Retcon Reset (Volume 2): How BIG a change are we talking...?

[Aleksandr]

This is a hard question to answer, because I have a hard time choosing just one - for me, it's less a matter of how extensive the change is, but how it's executed.

Severe changes strike me as something like the Dark Age clicky game tried, and that doesn't seem to have worked out, but I wouldn't be opposed to it - so long as the option to keep the classic game was still there. I would hate to see Battle armor or protomechs phased out of the game, but it seems as though warships are being all but eliminated anyway - and it's done in a way that makes sense, so I'm alright with it.

As for the Story, it's a matter of execution. If the 4th Succession War is aimed at Kurita, for me to accept it the timeline would pretty much have to be reset to the 4th Succession War and work from the new angle. I'd probably be pretty upset if the Clans were removed entirely, and it wouldn't be the same game to me. At that point, I'd wonder why it's not just a new game entirely - so that's probably where I would be inclined to draw the line. I'm not particularly attached to the where and the how, but I am attached to the who. It doesn't matter if the Combine gets cut down to the Pesht District, then the Clans come up through the Confederation, just so long as the factions are there, and they keep their core flavor.

[mitchberthelson]

I agree, quick strike seems like a good cross between Battle Tech and Battle Force.  I really want to play it some day.

It's awesome for new players, and allows people who want a mini game to have a mini game without trampling on the board game too much. It needs more support.

[mitchberthelson]

A couple of things I forgot that wouldn't change the sheets, really, but would change balance a bit:

1. Make 'Mechs as proportionately strong as humans, or perhaps more. None of this "I can only lift 10% of my own tonnage" stuff.

If you want giant stompy robots rampaging across the landscape, then turn this up a notch. Make them able to demolish most buildings in one physical attack phase, pick up obstacles and walk away with them, clear entire woods hexes by smashing through them and uprooting trees. Even short hops over low barriers should be OK. Not nearly as agile as people and certainly slowed a bit by hazards, but strong and coordinated enough to quickly and *reliably* climb, destroy, bust through, or otherwise circumvent any obstacle in their path to get to their targets or clear the way for other units (i.e. much better at it than they are now). Shock troops and combat engineers all in one. 

When it comes to obstacles, the king of the battlefield should be as unstoppable as the Kool-Aid Man (but just as awkward in a gross sense).

Modern day robots like BigDog and Asimo already allow for a great deal of mobility at smaller scales and fusion-powered, photon-computer-controlled swarm processors managing insanely strong artifical muscles (perhaps even forming a "soft robot" inside an armored shell) should be able to take it up to bigger items with a bit of sci-fi license...since we're now close enough to such advanced tech today to understand what it will do. This type of "unstoppable juggernaut" mobility was hinted at in the earlier books, but is less emphasized now.

A combination of the above, a consequent increase in physical attack damage (balanced by making it harder to hit moving 'Mechs with physicals due to their agility in their own defense) and the standard incorporation of initiative advantages for 'Mech reaction time or other bonuses for their unique interface should make them suitably terrifying without having to nerf vehicles, which can then be restored to greater competence.

2. Allow ground units with energy weapons or specialized missiles to have some alternate firing mode, power-sharing arrangement, or other justification to hit targets in low orbit a la the powerguns from Hammer's Slammers.

Once reliable lasers hit modern warfare, there is a contention that combat aircraft as we know them will cease to be practical, and I can see the game benefiting from pursuing this line of thought for a few steps.

Fighters and faster Dropships could survive via decoys, target overload, and terrain hugging to prevent themselves from being acquired as targets, with armor to take up the slack (and the "chaff" aspect of the shell around 'Mech drop pods would make even more sense), but WarShips should be huge targets that can't hide effectively from a regiment's worth of targeting computers all sharing their processing power to burn through their ECM or pick up their reflected radiation, mass, or drive plume, and controlling lasers overcharged by the collective effort of company-sized groups of fusion plants. They get close enough for bombardment and they die the death of a thousand cuts unless the defenders are thoroughly suppressed already.

Bang...Zoom...back to warfare that emphasizes 'Mechs and fighters as the tip of the spear, with warships being useful for contesting jump points and as mobile bases for invasions. This also makes small defensive forces somewhat reasonable, given this anti-space capability and the defender advantage it would provide until someone got serious about a multi-regiment assault with a massive fighter/decoy screen.

Just more stuff that I was thinking about today that could be big fluff changes embodied in small, yet significant rules tweaks.

[Suralin]

My preference is for minor changes, both to the story and to the game system. The former would ideally be invoked to sort out the Unseen issue once and for all (I know this has recently been disconfirmed by Herb, but I can dream), and maybe fix some nonsensical remaining FASAnomics.

