to raid the national museum of acient history.
My mother and father met in a Mechwarrior RPG game, I am a Battletech Born Brat :)

Dunia

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steal any ideas you like modify as wanted.
Just as long as you have fun.
My mother and father met in a Mechwarrior RPG game, I am a Battletech Born Brat :)

guardiandashi

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one thing I was working on is describing the locations.

so for the school itself, I was figuring various classroom buildings, a library, dorms and or barracks, a messhall/cafeteria (depending on how military it is), technical labs, an armory, firing range, vehicle bay, etc.

a weapons store they have access to.
something like:

as you enter the weapons shop you see on the left the archaic weapons section with bows, knives, swords and similar.
the next section is ballistic weapons with rifles and pistols/separated the next section is laser weapons again rifles and pistols are each in sections

what I am trying to decide if the weapons shop should be all traditional like if you walked into one today. 

mid high tech such as you go up to a booth and turn on a station that allows you to browse the inventory your id allows you access to (using the equipped rules in ATOW)

higher tech, you walk into a building that looks like a store but there is nothing on the shelves and display cases are all empty, the clerk takes your id and runs it through a reader, then hands you a set of glasses when you put the glasses on you discover that the entire store looks different its all decorated, and there are racks of weapons all over, (although the contents only exist in VR for display), the inventory is kept in a secure area "in the back"

again your equipped trait determines what's available up to your rating, and the stores inventory/local legality factors.

if you want to exceed the rating you are essentially having to hook up with the grey/black markets.

Dunia

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Why have shops that sells weapon on a military base?
Are they really needed? Why not just have alignment based weaponry that people are given as mission/training equipment based on their rank/equipped traits
My mother and father met in a Mechwarrior RPG game, I am a Battletech Born Brat :)

guardiandashi

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Because they aren't starting out on a base.

They are starting out in an Academy  and or university town.
Remember if you are familiar with Crescent  Hawks Inception, the character starts out at a school compound that is 4 map squares. In the top right, is a comstar facility that also functions as a bank, and stock market.
Next to that is a facility that has a member of the steiner house, and family friend when she has time to see you.
You can also train a skill or two there.
There is a medical building, first aid, and training.
A weapons shop, a
mechit lube repairs, training, and weapons configuration changes.
And the mech training ground
After you finish that area yo go fleeing and or exploring and find other towns and adventure

So my idea was to have an intro area to learn the game system, and finalize gear and skills.
Then move on to other adventures from there.
« Last Edit: 18 July 2018, 23:59:09 by guardiandashi »

Dunia

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Oh I have played that game and tried and exlored every part of the game.

What I meanyt was, why make it a shop? As it is a military academy/base, why not just have it a place where they can "take out" mission materiel/equipment. And it is limited by their equipment rating. Why have shops to force them to purchase weapons and stuff. Just because it is in the game does not make that it is good.
My mother and father met in a Mechwarrior RPG game, I am a Battletech Born Brat :)

guardiandashi

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maybe its just me, but it has to do with how I perceive the system working.

when you are getting stuff from an armory vs a store I see it as more of:
store, you buy the stuff and keep it more or less forever.
armory you check out the stuff and get to use it, but when the mission is over, you have to turn it back in.

IE the stuff is LOANED to you, vs stuff you bought in the store is OWNED by you.

Dunia

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It is your game, but I did like this:

While on the base you can request any equipment that the mission demands and that is within your equipment rating. I thought at first about having a weapon/armor shop on base but found it not logical as the military wants to have control of what weapons there is on base and not having people being able to use non-standard weapons.

In the nearby town, there you could buy weapons in a military surplus shop and that was within your EQ rating. If you wanted other things, you had to go to the underground as per streetwise skill (which is expensive and somewhat dangerous). These weapons and armor will be locked into lockers at the gate while you are on the base. but whenever you leave the base you are free to take them with you.
My mother and father met in a Mechwarrior RPG game, I am a Battletech Born Brat :)

Major Headcase

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Set your campaign on Galatea in 3025 at one of the small Mercenary Academies. Then you don't need to worry about a black market. You can buy just about anything anywhere! "Illegal" is just a warning label there... 😁