Have any thoughts about 'A Time of War'?

[Hicks]

I'm a big fan of the BattleTech wargame, it was my gateway drug into Roleplaying, so I am really excited about the replacement of the older MechWarrior RPG with A Time of War. To those who care, any thoughts on the new system?

[Username17]

Well, I didn't even know that was going to happen. An I wish that I still did not. Life would be better that way. Did you see all that smack I talked about Fuzion? About how adding two numbers rated 1-10 together was way too fucking much variance for modifiers to a 3d6 roll? Well, AToW goes the extra mile of stupidity and does exactly that with a base RNG of only 2d6. Yes, seriously, you add two numbers rated 1-10 together and add them to the results of 2d6. Before your Traits and Equipment come into play. And modifiers are added to the TN and your roll for extra confusion for no reason. And there are abilities that let you roll a third die. What the fuck were they thinking? Now that I have seen it, I can't unsee it, which is itself a tragedy.

If that wasn't enough, it actually has an entirely different system where you add much smaller numbers to try to get much smaller TNs for some rolls. Which would almost be fine except for the fact that even though those are basically just one number, it's still rated zero to twelve and the RNG is still 2-12. It still doesn't work and it has extra confusion to go with as some sort of non-standardized mechanics Bingo.

Also includes the single worst description of opposed tests I have ever seen. The basic mechanic is that you roll 2d6, add some huge and wildly variable numbers, and you try to get as high as the Target Number. So you'd think that the opposed test rule would simply be that both people make their test, and the higher roll wins. Right? You'd be fucking wrong. Because that would be too easy. What they do instead, for no adequately explained reason is... aw hell. Copy Pasta time:

The GM declares that the outcome will be determined by an Opposed Double Attribute Check, using the two characters’ BOD and WIL to determine the outcome. Both Checks will thus require a TN of 21 to succeed. The mercenary MechWarrior will apply her relevant Attributes to the roll for a total modifi er of +13 (BOD 7 + WIL 6), while her opponent will receive a roll modifi er of +14 (BOD 8 + WIL 6).
The MechWarrior will need at least a result of 8 to meet the TN for this Action Check, but because it is opposed by her opponent (who needs a 7 to achieve the same TN), the winner will not only be the one who successfully makes the Check, but who makes it by the widest margin.

WHY?! You seriously make a roll, compare that roll to an arbitrary target number, subtract that number from your result, and then compare it to your opponent's result that he subtracted an arbitrary number from. They could have just applied all the modifiers to the roll, because they apply modifiers to the roll anyway.

It's just so... so terrible that it's hard to imagine people actually sitting down to write it. It looks like it was written by 12 year olds, and that's not even an exaggeration. I think I wrote this game when I was twelve years old.

From having the entire RNG lapable twice over in chargen to characters requiring different and lower TNs for tasks they are "skilled" in because they seriously and inevitably have larger numeric bonuses on unskilled tests - it's just crap. All the way through. I haven't read through equipment and shit. I assume there are problems with it. But I just can't bring my eyes away from the eye rape that is the basic action summary. It's just wrong on first principles. I don't even understand how it could have gotten all the way to the stage of formatting without someone saying "Holy shit, this is garbage!"

-Username17

[Juton]

I got the Beta out of morbid curiosity. Most RPGs keep it simple with just addition and subtraction, but a time of war uses a good bit of multiplication and division in its combat resolution. I foresee almost zero adoption because of how clunky the combat works. Skills in general and character generation seem a bit convoluted. All in all it's better than 3rd edition Mechwarrior but worse than 1st and 2nd ed.

In case you don't know, this is a completely different system than 3rd edition Mechwarrior, they went back to d6s from d10s. I don't know why they just don't take one of their older systems, like Shadowrun or Earthdawn, one that worked and slap a Battletech logo on it.

[Hicks]

I just got the Beta, and I gotta say that spending 4,500 points in character generation makes me cry. I'm feeling it, but I can't believe it: It makes me want to make a character in Eclipse Phase.

---

The more I read, the sadder I get. I gotta rewrite this shit.

[Juton]

The more I read, the sadder I get. I gotta rewrite this shit.

Just walk away. Its fail is too great. If you absolutely have to play a Battletech RPG get GURPS or Savage Worlds and adapt them.

[mean_liar]

Mekton Zeta! Mech design is awesome (just don't actually play)!

[Crissa]

Wow. Umm. So, most target numbers you either can't win or can't fail at. Well, I guess that's a plausible design goal.

-Crissa

[endersdouble]

The more I read, the sadder I get. I gotta rewrite this shit.

Just walk away. Its fail is too great. If you absolutely have to play a Battletech RPG get GURPS or Savage Worlds and adapt them.

Let's be honest. If you want to play a battletech RPG, you want to be using mechs, and there's already a game for that. It's called Battletech. (The balance is...questionable, but can be dealt with.) If you want a simple, very workable system, use Magical Tea Party until shit goes PPC-shaped, and then just break out the Rules Of Warfare. Not perfect, but works well, and it's the only thing that'll be important in 90% of games anyway.

[Fuchs]

We played Mechwarrior 1, and it was like that - stuff that happened before the mechs came out wasn't really important.

If I'd ever do it again I'd use Shadowrun for characters, and BT for Mech fights.

[Thymos]

If your not doing anything related to combat basic World of Darkness can handle normal characters with little hassle pretty well (This is addressing the idea of using one system for the humans, and another for the mechas).

The basic problem with nWoD is that it's single stage combat system is fucked. This doesn't mean the rest of the mechanics can't work decently, especially if the focus is not remotely on the combat.

[Josh_Kablack]

The more I read, the sadder I get. I gotta rewrite this shit.

