Bungling With BungleTech – Nathan Unveils The Global Campaign Initiative

BungleTech, the podcast about how BattleTech is really hard to play right, is about to embark on its most difficult journey yet. The Global Campaign 2025 will have both Classic and Alpha Strike players alike play through a nine-mission campaign where some will fail, some will succeed, but everyone will undoubtedly bungle something.

Most likely the bungler will be Nathan, one of the hosts of BungleTech and a self-professed master bungler. To get the lowdown on the Global Campaign, I sat down with Nathan to discuss what players can expect as they travel with their favorite ‘Mechs to Galatea on a narrative adventure unlike any other. Along the way, we discuss BungleTech and how Nathan has a very special relationship with Jenners. Enjoy.

Sean (Sarna): Boop. 

Nathan (BungleTech): Boop. 

Sean: That’s how we start our interviews here at Sarna. All right. I am Sean Murray. I’m here to interview Nathan at BungleTech for all the great work you do in your podcast, as well as what you’re going to be doing, which is the Global Campaign 2025. 

But before we get to those important questions, first, introduce yourself to all the people who don’t know what you are.

Nathan: Hello world. My name is Nathan. I am a Classic BattleTech nerd. I have been bungling my way through games since the early nineties and I run a podcast called BungleTech, a BattleTech Podcast. 

And the reason why the podcast was created was because at the time I was listening to other BattleTech podcasts and I was like, man, all these people sure sound like experts. This is hard for me to relate to as someone who makes mistakes every game. I’m going to make my own podcast about the mistakes I make in this game because I think mistakes are really common. And honestly, everybody makes mistakes, even the pros. But it’s just one of those things that gets brushed under the rug. 

So I thought it could be sort of a unique perspective. And so far we’ve been doing it for about two years. Michael, my co-host and I, we sort of take the perspective that our podcast is more of a variety show. We do different segments like general topics and Stories of the Inner Sphere reads—I’m also a voice actor, so I get to channel those skills to do those narrative audio book-style reads. And we do some dramatic retellings of battlefield outcomes and all this fun stuff. 

In general, the podcast is just about a love of the BattleTech universe and our experiences entering it in the Classic format.

Sean: Before we get to questions about BungleTech, give us your BattleTech history. What got you into the game and what keeps you playing today? 

Nathan: I don’t really remember 100 percent what got me into it. It all sort of happened at the same time. First, if you’ve listened to my podcast, you know how much I love the book, Star Lord.

Sean: It’s a good book. I thought it was fun. I don’t know why people hate it. 

Nathan: I don’t know either. But anyhow, I love Star Lord, and I remember that was one of the iconic books that brought me in at the beginning. I still remember the cover and I remember reading it on a sailing trip with my dad—because my dad was a sailor—and that MechWarrior 2 came out on PC at around the same time, and the first box set for Classic came out that actually had plastic miniatures. I think all these happened around the same time.

So I don’t know which one hooked me first, but I remember buying the box set from a local hybrid of game store slash thrift shop called Tramps that used to be in Calgary. I bought that box set, brought it home, and opened it up and was like Holy Toledo, this is complicated. Let’s just try to learn as we go. None of my friends wanted to play with me ‘cause it was too complicated, but I loved it. 

In terms of games that I’ve played recently, MechWarrior 5 Clans, I’ve played a bit of that. But I haven’t just been able to be at my game station when I had the chance to play with friends recently. Long story short, I’m really enjoying that, and I want to finish it. I played the bejesus out of MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries and I even lent my voiceover talents to a few community mods. I heavily modded that game. I modded it so badly.

Sean: Oh boy. 

Nathan: I mean in a good way. 

Sean: Okay. 

Nathan: I used so many of those mods that it motivated me to contribute to the community that was building them. So I started offering to people, like the Coyote Missions Mod, and—what’s the pilot mod?

Sean: Pilot Overhaul Mod, yep. 

Nathan: Yeah, I’m like, if you need voiceover, let me know and I’ll do it, and so my voice is in a few of those things, which is fun. 

So I skipped MechWarrior 4, and I played 2, and 3. I didn’t really like 3 that much. 

Sean: Yeah, I didn’t 3 much either.

Nathan: Maybe it was too hard for me to be honest, but I remember it being quite challenging. I’ve also played a ton of mecha games like Steel Battalion—if you ever played that god of the mecha game genre—Armored Core, Gundam, all that stuff. Just a mecha nerd, but despite being a nerd, definitely not an expert in any of these areas. Just a nerd who loves the mecha genre and different giant stompy robots. 

Sean: And of course, before we move on, the all-important question, what’s your favorite ‘Mech?

Nathan: The Jenner, man. 

