35 replies to this topic

[MDS Geist]

What ever happened to the days where you got a few friends together an layed out house hold stuff an had a battle between 2 sides or more? Use to love the imagination aspect of Table top BT. Now however there is a more comercialised version where everything is click this or click that an twist a mech this way or that for all the damage an attack stuff. give me my Old dice set of two an a handful of mecha or tanks anyday. not this new fangled stuff.

Anyone?

[Atlas3060]

Honestly?

No, give me both. I play against folks at my nearby store with dice, pencils, and maps, but I also want to play electronically because sometimes not everyone can get there on Sundays. I found a slew of people in the main Battletech Forums frequent the Challenges and Gatherings board.

So I'll play Megamek, I'll play MW4 for free (thanks MekTek!), and sometimes I throw in $25 to play around 6-7 hours over at the Telsa Pod games. Even Dark Age served a function for me, it was easy for me to bring victims...er I mean fellow players into the Universe.

Am I saying that the "more comercialised" stuff is better? No but it is more accessible for some people. If we can reach them then this franchise won't die off so quickly.

[Kai Valo]

I think most people here will agree that they dislike MW:DA, aka "ClickyTech".

[Helo Calister]

With the internet you can always find people to play against. While the use of paper as the tools of the imagination it doesn't work very well when you can't find other people who play.

[ice trey]

Tabletop Battletech has never died for any more than six months at a time; no I'm not talking about the clix game, I'm talking 2D6 Battletech on hexmaps.

The only thing is that when the pokemon bubble grew and eventually burst, low-grade comic shops just outright stopped stocking it. Nowdays, the only things you'll find at vanilla comic shops are D&D, 40K, and maybe heroclix or something.

But Battletech still exists. It's still going strong. You just need to look for it.

bg.battletech.com

[Big Willie]

I remember laminating 16 or so official hex maps 22 years ago, I think I have brought them out for a game twice. (I was fortunately enough to have some friends who built a 10'x8' 3D environment (and Macross models for it).
I also remember playing Mechwarrior RPG, and getting killed in a bar fight before I even made it to the mech hanger.
I did collect some Mech-Clix just to have some models, but never considered playing it.

sadly these days, my friends and I wax poetic and talk about setting up a game, but never get around to it after remember the 8+ hours it took to finish a small 3025 tech game. But I still occasionally fire up MegaMek for a little IS vs Clan fun.

sorry rambling while reminiscing the good ole days.

[CaveMan]

I love BattleTech for what it is, but honestly? It's a horrible game system.

I mean, just awful. A modest sized engagement that takes 2 minutes in-game takes hours in real life, luck plays more of a role than any sort of skill, and sometimes it just plain doesn't make sense. Thank God for Megamek, because otherwise CBT wouldn't even be playable.

The RPG is even worse. D&D 3rd is a better system, and that's saying something.

Converting BattleTech to d20 is a big improvement, but it's still a bit clunky. It was playable enough for my group to run a mixed-force campaign in it and have fun; frankly I don't think I'd have been able to get them to run a second session if I'd stuck to the original rules.

[Alizabeth Aijou]

Kai Valo, on 04 December 2011 - 06:42 PM, said:

I think most people here will agree that they dislike MW:DA, aka "ClickyTech".

Those don't exist yet, the current year is 3085-ish.

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The RPG is even worse. D&D 3rd is a better system, and that's saying something.

Different system, and which RPG are you refering to? CBT RPG? Or AToW?
I'm not sure if either of them could be considered to be better.
One of the bigger problems with D20 is that character traits, such as allergies (severe enough to be life-threatening), are purely roleplaying-only.
Its having all those things actually be a possible issue in a game that gives CBT-RPG its charm, imo.
Oh, and combat is actually dangerous, rather than just a clash between ablative plot armours.

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(and Macross models for it)

And Fang of the Sun Dougram models.
Maybe some from Crusher Joe as well, not sure (Locust, specifically).

[Dihm]

CaveMan, on 08 December 2011 - 06:57 PM, said:

D&D 3rd is a better system

Barf!

I hated 3rd edition with a passion.

[Kami Shinigami]

I prefer AToW over CBT:RPG now that I've had a chance to play it. Chargen doesn't take nearly as long, and while the event rolls were nice for flavor, there was just too many strong negative effects that could ruin anyone's concept. Better to stop early and play through your character, than worry that much about the background. And that's from someone who puts a lot of detail into his backgrounds.

D&D 3rd Ed wasn't very good, but they fixed most of the problems with it when they updated to 3.5. I rarely play any other version now. 4th Ed I won't touch with someone else holding a 10ft pole. AD&D 2nd Ed Rev. is still the best one that they have published to date, just very difficult to find good DMs for it.

[TheRulesLawyer]

CaveMan, on 08 December 2011 - 06:57 PM, said:

I love BattleTech for what it is, but honestly? It's a horrible game system.

I mean, just awful. A modest sized engagement that takes 2 minutes in-game takes hours in real life, luck plays more of a role than any sort of skill, and sometimes it just plain doesn't make sense. Thank God for Megamek, because otherwise CBT wouldn't even be playable.

The RPG is even worse. D&D 3rd is a better system, and that's saying something.

Converting BattleTech to d20 is a big improvement, but it's still a bit clunky. It was playable enough for my group to run a mixed-force campaign in it and have fun; frankly I don't think I'd have been able to get them to run a second session if I'd stuck to the original rules.

Its a game system from a different time. It doesn't make it bad, but it was from an age before computers were common and people were willing to sit around all afternoon to have something that was a reasonable sim. You don't see many of these games successful now. Honestly if battletech was released today it would be a flop.

