Building the Jacks #1

Welcome to the first installment of building the campaign.  This series will be about how we structured the initial guidelines, discuss introduction of new rules, and how the nature of the campaign changed over time.  It will feature emails and rule references, though no printing of actual game rules.

It all started innocently enough.  Steve, who was already GMing a Rolemaster game I was playing in with Bruce once a month sent out this email.  He had no idea the can of worms he was opening.

From: Steve

Sent: Monday, May 21, 2018 12:13 PM

To: Bruce; Neil; JV; Brian

Subject: BattleTech Campaign?

  

Is there any interest in a BattleTech campaign?  I would like to start

hosting a game about once a month on Sundays. (With an option to play

twice a month if we are really into it.)

My thoughts are these:

The players would be members of a small mercenary unit.  One lance is

what I'm thinking, although you could certainly expand throughout the

game.  After all, playing more than one mech is pretty easy. Basically, 

I plan to start you off with one mech per player, probably all light 

mechs with maybe one medium mech for the Lance Commander.

You would keep track of pilots and your own unit's equipment.

As the GM, I will make "contracts" available, play the opposing forces,

adjudicate salvage and repair, determine what mechs are for sale, etc.

Much of this will be handled by e-mail between games.

Each game session would be the resolution of one "contract." 

Essentially one mission.  The battles may or may not be "balanced." 

You will have intel on each situation, but intelligence is sometimes 

inaccurate.  You will have to decide what to do when unexpected things 

happen.

The intent of this is to go light on the role-playing and heavy on the

blowing-stuff-up, but keep enough of the role-play that we have an

ongoing campaign for a mercenary unit: Consistent pilots, consistent

mechs that have to be repaired or replaced after each game, salvage,

maintenance, all that jazz.

I should mention that I am not an expert at all things Battletech.  I

just love the original game.  I'm searching through some of the later

publications now for consistent rules on costs, salvage, repair, etc.

If I can't find them, I'll probably end up making stuff up.  Who am I

kidding?  I'll probably end up making stuff up anyway... :-)

Any interest?

Any interest?  Of course I was interested.  I hadn’t played any serious BattleTech since 2012, with the exception of a couple of one-offs.  I was kind of getting itchy to play, particularly with the Harebrained Studios’ BattleTech computer game having just become available the month before.  I hadn’t had a chance to start playing yet because my computer wasn’t powerful enough to run it, but I had been spending way too much time on Twitch watching other people play it.  Those factors were making the desire to play even stronger.  It took me all of 15 minutes to reply, mostly because I was at lunch when Steve sent the original email.

On 5/21/2018 12:30 PM, Neil Ikerd wrote:

I've been looking for an excuse to buy Campaign Operations!  :-)

I would love to get in on a BT campaign, I have lots of books and maps, 

and several assorted mech, vehicle, and aerospace fighter figurines.

If you didn't want to write your own campaign, I have a couple of 

campaign books as well (Sword and Dragon, Operation: Klondike).  What 

era are you thinking?

I’m not the only one either.  Bruce has a complete copy of the Solaris VII box set, the last version of the box set that included 24 plastic minis, a few of the modern era rule books, several of the novels, and few figures of his own.  Steve’s reply gave us a loose framework of he wanted to do, and a bit of surprise that has proven to be very cool.

I have virtually nothing for the game, except it is one of those games 

I'm always willing to play.  My brother Brian has (I think) all of the 

Technical Readout books, and I have one of the compiled rule books, plus 

a few PDFs I've been downloading and daydreaming about playing...

Plus, JV has a 3d printer. :-)

I'm thinking of doing an early era - back to the days when, if you 

weren't rolling to avoid an ammo explosion, you weren't really in the 

game yet - but not so early that we couldn't reasonably start to 

introduce more advanced weapons and mechs as the campaign progresses.  

Certainly sometime before the Clans raised their ugly heads.  Maybe 

they'll show up once you get really established.

Campaign wise, I'm thinking of doing something along the lines of the 

old PC game Mechwarrior II.  You are a small mercenary unit with one 

mech per player.  Probably all light mechs or maybe one medium mech for 

the leader.  You'll be hired by whoever has the money (unless the 

players develop, you know, "standards" or something) to fight the "side 

battles" the major forces don't have time to fight.  (I'll make a list 

of contracts available on their equivalent of merc.net and you will 

choose which to take on.)  As you get more money, you can buy better 

mechs, upgrade the ones you have, etc...  As you get better mechs, you 

can take on more lucrative contracts.

