Attached is the PDF containing the basic campaign rules, as well as the character creation and random unit generation rules. Inside the PDF are links to the MechWarrior 3rd edition RPG book, and a few supplementary PDFs to help you generate a lead character. This is a second-draft document, but it's complete enough to allow you to create Lance Leader characters and your attendant wingmen, and generally generate a workable player force. Most - if any - changes will be simple clarification, or tweaks on how the gameplay will work.
In the next 24 hours, I will be posting a guide doing a step-by-step character creation and player force creation, so you can follow along.
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The core summary of this campaign is that we will be playing a mercenary group, starting play in 3044, when a trickle of advanced tech is starting to show up (as per the TRO 3039 retcons). Each player will be solely responsible for the upkeep of their personal 2 or 4 Mech lance. Full StratOps AccountTech rules will be in play, with the notable exception of Maintenance checks being monthly instead of weekly plus "every time you use the Mech". Each player will receive money each in-game month to buy parts/ammo, each player will have to account for their technical support hours to make repairs, and when it's time for the unit CO to choose who to deploy on a combat mission, you'll have to report to the CO the condition of your unit. Not all player commands will take part in each mission; the CO is capped on the number of player units which can be deployed at one time, but all player units will be deployed regularly (at *worst*, 1 game in 3).
This system will hopefully walk the razor's edge of allowing us to have large, 1-table group battles, while simultaneously being scale-able to the number of people who show up.
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The final note I have is that while I am GMing the beginning of this campaign, I expect this to be a rotating GM position. Once this unit is built, its relevant stats can be entered into the MegaMek add-on campaign system called "Against the Bot". This campaign system will automatically generate contracts based on the unit's relevant statistics, and will automatically generate random and mostly-balanced missions, which means I won't need to spend several hours per week playtesting OPFOR settings. Once we have a handle on how this should all work (after the first two contracts, at lengths of 3-5 games each), I can step aside and let somebody else plug the numbers into a new contract and generate new missions, letting the computer do the hard work for us.
However, this procedurally-generated campaign system means that this will only have a narrative insofar as it's an emergent storyline. That is, the story will be what you make of it; there is no inherent underlying storyline like there was in the Wars of Reaving or the SLDF campaigns. Fair warning. If you choose to play only OPFOR, that is your call; it's relatively easy to add additional player unit into the merc company as we go. If you'd like to be a player, you need to commit relatively firmly to 8 games/year (we generally have 10-11 games). If you want your PC to pretty much ever be in position for CO duties, that's a much stronger commitment to both attending games and to checking the boards regularly. While most major unit decisions will be done with a group vote, the CO will be a tie-breaker and will likely need to weigh in often when two players have mutually-conflicting goals (especially about spending money).
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Topic: Campaign Rules (Read 2024 times)