Any retcons to the game system would mainly be to improve balance a bit, work out a few remaining kinks here and there, but even then there's not really much of a need for retcons as opposed to tech advances, since there's going to be a big timeskip forward anyway.

[AJC46]

Story changes minor mostly want changes in numbers at least to not make it so easy to think of ludicrous it seems on the thoughts of certain things like how the SLDF in exile could had even lasted not only a exodus to some far off barely supporting human life worlds when most of them were warriors but a civil war that created the clans.

Gameplay changes minor as well mostly making certain non mech and aerofighter units Combat vees as kill-able as they currently are i mean yes vee killer weapons should be effective against them but not you get hit by them you are pretty much 100% Screwed effective it's actually pretty hard to destroy a modern main battle tank from the outside (hell a few the only mission killed *yes Mission killed not destroyed we never have had one totally destroyed yet in combat* M1 Abrams in the gulf war and the 2003 Iraq invasion had were from friendly fire from other Abrams and even then they just required a few replacement parts and they were good as new) i would expect the same from these advanced tanks century's off in the future. even in the days of the 1980s much less now.

[Daemion]

Actually, quite frankly, if this is a gage of what I can tolerate, then part of this poll is inaccurate because I'm partially curious enough to see what a whole hog reboot would be like.

[TS_Hawk]

[Story] Severe. (Examples: A fundamental change is made to the entire balance of the setting, such as the destruction of the SLDF before its Exodus preventing the creation of the Clans, or the deletion of any of the five Great Houses from canon.)

I voted for this one but I wouldn't want to see the clans get removed nor 1 of the great houses.  But I think making all 5 of the great houses more or less equal in size and in power could make it more interesting.

[Game] Modest. (Examples: A swath of rules tweaks are made that shifts game balance to a small degree or changes one aspect of design, such as a rewrite of large spacecraft construction, or a change in dice mechanics from D6 to D12.) this was the other I voted on.. I think maybe using a D12 system might be more interesting. but definitely changes to the large spacecraft construction and giving the game more balance

[Legion]

I am very open to adjusting the rules to make them work better, but what I don't want to see is a Warhammer 40k-style, "Every edition is a new ruleset, and surprise, your army doesn't do what it used to!"  This I am very opposed to.  I have no problem with existing rules being changed for the better, just don't make it a religious habit.

[Hellraiser]

I wen't with Minor/Modest like many.

That said I don't like the idea under "Modest-Game" of a D12 base,  too annoying & rare a die.

Keep it 6,  I have lots of those from Shadow Run,  or even D20,  but prefer 6.


Large Craft rules changes would be good I think.

Another one I thought of just the other day is Range Brackets.... why is it 0-2-4,  you'd think it would be a gradual increase by ones instead of twos.

[Diablo48]

Another one I thought of just the other day is Range Brackets.... why is it 0-2-4,  you'd think it would be a gradual increase by ones instead of twos.

You need that much variation for range to be non-trivial in calculating accuracy, and adding more range bands to crate a smoother transition would be a bit of a pain for bookkeeping.  That said, it would probably be nice for an advanced rule to add a -1 to hit if you are within the shorter half (rounded down) of your range band so you would effectively get six bands at -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4, but that would be too much trouble for the core rules.

[DaveMac]

Minor tweeks are fine by me.  Can't expect for everything to be internally consistent after nearly three decades and gawd knows how many writers input.

[Orion]

Minor tweaks to the story are already being made on a regular basis, and I can't see that changing at all.  I would also argue that the constant addition of new weapons and rules is more damaging than tweaks to existing stuff.

For story, I say make big changes, or don't bother.  Like I've said elsewhere, I'd love a selection of new settings to play in.  As for game play, I'm all for major changes to the rules.  As they currently stand, they are loads of fun to play - I admit that.  They also give me migraines trying to justify many of them.  Battletech has to be the worst designed game I have played more than once.  I would love to have a better designed game in the same universe.

[Meow Liao]

Part 2 of the poll of doom is much more interesting.

[Story] severe:  I would be ok with any of the story choices other than none.  There have been some serious issues with the storyline throughout the game's 25 year history.  The trick is we have 25 years of story.  That's a lot of time invested in living the story (or putting up with the story).  Changes are certain to upset plenty.  An earlier suggestion of alternate timelines would be the easiest out.  It also lets you try out several variations on a theme.

[Game] major:  This one is more about additions than eliminations.  I want to plug into my mech with my level 3 vehicle control rig and make that 90ton baby do a jig. 

