BattleTech - The Board Game of Armored Combat
BattleTech Game Systems => A Time of War => Topic started by: BiggRigg42 on 28 December 2017, 10:58:25
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I know Total Warfare and Alpha strike are getting a couple of new box sets next year, and that is good. Is AToW getting new source books or something like that?
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Ilclan! :D
Gonna have that Atow section in the rules supplement!
They can't really do too much else for Atow. Haha. You've got the rules. Everything else just plugs in with Battletech. So until they go full blown Shadowrun (Here is your mechanics handbook! Here is your cyberware handbook! Here is your hacking handbook!) Which they probably never will there isn't really much to add.
Everybody wants adventures. I was meaning to write one over the summer. But now I'm in too deep with the physical therapist training.
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They made source books for the Clan Invasion and the Jihad. Hopefully we will get some source books for the Dark Age or maybe some more battletech adventures.
Touring the Stars has been nice though.
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Well, you've got the Era Report 3145 and the Field Manual 3145, so I'm not sure they're going to put out another Sourcebook dedicated to the era in general. Maybe some info in the ilClan sourcebook, kind of like we have in Wars of Reaving.
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Well, you've got the Era Report 3145 and the Field Manual 3145, so I'm not sure they're going to put out another Sourcebook dedicated to the era in general. Maybe some info in the ilClan sourcebook, kind of like we have in Wars of Reaving.
Oh yeah, I forgot about those. It would just be sad to not see the Battletech timeline progress foreword or to not get new support for AToW story stuff.
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The good news is that most everything comes with ATOW rules now though. :)
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Should do Adventures book like Dungeons and dragons did in 3.5!
That will simplify a lot.
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Should do Adventures book like Dungeons and dragons did in 3.5!
That will simplify a lot.
It really would. However, it is also nice having a system that forces me to create my own campaigns but gives me the tools to do so as well.
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Should do Adventures book like Dungeons and dragons did in 3.5!
That will simplify a lot.
I'm speaking from bad recollection, but as far as I can recall, there simply hasn't been the market to sustain a dedicated book. That's why you find supplemental material in current publications. It sucks, I know, but I think that's how thin the market is. Other more knowledgeable people can correct me if I'm wrong, but I just wanted to set expectations.
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In Brent's interview on Sarna, he mentioned new RPG products.
Beginner Box and the Game of Armored Combat. We’ve got new Maps – the first six of which were used to run all the demos at MechCon (to fanfare and accolades). There are new Hex Pack products in the works to augment those maps, new MechWarrior RPG products that the DevTeam just found out about today, a new sourcebook moving the timeline forward (which I will detail in a few questions further down), and a whole host of reprints as we make big moves to keep every book from the core line in print on store shelves – starting with Total Warfare (which should hit store shelves in July). Plus there are new novels, new novellas, a hint at new audiobooks, PDF supplemental products, I have new ‘Mechs up my sleeves… There’s really just a whole bunch of awesome coming down on BattleTech for 2018. The year of BattleTech!
http://www.sarna.net/news/community-outreach-interview-with-brent-evans-lead-battletech-developer-at-catalyst-games/
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good catch.
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In Brent's interview on Sarna, he mentioned new RPG products.
http://www.sarna.net/news/community-outreach-interview-with-brent-evans-lead-battletech-developer-at-catalyst-games/
I did see that eventually, after I originally made the post. It is funny how the dev team just randomly got informed one day, "Oh by the way, the RPG side of things will have stuff." The devs don't need to know about such things: LMAO
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I'm speaking from bad recollection, but as far as I can recall, there simply hasn't been the market to sustain a dedicated book. That's why you find supplemental material in current publications. It sucks, I know, but I think that's how thin the market is. Other more knowledgeable people can correct me if I'm wrong, but I just wanted to set expectations.
It may not just be that the market is thin for the Battletech RPG; the Battletech RPG occupies a slightly different place in the market, in my opinion. If you want a story book, you have D&D 5e or Shadowrun to choose from. However, if you would rather have some tools to help you create your own story arch for a campaign, then The Battletech RPG has the following: adventure seeds, touring the stars, scenarios, novels, and what not. A story book would make things easier for new players though, but I never saw the battletech RPG as a beginner RPG to begin with. That said, I would love a Battletech story book that is similar to what D&D 5e and Shadowrun have.
