What have your games been like?

Pages: 1
DavidG
07/14/15 12:33 AM
96.29.193.32

Edit Reply Quote Quick Reply
Hello, I'm posting this to see what others MechWarrior games have been like. I will start it of with a description of a very good Clan based game I was in about 15 years ago.

The game was set before the Clans sent the Wolfs Dragoons to the Inner Sphere. We all made characters using MechWarrior 2nd Ed. We didn't have to put any points into a Mech choice because the GM stated that the Clans would give us one to use. We 8 players. We had a few guys that just had to max out their characters, but the rest of us built our characters to actually operate outside of our Mechs.

Since I didn't have to put anything into a Mech choice I put my choices as follows: Race 2, Attributes 0, Skills 4 and Advantages 4. the GM allowed us to use 10 points divided any way we wanted. This allowed me to purchase computers at 2 and strategy at 1, as extra skills. I also purchased Natural Aptitude Computers and Natural Aptitude Pilot.

After we made our characters we randomly rolled for medium mechs to fight our trail of position in. I got a Black Hawk Primary. I was a 4 gunner and 5 Pilot. I faced a Puma Primary which I managed to kill without much damage to my mech. The second mech was a Ryoken B that blew my right arm off and pretty much chewed my mech up, but I managed to defeat it by getting behind it and going through its back armor. Then my third mech was a TimberWolf A. This was really when I thought I was dead. He blew off my right torso and I was sure it was going to be over as I had only hit him with 3 laser shot. Then I got very, very luck. I got a center torso chance for critical. I got 3 crits and killed his engine. So I became a Star Captain. None of the guys who maxed their character out managed more than 2 kills.

Oh, almost forgot, we were in Clan Hell's Horses. My character's name was Jason.Well after our trials, we ran through various engagements were we were mostly successful. During this time I won a blood name (Mitchell) along with one other player. Then the game changed. The GM decided that since it was now when the Clans voted to go into the Inner Sphere that instead of just sending a unit (The Dragoons) from Clan Wolf, there would be a Clan wide competition to see who would get to send the recon unit.

By this time my unit was a full Super Nova. We had been using and continued using the clan bidding system. Each of our star commanders and myself bid against each other to accomplish our trials. We beat all the competition from Hell's Horses and then had to go up against the best of the other clans.

We fought our way to the end and faced off against Clan Wolf. the GM did of course arrange it to work out this way. We did so well that for our last battle he suddenly had 3 blood names become available. This took out my 3 best warriors. With combat losses we were down to 6 mechs at this point. I looked at what we were facing and knew that we would lose. So I took a gamble and surprised everyone when I bid one mech. Myself. By this point I was a 3 gunner and a 3 pilot. I challenged the head of Clan Wolf's forces to a one on one duel. I thought I was challenging just the leader of the forces we were to face. The GM had the Khan of Clan Wolf accept my challenge. This floored me and all the other players. Most of them thought I was crazy.

Well Khan Kerensky met me in person and accepted my challenge. Then he broke tradition and chose that we would fight augmented. According to protocol I should of been the one to choose how we fought and he should have chosen where. I asked the GM to repeat what he had said. He did, I then said that you know this breaks protocol, and the GM said he knew, but this was a Khan. So I quickly verified that I could choose where, and I chose 4 heavy woods map sheets.

The GM said I had to use my last configuration on my mech. I was piloting a Summoner with a custom load out. I had 9 ER Medium Lasers, an ER Small Laser and a targeting computer with 25 DHS.

The Khan came out in a Masakari with 4 Large Pulse Lasers. Well as the duel progressed, the Khan slowly, very slowly moved onto a ridgeline to get clear shots at me. I jumped every turn 5 hexes towards the Khan. As I closed he only hit me with 3 laser shots. Then I was on top of him and was opening up with 9 lasers and jumping ever turn. About every other turn I was able to get behind him and that's when I targeted his rear center torso as I needed 8s of better to hit. I always hit with about 2 shots. Then one turn he didn't move and hit with all 4 Large Pulse Lasers. This hurt, as he stripped my left torso and hit my engine twice. But since he didn't move I ran behind him and needed 7s to hit him. I unloaded with everything. I hit with 6 Medium Lasers and a small Laser. This ripped the center torso out of his mech.