As long as any changes are compatible with the current game, I'll be happy (or not).   :-\

Meow Liao

[Minerva]

I think that rules need a total rewrite.

One thing that potential "returners" often complain is the antiquity of the BattleTech rules set. In essence modern miniatures game needs to have a faster pace. It is good to remember that miniatures are themselves the largest investment cost for players so rules books themselves can be updated more often.

I'd like to see rules rewritten to include concept of penetration and reduce number of rolls needed to solve hits and hit results drastically. Rules should be integrated to include all real life modern weapon systems with their strengths and weaknesses.

I do not see any changes to "FASAnomics" being possible with current crop of writers and developers. The revamp should include actual novel writer who would bring with her fresh ideas and approaches to make game more appealing to current audience.

[Minnow]

Story: I voted for Minor. Numbers and things can be changed, dated fixed, errors corrected, blanks filled in, and so on. That can go all the way to the beginning but the changes shouldn't be so big and far reaching that it renders old material completely worthless.  If you're going to do that you might as well be starting a new game.

Game: I voted Minor but I'm kind of in between Minor and Modest. I'm fine with bug fixes and rules changes up to one aspect of design (mostly). I'm even hoping for some blanks in tech items and unit construction to be filled in.  But I don't want things to be so changed that its unrecognizable and all the old material is rendered useless. If you do make Major changes, I would hope that you'd include conversion that are backwards and forwards compatible. But like I said above and as many others have said, you might as well start a new game.

For me I think FedComGirl has it right. For most of us this has been apart of our lives for years (20 for me) and it is a history. We are talking about changing our history. I know it is a game but for the most part things have been very consistent for 25 years which I think is something very special. Those that came before tried very hard to have a continuity to the universe that personally I don't think needs much changing. Like FedComGirl stated, dates here and there, errors what have you but completely writing out some faction or unit I think is out of line.

For the past 25 years we have never talked about rewriting history. There has always been inconsistencies and what not but that is kinda expected (to an extent) given the number of people and the number of years our storyline has survived. They have tried to be addressed and fixed but never have we talked about sweeping historical changes. Not since Catalyst has come to the table anyway.

We have seen many instances in these and the past forum that has old players coming back to the game and are very excited and pleased that the mechanics and setting are much the way they left it. It makes the story a bit stale yes with this faction fighting that faction and what have you but that is why we have the creative people we do moving the story along. The jihad was the reset button, I don't think more needs to be done.

Coming at this from the rules side, again things have been very consistent and things tend to work very well. I am not opposed to making certain changes here or there for unit types to have them fit better into game play but a completely new set of rules or mechanics isn't necessary. We have one that works, it just needs to be tweaked here and and there for better overall game experience.

[Maingunnery]

Storywise, maybe TPTB should leave out the 21th century and be vague about the 22nd? That should prevent timeline rewrites?

[Sartris]

I think that rules need a total rewrite.

One thing that potential "returners" often complain is the antiquity of the BattleTech rules set. In essence modern miniatures game needs to have a faster pace. It is good to remember that miniatures are themselves the largest investment cost for players so rules books themselves can be updated more often.

I'd like to see rules rewritten to include concept of penetration and reduce number of rolls needed to solve hits and hit results drastically. Rules should be integrated to include all real life modern weapon systems with their strengths and weaknesses.

I do not see any changes to "FASAnomics" being possible with current crop of writers and developers. The revamp should include actual novel writer who would bring with her fresh ideas and approaches to make game more appealing to current audience.

So basically you want the  BattleTech IP to go to another company

[faraday77]

So basically you want the  BattleTech IP to go to another company

Looks like unless TPTB decide to commence work on BT2.0 that would be the only way to get an official new rules set. Don't think either is going to happen, though.

[twycross]

I think that rules need a total rewrite.

<snip>

The revamp should include actual novel writer who would bring with her fresh ideas and approaches to make game more appealing to current audience.

As one who has been playing for over 25+ years, and who has played other mini based games, I can honestly say that even though the BT rules may seem "old" and "outdated" to some, the sure as heck work better than other systems I've played.

For example: I've introduced BT to friends that play Warhammer, and they absolutely love the BT rules. My friends went on to say that the BT rules are a lot easier to use than the Warhammer rules. They also went on to start buying BT products...if that's any indication of things.

Also, just out of curiosity, what other games are you comparing BT to, Minerva?

[Sartris]

As a guy who loves his missile spam, I can get behind finding a way to streamline dice rolls. I love my Box of Death™. I really do. I'd just love to not need it.