Also, I ran a pole on the battletech face book page. Most people (not all) who play the war game also play the rpg, but few people (about 2) only play the RPG. Accordingly, insofar as there is a market for the wargame, there is a market for the RPG.
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I do think it is a chicken & egg thing. AToW and BattleTech can be tricky to grasp conceptually. D&D is easy: kills orcs, find treasure, profit. BattleTech may have lostech, but it isn't as simple as blood crystals.
I think people also see a game with little to no direct support so why bother? But then people aren't buying so CGL doesn't want to support it.
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Ilclan! :D
Gonna have that Atow section in the rules supplement!
They can't really do too much else for Atow. Haha. You've got the rules. Everything else just plugs in with Battletech. So until they go full blown Shadowrun (Here is your mechanics handbook! Here is your cyberware handbook! Here is your hacking handbook!) Which they probably never will there isn't really much to add.
Everybody wants adventures. I was meaning to write one over the summer. But now I'm in too deep with the physical therapist training.
What happened to the dossier books? They could do more of them. They could publish some adventure books like they did for a little while with MW2. Or new unit books with a mix of BT and AToW just like the old ones.
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What happened to the dossier books? They could do more of them. They could publish some adventure books like they did for a little while with MW2. Or new unit books with a mix of BT and AToW just like the old ones.
Adventures would be nice. I actually adapted some of the old MW2 adventures to MW3, and of course there were MW3 adventures that are very easily converted to AToW. The hardest part is adapting the NPCs - but no-name NPCs take a few minutes each, and doing proper chargen for the most important characters is half the fun! But still, some proper adventures, or even something a little generic like the warchest campaigns released with lots of products now would be nice.
Sadly, I moved and lost my IRL MechWarrior RPG friends, so my epic remake of Livings Legends (set during the Jihad) will have to wait :'(
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Three of the MW3 sourcebooks provided some introductory adventures, Solaris and intelligence and guide to the clans - were there specific books published?
Also I just remembered that there was of course the Fist and Falcon introductory book that provided for two units and came complete with character sheets, if that had included AToW scenarios or a campaign I think it would have made a fully integrated introduction.
And then there was the Spotlight On line which produced just two works on units.
So its like they start to do this stuff or something very close and then it tapers off :S
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They could publish some adventure books like they did for a little while with MW2.
I'll pull this back up due to the relevance.
I'm speaking from bad recollection, but as far as I can recall, there simply hasn't been the market to sustain a dedicated book.
I don't know the numbers, heck I don't know if anyone who can say knows the numbers. Still I'm going to assume that the RPG side of the fan base is smaller than that of say the core game or possibly Alpha Strike.
I'm just going off the sheer amount of "pure RPG" stuff versus AToW stuff sprinkled in the other products.
MW2 had a lot of dedicated stuff, but those were different times. With different times comes different player bases and we're not exactly sitting in FASA's presence anymore.
And really... D&D is easy: kills orcs, find treasure, profit. BattleTech may have lostech, but it isn't as simple as blood crystals.
This is another fine point to bring up with Battletech's RPG side. There's no "dungeon crawler" type of game rules when it comes to the RPG. I guess if Demo Agents just had some templates at the ready and made a lot of fun throw away games, it might work. Still that's a lot of time and effort for a title where the focus is really on the big stompy robots that the humans pilot.
Now all this is coming from a ardent supporter of AToW. Out of all the editions I feel this was the best compromise.
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Could they provide some additional rpg material in primarily wargame books? The early unit books had mainly wargame scenarios but also included a couple rpg scenarios.
The dossiers they briefly produced had about a 50/50 split.
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Would be nice to have some RPG adventures included in some of the books. Adventure PDFs would be nice too. My group glomped onto ATOW when it came out. Some of our first characters had issues with certain stats being too low for mech combat, but we ended up with decent mechwarriors and not too shabby in personal combat. We did gain an unnatural and unholy love of rifle mounted grenade launchers.
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I live in Sweden and we have 2 really big (for Sweden) and a dozen or so minor Game conventions each year, where the bigger draws about 1500-3000 people and has been in action for the last 35-ish years.
This year, in late may, there was a guy who set up a battletech game,nothing planned. He was supposed to have a western diorama, but the company had to call in sick, so he took his old BT stuff there instead and started up games a few times per day and it was a blast. He made a lot of free advertising for the miniatures of Ral Partha Europe and Catalyst Games upcoming boxes as well as HBS battletech (which people could play on his laptop).