Since it was one on one, I clamed him as Isorla. To stop a war, my Khan intervined and claimed him and released him. At this point I had a ego the size of Texas. Well this ment Clan Hell's Horses was to send the recon unit to the Inner Sphere. An I was put in charge of it. This was a strategic move to remove a potential political threat that I could of presented in the future. Also, to keep others from trying to win me as a bondsman. So were reequipped our unit with old SLDF equipment. I was now piloting a Lynx. We still had our Omni Mechs but we had to hide them.

After we started fighting in the Periphery of the Inner Sphere, we down graded our units again, and hid our better mech. I ended up in a 3025 version of a Nightstar. It was shortly after this that the game ended.

Well, this was one of my best MechWarrior RPGs and I hope this encouraged others to tell about their. Thanks for reading.
ghostrider
07/17/15 01:00 AM
76.89.121.69

Edit Reply Quote Quick Reply
Never were able to get into a campaign with characters. The games we did were basically death matches with custom mechs, we only a few scenarios in there. The people I started playing with years ago did not want to restart their pilots, as one person was better then the others but that was until I used his tactics against him.

The person used a 55 ton mg mech, and the person he played against always ran up to his decoy mech only to find the medium ran into the backside of one of his mechs. The 18 mgs always hit alot as well as criticals galore. I used a 55 ton mech loaded with small lasers and melted his mechs side. Took out the leg arm and torso. He said it didn't count when his pilot died as he fell, and his other mech took a gyro hit from a single lrm 5 pack that went crit on a location roll of 2.

On a side note, the person he played against was a brawler only. Ac 20 and club type person. That explains why he always lost. And before you ask, most of the maps were out of the box, so hiding until he got in range was the option he used. Always faked him out by splitting his forces, and the slow speed made taking out one mech with the mg person 2 mechs was tried and true.
Akirapryde2006
07/21/15 01:38 AM
71.100.132.249

Edit Reply Quote Quick Reply
We had a game that started on Solaris VII in 3020. We were all just simple mechjocks. Though some of us had our memories messed with, so had two separate character backgrounds. One sealed the other was what we knew of our backgrounds. While the game didn't remain on Solaris, we often returned to the world that started it. Those were mostly vacations for our characters, the real fun was following this remarkable story from start to finish. Our Narrator was truly a master of the story and when our real backgrounds were revealed this became very apparent.

As we progressed through the game we each had our characters develop in remarkable ways. Ways we never imagined our characters would go. We never thought of how far our characters would go or what major battles they would face. The best was the final series of games that placed our heroes defending our world from the Lyran Alliance. In the end, we helped keep a world free and Independent. I know it was a home grown universe but, man it was a great game.

I am working on chronicling our adventures. I just don't know where to post it up. I have my own site but I would love to post it somewhere like here.

For now, I guess I will just keep working on my little project.
DavidG
07/22/15 01:36 AM
96.29.193.32

Edit Reply Quote Quick Reply
Thanks Ghostrider and Akirapryde2006, It sounds like you both have had some pretty good games. Akirapryde2006, I'd like to hear more about your game.
Akirapryde2006
07/25/15 10:03 AM
71.100.132.249

Edit Reply Quote Quick Reply
Well I guess the first thing to make sure that is clear, is that this was a home brew universe. The reason why this is important is because while we followed the main events of the universe, our Narrator had something really big in mind for us.

Day One of Phase One was way back in 1992. We were all stationed at Fort Riley, KS. Yes we were all military when the game started. This military experience is what really allowed the game and our characters to grow.

Our Narrator, Sgt David James, walked in to the breakroom where we were all set up. There were five to begin with but soon our numbers were grow in to eleven at the height of the game. He had ten folder. Half were blue and half were red. Each were sealed with tape. He placed them on the table in two piles. Each player was asked to take one folder from each pile.

The piles were of characters on New Earth and characters on Solaris VII. Half the game we played our Solaris characters then the other half we switched characters to those on New Earth.

If your character died, then you got to pile from a growing pile of NPC's. You never knew what character you were going to be playing when you picked it. But once you picked the character it was yours to do with as you wish. And it wasn't till the last game Phase One did the same characters become involved in the same game time.

As the game continued and more dimensions of the more characters were added to the pile. This allowed us to follow a much larger scope for the game than just being mech pilots.

