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[serrate]

One of the primary benefits to running games at a store-front like GTM is that the game we love (or have a love/hate relationship with, depending) gets seen being actually played on a regular basis by other gamers. We often have people stop by and tell us that they still have miniatures, but haven't played in 20 years, etc.

My proposal is that we amp up the promotion of our group a little bit more by doing the following:
 
  -Provide Karl at GTM with text/photos for an "event" to be created for our monthly games. (I can do this)
  -Within the Event, make it clear that we welcome new/returning players that would like to join us for the full session, or even just part of it

How we accommodate this:

  -Essentially, we want to make sure that we can swiftly add a player to the game at just about any time (reasonably speaking) without adversely disrupting the balance of the game or the strategy of the established OpFor players.
  -If an experienced player wants to join at the beginning, we can simply include them in the OpFor disbursements, perhaps assigning easier-to-run units if we're unsure of their abilities. Long-range fire units, particularly units that excel at sitting in some trees and pulling the trigger, are a good place to start. (typically, we already do this)
  -If an experienced player or a new player wants to join us mid-game, we simply have a selection of low-bv, easy-to-run units on standby. Units that typically won't swing the balance much are ideal, pretty much any sub-500 bv light mech that can deal about 10 points of damage or less. Giving him a 3/4 pilot for such a light mech seems fair as well. The GM would have sole control of his deployment area, in order to prevent the new deployment from wildly swinging a game one way or the other, such as reclaiming a previously cleared objective, etc. The mech should be considered a local "loyalist" to whatever OpFor is on board, some farmer who's been hiding an old unit in a barn and has now sent his son into the fray when needed. The mech probably shouldn't be salvageable.  We could even have a couple such mechs set aside with sheets ready to go, and let the newcomer pick one. This way he likely gets in a few turns as a "demo", and he can exit whenever he likes (we'll either remove the mech or hand off to the OpFor).

So, the idea is that we give our game more exposure and possibly pick up a few players. The downside is that we potentially have too many people show up on a Saturday? However, it should be fairly easy to manage expectations through the FB events, and even get a handle on how many are coming. There are times, like our upcoming game, where we could actually use a couple more experienced OpFor players, and this just might be one way to get them.

Thoughts? Pew pew?

[deadlyfire2345]

Seems plausible. Just feels like, to some extent, drag the game on a tic longer, while simultaneously being a possible detriment to the PC units. Any type of damage can determine the outcome of a game.
This could add the potential for more salvage and XP for the PC as well as the upside for the unexpected addition.
If we were doing a different campaign than the one we are currently doing now, I would say yes to it.

[serrate]

...while simultaneously being a possible detriment to the PC units...

Now you're just making my point for me. I was suggesting sub-500 units just to be nice. 

[deadlyfire2345]

...while simultaneously being a possible detriment to the PC units...

Now you're just making my point for me. I was suggesting sub-500 units just to be nice. 

Did not realize how much of a sadist you are. At least until your own things are put into question.

[Ice]

I am all for having a small set of units to throw in of 400 or so bv or less. I see nothing really wrong with allowing a new player or older player to hop in as long as they dont throw the balance. Any amount of bv technically could impact considering the possible tac roll %/charge dfa off map edge any roll can bring. I would say any of these forces shouldnt be included in victory conditions or be able to take objectives. Salvaging them should be a yes only because most likely they wont live anyway.

i would say wasp/stinger/locust would be ideal with a 4/5 pilot only because the 3/4 seems a little to padded considering a 3/4 spider can still hit on 8s with a normal heavy mod or just heavy woods 9s would be a bit more fair to the pcs considering its extra forces that even atb didnt take into account. (yes i know 500 bv doesnt seem like much but when you have other primary targets its all damage and all targets matter)

I would also suggest apcs for vehicle play testing for them

[agustaaquila]

  -If an experienced player or a new player wants to join us mid-game, we simply have a selection of low-bv, easy-to-run units on standby. Units that typically won't swing the balance much are ideal, pretty much any sub-500 bv light mech that can deal about 10 points of damage or less. Giving him a 3/4 pilot for such a light mech seems fair as well. The GM would have sole control of his deployment area, in order to prevent the new deployment from wildly swinging a game one way or the other, such as reclaiming a previously cleared objective, etc. The mech should be considered a local "loyalist" to whatever OpFor is on board, some farmer who's been hiding an old unit in a barn and has now sent his son into the fray when needed. The mech probably shouldn't be salvageable.  We could even have a couple such mechs set aside with sheets ready to go, and let the newcomer pick one. This way he likely gets in a few turns as a "demo", and he can exit whenever he likes (we'll either remove the mech or hand off to the OpFor).
...
Thoughts? Pew pew?

This sounds nice and inclusive, until you realize that some of our pc forces run around with light mechs and throwing another light mech is terrifing for our PC force long term survival.  Also, if a local farmers kid is 3/4 (which is as good as a standard clanner) then why are the clans a threat at all?

I like the sentiment, its just not viable with the wide variety of PC forces and desires for advancement.

[Darrian Wolffe]

OK, to be fair, Bryan's idea does have merit.

However, it's somewhat superfluous insofar as we already have rather large OPFOR groups most of the time.  Handing a prospective new player a Mech out of that group isn't going to unbalance things  90% of the time.

