Location, Location, Location

As mentioned before, the party for Ten Years on Terra starts in two pieces -- the elements of the 394th off-world, and the resistance members on-world. As such, I gave the Anthony and Cameron, the two resistance fighters, the opportunity to decide where they would like to live, and by extension, where the campaign's home base is. The drop pattern of the 394th covered much of the United States, which is convenient, since all the players are Americans, although universally from regions not included in the Case White landings. Anthony, however, lived in Colorado for a year and a half after college, so he thought the foot of the Rocky Mountains would be a good place. Cameron agreed, and now I have a rough site to be setting my adventure in.

The Rocky Mountains and associated foothills provide a solid location for a BattleTech campaign, if for no other reason than BattleMechs are well-suited to operations in the rather heavily broken terrain. Under the rules of the game, a ledge rising twelve meters over thirty is a very minor obstacle for a BattleMech, but poses serious problems for ground vehicles. My landing party includes two 'Mechs and a VTOL, so they should be well-suited to the terrain for the few engagements they are in their original vehicles.

I am debating whether I want to set the party's home in a major city (Denver) or further out. A major reason for this is the sidebar on Jihad Hotspots Terra p. 111, which could cause something of a downer ending for the campaign, but also there are interesting challenges associated with a rural vs. urban environment, especially in terms of hiding major assets. In the backwoods, you can trust cover of night and sheer obscurity of location to cover the movements of, say, a BattleMech, but nobody's going to miss a Warhammer striding down Seventh Avenue. The latter becomes an exercise in disguising the unit (made easier by the fact that TerraSec and the Word of Blake militia both field 'Mechs that might patrol civilian areas), but it is still an exercise in brazen audacity.

I am also considering the missions I want the players to be running. I'm taking a bit of inspiration from the quest hub system in modern computer roleplaying games, providing the resistance team with the first three sites that will provide reasonable objectives to the group's capabilities at the start of the game, and provide both equipment to replace that gear the landing party lost and clues to where else they might find resistance objectives within their grasp. The goal is give them some choices in what they do, while not requiring me as the GM to be prepared for any random task they decide to go on. This also allows me to provide them with detailed intelligence on their objectives at the end of a game session, to give them a week or two to plan their mission before we run it in-session.

In a city environment, it is simple to provide them with a location and means to get there: give them a cross-street and lay out the building they'll be working in. Outside a city I need to do the building as well, but I also need to create the surrounding terrain, which is not so very difficult, but provides more challenges in terms of how they get there and more options if they have access to vehicle-scale assets. There's also the option of a suburban environment, but that seems to be more the worst of both worlds -- difficult to hide in, inconvenient to urban targets.

At time of writing, I haven't decided which way to go. I'm leaning rural based on Anthony's and Cameron's character concepts, and really, I don't have to decide until fairly late in the process (so long as I have a decision by the first session of the resistance party.) In cases like this, I generally solicit player input, which seems especially good in this case, and I'll also see what the printed material on Terra has to say.