Sean: Jenner‘s a great ‘Mech. 

Nathan: I love the Jenner. I just love how it looks, I love its simplistic loadout, and I like how it gets hot. I like it in Classic, I like it in the video games. I like how it can take one little hit, and then you gotta get out of there, buddy. Get out of there! 

Sean: Run away!

Nathan: Yeah, I know. I’ve just always found it very cool. I’ve actually only played the Jenner IIC on the table in Classic recently, and I was like, wow, this is not a good ‘Mech for fighting other ‘Mechs.  It’s not designed for that—it’s made for anti-infantry, but I used it anyhow. But that ‘Mech, the Jenner IIC redesign, that to me is the most beautiful ‘Mech of any, it’s a very beautiful design. Looks so good.

Sean: I think I have one. 

Nathan: Show me this glorious thing. This glorious creature. 

Sean: There we go. Jenner IIC.

Nathan: There you go. Yeah, that’s a gorgeous thing. 

Sean: It is a gorgeous thing. I also have a Jenner IIC 2, but it’s a print, so I can’t show you it. 

Nathan: There’s the Jenner 10X. Have you seen that one? It’s the prototype version.

Sean: Yes, I have seen that one. That one’s kind of bonkers. It’s got a bunch of lasers and electronics, and a bunch of other stuff.

Nathan: It’s also got a torso-mounted cockpit. 

Sean: It should just have that anyway. Obviously, the cockpit’s in the torso. Look at it! It’s literally jutting out of the torso.

Nathan: Totally. You know what’s funny, like, the first time I played, I forget what it’s called, maybe Composite Internals? It’s internals where you take two damage per damage that comes in. 

Sean: Yep. 

Nathan: That’s the first ‘Mech I ever played with it on, and I was like, oh my god, this is way worse than I thought. I just breached one little pip and everything’s coming apart so quickly. Run, Jenner, run! 

Sean: That’s fine, because the point of the Jenner is, indeed, run, Jenner, run.  

Alright, let’s talk about BungleTech. When did BungleTech start and where did the BungleTech name come from exactly?

Nathan: I think we’ve been running for a little bit over two years now. And it started for a few reasons. One, I really wanted to create something that I owned myself as a creator. Because most of the time when you’re doing voiceover and stuff like that in the industry I’m in, you don’t keep that. You just lend your voice, essentially like renting or leasing your voice to a company, and so I wanted something that I owned and that I knew if I put in the work, it would be produced rather than play the constant endless audition-into-black-box game that I’ve been playing for years. It was just something to supplement that to keep me sane.

Michael and I have been friends for a while and I’ve always really respected his mind and his intelligence and the way he looks at things. He’s one of those rare friends who is very good at critiquing you without being too adversarial. He speaks his mind in a constructive way, if that makes sense.

And so I was talking to Michael, I was like, dude, I have an idea. I want you to do a BattleTech podcast with me. And he’s like, “What? I’ve barely played.” I’m like, it doesn’t matter, Michael. You have the new perspective, I have the old ignorant perspective; let’s combine our two perspectives and maybe we can become a single functional BattleTech player.

And that’s how it started. And ever since we started, it’s just consistently growing. We’re consistently becoming more well-known in the community right now. I’m really proud of it. We’re technically the best-rated BattleTech podcast in the world. 

Sean: Woo!

Nathan: Yeah, woo! That’s the only BattleTech podcast that’s five out of five stars with the amount of ratings we’ve received. Technically some people have received more ratings, but they’re just 4.9! That .1 baby! Woo! Give me that .1! 

So yeah, anyhow, I’m proud of our production and I love our community. There are lots of people who interact with us who just really appreciate our light-hearted mistake-laden perspective of the game.

Sean: And so who came up with the name BungleTech?

Nathan: BungleTech was actually my idea. I basically wanted to combine a word with BattleTech to make it sound good. There were lots of options, like FumbleTech, there was I think bamdoozle? No, what’s it? Badoozle? What’s that word? 

Sean: Bamboozle. 

Nathan: Bamboozle! BamboozleTech and stuff like that, but it was all variants of the same thing. Something combined with BattleTech to make it really encapsulate the mistakes, and BungleTech just fits really well. 

And it’s funny, actually; Michael didn’t like BungleTech. He wasn’t a big fan of the name, but we decided to just let me make the decision, and I love it. ‘Cause now you see people in Discords saying, “Oh, I bungled it.” People are using that word now, so I’m like, yeah man. It works!

Sean: So in keeping with the name, what is your absolute personal worst bungle?

Nathan: I have so many. We do a real mistake session generally every episode, and now we’re at 27 episodes and probably 19 of those rules came from something that I did. I told Michael, this is how it is, and we played that way until he realized—uh, I mean until, we decided to double-check and we’re like, wait a minute, that seems inconsistent. 