He and a friend also held a small scenario for ATOW which drew people to stand in line to play.
It was really fun.
So now I am playing in a ATOW campaign with 6 other players every weekend and we have ourselves a real nice going game and he has been asked back the next year to hold an offcial game as well as there seem to be a lot of ATOW interested players in my town as he has been contacted on facebook, he told us, by people wanting to play in his adventures.
So it is rivalling some of the games which are quite popular here at our game clubs (Pathfinder, D&D5 and Into the Loop). Hopefully it is the same in other places.
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Sorry to revive this. I'm new with regards to Battletech, got to know it because of the HBS game and i'm now going to GM it. I'm still reading my way through ATOW and haven't come to my own opinion on the system yet but from talking to future players and asking around in other places it appear to be a lot of people that dislike that think the system is too complex.
It's kinda surprising because we are at a time on the RPG industry where games are usually made to be lighter, more approachable and to run faster. I looked at MW2e because a lot of people recommended it and it's for sure way less complex, so Catalyst kinda took the opposite route that the rest of industry took.
Like i said, i haven't read enough of ATOW to form an opinion but from what i could grasp this is the main reason that tends to keep people away from ATOW. If they want lighter rules for the Wargame they have Alpha Strike as an option. I do know that lots of people seen to just use MW2E or make a conversion to another system. DFA itself uses Tri-Stat dX and there are several Savage Worlds adaptations.
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ATOW is really complex and character creation is a huge barrier to entry.
It's an amazing system though. You just kind of have to push through it.
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Granted I use a spreadsheet, but I actually like the character creation system. Working through the life stages really helps flesh out a character's background.
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Granted I use a spreadsheet, but I actually like the character creation system. Working through the life stages really helps flesh out a character's background.
That does look interesting to me. Sadly i never played a system with that form of character creation. I do know that Burning Wheel, Rogue Trader, Beyond the Wall, Fading Suns and a couple other games use a similar system.
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If you want to give it a try, I posted my spreadsheet in the AToW sub-forum here (look for the second iteration, not the first). I'm more than happy to walk you through it via PM (or in a public thread if you prefer).
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so Catalyst kinda took the opposite route that the rest of industry took.
Yep.
A decision made in 2009, mind you.
character creation is a huge barrier to entry.
To some. The antidote is going point-based.
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Yep.
A decision made in 2009, mind you.
It has been this long? Damn... I mean... The tendency for going with faster systems was already there but it was not as mainstream for sure.
To some. The antidote is going point-based.
Really? I assumed it would be faster and easier to use the modules instead. That being said i'm probably going to do something myself to make creation characters easier. I'm not a huge fan of xslx spreadsheets so i might look into doing something using html or even pdfs (not sure how if i can have automatic calculations on them)
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The good news is its a good simulator. Just like to 3rd edition was. If you want to semi-accuragely portray human combat it works really well. Particularly if you use the companions expanded wound rules.
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The good news is its a good simulator. Just like to 3rd edition was. If you want to semi-accuragely portray human combat it works really well. Particularly if you use the companions expanded wound rules.
I wish i could get the Companion but there are simply too many books. I'll probably start with just ATOW and Total Warfare and keep adding other ones as time passes. As a university student in a third-world country i don't have a lot to spend on the hobby :P
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It doesn't hurt to get the basics down before adding the granularity of the extra books.
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I wish i could get the Companion but there are simply too many books. I'll probably start with just ATOW and Total Warfare and keep adding other ones as time passes. As a university student in a third-world country i don't have a lot to spend on the hobby :P
A Time of War and Total Warfare are the only books you really need to run a campaign. The A Time of War Companion is nice, but it is not necessary to read all of it. So, I would recommend getting said companion as a PDF for 15$ and not buying the hard copy if cash is tight.
https://store.catalystgamelabs.com/products/battletech-a-time-of-war-companion-pdf
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The good news is its a good simulator. Just like to 3rd edition was. If you want to semi-accuragely portray human combat it works really well. Particularly if you use the companions expanded wound rules.
It would help if you could get a Companion.
Books from the past ten years or so seem very hard to get....FM3085, FMSLDF, ATOW Companion, Wars of Reaving, Op Klondike, the Era reports and more...all very difficult to get hold of.