However, I'll also say that the game balances BV against what the PCs deploy plus, I think, a single lance of reinforcements.  Which means that when several lances of reinforcements are being brought, ya'll already have a tremendous BV advantage AND the game can't take into account your SPAs or Edge.  "Game Balance" is only barely a thing to begin with, then, because BattleTech is more of a historical game rather than a balanced game.

Thusly, I'm going to start having a lance of Mechs (lights through low-end heavies) kicking around in my bag.  WHEN POSSIBLE, we'll give the new player one of the OPFOR Mechs, unless the PCs already have a tremendous advantage, either as a result of reinforcement deployment or in the minute-to-minute game state.  If they PCs have that level of advantage, one of the "bonus" Mechs will come out, and will be both fully salvageable AND will be G/P statted in such a way as to give the new player a chance to do anything - it's important to remember that a new player is unlikely to know how to count hexes or maximize heat efficiency and so forth, and so having a slightly better G/P score will help make up for that somewhat.

Ultimately, I have to balance out attracting and retaining players, and keeping the game fair and fun.  With only a single game/month, the desire for folks to have a perfectly balanced game, and without having somebody literally sitting around doing nothing but waiting to run a Boot Camp for a newbie each month...I have to compromise somehow.  This compromises in all three directions, and since a good compromise should leave everybody a little mad (since this is perfectly in line with nobody's posted opinion), that's a good indicator it's the right move.

[Ice]

So just out of  curiosity if say several new players or returning players (especially in the case of returning players of skill) come in at once what kind of caps are we talking about because if say we end up with a whole lance of heavy/mediums coming in I mean that could kind of swing the scenario depending on the gunnery/mech are these units going to be considered for scenario objectives and vp for the pc side and opfor side? Also what about reinforcements entry points I mean I wouldn't want that randomly popping up right behind or next to us. I mean some ppl will be upset if say their whole lance gets blind sided and they can't recover they can make a new character yes but it kind of would leave a bitter taste if that happened. I mean I don't think anyone would outright stop playing or I'd hope not anyway. Would give more reasons to paint/ buy minis so idk. I have no issue with new players/returning players joining and I know atb doesn't account for somethings but even still some scenarios have been real close even without changes so the struggle for the ever elusive balance continues. Just a thought though the games haven't been so one sided that we have easily got the objective based on unit comp or objective. Those games that resulted in wipes were player error and time constraint forcing stuff. The tiny bit of rp  that resulted in lost mechs I won't include in that category.
 

[Darrian Wolffe]

So just out of curiosity if say several new players or returning players (especially in the case of returning players of skill) come in at once what kind of caps are we talking about 

Fine.  I give them all 0/0 Hellstars and a minimum budget of 1200 XP for SPAs.

...........

Come the hell on.  When the fuck has any GM in this group EVER given you reason to believe that they'd pull that sort of shit? 

If it ever happens that we have more than 1-2 people wanting to jump in, we a) figure out a way to integrate them into the scenario, or b) we don't because we have a game currently in progress and I tell them that we just aren't set up to handle that many new folks just walking in, and would they like to jump in to our next scheduled game when they can be accommodated? 

Do you or do you not trust me to be able to accommodate people in a fair manner, taking the board state, scenario, relative OPFOR & PCs, and a short couple of questions to them about their experience level into the equation?  Because being able to adapt well in real-time is one of the main benefits of having a human GM instead of a computer. 

Bringing a couple extra minis and record sheets IN CASE we have the opportunity to drop them into a game takes no appreciable effort, and can pay off hugely in terms of player acquisition.  Bryan's right to bring it up, and I'm frankly embarrassed at not having done it before.  But I'm not going to sit here and commit to a 30-page written action plan that tries to take every possible permutation of scenario and board state into account in an effort to be maximally "fair", because a) it's not possible, and b) this isn't actually my job.  Either trust me (or whomever is running the table at the time) to take this crap into account, or don't.

[Ice]

woah rob chill out first off your snapping at me over a hypothetical

Yes i trust you as a gm i dont expect a 30 pg thing its a discussion thread about what seems to be a good way to do things i feel like maybe the word context is a bit harsh but idk if im getting yelled at here over a hypothetical and it kind of hurts especially when we had the talk the other day about stuff not turning into a thing. This again could be context but at same time maybe its not. Just sucks when you try to help or think of how things and scenarios may impact whats going on by adding small changes to it. I ask because i want to learn good gm practices and maybe there are other options that i wouldnt think of. I went with the whole thought of we wanted to expose as many ppl as possible to game as we could and wouldnt turn them away. yes I excluded the we cant take this many ppl based on scenario or game state in my thought process because of that.

I mean this whole thing for me is only because of the missions like last game. PC were spread so far out with almost no place to enter that wouldnt seriously put the lance or so of mechs on either objective that were there in jeopardy. Again i know game state etc like you said. Im aware that you generally look at most of these things on a usual basis when we play and even before hand.  I know you said have faith and I generally do. Theres not to much where im like rob is trying to fuck us over we lose or anyone else for that matter

(except that damn nuke the black watch scenario but we at least knew that was coming and was fun.)

If its an issue with me suggesting or asking questions i will just not ask them, be it on here or in person. Im not trying to cause issues are target anyone or question anybody as far as gm ability It was a legit question on what to do because i was trying to figure it out myself. I mean if im taking it the wrong way please say so i mean i dont want to have it turn into a thing especially when this is probably what i look forward to most each month.