But I definitely think the biggest one is elevation changes in ‘Mechs. I used to think that you could increase your height based just on your MP limits. So for example, if you had a level five building and you’re right in front of it, if you had six MP, you could go up there with five MP for the elevation change and one MP to go into the hex.

Sean: So wait, hold on. You can just climb up the building like King Kong? Is that how that works? 

Nathan: That’s exactly how it worked in my head. I was thinking to myself, okay, if a human being can climb a building, clearly a ‘Mech is better at climbing a building. If a human being can climb a mountain, clearly a ‘Mech can do it because ‘Mechs are better.

The reason I think that’s the biggest one is that it changes everything. Once we started using the new rules—I’m sorry, once we started playing it correctly—I’m like, wow, maps matter a lot more now. Oh my god, and jump jets matter more. Oh, and now the leaping and climbing advanced rules make sense.

When I read the climbing advanced rules, I was like, why would you ever climb? It sounds so sucky. And the only reason I could think you would climb, based on my rule misconception was if you couldn’t make it to the top of the building in one turn with your MP, you’re like, I’m slowly going to do it. Then it makes sense. But wowza. 

Sean: And wouldn’t there be rules for the building collapsing? Because most buildings can’t take a 50-ton robot climbing up them.

Nathan: I think the limit is based on the construction factor, right? So, most buildings have a construction factor of more than 50. Or at least more than the tonnage I would play, ‘cause usually I play with lights. And I was running all over buildings! If you imagine a light with a run of 11, just running over all these buildings. Ain’t nobody stopping me, man. 

Sean: I don’t even know if my condo building would survive a 35-ton Jenner just hopping on it.

Nathan: Maybe we should redesign the construction factor rules to be more accurate. Where’s Keith Hann? Let’s get him on the line. Keith Hann, get on the line and change it! We want more realistic building weight factors. 

Sean: Maybe they just make buildings stronger in the future because they know that ‘Mechs are going to be trying to clamber on them.

Nathan: I think it makes sense. Someone saw the first Mackie and they’re like, “Oh my god, this changes everything. Our buildings have to be way stronger. Someone’s definitely going to want to put that thing on top of a building.” 

Sean: Earthquakes are no longer the worst problem we have.

Nathan: Those Mackie‘s man. We didn’t have to worry about the tanks, but Mackie‘s? Yeah. Those are going on buildings. 

Sean: In every episode, you introduce your co-host Michael as “the sensual Michael.” What exactly makes Michael so sensual?

Nathan: Sensuality is an intangible thing. I feel like if I try to describe why Michael is so sensual with the words coming out of my mouth, I do a disservice to him. Michael is someone who must be experienced in person. You must steep in Michael’s sensuality. Come listen to the podcast and steep in it. 

Sean: Um, okay.

Nathan: Close your eyes next time you listen. Go into a very dark room. Increase that humidity—just start doing jumping jacks the entire episode until you’re really sweaty and dripping. Then just close your eyes and listen. You will experience the full essence of Michael’s sensuality.

Sean: The most bizarre ASMR experience I’ve ever had. 

Nathan: Bizarre, but not bad.

Sean: I don’t know about that, but we’ll see. We’ll see. When’s your next episode coming out? 

Nathan: It’s coming out on March 27th. We release on the 27th of every month. So when you do that, do me a favor: do the ASMR thing, come back to this episode, and update it with a note at the bottom. Did the experience truly make you feel the sensuality of Michael fully?

Sean: It’s just gonna be the Danny DeVito meme of him going, “I get it now. I get it now.”

Okay, so I play Alpha Strike, which is a much simpler version of BattleTech. It’s easier to play, and the rules are much shorter—like, the book is a third of the size. Why not play Alpha Strike? You could avoid some of those bungles.

Nathan: First of all, it is a big assumption that I would avoid bungles based on the simplicity of the rule set. I think that I have a percentage bungling rating that I’m gonna bungle one out of five times regardless. So, if there’s a smaller book, I will still bungle the same percentage. I guess there will be less bungles overall. But you know what? I repeat bungles sometimes, so I’m an infinite source of bungles.

The reason why I prefer Classic over Alpha Strike is the narrative elements of the system. I understand why people play Alpha Strike; you get to play with a bunch of minis and finish a game in a few hours. That’s very relatable, and I can understand why you want to do that. Alpha Strike is very cool and I totally appreciate it, but for me, I really like managing just one or two ‘Mechs and honestly taking all day. I’ll take all day to manage those two ‘Mechs and just savor it. Get out those advanced rules.