[Kamose]

I'm another grognard who doesn't think things need changing, despite the inconsistencies or mistakes in the plotline.  Frankly, those very inconsistencies are part of what makes the universe interesting to me - it gives me and my players a way to insert their characters and situations into the universe but still mostly follow "canon".  As an example - we like WarShips.  There have been many, many examples of misnaming, renaming, destroying & recreating WarShips over and over.  As an example - The Dragon Roars says one Tatsumaki (unnamed) was destroyed; the only other one (The Dragon's Last Tear) was destroyed over Alshain.  Yet, suddenly, here comes FM: Updates and we have The Lair of Mighty Wyrms is still part of the fleet.  Error?  Certainly - and TPTB addressed it in some forum (don't remember where or which one) it by saying that some Nova Cat technicians "fixed" the "destroyed" Tatsumaki listed in The Dragon Roars.  These same miraculous Nova Cat technicians (without a shipyard!) apparently did the same thing for the Anna Rosse and the True Vision, both listed as destroyed in FM:U but present in HS: Terra.  Our group decided to treat it as bureaucratic "sleight of hand" to use it as a justification for them to set up a small Star League WarShip fleet in payment for the SL destroying the Jags.  We stayed "true to canon" but had a loophole to do things our way.  So - was this an error fix, a retcon, or a loophole?  I think it's just what you want it to be.  Too much tinkering with things (especially the storyline, for those of us who have seen in unfold) makes it feel (to me) "forced".  The only REAL change I'd like to actually see a destroyed faction STAY destroyed (Houses Liao & Marik, Terran Hegemony/Republic of the Sphere, etc.).  Just my 2 cents.

Kamose

[E. Icaza]

Minor for both story and game.

CBT has a fairly solid rule-set, so I wouldn't want to see any radical changes there.  As for the story, I will only comment that I've been far from a fan of the retcons that CGL has done so far, so I'd prefer that they keep their pens off of the universe that has already been established (for good or ill).

[WarGod]

I voted modest, there some things that either need to be trimmed out, or eliminated. 
would'nt mind seeing the engine tables changed little bit.  (sorry but the engine to move a 70 ton tank 65kph does NOT weight in at 32 tons)
Modest for story. 

[Bondsman]

Storywise, it'd be nice to keep onto the factions that be. Everyone probably has their own idea of what is a reasonable plot development and what isn't, so it's a hard call. (As long as jih^H^H^H  >:D )

Changes to game rules should be toward the simpler direction, I feel. The boardgame has plenty of record keeping as it is, and new developments such as new techs seem to easily add more dice rolls and charts. Some changes, as simplifications (such as what happened with AMS - dice rolls into a fixed bonus) streamline play, and that's what I'd hope to see in the future. This, of course, depends on the direction of development TPTB wish to take: is it a game about lance level action, or company level action and beyond?

[Demos]

Minor story changes.
Modest Game changes, something like stupid cost calculations (or is this also covered by minor story changes?) or different technology, weapon stats (Clan Pulse) or construction rules (Warships).

[Wolflord]

Give heads of bloodhouses more authority as well as more influence in clan councils compared to someone who won a bloodname yesterday.

Have clans recognise value of older warriors skill and experience like the dragoons did and expand toumans accordingly.

Bring house militaries up to a sensible size or bring house populations down to a level commensurate with their militaries.

Replace BV with a system based on the cost of training, equipping, transporting and supplying a unit in the field I.e. make logistics matter, make resources [raw materials, factories, skilled individuals, transportation] matter.

Make vehicles much more vulnerable than battle mechs.

Loyalty ratings need to be made more useful some sort of variable [like the tech level percentages maybe???] depending on who the unit is currently fighting for/against.

[Diablo48]

Loyalty ratings need to be made more useful some sort of variable [like the tech level percentages maybe???] depending on who the unit is currently fighting for/against.

I thought there were already some optional rules somewhere where loyalty had influence on unit cohesion in in the face of combat losses so more loyal troops would be more willing to fight to the bitter end and less loyal troops would be more likely to break and run in battle.

[Wolflord]

I thought there were already some optional rules somewhere where loyalty had influence on unit cohesion in in the face of combat losses so more loyal troops would be more willing to fight to the bitter end and less loyal troops would be more likely to break and run in battle.

Anyone able to point me at these optional rules?
*offers cupcake as incentive*

[Sartris]

Morale rules can be found on pg 211-213 of TO.  Morale and fatigue outside of combat are on pg 38-41 of SO.  The latter include the rules for force quality, loyalty, mutiny, desertion, etc

[Legion]

Make vehicles much more vulnerable than battle mechs.

Is this not already done?  Vehicles are fairly easy to mobility kill, in my experience.