Phase One of this game was ran under Sgt James from 1992 to 1995, when we ended the game running the battle of Tukayyid using miniatures. We had over 800 pieces and took up an entire two car garage. For two weeks, we battled two of the Clans. Nova Cats and Smoke Jaguars. Originally we wanted to do all of them but simply ran out of time.

After collecting all the game notes from my good friend and former narrating mentor, I ran phase two of the game from 2004 to 2006. It was kind of sad to not play my former characters in their normal roles but I had put together a good group of players with strong military minds. Plus during the two year game I was able to convince my military buddies to come and visit/play. It was really a treat.

Everyone had a good time but for some reason, the game just didn't hold. At the time everyone wanted to do Star Wars or (dare I say it) D&D (Blah!) instead. So with their agreement, we ended on a bang with a large battle that they just loved. Unlike Tukayyid, this battle was not written so the outcome was all theirs. They fought against over whelming odds against a major Inner Sphere power to protect one little world. Lacking the number of pieces, we were forces to use paper markers instead. But the battle was no less fun for my players.

I was happy that they had a good time. But I was just sad that I lost...lol

The hardest thing is to convert all these notes in to something like a world reference history. kind of like what you see in a Supplement book. What aggravates me is that what was cannon when our game was running now has been changed. New units added to where their were none and other units were moved. This kind of changed how our story looks. But hey beggars can't be choosers.

I hope that once I am finished writing up the history you will take the time (and man lots of time) to read it.

Akira
ghostrider
08/04/15 11:36 PM
76.89.121.69

Edit Reply Quote Quick Reply
This is a better place to continue the discussion about the game play that is moving the artillery pegasus thread from it's topic.

All the games we played, none were mechwarrior role playing. They were all mech battles. I started trying to get something going with the characters, but we were more into d&d for role playing, and this was pure carnage.
At the time, it was ok, since the game master was great for d&d.
Then they split up as job offers made staying in one place impossible.
After that, trying to find more then one or 2 people to even try to play was difficult at best.
As I said about the books. Telling the customer in one book that the next edition was already underway, and going to change everything in the book you just purchased within the first couple of pages just made me think they were putting things out to see what sticks. Not something good for someone that wasn't making 30k a year. Hell, I would have been happy making 15k a year at that time.

Never got far enough into the game with a group to sit down and mess with some of the rules. I always thought some were on the dumb side, but I know they were to balance play. Which to me, if it's that bad, then don't put it in.
Akirapryde2006
08/05/15 10:42 AM
71.100.132.249

Edit Reply Quote Quick Reply
For us, we started off as Mechwarrior Characters and slowly transitioned in to classic battletech (In the areas of Solaris VII). We did this for about six to nine months building up our characters and the story. Then we transitioned from single and duel mech battles to Small Unit battles with the larger battle storied around us. This took place during the New Earth Civil War. Near the end of the Civil War, we got our hands on enough mechs and other pieces to run a full scale battle. Took us a four day weekend to play out (Battle of Nes'Saw Pass).

We were all in the military at the time this game took place. So playing commanders of military units was like eating candy for us.

After the Civil War ended, we switched back to Mechwarrior Character style gaming with single mech battles while the larger battles were scripted off of our actions.

During the 3039 War, we got our hands on a BattleForce set. It was fun but not really our cup of tea. Something about the distanced between that lone pilot or soldier and the commander took the fun out of it for us.

Then came the Clan Invasion and the battle of Tukayyid.....lol sorry no spoilers. you will have to read what happened when I post Chapter Eight of my game notes. But I will tell you this. We had over a hundred pieces in play at any given moment during the two and half week event. Total players at the battle, between fifteen and eighteen. Each commanding their own units (Hurricane or Clan, yes we had players on the other side of the battlefield trying to stop us at all costs lol). There were four helpers aside from the players who worked closely with our Narrator to keep this epic battle moving. This one event has always been a dear memory of mine.

As for rules that exist solely to balance out other rules or equipment. We found a healthy dose of reality often cured that. Take the A-10, notably one of the best tank killers in the world. There is no rule to change this fact. It is what it is. SR-71, fastest aircraft that has been built today. No rules change this fact either. So what do you do for balance? Build a faster jet or maybe just a faster missile. Either way, if you don't have the ability then you can't. Sometimes someone will have the upper hand no matter what. Its not fair, but what is exciting is winning against that person who has the upper hand.
ghostrider
08/05/15 12:22 PM
76.89.121.69

Edit Reply Quote Quick Reply
As with a few things people have suggested, some rules are set up weird. The contour lines for hills is one. More then a few times people didn't want to go up a level but wanted to end in the hex. The rules say you go up the level. We allowed units to say they were remaining on the lower level and not dealing with the extra movement point.