Sean: That’s where I’m at; a couple of hours and I’m good. Let’s move on to the Global Campaign, which you announced in your most recent episode. For people who haven’t heard that episode, what exactly is the Global Campaign 2025?

Nathan: So the Global Campaign initiative is basically this idea that randomly popped into my head, and then I somehow convinced Michael to get on board. Then I somehow convinced other creators to get on board, like Seth from the Mercenary Star Podcast, Denham and Steve from The MechBay Podcast, and some other people in the BattleTech community, such as Dante a role-playing guru we once chatted with, to just come on board and help with this project. 

I believe Classic BattleTech is an inherently narrative system. When you play it on the table, it tells stories just by how it plays out. The same can be said about Alpha Strike. The stories might be a little different, but it’s still a story being told. When we were looking at the BattleTech scenario landscape, it tends to focus on historic events, like retelling the Battle of Twycross or whatever. Nothing really had the sort of roleplaying book you could buy for a traditional roleplaying game that would take you through an entire campaign arc.

So we asked ourselves, could we build a system that people from around the world could get involved with and provide monthly missions? We use the Chaos Campaign system to put people in different situations based on their performance. Every mission will be different based on previous encounters, the state of their mercenary company, and the narrative stakes they’ve previously experienced. 

The first mission brief will be available on March 27th. We’ve already released the Operations Manual, which tells you what you need and how to set up everything. Every month, we’re going to be releasing a new mission brief, and we’re promising nine missions. We’ve already planned the arc, and mission briefs will include audio recordings that you can play at the table to really get people in the mood.

The mission brief package is to help GMs, with info on how you build the OpFor and some narrative beats about the scenario. We want to make it simple so that you can rotate the GM as well so nobody gets bored. 

Honestly, I don’t think it’s ever been done. I think it’s pretty unique, and I think the only reason we can do it is because of the uniqueness of the BattleTech system.

Sean: So to summarize, it’s kind of like a D&D module, but with a little bit more interactive elements from you guys. You’ll have different scenarios depending on how the previous mission ended, and each new mission will include both written and audio briefings.

Nathan: Exactly. And another cool thing; when you complete the mission, we have an after-action report to fill out to describe the outcomes of their individual tables. We’re going to look at the data and we’re going to use this to influence future missions.

The simplest example I can reference is to imagine that 80 percent of players end up completing an objective to blow up a generator. Then we say on track alpha and track beta, the enemy has no power. On track gamma, the enemy still has some sort of power. We’re going to digest these battle outcomes found in after-action reports and ask what would happen next. How would this impact the next battle? 

You fill that after-action report and it’s going to influence not only your future table but the entire Global Campaign’s future table, which I think is a cool collaborative gaming experience. 

Sean: Let’s go into one of the questions I had while reading through your Global Campaign and it had to do with the rotating Game Facilitator.

To my understanding, everyone has their own mercenary company they bring to the Global Campaign. Each player in the group will have a certain amount of point value to bring a small number of ‘Mechs—one or two for Classic, maybe two or three for Alpha Strike, depending on pilot skills and the ‘Mechs involved. Then one person in the playgroup will be the Game Facilitator, essentially the GM, which rotates with each scenario. 

Could you give us an example of how a group would set up their forces and assign the role of Game Facilitator? And how do the Strategic Advisor bonuses work? As I understand it, the Game Facilitator isn’t just moving pieces around; they can give buffs to the player team called Strategic Advisor Bonuses.

Nathan: Basically, when you set up your force each player gets a certain amount of BV or PV and you spend it how you want to. And then those essentially become the players’ ‘Mechs. And then based on how much PV or BV of your force, future missions are balanced based on that number. And the players’ units together collectively combine to become the table’s force. It’s not that every player has their own unit, it’s that each player brings their own unit or units into the greater force.

For Classic BattleTech, the limit is 2000 BV, and that is enough to give you two lights with decent stats. It could give you a pretty good medium, or It could give you an okay heavy with average stats—you’re probably going to have to pick and choose. For Alpha Strike, the limit is 100 PV, and this would give you two or three ‘Mechs depending on what you want to do, but you have freedom regardless. 

The reason that we use the term Game Facilitator rather than Game Master or Dungeon Master is because, generally, people hold these titles through the entire arc. What we wanted to do was make it so players could have one person facilitating one mission and another player facilitating another mission. They get to choose—sometimes people are going to want to facilitate. Sometimes people want to take turns, it’s whatever you want to do. 

The rewards that you end up getting as you’re playing in the campaign are given to the entire force, not individual players, and the force decides how to spend it. So you collectively decide, okay, we’re going to upgrade or buy this ‘Mech or buy this pilot skill, or you can divide it individually with players. You can do what you want to do, essentially, but there is an incentive for players to cooperate because when you cooperate, it’ll be a boon to the entire force. And if you fail, it’s to the detriment of the entire force.

