Goodwill's Grogheads - Battletech Campaign using MegaMek, all apply here!

[BanzaiCat]

I've been eyeing this - do you need another commander?

[mirth]

We definitely need a BanzaiCat.

[Yskonyn]

(edits made to my last post above, please re-read)

@BanzaiCat you are welcome to join the Grogheads, sir! Start rollin'  O0

@Gusington and @Kushan I still need confirmation from you guys as to which side you prefer.

[BanzaiCat]

I used to love BattleTech and had many of the sourcebooks but I gave up on it by the early 90s. It's been about that long since I've had to think about PPCs or heat sinks or other such stuff, so I'm pretty much a newbie at this point.

Which is to say after reading through this thread I'm still not clear on what I need to do, other than

Download the Quick Start rules (done) - I assume the whole thing needs to be read?
Go to page 42 of that Random Rarity Assignment document and...do what?
Download and install MegaMek?

Am I missing anything else?

[Yskonyn]

Its good you speak up, perhaps I need to be more verbose, but I am not really familiar what you guys do and do not know and own and do not own about/of Battletech. So be sure to ask anything and everything that is unclear.

-Download an read the free intro rules if you're unfamiliar at all with Battletech. The Battletech Universe booklet is a nice read about the universe and its era's.

-Download and install MekHQ (latest dev release 0.43.9!)(you don't need MegaMek as its included in the MekHQ package).

-To roll your forces either start MegaMek, choose 'Start a New Game' and in the following popup window type in a name and leave the pw blank.

-After MegaMek loads, click on the Create Random Army... button, then press on the RAT tab, scroll down the list to Unofficial, then Xotl Mechs, 3028, Mercenary Periphery General.

-Click on 'Roll' in the upper right pane to roll your units.

OR (if you rather roll dice yourself)

Use the PDF I linked.

-Then review the units you got and order them into three suitable Lances, preferably with a Role (like Recon, Assault, etc) and post them here.

Additionally you should type up your player character. He will be the Company's CO.
You can be as basic as just type up a bio without using any rules, or you can use as many RPG rules as you like (if you have access to AToW for example).
We'll drive the campaign in-character with the CO's you guys create, but we can roleplay as heavy or as light as the group desires.

This helpful?

Once our child board goes active I'll be able to neatly organise everything, so that is bound to give some more clarity.

[mirth]

^very. thx.

[BanzaiCat]

Thanks much, that's great.

[jamus34]

Thanks Ysk, that last post explains a ton.

I'm am extremely green on BT lore. Played a couple of rounds of the board game as a youth and some of the computer games (crescent hawk's inception and various mechwarriors / mech commander) but I know / remember  next to nothing on the overall lore and history.

I'll keep plugging away and show everyone what I come up with.

[Yskonyn]

Ok I'll try to be as detailed as I can then.
Sarna.net is the wiki concerning all things BT. You can get lost on there for days reading lore. I'll link (as I did above) to important stuff as we go.
It'll surely trigger a chain on the site. :)

[acctingman]

Not joining, but following this closely (mainly reading as much lore as I can before the PC release)

Have fun!

[JasonPratt]

I find it easier to ignore the lore and fluff until I absolutely need to know what's going on storywise for whatever Battletech game I'm playing. Most such games have basic themes that translate over to the narrative regardless of the specific details.

Examples offhand:

THE CRESCENT HAWKS DUOLOGY -- you're a young noble whose family got stomped in the ongoing civil war, and while you'd like some revenge (thus the title of the second game), first you just need to survive with a few pieces of equipment that you and your friends managed to get hold of for making your escape from the debacle. Over time your survival is successful enough to earn a reputation and job offers, and so your mercenary group begins (the "inception" of the first game's title).

MECHWARRIOR 2 -- it's been too long since I played this one. Just a soldier trying to survive and further the expansion of one of the clans returning to their former homeland to put an end to its unending civil wars? I think? There are campaigns and things as you earn your reputation and go on more important missions. I may be misremembering what side you're on. (But part of the overall dramatic irony is that the reconquista degenerates into its own civil wars indistinguishable from the cynical and vindictive power-grabs that preceded the reconquista.)

MECHCOMMANDER 1 -- a regiment tries to land in an enemy area, which goes disastrously, leaving you piecing together some way to keep the mission going with the surviving scraps of equipment. I think; haven't played this in a while either. Never got around to MechCom2.

MECHWARRIOR 4 -- similar to the Crescent Hawks, but not really building up a merc company per se. Young nobleman whose family gets punched out during a civil war, but while the enemy has the high ground (somewhat literally, where the family palace is) you and your sister have to rally your family's loyal retainers to take back your home.

MW4: BLACK KNIGHT -- you're a mercenary doing merc-y things, just having fun earning cash to make your company grow while other people hire you to further their stories along. The twist is that the back half of the storyline features you fighting against an evil version of the main character from the MW4, whom you're hired to stop. If you played the original campaign, you'll question whether this is really an alternate continuity or you're just being fed convenient propaganda? (Either way, the designers get to reuse key maps from the original campaign!)

MW4: MERCENARIES -- you're a mercenary doing merc-y things, just having fun earning cash to make your company grow while other people hire you to further their stories along. It's a bunch of somewhat connected short stories that you're peripheral to -- you just need to do your job effectively, grow your company's rep, rise in the ranks, be careful about being betrayed by your employers, make an example if that happens. Along the way, you decide to enter into a running season of gladiator matches, which serves as something like the main story for you personally, as you grow in respect and popularity.

MWONLINE -- you're a mercenary doing merc-y things, just having fun earning cash to make your company grow while other people hire you to further their stories along, which you won't get to experience as 'stories' really. Much of the challenge involves trying to find players of your relative rank whom you can trust to fight competently beside you and not be jerks about it. Mostly you will fail at this, as the game steadily mocks your attempts to give meaning to your worthless life until you ragequit and swear never to have anything to do with it again. It can, however, be a little more emotional than the other stories.

[mirth]

I always enjoyed reading through the lore. It's a well fleshed out universe. I'd spend hour upon hour just reading through the Technical Readouts, back in the day.

[Yskonyn]

We now have our own little corner! Yay!

http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?board=92.0

Give me a few days to flesh out the threads with initial info.
If you have any suggestions and / or requests be sure to post them!  O0
And feel free to start posting, even though info is still missing.

[jamus34]

So here's a question. If we don't have access to AToW how do we roll our character?

[Yskonyn]

Well, the whole character creation process is just to have a little fun. The campaign is focussed on the tactical play Battletech offers, not the RPG play AToW offers. Still, certain skills *are* featured in MegaMek that come from AToW.

So if you do not have access to AToW I suggest you just think about what you would want your character to be in a more general sense without looking at rules. I will then try to roll your character as best I can with my AToW book.

Where was he or she born, how was childhood, tell a little about his or her family and how the character has become a Merc and / or attained his or her rank. What are skills (in a general sense) you deem important for your character.
Is he or she a tactician or more a beserker kind of fighter. Does he or she have a favorite Mech model?
The more info you can give, the better I can roll your character to your specs.

Once he or she is created I'll give a rundown of which stats or abilities have effect in MegaMek battles.

Of course, if you don't enjoy making a character at all I can just let MekHQ roll one for you at random and that's that.