His_Most_Royal_Highass_Donkey
05/10/12 08:20 AM
72.56.43.209
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I was reading through the Mechwarrior 3rd edition book and saw that the person the made up the sample characters could not be bothered to follow the games rules when it came to giving the characters their equipment.
Characters that should be limited to equipment that was availability level B and legality level B having equipment levels of C or even D
Another one having the disadvantage of poverty and then owning a battlesuit where the rules say that you cant own a vehicle, battlemech, or battlesuit if you have the poverty disadvantage.
How I really caught this was that I was thinking of characters that needed some equipment that they could not have because they did not have the well equipped advantage. For example a beat cop not being allowed to own a pistol or a soldier not being allowed to own anything more than a bolt action rifle.
Now I could understand a DM letting some things slide so a players character can have some things that they need to play the game but I would expect the writers to follow the rules to the T. Now I would not go over board and saying to a player, "Well you don't not have the well equipped advantage but OK your Periphery character can have that Gauss pistol." I would say "Well yes your PBI character can have that automatic rifle that he needs." Or even requiring some characters to own something that they can't have by the rules, for example a military officer or a beat cop owning a revolver or auto-pistol.
Why argue if the glass is half full or half empty, when you know someone is going to knock it over and spill it anyways.
I was a Major *pain* before
But I got a promotion.
I am now a General *pain*
Yay for promotions!!!
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Accords12
05/10/12 06:08 PM
2.124.105.53
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Do all beat cops own guns? I personally thought that such firearms were issued while on duty, if they have a personal firearm they certainly dont take it to work. But then again the starting Characters were always a bit squiffy.
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His_Most_Royal_Highass_Donkey
05/10/12 07:35 PM
173.5.150.196
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Quote:
Do all beat cops own guns? I personally thought that such firearms were issued while on duty, if they have a personal firearm they certainly dont take it to work. But then again the starting Characters were always a bit squiffy.
Quite a few cops at least use to own and carry there own firearms and not the one issued to them by the department. Now days I dont know. I would figure that a lot of cops in BT would want to carry a more powerful one or one as a second gun.
Why argue if the glass is half full or half empty, when you know someone is going to knock it over and spill it anyways.
I was a Major *pain* before
But I got a promotion.
I am now a General *pain*
Yay for promotions!!!
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Accords12
05/10/12 11:07 PM
2.124.105.53
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I dont know most police dont particularly want to be in firefights, the gun being a deterrant for the suspect to react violantly, so unless there is a good chance the copper has to deal with aggrovated (un BA'd) elementals, in which more likely SWATesque units would be dispatched, they would be expected to use a standard issue, maybe the cop does carry a gauss pistol spare, but then would go through beurocracy hell if he ever discharged it without one hell of a reason, and an even more of a inquiry of what was he expecting to deal with, packing that apocalypse in a holster of his.
Edited by Accords12 (05/10/12 11:08 PM)
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His_Most_Royal_Highass_Donkey
05/11/12 01:35 PM
173.149.182.171
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You are thinking of like modern US police officers that would look at being slapped with a lawsuit if they did the smallest thing wrong.
People in the BT universe like having power and using it on anyone they can get away with. The cops would be no different. The only thing that a cop might worry about is if that guy that he is ruffing up might have a friend in a high place. You could think of like back in the 50s where if you got mouthy with a cop that puled you over for speeding he would go and smash out your head light right in front of you so he could right you another ticket for having a light out. If you complained about him smashing out of your head light he would brake your windshield so he could ticket you for having a broken windshield. Then when you went in front of the judge the judge would back up the cop.
Cops in the BT universe would want to carry what ever amount of fire power that they think that they could get away with.
Why argue if the glass is half full or half empty, when you know someone is going to knock it over and spill it anyways.
I was a Major *pain* before
But I got a promotion.
I am now a General *pain*
Yay for promotions!!!
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Cray
05/11/12 10:49 PM
97.101.96.171
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Quote:
Cops in the BT universe would want to carry what ever amount of fire power that they think that they could get away with.
What they could get away with would differ dramatically from world to world. According to the respective House sourcebooks and handbooks, the Combine, Federated Suns, Free Worlds, and Lyrans do not micro-manage the laws of their individual planets.
The Federated Suns and FWL are extreme cases of this. The Suns won't even intervene in planetary civil wars when it threatens production of military-critical goods if the local government doesn't ask for intervention (see Gulkana and Parma in the 1980s House Davion SB).
El Dorado (detailed at length in A Time of War) takes a moment to address local firearm laws:
"Visiting military personnel should be extremely wary of
carrying any weapons. AFFS personnel (though not mercs) are
allowed to register non-lethal weapons at El Dorado’s Customs
centers, but anyone else from off-world (barring recognized
law enforcement or VIP protection details) cannot carry
weapons; even pocket and utility knives are questionable.