When you’re new to GMing a game or DMing a game, whatever term you want to use, sometimes it’s very common to become quite adversarial, especially if you’re playing in a system like Classic Battletech. I’ll use Classic BattleTech as an example, where it is a win-lose system, and you’re used to playing in a fundamentally competitive framework.

The Game Facilitator is going to try to kill the group, but we want to give specific boons that the Game Facilitator could use on the table. The Game Facilitator could either reduce the target number of a friendly unit by one, increase the defensive modifier of a friendly unit by one, provide a narrative hint regarding GM-exclusive mission information, or increase the movement of a friendly unit by 20 percent.

So I was just imagining this like someone over comms being like, “No, the wind’s coming in, 85 degrees to the left!” Or, “There’s a bush over there, get behind the bush!” GMs might give narrative hints for players who just want to understand the enemy force more. So they ask a direct question and this will encourage the Game Facilitator to have the right attitude and give that information away.

This is the type of philosophy of play that I believe most seasoned GMs have, but as we will be encouraging rotation we really wanted to make sure this was at the forefront in a tangible way.

Sean: That handles the Game Facilitator, but we still don’t know what the scenarios are going to be. We do, however, have a pretty good hint in the Operations Manual; you’re going to be on Galatea where a sort of Solaris-style exhibition match will pit your force against a rival mercenary band. Is that anywhere close to correct?

Nathan: 100 percent, the first mission is very much like a Blood Pit-style, Galatean, Solaris 7-style match. It’s called ‘Super ‘Mech Sunday,’ it’s going to be very flashy, and it’s ridiculous. Like, “Grave Digger! Grave Digger!!! GRAVE DIGGER!!!” Those old monster truck commercials, that’s the sort of vibe we’re going for.

We’re set in a specific period on Galatea and some intense stuff is happening. We’re really locking in the lore. The starting point is you’re a down-on-your-luck mercenary group. You don’t have any way to get a job except to volunteer to self-sabotage your ‘Mech in a rich person’s idea of blood sports hoping to make money out of it. Hopefully, it’s a good time.

Sean: Will future scenarios be off Galatea? Or are we kind of going to be sticking around Galatea as the center of the Global Campaign? 

Nathan: Without saying too many spoilers, when I went to our creative team—the people that helped sort of design the arc, because we have quite a few experienced GMs in the group who threw ideas together for this—we basically said, “Okay, this is where I want to start. This is the feeling we want to have. We want to be down on our luck, gritty, dirty mercenaries.” Not this elegant mercenary style, nothing fancy like that. No, we want to feel like we are down on our luck, that people don’t want to hire us. 

It’s going to move around a lot, but I will say that Galatea is going to be a big part of that for sure.

Sean: Players have to fill out a little form called the ‘mission resolution tracker’ after each mission that tracks objectives completed, OpFor’s final composition (like whether you blew them up for some escaped), and whether you succeeded or failed. Does success and failure heavily impact future missions? Can you get into a situation where successes snowball into future successes? Or will failures snowball into greater failures? Are all future missions kind of the same with minor variations, or do things vary widely depending on how you do? 

Nathan: There’s going to be quite a big bit of difference depending on how you’re performing and what track you’re on. So we’ve envisioned three core tracks that people maneuver through. The easiest way to think of it is full success gets you up a track, partial success gets you the same level, and failure lowers you. That’s how we’re visualizing it right now. 

It’s going to become more complicated than that as we build out all the mission details. ‘Cause once again, we’ve built out the entire arc. We know the game modes and everything like that we’re slotting in, but we still need to throw in all those details and those details are going to come from the performance of the Global Campaign and what we hear back regarding these forms.

But what I will say is that sometimes two of the paths will be similar with modifiers and one path will be just outrageously different—your situation will just be insane. You’ll be on this path and you’ll be like, “I hate this path. Why am I on this stupid path?” 

Also, because I don’t like easy wins, I don’t like to be beat down, and I like there to be a balance; if your team is performing super, super well, you can expect that the OpFor is going to start throwing more insane lances to hunt you down. 

Let’s say you have completed your previous three missions, but in every single one, your OpFor status was routed, not destroyed. In that situation, I might look at it and I’ll be like okay, for players that have done this, we want to start throwing in aces that are seeking revenge. For people that have been made specifically to hunt down the lance, we give them special skills, like boss-level skills that randomly get added into the mission just to try and throw a wrench in the works and to screw with the player’s force a little bit.