Just walk away. Its fail is too great. If you absolutely have to play a Battletech RPG get GURPS or Savage Worlds and adapt them.

Let's be honest. If you want to play a battletech RPG, you want to be using mechs, and there's already a game for that. It's called Battletech. (The balance is...questionable, but can be dealt with.) If you want a simple, very workable system, use Magical Tea Party until shit goes PPC-shaped, and then just break out the Rules Of Warfare. Not perfect, but works well, and it's the only thing that'll be important in 90% of games anyway.

Well if you are specifically a Battletech fan, that's the way to go. But if you don't care about the Inner Sphere or the Houses or whatnot and just want to emulate some giant robot action from various Sci-Fi/Anime, there really isn't any system that handles the interaction between human scale and the various potential mech/vehicle scales in any way I would want to use for anything. My first post in this thread http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=126195#126195 discusses some of the design options to represent different works of such fiction.

[endersdouble]

Just walk away. Its fail is too great. If you absolutely have to play a Battletech RPG get GURPS or Savage Worlds and adapt them.

Let's be honest. If you want to play a battletech RPG, you want to be using mechs, and there's already a game for that. It's called Battletech. (The balance is...questionable, but can be dealt with.) If you want a simple, very workable system, use Magical Tea Party until shit goes PPC-shaped, and then just break out the Rules Of Warfare. Not perfect, but works well, and it's the only thing that'll be important in 90% of games anyway.

Well if you are specifically a Battletech fan, that's the way to go. But if you don't care about the Inner Sphere or the Houses or whatnot and just want to emulate some giant robot action from various Sci-Fi/Anime, there really isn't any system that handles the interaction between human scale and the various potential mech/vehicle scales in any way I would want to use for anything. My first post in this thread http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=126195#126195 discusses some of the design options to represent different works of such fiction.

As a huge BT fan, yes, that's what I'd do.

Though honestly if I were to play "mechwarrior"--something called that--as opposed to just a BT campaign, I realize in hindsight, despite my earlier statement, that what I'd want is something a la the SW: Rogue Squadron novels (please don't judge me.) That is, a mix of 'mech combat, but with some commando work and similar stuff to set up success in battles. And what system to use for those scenes, I have no idea.

Maybe I should just stick with RP'd BT campaigns.

[Juton]

You can have fun in a mechwarrior campaign, well at least the second edition seemed to work all right. You just have to agree before hand how you're going to reign in the characters, because it's nearly trivial to break the game at chargen. If you want to spend most of your time in your mechs then just magic tea party the out of mech action.

The Battletech universe can be interesting to play in, but generally only if every play knows about and is interested in the universe.

[Username17]

It's like a fractal of failure. Every part of it is just as wrong and unplayable as the entire game. But it really seems like you could play a game in the Battletech universe without breaking the universe. Which would be a good thing, because the Battletech Universe is pretty cool.

The primary problem that previous versions of Mechwarrior had was that it was way too easy to end up with a team where some of them piloted giant killer robots and some did not. The fact that you could walk out of chargen as something much better or much worse than someone else because you got lucky or unlucky on the lifepath rolls was both a problem and a selling point. Some people hate that sort of thing, others really like it. I can go either way. Sometimes I want a game like CP2020 or Traveler where I can die in character generation. Sometimes I want a game like Champions or Shadowrun, where I can create my character entirely at home without anyone watching my rolls because I don't have any rolls. These systems have genuine advantages, and I can't honestly accuse one or the other of being wrong.

But whatever the system, the different players should have directly comparable relationships to the tactical miniatures game, because if they don't, one or more of the PCs may end up left in the cold while other Players spend two hours moving giant robots around shooting at other giant robots and smashing farmhouses. Whether it's a Power Rangers setup where everyone jumps into giant robots and fights it out or a general's eye view where the PCs make decisions that affect supply trains and actual mechwarriors work for them, it should be consistent to avoid breaking the table dynamics.

Shadowrun is a fairly functional game system for RPGing in, and already owned by Catalyst, so I genuinely don't even understand why they elected to not do an SR port. But from the standpoint of an individual game, any system capable of running in a future/modern setting without collapse would be plausible. You could run it off the CP2020 engine, or the WoD engine or the Munchhausen engine and have that be totally functional.

But if you're going to make a 2d6 system, you have to embrace having very tiny bonuses. the shift between 7+ and 8+ on 2d6 is a 16.7% shift. So a +1 is seriously worth more than a D20 +3. Getting +2 is a 30% shift, which is basically the entire range of starting attributes in D&D (8 to 20). Having high and low attributes differ by 9 is totally batshit. If you wanted to make a 2d6 system, you'd make a system in which getting a +1 bonus was a rare thing that was a super major deal. You wouldn't put -5 penalties and bonuses all over the place in the basic action summary.

-Username17

[souran]

I had basically Frank's experience with mechwarrior second edition. There was just no good way of making sure that you ended up with a group.

The thing about giant mech combat games is that they don't have as many roles to support, as many people who like them, and the harder scifi edge and the more military you make the game the more you will actually shrink your audiance.

I really like heavy military sci fi mech games. I like starship troopers type games. I have a gaming group that averages 6 but has at times been 12 on a regular basis.

In that group I am the ONLY one who really wanted to do a "we are each officers in a military with mechs lets do military missions" type games. I had another friend who was ok with being military as long as it was more like topgun and less like tom clancy. I had another friend who was ok with the game as long as the military was bascially "g.i. joe."

Anyway, If you are looking for a good mecha combat game that manages to work both inside and outside of mechs, give Dream Pod 9's games a try.

Heavy Gear actually manages to work on both the rpg and tabletop side and Jovian coronicles lets you play in space. The system is probably one of the best game systems I have ever played, the real problem with the game is that it is characters are boring without mechs.