Natives may acquire non-lethal weapons if they have a clean
record, or may acquire small firearms (with RFID tags) if they
have a clean record and undergo a lengthy licensing procedure.
Police and the militia, of course, use advanced body armor and
heavy weapons, and visitors scanned as carrying non-tagged,
unregistered weapons make favored targets for mobilization
and stunstick combat exercises. (Average response time from
a scan in an urban area is 3.2 minutes.)"
This anal-compulsive firearms control differs dramatically from the Federated Suns planets Okefenokee and Parma. Natives take of Okefenokee see ownership of large-caliber firearms as a basic civil right, and use them to shoot at corporate oil-dwelling operations. (See Davion SB). Parma, meanwhile, is constantly at war with itself to the point, "violence is such a way of life for the Parmians that they experience a severe shock upon traveling to other works where noblemen actually get along well together."
So, while on El Dorado, most police have night sticks (except for the PAL-armed SWAT teams); the citizens of Okefenokee and sheriffs alike consider 10G double-barreled shotguns proper accessories for Sunday Mass; and Parma nobles war on each other with BattleMechs.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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Accords12
05/12/12 05:32 AM
2.124.105.53
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And then therre is the Taurians, who typically carry suitcase nukes in case of sneaky Davion attacks.:)
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His_Most_Royal_Highass_Donkey
05/12/12 09:11 AM
173.149.182.171
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Really!
I would have thought that the Capellan Confederation would have been a lot more extremely controlling than the Free Worlds League. After the Capellan Confederation I would have thought the Draconis Combine as a close second with the Free Worlds League coming in far after them.
As for the Federated Suns and the Lyran Commonwealth I would have placed the Lyran Commonwealth as the least controlling with the Federated Suns a close second.
Why argue if the glass is half full or half empty, when you know someone is going to knock it over and spill it anyways.
I was a Major *pain* before
But I got a promotion.
I am now a General *pain*
Yay for promotions!!!
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Cray
05/12/12 01:36 PM
97.101.96.171
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Quote:
I would have thought that the Capellan Confederation would have been a lot more extremely controlling than the Free Worlds League.
It is, which is why I excluded the Confederation from the list of Houses that do not micro-manage their planets. The Confederation is very much a micro-manager with a top-down, centralized government and fairly uniform laws. Implementation varies from planet to planet, but the basic government structures are the same. The planet "Ovan" is a detailed write-up of a Capellan planet found in A Time of War and shows both the usual laws in effect and the unique local implementation.
The Draconis Combine is very authoritarian in general, but nominally doesn't give a wet fart how things are done on a planet so long as the planet OBEYS. If a planet pays its taxes, contributes it troop and resource levies, praises the Coordinator and Combine, and follows the social customs of the Combine, then the exact form of government and local laws do not matter. Technically, you could have an ultra-tech anarchist cyberdemocracy on one planet and a nearly-medieval Japanese low-tech feudal state on a neighboring planet (see the Annapolis write-up in A Time of War.) In practice, though, the strictures of the central government make it difficult for planets to have generous civil rights and participatory democratic governments.
So, the big difference between the Combine and Confederation could be said to be "standardization." The authoritarian Confederation imposes a fairly standardized government across all planets, while the approximately equally authoritarian Combine doesn't care WTF planets do so long as obedience is obtained to the handful of key central government agencies (especially the secret police and military).
The Free Worlds, Lyrans, and Federated Suns all have fairly pleasant, civil rights-respecting central governments (by BattleTech standards). The way they get these governments differ.
The Lyrans technically have a near-absolute monarchy. Bizarre as it sounds, an Archon legally has lots and lots of POWER if you read the fine print of the House Steiner Sourcebook and Handbook government sections. Centuries of evolution have turned their Estates General (Congress, Parliament) into a powerless organization, and even the checks and balances on the Archon are mostly informal. HOWEVER, the Lyrans have learned the lesson of all old monarchies: the guy at the top has to be very, very careful about giving orders because they get blamed for EVERYTHING. Monarchs don't stay on the long if they keep taking the blame for everything. So, in practice, the Archon takes little action and lets the government run as a constitutional monarchy with rather democratic input, and the economy is open and capitalist, and individual planets have quite a bit of leeway to set their local laws (the same way US states have varying laws). But if the Archon wants to order the Tharkad Football Team Cheerleaders into his bedroom, order the decapitation of his enemies, and order all civilian guns in the nation burned he can do it - though one of those Griffins in the throne might "accidentally" slip and squish the Archon slightly before the angry mobs with pitchforks and nooses show up at the palace. See Arcturus and Solaris VII in ATOW for two different examples of Lyran planetary governments.