There’s gonna be lots of stuff like this. I have such a cool idea, but I don’t want to spoil it yet. There are so many cool ideas. But let me give one example. 

Sean: Sure. 

Nathan: Okay, let’s say we have an attack and defend mission. We’re using BungleTech’s mission modes at a core—we’re adding some new ones, but let’s stick with attack and defend for the example. If you are performing on the track that’s doing really well, you’re doing this mission from the perspective of the attacker. If you’re doing poorly, then you’re doing this from the perspective of the defender.

Well, if you’re in the middle path, maybe you are what we call the pillager force instead in this chaotic battle. Regardless, the game will be different enough that you’ll still see the skeleton of the mission is the same, but all the muscles and the meat on top are different. Changing those little things, I think will make it feel very narratively distinct.

Sean: Are you going to do specific tweaks to specific game groups? Or is this still going to be an aggregate sort of thing?

Nathan: It’ll be an aggregate because this is the first time we’re doing this, and we don’t know how many people are going to fill out the form. You already mentioned it; they track their mission outcome, their completed objectives, their OpFor status, and all that stuff’s basic.

But then we also have stuff like strategic summary and pivotal moment summary. So let’s say People report this stuff back and we saw this force used sniper strategies in the past two missions. So we’ll add a modifier on track beta if, in the previous missions, you used sniper-focused strategies. Mid-mission, the GM will drop an OpFor Lance behind the snipers, like five hexes out, hidden units, or something like that. 

And because people will keep this mission resolution tracker, they can look back at their form and they can be like, okay, on mission two, we did say that we used a sniper strategy. Well, I guess there is an Annihilator hidden unit two hexes behind our sniper unit mid-game.

Sean: Oh dear. Guess I’ll keep my sniper strategies at home.

Nathan: It won’t be anything ambushy like that. Something deploys mid-mission behind and it’s still balanced in the overall game. We’re not gonna kneecap people, but we are gonna make it seem like the people you are fighting are learning something about you, and are actually trying to defeat you.

Sean: That’s the sort of thing you’re going to be capturing in those summaries that players are supposed to write on the forms, right?

Nathan: Yeah, exactly. Maybe they’re writing it down as it happens, or they write it and submit the form after the mission. But the mission resolution tracker will include the mission briefing and basically ask people what happened.

Sean: And that can be just a sentence or two, it doesn’t need to be a huge paragraph, since I suspect that would make things a lot more difficult for you to collate a bunch of forms.

Nathan: Yeah. People can do what they want to do; they can put humor in there like, “We ran away like cowards,” or, “We arrived drunk and somehow managed to bungle our way to a mission success,” or something. People can honestly write whatever they want because all that is fuel for us as collective GMs to brainstorm stuff that might be cool to impact future forces.

Sean: I just had this thought. If there’s going to be quite a few variations, do you guys have a giant tree of possible outcomes in a big spreadsheet? How many branches are on this possible tree?

Nathan: So, we’re gonna limit it to four branches. There aren’t that many tracks or branches, but there will be a reasonable number of individual modifiers because those are going to adapt based on what we get back on the forms about specific strategies and specific circumstances. For example, your pilot gets headshot and they now have trauma. How many pilots got trauma in this mission? How are we going to deal with this force that now all their pilots are traumatized? 

It’s going to be interesting. It’s sort of like agile project management where we’re rolling out something and then the people are testing it and then, oh, this is failing, this is working, and then we make hotfixes. We’re constantly going to be doing little hotfixes in the form of narrative beats that make everyone’s table experience feel a little bit unique. The only way this will fail I think is if everyone is always successful or if everyone always fails, so they’re always on the same path. But I don’t think that’s gonna happen.

Sean: There’s also going to be another mechanic that you guys are going to be adding which deals a bit with player progression. You can still purchase pilot upgrades and upgrade pilot stats, but there’s also going to be a thing added specifically for the Global Campaign called “trauma.” Trauma is interesting because you only get it if bad stuff happens to you, like suffering an ammo explosion, losing a limb, or getting shot out of your ‘Mech, and it provides a debuff for as long as you have that trauma. But the benefit of trauma is that it can be healed through in-game actions that provide you with a permanent buff. 

How did you balance the risk versus reward of trauma? And is this going to be another thing that GMs might adjust throughout the Global Campaign if people are finding trauma to be a strictly negative debuff because the conditions to heal it are too difficult?

Nathan: So, I think one thing that’s really important to talk about are the principles we wanted to follow for the Global Campaign. We want the campaign to be fail-forward, and we really want the priority to be fun. Also, we wanted to use real rules. It’s easy to make homebrew rules—most people make a lot of homebrew rules—and we didn’t want to do that. We said, let’s use the systems that are in place to facilitate the campaign. 

