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[Darrian Wolffe]

Apocalypse Rising is going to shut down, probably around the very end of 2013 or the very beginning of 2014.  Given that, I figure it's time to start discussion what we'd like to replace it with (partially so that, when many of our players go to conventions over the summer, they will have the opportunity to purchase things that may be needed for the campaign: decals, minis, mapsets, and so forth).


NEXT CAMPAIGN

Here is the one thing that I can guarantee about the next campaign.  I will not be running it.  Between the work I've been doing to Levs, Elessar, and life in general, I need to step.  I do, however, have a proposal on how the next campaign should be structured so that whomever DOES end up GMing, they will have a relatively easy time of it.


The problems we've encountered with GMing for this group are as follows:
1) Getting NPCs - 12-on-3 fights take a long time to resolve
2) Prep time - the larger the game, the exponentially-longer it takes to develop scenarios
3) Inherent nature of Campaign play - campaign play involves either basically driving the same stuff forever (which gets boring), or an inexorable march toward everyone getting heavier and heavier Mechs as they get salvaged.


With these issues in mind, here is my proposition for the general structure of the next campaign:


We run two campaigns simultaneously, alternating games.  Each campaign involves about half the group, and each campaign has its own GM.  The other group plays the NPCs for the "active" group.  I strongly recommend having campaigns be run using the Warchest system, and preferably run through pre-existing campaign tracks (such as Total Chaos), making the GM's life as easy as possible.  However, if one group wants to play Clanners on Tukayyid or something (which doesn't have a Warchest track), that's totally fine.  Note that the two groups are NOT opposed to one another the way they were during the Terran campaign.

Each player controls a minimum & maximum number of Mechs with the usual limitations on what you can drive (it needs to exist in-game at the time, etc)...but also granted a tonnage budget that he must spend to.  So if our tonnage limit is 120 tons and you have a minimum of 2 Mechs, and a maximum of 4, he can have a 100-ton Mech and a 20-ton Mech; or he can have a 70-ton Mech, a 30 ton Mech, and a 20 ton Mech and so forth.  The tonnage budget in conjunction with the minimum number of units will hopefully be what puts a brake on that "inevitable" march toward a battalion of salvaged assault Mechs while still allowing people to salvage, repair, and replace Mechs AND allow people to compose units they way they want to.

.........................................

If you have a system you'd prefer run, I'd like this discussed throughout the month of May, preferrably closing the discussion in the first week of June so as to give people a chance to develop Origins shopping lists.  Please speak up.

[Death or Glory]

Rob, I agree with all three of your points concerning the general issues with GMing for this group and I agree with your proposed solutions to all three points.  In particular, I really like the idea of running two alternating campaigns in order to always have a healthy number of OpFor players.  The proposed tonnage system and using the Warchest system both have my full support.

I can GM one of the campaigns.  I'll be in Huntington, West Virginia for most of the next campaign, so I can't make it to a session every 3-4 weeks, but I should be able to make it to a session once every 6-8 weeks without much problem, which works well with the idea of alternating campaigns.  However, I'm fine stepping aside if someone else really wants to run a campaign.

As far as potential campaigns go, I'm down with pretty much anything from the Age of War to the Dark Age.  By far the most complete preexisting campaign is the Jihad Chaos Campaign contained within Total Chaos and the Jihad Hot Spots books.  However, this campaign is large enough that it would probably take us five or six years to complete unless we want to focus in on specific years and planets.  I also find the chaos campaign published in Era Report: 3050 covering the early clan invasion to be one of the better ones.

[Hat]

I'm not familiar with the war chest process, but overall as described it seems reasonable.  One question I have with the proposed approach is whether players will have characters or simply names with base P/G skills.  If there will be characters, do you have any insights on how the current character system worked with this campaign?

Also, with this tonnage based approach are we looking at fielding non-mechs as well?  I'm guessing that would be GM/Campaign specific, but was curious about that.

With a sweep of his...

Hat

[Riegien]

The way the warchest system works is that the player(s) have a pregenerated unit and a predefined number of Warchest Points(WP).  WP may be converted into Supply Points(SP) to pay for things like repairs, upgrades, buying new units, hiring crew, improving skills etc.  Each game follows an existing Track, and the PCs spend WP to go on the mission.

For example, the PC's company is doing a generic assault mission as the attacker.  This assault track costs 400 WP to go on.  It has a pair of objectives: Cripple/destroy at least 65% of the defending force for a reward of 400WP, and Cripple/destroy the defending commander's unit for an additional 150WP.  There may be additional options like weather conditions, night attacks or the like that will provide a bonus to the pay out that would be decided on by the PCs before the game.