But all that is in the very early stages right now.  I might take a look 

at some of the existing campaign books.  I know very, very little about 

the background and story that has developed around Battletech. When I 

played it, there was really no story. it was just "blow up the other guy."  

Which, I'll admit, is usually enough for me.  I'm a simple guy. :-)

Thanks for mentioning Campaign Operations.  I hadn't heard about that 

one.  Downloading the .pdf now...

This is where I start going down the rabbit hole.  I don’t have the encyclopedic knowledge that some players do, but I can do a pretty good impression of a Wikipedia entry on BattleTech.  With a better understanding of what Steve wants to do, I start throwing out ideas:

The only book you really need to play is Total Warfare- which has all the 

combat and terrain rules.  Bruce and I both have that.  Sounds like we're 

talking 2950-3045 era.  If we pushed into the later portions of that (3039-

3048), we could start bringing back some of the old Star League mechs and 

have access to some Inner-sphere LosTech (double heat sinks, ER Lasers, 

Gauss Rifles, Ferro-fibrous armor, etc).  If you want heat management to be 

a real issue/tactical decsion, along with ammo/logistics, probably more 3025-

3038 is what you're looking for.

I could go for some 4th succession war stuff.  If you wanted to stay out of 

the big campaign we could be working the border worlds to free up troops for 

the 4th succession war.  

On the Davion side there is the spinward border with the Outworlds Alliance, 

which is seriously suffering due to the overall decline in technology, the 

government is unpopular and the ruler is a plodder.  There is also the 

rimward border with the Taurian Concordant; whose leader hates the Davions 

and is worried that the creation of the FedCom super-state means that the 

FedRats will soon turn their attention rimward.  In response, he is building 

up his military and bringing in merc units to shore up defenses.

On the Steiner side there is the Circinus Federation, which was just a bandit 

kingdom pretending to be a real star-kingdom until a series of treaties finally 

legitimized the Federation in 3020.  

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve K
To: Neil Ikerd; Bruce; JV; Brian
Sent: Wed, May 23, 2018 10:21 pm
Subject: Re: BattleTech Campaign?

Holy crap, you guys know WAY more about this than me.  I may have some reading to do...

I like the idea of 4th Succession War era.  If I understand it, most mechs are still "old tech" but some are getting back in touch with the re-discovered Inner Sphere tech.  Lots of fights going on all over the place, so lots of contracts for a small Merc outfit.  I figure a small mercenary outfit like yours would be all old-tech mechs until you manage to salvage/buy newer stuff and start getting established.  As you get bigger and better, you would be hired for more important missions.  If you get a good enough reputation, you might be hired as extra muscle in major assaults when a House needs more troops in one place. 

You could conceivably find yourself fighting both sides of the war, at different times, without ever breaking a contract. 

I think I see a Jenner and a Phoenix Hawk in this picture.  The other two I don't know.  One mech appears to be screwed.  That's all I can tell, but it makes me want to blow something up. :-)

You guys can probably tell me what unit the mechs are from, what planet they are fighting on, what their orders are, and what they had for breakfast that morning.

 I can’t tell you what planet they’re on or what they had for breakfast, but I can tell you that the Wolverine is a DCMS 2^nd Sword of Light unit, so we can assume that the Locust and Phoenix Hawk are as well.  That’s an Enforcer getting its head opened up, so that means AFFS, probably Davion Heavy Guards or possibly Crucis Lancers in field camo That puts this somewhere along the FS/DC border, probably 4^th Succession War, but I digress…

The picture of the 2^nd SoL ‘Mech got me thinking about the DCMS in the 4^th SW era, and that led me to think about Wolves on the Border and Takashi Kurita’s “Death to Mercenaries” order.  By the next afternoon I had written up a shell background for a unit that would give us 4 starting Mech’s, a very few pilots, a dropship, a commander that wouldn’t have to be one of the pilots, and enough role-playing hooks to make any GM salivate. 

Next entry:  The Regulators