But the problem with facilitating the campaign in said manner is it’s never been done—it’s unique. The Chaos Campaign system is not made for something like this. What we wanted with trauma is to protect players from the fickleness of the BattleTech system. This was primarily in Classic because that’s our experience, but we worked with people who are good with Alpha Strike to make it relevant to that system too. Both games are fickle: in Classic, there’s a one in 36 chance to get a headshot. That is really disheartening. In Chaos Campaign, you can just buy a new pilot—pilots are disposable—but that really takes away from the narrative feeling that we’re going for. 

To counter that, we made the trauma system. Basically, when you die, instead of actually dying, your pilot is taken out of the game and they get a trauma based on how they died. The trauma is essentially when you’re in those same circumstances related to your “death,” you have a negative modifier. But, if you can expose yourself to that trauma successfully a few times, you get a Special Pilot Ability that is not governed by the SPA limits associated with pilots. It’s quite a good boon. 

Some of these are really good. Iron Shin, for example, lets you ignore a pilot hit. That’s pretty dang good! Kidney Shot, I personally think is amazing. 

I want players to have fun. If players at the table feel they are too powerful, we’re gonna see that as the reports come in if people were successful and keep on being successful. Then I guess the next OpFor is now 1.5 times the value of your BV or PV. We’re gonna adjust it on the fly to be challenging and fun, but we do want players to feel powerful because you’re invested in this character. 

People can still die because not having the risk of death would as well have adverse narrative effects—if you have two traumas and you get headshot, you die. It’s pretty much like you get three lives at the beginning of the game.

Sean: Or five if you’re in Alpha Strike. 

Nathan: Because Alpha Strike is even meaner. 

Just to emphasize again, we really didn’t want to create homebrew stuff, and we only created homebrew stuff when we thought this was required to enable us to facilitate this campaign successfully without lots of people feeling bored, disheartened, having inconsistent play practices, or just being miserable with the experience.

We want it to be fun. So we felt like these were the two things that helped. Pretty much everything else is basic rules that you’d find in the books, which is nice. 

Sean: Before we move on, everyone can bring whatever they want to the Global Campaign that’s still legal in the Civil War era and within the BV or PV constraints. What would you bring as your starting force for the Global Campaign?

Nathan: Well, I’m a little bit crazy, so I would roll it.

Sean: Just let the dice decide?

Nathan: I would go on the mercenary table and I would roll it until I got something that was within the BV limit. I might even drop my skills. That’s what I would do. 

And that mercenary table has some cute things. Please, god, give me a Flea.  Please, god, give me a Flea!  I want that trauma, baby! Give me that please so I can get that trauma! Good way to get a zero-zero Flea traumatized pilot. 

That’s probably what I would do. If I decide to choose, I would find a way to get a Jenner probably for sure. Okay. I might get the Jenner. I think there’s a C3 variant Jenner. I forget what the model number is, but I’d probably try to get that one. 

Sean: It might just be like Jenner JR7-C. Yeah, it replaces one of the medium lasers with a C3. There are a couple of upgrades along the line, but they all have C3 slaves, you never get a C3 Master on a Jenner.

Nathan: That’s okay, probably shouldn’t have a master. And that’s if it’s in the era too, cause I’d also lock it into the era.

Sean: Oh yeah, I forgot. Jenner C2 is Jihad, so no, not allowed. 

Nathan: Oh well, back to randomly rolling on the table. I really like assigning my fate to random rolls and making a story. I’ll roll something and let’s say I get the Flea, and I’m like, god, why is my pilot in a Flea? And then I’ll just start thinking, okay man, I’m really desperate, or maybe this is an heirloom ‘Mech. A ‘Mech is a ‘Mech, man. 

Then I’ll start building a narrative experience and I’ll bring that to the table. I’ll just start challenging people, calling people out. I’m like, you’re afraid of losing to a Flea, aren’t you? I always bring that narrative perspective to any game I play, even if it’s not narrative-based and I’m in a competitive BattleTech setting. I’m like dropping narrative stuff, and my opponent’s like, who is this guy? Why am I playing here? I came here for a competition. Why does this guy keep trying to DFA me? And I’m like, sorry, bro. 

Sean: That’s part of the competition. 

Nathan: That’s how I roll. Yep.

Sean: All right. Well, we can’t let you go without doing at least one fun question. This is one I recently posed to Marco Mazzoni, the new Art Director for BattleTech. He was asked to make a hockey team of BattleTech artists to compete against Sarna’s team of moderators, which would be tough for him since most of the Sarna admins are Canadian, so we have a bit of an advantage. 