Afterwards the PCs decide to buy a new Crab.  They would convert 50WP into 500SP (the cost of a 50 ton mech), and spend that to aquire the new unit.  And someone would make the obligatory "You've got crabs!" joke.  

This all assumes the defaults for the Total Chaos version of the warchest system.  There are different ways it can be tweaked depending on the campaign and the GM.  

Some things that can be an issue in this is the system is designed for 1 player controlling company, vs 6 people splitting up a nova trinary, so logistics may need to be voted on.  There will need to be multiple people watching the logistics on the warchest points, since we've learned in the past that one person running logistics can end poorly.  If we run personal rides instead of group assets we would need a system to figure out personal WP gain to advance pilots and mechs would be needed.

Rob, you've been stuck GMing forever.  Is there anything you want to play?


edit: words

[agustaaquila]

It all sounds good in theory, but I would want to secure GMs first before anything.  I know the longest process for Trav and myself was deciding just which part of Terra we wanted to protray (hint, our first decision was deciding not to in HORGARTH!!!)  The mechs, how they are chosen, etc all depend on the GM the game they want to run.

Although I do think our group is now large enough to require two separate groups.

[Death or Glory]

So does anyone have any preferences as to the era the campaign(s) will be set in?

[Darrian Wolffe]

...I'll admit to being mildly concerned at the lack of discussion here.

[Riegien]

I was waiting to see what was desired before throwing my hat in for GMing.  At any rate, I'll GM one of the games. 

As for what type of campaign, I'm still trying to sort out if there is any sort of Pitchfork and Talon starterbook type tracks for ASF.  Or if that is something I could chuck at the people on the BTech forums and expect a result.

Other than that, I'd be fine with a FWL civil war or a Guerrero campaign since we really havent done much with that corner of the sphere.  Or running a Con style Solaris Melee campaign using Topa's rules.

[Black Omega]

It's been a long time since I tried to run any kind of campaign.  I thought about giving it a shot.  Perhaps continuing the AR campaign into Operation Klondike and the formation of the clans.

[phlop]

As I don't GM, I will play any era. Hence, no discussion from me.

[Hat]

I'm not up for running the campaign but if you're looking for preferences for play, happy to contribute.

I like the idea of continuing the AR campaign - either as part of the Exodus or as part of the 1st Succession War.  That would be my first choice.

Otherwise I'm open to pretty much anything, though here are some ideas that sound interesting:
The ASF campaign idea sounds like it could be fun as a bunch of Aerojocks supporting ground assaults and messing with the ground pounders.
A campaign run in one of the periphery states could be interesting.  MoC for instance could keep things lively.
I'm not real familiar with the Jihad, so playing a unit trying to survive through that could be interesting or even something later.
Of course going back to 3025ish and lowtech mechs scraping for parts is amusing.

In general I'm pretty open to whatever.  I enjoy the mechwarrior pieces as well as that provides a sense of continuity and development that extends beyond the mechs.

With a sweep of his...

Hat

[serrate]

I'll throw my hat in the ring for GM'ing also.

As for era, I'm pretty flexible. I will say that I support Rob's idea regarding having some sort of tonnage limit for each PC, instead of just a single mek. Driving a single mek can get boring, but having the opportunity to occasionally add infantry, BA, vees, or even other meks to your personal force sounds fantastic.

[Death or Glory]

I'm actually interested in doing a campaign set during the Republic Era.  The early republic era (3079-3085), Capellan Confederation invasion of the Republic (3110-3113), or the Dark Age could all provide for some interesting games.  I think it could be fun to play in an era that doesn't have very many battletech products dedicated to it.

[ItsTehPope]

I'm actually interested in doing a campaign set during the Republic Era.  The early republic era (3079-3085), Capellan Confederation invasion of the Republic (3110-3113), or the Dark Age could all provide for some interesting games.  I think it could be fun to play in an era that doesn't have very many battletech products dedicated to it.

I'm definitely down with this - plus it gives us new ways to take historical events and add our trusty KrabShip into the mix yet again.

[Ice]

I do like hats idea for the time frame of the campaign. First succession war or the exodus or even possibly the pentagon worlds era

As for the tonnage allocation that would be nice to do although i'm not sure of what all mechs are actually available

Other thought is the politics relating to these. I am not sure who is fighting who or what events are happening. Just like this campaign now would be a good learning experience though