Another issue deals with los. Your scanners can pick up a unit, yet there is no way to fire on it, if no one can see it. Not even idf. That is one of those things that changes reality. As you were saying about the jets. How many actually fire off missiles and never see the target? I know they have gotten close due to all the ecm and anti missile systems now a days, but things like anti ship missiles? I know they fire them from a distance. Nothing being seen.

But that is the home rule thread ideas.

Playing some of the games, some of these rules made the game better. The los rule of wood, either style, will block sight after 3. We had a better time when it was changed to 3 for heavy, and 4 for light. Alot of the maps became more playable. And questionable shots, like having the los run on border of hexes changed the outcome as well. We finally said it takes the worse penalty of the 2 hexes. That stopped the arguments of who has a clear shot because of weapon locations in the mech, ie the right arm of one mech would be outside the forest hex, while another one would point the weapon into the forest. Yes, we had someone that loved to bend everything they could for a slightest advantage.
Akirapryde2006
08/05/15 08:17 PM
71.100.132.249

Edit Reply Quote Quick Reply
Issues with LOS has always been a problem for us as well. We tried to game test a number of ideas that made LOS in an advanced technology battlefield more workable. It wasn't easy but we found the best solution came when we looked at the M1A1 targeting system.

Can you see it on the radar. Yes. Could a TOW lock on to it and fire, yes. But unless the gunner can lock on to the target, the main gun can't fire. But you know what you can do. Blind fire at the radar signature. Yes its a harder shot, but it can be done.

Having military experience made fixing a lot of rules so much easier for us. We simply took our military experience and applied it to the game rules. Talking about making game play so much easier.

Have you been reading the game history I have been posting? If so, what do you think so far?
ristin
06/25/17 09:47 PM
27.33.2.11

Edit Reply Quote Quick Reply
I game-mastered a campaign, it was Inner Sphere forces during the Clan Invasion.

I began using MW2 which worked great, fast loose style. Character Generation was easy.

I made the mistake of switching from MW2 to MW4...100% problems.

The damage and armor system made a lot less sense, leading to an all-or-nothing issue where attacks either bypassed armor or were stopped cold with very little in between. So as opposed to the "your armor can stop a few hits then will be worn down and less protective" feel of MW2 it was complex and math-filled.

The EXP costs in MW4 were much more complicated, I resorted to making spreadsheets to track the EXP and target-numbers for characters. Instead of being able to slap together an NPC on the fly like MW2, I had to prepare and calculate before time and it was complicated, awkward, and not rewarding for the effort. There are way too many skills. For instance in a social situation you need to work out what skill best suits because defaulting is punitively difficult...but in MW2 you have your social target number to roll against.

The EXP costs in MW4 also meant my players gunnery quickly and cheaply dropped to 0+, and that was for the "non-specialist pilots". So any opponents created using normal numbers (4+/5+ for IS and 3+/4+ for Clan) or "normal ace" numbers were rookie wimps to my player characters. Making competitive enemies was both unbelievable / implausible, made mech fights boring (whoever got a clear shot first won), and too deadly for the player characters...so then the option was "throw extra tonnage at them" or "outnumber them"...both of these are implausible too, especially if you watch an assault lance disintegrate to the average-of-light lance, or said average-of-light lance take out four time their numbers.

None of these were problems in MW2 without the over-complex and unbalanced EXP system.

Also, I had over 10 "house rules" to make MW4 more PC friendly and to iron out things that made no sense. The only house rule I needed for MW2 was "if you are above a certain body threshold you dont get a movement penalty for the armor you wear".

One player flat out refused to try MW3 so I am not familiar with it. But I would look to MW2 for simplicity for future games.
Pages: 1
Extra information
0 registered and 34 anonymous users are browsing this forum.

Moderator:  Nic Jansma, Cray, Frabby, BobTheZombie 

Print Topic

Forum Permissions
      You cannot start new topics
      You cannot reply to topics
      HTML is disabled
      UBBCode is enabled

Topic views: 7565


Contact Admins Sarna.net