Who would you pick to be part of your podcaster hockey team to compete in the BattleTech Media Creators League? 

Nathan: Woah. Okay, well, actually, that’s pretty easy because I’ve had some great collaborators. So, first Steve from The Mech Bay for sure, because Steve is just amazing, and before he became part of The Mech Bay, he helped me make the Hunt the Black Marauder game mode. That guy is super generous with his love and passion for this game. He’s an Alpha Strike player too, and he was helping me with Classic stuff, which is crazy. So he’s definitely on there.

Denham Hardman. I love Denham. Denham is such an old soul. I think we are sort of weird clones of each other, so if one of us dies, the other one can step in. He probably should take the lead of the ship. Actually, he could be the captain. I’ll let Denham be the captain—I don’t want that responsibility. 

Obviously Michael. You know, I really love Sarna, so Sean, I’m bringing you on the team. 

Sean: Wait what?! I’m not a podcaster. 

Nathan: Oh, who cares? You’re going to be on my podcast soon. Well, you’re joining the team. 

Sean: This is a bit embarrassing. I can skate (barely), but I’ve never played hockey, so I don’t think I’d be very good at it. 

Nathan: Well, this is not about—wait, this is to play hockey? Our objective is to bring people to play hockey. 

Sean: Yeah, to play hockey. 

Nathan: Oh, sh—I thought it was metaphorical. I thought it was a metaphor for the hockey-ness. 

Sean: I mean, yeah, it can be both I guess. Real hockey and a metaphor for life. 

Nathan: Travis from RenegadeHPG because he coaches professional athletes, so he’s easy. I can’t skate worth poop, but I guess I am pretty athletic, so I’d be there.

Who else is jacked? Denham’s done martial arts, so I’ll keep Denham. Steve, I don’t know, he’s a pencil pusher, so sorry Steve, you’re cut, bro. Actually, you know what? I’ll bring Steve on. I’ll let Steve be like the manager of the locker room because he’s an organized mind. He can coordinate equipment and all that stuff.

I’m the team manager. Who else? Mike from The Valhalla Club, he’s a soldier. Ah, dude, there’s so many soldiers, actually. I gotta get the American soldiers. Dude, I’m just gonna be leaning into America. Like, The Valhalla Club has a lot of soldiers. 

Sean: Is there a lot of skating called for in the American military?

Nathan: They can learn, they can learn. 

Sean: Alright. Fair enough. Okay. That’s all I had. Was there anything else you wanted to talk about? 

Nathan: No, man, this has been great. Thank you so much for your time. I’m really excited to get people into the Global Campaign. So once again, the first mission brief launches on March 27th and the Operations Manual is already out. 

You can start late—I believe we allow five or six weeks to actually play and submit your form if you want to influence the Global Campaign. But even if you come to this interview three months down the road and you’re missing those first ones, you can jump in when you want to be honest. We’re just creating a resource that we’re going to try to facilitate for fun, but you can use that resource how you want. Jump on board when you are ready and willing, BattleTech buddies! I look forward to it immensely.

Sean: And where can people access the Global Campaign, download the Operations Manual, and everything else that’ll be coming out?

Nathan: You can find it either linked in our podcast or on our Patreon.

There’s a public article, so you don’t need to have a membership or be signed in or anything like that. And that article actually shares the Operations Manual, and that’s where we’re going to be publishing future mission briefs as well. We’ll be linking and releasing the mission briefs every month via the Patreon.

Sean: Alright, cool. So BungleTech Patreon, that’s how you get into the Global Campaign. 

Nathan: That’s one way. Come my brothers, come! And sisters! 

Sean: Brothers and sisters, it’s time to go to war. Alright, well thanks so much for sitting down to talk with me and I look forward to hearing about the Global Campaign’s success. 

Nathan: Well, I look forward to seeing you participate in the Global Campaign, good sir. And as always I love your news articles. I love your Bad ‘Mech articles. I love everything you do for the community. Sarna is a jewel. So thank you for your sacrifice, your dutifulness, and for putting up with people like me. 

And I want to give a quick shoutout to Iridani, who’s a mod on the Sarna Discord. I always break the rules, and she’s so patient with me. Thank you Iridani! I love you! I’m sorry, my fellow Canadian, I’ve failed you. Shoutout to Iridani!

Thanks to Nathan for talking to me about the Global Campaign and launching this story-driven group adventure. I’ll be sure to take a trio of ‘Mechs into the Alpha Strike version of the Global Campaign to see how my mercenaries fare. If you’d like to listen to BungleTech, you can find Nathan and Michael wherever good podcasts are streaming, and you can take part in the Global Campaign by heading to the BungleTech Patreon.

And as always, MechWarriors: Stay Syrupy.