Posted by Stargazer | Posted on 28-09-2009
Category : Battletech RPG, News, Reviews & Culture, Other Systems, RPG
If you are interested in the Battletech roleplaying game “A Time of War”, Catalyst Game Labs has a special offer for you.
They have released the upcoming game as a beta release for just $10 at RPGNow. The current available PDF is 402 pages long and is of course not 100% complete yet. The index is still missing, but the book itself is looking pretty good.
If you are unsure if this new game is for you, you should check out the quickstart rules that have been released quite some time ago. In my humble opinion it looks much better than Mechwarrior 3rd Edition and it should be compatible with the rest of the core game series.
Interested players will be able to playtest the game and post any issues they encounter at a special thread a the Classic Battletech forums. The designers of the Battletech RPG are also looking for more adventure seeds like the one presented on pages 347-348 in the book. So, if you have a great idea, you can post them here and if you’re lucky and your seed is accepted, you will even be mentioned in the credits of the final release.
The final release of the PDF will set you back $25 and all people who purchased the beta release will of course get a free update. So, if you are interested in the upcoming Battletech RPG, you should consider this offer.
Some time ago, someone mentioned a Battletech RPG on Twitter, I believe it was my fellow RPG Blogger Chgowiz. But after the IMHO horrible Mechwarrior 3rd Edition, I had pretty much lost interest in roleplaying games based on Battletech.
For me, MW 3rd Edition had some serious flaws. The worst thing was the fact that they used d10s for task resolution in the RPG and the tabletop game uses 2d6. In earlier Edition it was much easier to combine the tactical mech combat with the roleplaying game. I also didn’t like the Lifepath system because in a way it forced me to play the game in a certain time period I wasn’t really interested in. Of course, you could try to make some changes to make it fit, but it annoyed me nevertheless.
After GenCon I asked around if anyone has seen the new game there, in hopes they came up with a decent new game after all. And so I was pointed to the Quick Start rules that are already available.
The new Battletech RPG will be called “A Time of War” and it was designed to be easily used with the other books of the core game series which includes Total Warfare, TechManual and a few other.
“A Time of War” uses 2d6 for task resolution and it seems to be much more streamlined than the previous games. I can’t comment on character creation, since it’s missing from the QS rules, but the rules that are available are pretty easy to understand and close enough to Battletech rules to make the integration almost seamless.
And although the game is supposed to be played in an era after the new Star League has fallen again, I hope it will be easy enough to set your campaign into the time shortly before and during the 4th Succession War (my favorite era).
As far as I know the Battletech RPG “A Time of War” will be released this winter.
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