62 replies to this topic

[Ghost]

The thing that bothers me the most about A Time of War is its authors' ambiguous position regarding the 'Mechs. For a game ostensibly not about 'Mechs at all, it sure has a lot of things in it that have to do with them. And as everyone's mentioned, the character creation system is beyond a chore. It's a mess. XP for XP? Wow.

And the system just falls down when it comes to combat. This is probably the number one most important part of most tabletop RPGs and AToW just drops the ball. To be honest it sounds like someone higher up than the editors leaned over their shoulder and said "Don't cannibalize our existing customer base! Push them towards getting our other stuff!" At every turn you're referred to Total Warfare for anything more exciting than a gunfight. Add in some horrendous rules (e.g. two AToW turns for every one in Total Warfare) for translating AToW characters to Total Warfare ones and you are left wondering if they wanted people to play this game at all. I guess what I'm looking for is a more RPG-ish version of Strategic Operations with the level of detail of Tactical Operations.

[GreyGriffin]

AToW unfortunately relies on the ancient paradigm of relying on armor to not get hurt, rather than evasion, skill, and positioning. The inability to effectively evade gunfire is pretty common in games with a modern or science fiction paradigm, and it's something I don't think I'll ever quite get.

[Atlas3060]

AToW also sticks to the adage that a gunfight will hurt.
There's lots of skills in that book to help you accomplish things but if you are looking to fight really wrap yourself up in armor and pack a good gun.

[Alizabeth Aijou]

Dihm, on 28 November 2011 - 05:25 AM, said:

Book came in over the weekend, been a fun read so far. The whole experience system for character creation is a bit nuts, but I'm going to give making some characters a shot tonight. Way thicker (both page count and information density) than I expected, I've been ruined by woefully thin D&D products. I love that they have FRR stuff in there, even when it is 3075 or whatever.

Any of the books give Life Modules for the other eras (3039-3049ish)?

Era Report: 3052 has some, and I think that Era Report: 3062 might also have some.
Era Digest: Golden Age (or was it Historical: Operation Klondike?) had some early Clan stuff.

Quote

*Rolls dice* Yay I apparently lost an arm and somehow gained a strange rash from a local.
*tears up paper*

You can spend Edge to modify the roll by 1 point up or down, ya know...

[Atlas3060]

Alizabeth Aijou, on 02 December 2011 - 05:06 AM, said:

You can spend Edge to modify the roll by 1 point up or down, ya know...

doesn't help when I roll a 3 and the least offending events start around 6.
Besides that burns your threshold a bit upon character creating if I remember right.

though I do tend to use some of the charts for inspiration on my AToW characters I just don't use the results.

Edited by Atlas3060, 02 December 2011 - 10:46 AM.

[Kami Shinigami]

Atlas3060, on 02 December 2011 - 10:41 AM, said:

doesn't help when I roll a 3 and the least offending events start around 6.
Besides that burns your threshold a bit upon character creating if I remember right.

That's when you burn an Edge Threshold to completely reroll.

[Kami Shinigami]

Does anyone know offhand where some random tables for the factions for the year 3062 would be found? Book or online references, either would be appreciated.

[Dihm]

Era Report: 3062 has em

[GreyGriffin]

Hands down the deadliest combat system I have seen put to paper, and I have played original Riddle of Steel.

[Dihm]

Yeah, we found that out yesterday... we'll see how long we live!

Starting to think we should have 1-2 backup characters ready to go, just in case.

[GreyGriffin]

That pizza delivery man didn't stand a chance!

[Atlas3060]

You were all witnesses, that orphanage attacked me first.

[Dihm]

GreyGriffin, on 04 December 2011 - 11:13 AM, said:

That pizza delivery man didn't stand a chance!

It will be interesting to see how long it takes us to end up in jail.

[Kami Shinigami]

Eh, I would like to avoid that if possible...

[Dihm]

So would I, which is why I suggested not fleeing a crime scene.

[GreyGriffin]

There were two guys with stun clubs. That vibro sword was pure self defense. Also, I was on the floor flashbanged, so all we have to do is point at the clanner and say "He went Turtle Bay on their *****!" and they'll take him right in.

[Kami Shinigami]

Hey, now, that would not be very nice.

[GreyGriffin]

Randall is not a nice guy. He did almost shoot the pizza man, remember.

[GreyGriffin]

Hey, we lost a handful of players for our AToW game over the holidays. I think it's safe to say we're up and running, and we could use you back.

[Clark]

I am going to be starting a BT/MW group. The hardest part for me right now is deciding on the system. I like AToW somewhat, but I tred making a character last night and it took > 2 hours. Battletech is rough on pilots. It doesn't seem fair to my players to request that they take a couple of hours to make a character that could die in an instant in the very next encounter. On the second or third character I imagine a player would get tired of the game quickly.

So I've been looking at MW3 (the Classic Battletech RPG version), and MW2. I've looked at using the rules that Taharq came up with http://taharqa.org/?cat=20.

Does anyone have a suggestions? AToW or something older?

Edited by Clark, 11 February 2012 - 10:48 AM.