The Free Worlds League is organized quite similarly to the US: as a federal republic (the president is hereditary, but his powers are similar to the US president). There's a representative central government that has certain powers, and there are member-states (some as small as single continents) with certain powers. The FWL central government handles a lot of regulations and government like the US federal government, addressing the military, trade, diplomacy, education, etc. The FWL central government tends to get more involved with governance of its people than the central governments of the Federated Suns and Lyrans, but not in an oppressive fashion like the Capellans or Combine. It just gives a lot of directives and regulations on education, banking, and other mundane things. On the other hand, the FWL member-states can be very pissy about their prerogatives - the FWL's war efforts in the Succession Wars was crippled by member-states keeping most of their militias (which were most of the FWL's military) at home. The FWL central military was usually quite small and (like 19th Century US) it depended on loans of those state militias to accomplish any big military feats. Janos and Thomas Marik temporarily broke that cycle of member-state selfishness with some emergency wartime powers and made the FWL central government powerful and effective (for once), only to see a backlack that broke the nation.
The Federated Suns is an odd critter. On one hand, the central government has a very powerful military and powerful regional militias, and there is little question (unlike the FWL) of who that military answers to (hint: if your answered sounded identical to "First Prince," then you're right.) Like the US, the Suns' central government is unambiguously responsible for common diplomacy, defense, and interstellar trade. However, beyond those strengths, the Suns' central government turns into a total wimp. I mean, it makes the UN like a strongly centralized authoritarian dictatorship. The planets Gulkana, Parma, Okefenokee (in the old House Davion Sourcebook) and El Dorado (in A Time of War) are great examples. They are utterly, completely different from each other: Parma is medium-tech feudal world subdivided into warring baronies; Okefenokee apparently hosted the filming of "Deliverance" (I hope you're familiar); Gulkana has an oddball dictatorship that was driving itself to a civil war; and El Dorado was an ultra-tech, rich republic that considered New Avalon a rival, not a master. The Federated Suns' governmental departments (addressing education, energy, social services, etc.) were more toothless and less capable than equivalent UN organizations - except when it came to interstellar trade, diplomacy, and defense. There are a couple of exceptions to this "almost totally hands off" limits of the Suns' central government:
1) The First Prince has a lot of power over actual nobles in a feudal fashion - he can make and break noble titles and give orders to people with titles. Planetary dukes jump at his command. If a Suns' planet is very feudal (like Parma), the First Prince can bellow orders almost down to the level of individual hamlets. If a Suns' planet is not very feudal (like Gulkana and El Dorado), he can only send nasty letters to the planetary duke (who has about as much power over the planet as a British diplomat has over the US).
2) The Davion clan is rich. I mean, the boys have their own money rich. (No, really: Davions appear on most of their denominations.) Maybe you've heard of governments jumping to the orders of corporations in real life (rule 3: watch it), well, in BT the Davion clan is so rich that most of the major corporations have Davions on their boards of directors. Lesser companies will often find the giant interstellar banks are thoroughly owned by Davions. They're like mini-Steiners in this respect. (I forgot to mention Steiners have the unofficial power of being RICH.) Planets that don't play nice with the central Suns' government may find themselves scrambling to explain economic crashes, relocation of major factories, etc.
Anyway. What's that mean for gun ownership?
Well, in the Capellan Confederation, if you're not a noble and you're caught with a gun, then you're likely to be executed on most planets under the same laws. If you're a noble and caught with a gun, well, good for you. Keep the Servitor Caste in line.
In the Draconis Combine, if you're not a noble and you're caught with a gun, then you're likely to be executed on most planets for very different laws. IF you're a noble and caught with a gun, well, good for you. Keep the peasants in line.
In the FWL, if you're caught with a gun...well, I can't say. Shiloh might shoot you if you're not a believer of the True Faith, while other planets might pass out firearms to kids as soon as they can walk, and others might fine you for an unlicensed firearm.
In the Lyran Alliance/Commonwealth, if you're caught with a gun...well, the central government will probably give a relatively standardized set of punishments, though implementation will vary from planet to planet. And if you know the right (i.e., rich) people, forget about it, the problems with the law will be fixed at the next golf outing.
In the Federated Suns, if you're caught with a gun...well, it depends on the planet. The authoritarian communist planets will shoot you for being a tool of the bourgeois and bill your next of kin. The feudal governments (Parma) will kill you for taking up the tools of kingly men (unless you're noble, in which case carry-on, keep those peasants in line, what what). The uptight democracies (El Dorado) will unleash their SWAT teams on you for being a menace, while the laxer democracies (Okefenokee) will pass out 10-Gauge pump-action triple-barrel skeeter-plinkers as soon as you're out of diapers. (The mosquitos of a swamp planet can be very large and dangerous.)
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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