As for "new stuff".....traditionally, RPG stuff doesn't sell that well for BT. Personally, I'm convinced part of the reason is because there is a lack of focus which contributes to a lack of support. Your Clan warrior PC isn't going to be interested in running a campaign based around the presumption you are an Inner Sphere merc, but a merc company probably isn't going to last long moseying around the Clan homeworlds. There isn't really a strong focus as to the faction or type of characters that are being played and while it is possible to create or adjust campaigns to suit, that's a good bit of work many aren't prepared for.
BTs reputation as rule heavy also doesn't help...and while there is a points based system, it isn't given the same focus as the standard character creation system. More, I've played several MWs games across different editions with many groups, and many of them come across more as BT games that offer a sideline RPG element rather than actual RPG games. The focal point often came down to the BattleTech game with the RPG character.
Maybe my experiences are different, but from what others have said, I don't think they are exactly unusual.
So, we are stuck, I think, with the RPG side being "tacked" on to the various sourcebooks we have rather than full fledged support of the type we get with games like Shadowrun. Which is a pity - the RPG focussed sourcebooks have tended to be amongst the best sourcebooks and best reads in the entire franchise. It's just a pity, in a way, the RPG focuses so much on BattleMechs but(to a degree) that is inevitable given the links with the main game.
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I've honestly never met a BT player I couldn't get to play MechWarrior 3rd edition/ATOW.
I'd say it's honestly harder to get the BT player in the first place. "Hey man. You want to spend two hours filling in bubbles so you know exactly how your mech exploded?!? Afterwords we could calculate how much of it is left, how much it would cost to fix and how many labor hours it would take!!!"
Obviously you don't spring the second accountant tech part of them immediately. But for the most part if you find someone invested enough to roll individually for each medium laser fired they're in.
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It would help if you could get a Companion.
Books from the past ten years or so seem very hard to get....FM3085, FMSLDF, ATOW Companion, Wars of Reaving, Op Klondike, the Era reports and more...all very difficult to get hold of.
As for "new stuff".....traditionally, RPG stuff doesn't sell that well for BT. Personally, I'm convinced part of the reason is because there is a lack of focus which contributes to a lack of support. Your Clan warrior PC isn't going to be interested in running a campaign based around the presumption you are an Inner Sphere merc, but a merc company probably isn't going to last long moseying around the Clan homeworlds. There isn't really a strong focus as to the faction or type of characters that are being played and while it is possible to create or adjust campaigns to suit, that's a good bit of work many aren't prepared for.
BTs reputation as rule heavy also doesn't help...and while there is a points based system, it isn't given the same focus as the standard character creation system. More, I've played several MWs games across different editions with many groups, and many of them come across more as BT games that offer a sideline RPG element rather than actual RPG games. The focal point often came down to the BattleTech game with the RPG character.
Maybe my experiences are different, but from what others have said, I don't think they are exactly unusual.
So, we are stuck, I think, with the RPG side being "tacked" on to the various sourcebooks we have rather than full fledged support of the type we get with games like Shadowrun. Which is a pity - the RPG focussed sourcebooks have tended to be amongst the best sourcebooks and best reads in the entire franchise. It's just a pity, in a way, the RPG focuses so much on BattleMechs but(to a degree) that is inevitable given the links with the main game.
I feel it turned into some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. It's extremely hard to get into AToW because of lack of support and there is a lack of support because people don't get into the game. It's sad in a way... DFA, HBS' Battletech and Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries are prime opportunities to bring more people into the hobby most people i've talked to either went for the wargame, decided to use other systems or stopped half way through reading the system.
I've honestly never met a BT player I couldn't get to play MechWarrior 3rd edition/ATOW.
I'd say it's honestly harder to get the BT player in the first place. "Hey man. You want to spend two hours filling in bubbles so you know exactly how your mech exploded?!? Afterwords we could calculate how much of it is left, how much it would cost to fix and how many labor hours it would take!!!"
Obviously you don't spring the second accountant tech part of them immediately. But for the most part if you find someone invested enough to roll individually for each medium laser fired they're in.
Well... For BT itself there is Alpha Strike as an option for those that don't like the complexity of Total Warfare. I do imagine there should be new players coming because of the new HBS game, i'm one of those, btw. I just don't get into the Wargame because i live in Brazil and i really don't know anyone that plays it over here. Can't even find groups or pages about the game at all. Wargames in general are not as popular as RPGs here, so finding a RPG group is much easier than to find a wargaming one.