There are quicker systems out there if you want a mech game. Its just not battletech.
Or you can just roll your own game system based on what you like
http://www.ruleslawy...GS/HGS_A121.zip

[Alizabeth Aijou]

Best system?
Whatever works best for what you're trying to play. Each system has its ups and downs.
Here's a hint: how do you work out vehicular combat in D&D 3.X? Or 4.X?
Sure, there's D20 modern, but how accurately can you convert battlemechs to that?

Best character-generation system?
Imo, GURPS has a pretty good system to get fairly accurate, and realistic characters. D&D simply lacks that. CBT:RPG does a better job at it than D&D.

Ofcourse, GURPS has its downsides too, for one, it is fairly... detailed, to put it nicely.
Not exactly the sort of RPG system that's good for pickup games (unlike D&D 4.X, which is rather streamlined).
The plus side of GURPS, is that you can almost literally do anything with it.
Pre-historic? Check. Historical? Check. High Fantasy? Check. Modern? Check. Post-Apocalyptic? Check. Sci-Fi? Check. Giant Mecha? Check. Slapstick? Check. Horror? Check. Any combination of the previous? Check.

If one wanted to, they could probably do a very good BattleTech RPG using GURPS.

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Honestly if battletech was released today it would be a flop.

Biggest problem of BT is, imo the marketing.
The only BT-related products I might even find in my area are the clickytech junk.

Edited by Alizabeth Aijou, 13 December 2011 - 06:16 AM.

[TheRulesLawyer]

Alizabeth Aijou, on 13 December 2011 - 06:15 AM, said:

Biggest problem of BT is, imo the marketing.
The only BT-related products I might even find in my area are the clickytech junk.

Non-existent marketing really. Still the system isn't modern. Very few games come out today with the record keeping and pace of battletech. I still like the game, but I also have over 20 years of history with it.

[Ryokens leap]

the thing i din't like about the mechwarrior click game was the fact that there was no initiative and that damage didn't take effect at the end of the turn like tt battletech. I combined the two games so the record sheet was eliminated by the click base, but added initiative rolls and both forces registered damage at the end of the turn. I also took out the power imbalance that battle armour and light vehicles had over mechs that seemed to feed the collectable aspect of the game. Mechs should always be able to break away from foot soldiers and 20 ton hovercrafts, ect. There was always some wise *** who would field an army of infantry and atv bikes that swarmed mechs and heavy tanks and this sucked the fun out big time!

[phelancracken]

I love CBT. Played it for years. I absolutely hate clicky tech however. Yes, it's faster to run, but honestly, strategy does play a part in CBT. The dice don't do everything. You have to know when to push it and when to back off. What really bites is when they tried to force CBT to merge with the clicky tech universe even though looking at the succession wars it was clear it took HUNDREDs of years to get to 3025 decline.

I have run battles of company on company repeatedly at times and maybe take 4-6 hours to run a battle. Is that a lot when YOU are running the company by yourself? Not really and it's really funny when you get some shots that do weird things. *sigh* or loose several elite pilots running Zues from head caps. I love how a Zues works, but when it was 0-3 for elite pilots running said assaults, had some issues getting replacement pilots.

[Wrayeth]

Isn't the MW: Dark Age clicky line discontinued anyway?

Regardless, the fact that Wars of Reaving just won an Origins award for best miniatures accessory should be a pretty good indicator that Classic Battletech isn't a dead game.

[phelancracken]

Clicky tech forced the merging of the two disparate time lines together in the 3067 time frame. The new rules set that was released to make it work better, let's just say having MASC activation failure causing heat sinks to fail? I have issues with that. Yeah, that set of rules is to make clicky tech work with cbt.

[Xelaxela333]

I really enjoy the clicky tech game. I still play and a few people at my LGS play too. Its a nice break from slower paced games like warmachine.. Why do you guys dislike it?

[Arctic Fox]

phelancracken, on 03 June 2012 - 11:00 PM, said:

Clicky tech forced the merging of the two disparate time lines together in the 3067 time frame. The new rules set that was released to make it work better, let's just say having MASC activation failure causing heat sinks to fail? I have issues with that. Yeah, that set of rules is to make clicky tech work with cbt.

MASC failure doesn't cause heat sinks to fail under newer rules, it just causes immediate critical damage to the legs, which isn't that far off from what it did under the old rules. I haven't played MWDA, so I can't compare, but I seriously doubt any of the latest ruleset was designed specifically to make BattleTech work like the ClickyTech game...

[SiriusBeef]

LFMAO… When did Warmachine get slow? I know I have not played in a year or so but PP has always sold the game as a fast paced, in your face, "play like you got a pair (page 5) game.

There are still a fair number of battletech players and as far back as I can remember always has been. BT has always been well represented at Origins which is a long running convention and in my only second to GenCon. That being said my preference is to play mechwarrior games online because the action that takes place in 4 or 5 minutes in a CG environment could take 3 or 4 hours to play out on the tabletop. IMHO BT is just better suited to the computer model but that's just me.

As far as table top games go in tactical terms the miniature game that comes closest to the online mechwarrior experience would be a game from Corvus Belli called Infinity. http://infinitythegame.com/ The only two problems with infinity are the steep, steep learning curve and the amount of terrain needed to make for good game. I have seen many potential players of Infinity turned off because either they failed to put the time into learning the game or played with sparse terrain. Even some Veteran Gamers detest the game because it’s just too complicated and compared to BT it’s a walk in the park….