This is one of the busiest vacations I've ever had.
No entry for today, I'm afraid.
Stay tuned -- Ten Years on Terra returns January 3rd!
Friday, December 30, 2011
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Reinforcing the Ranch
One thing that I've always wanted to run was a base-building game in BattleTech, given the level of the structure rules available. I was mildly hoping to somehow weave upgrading the ranch into the story line, but that never really happened once the Firestarter was ditched in the mountains. I don't think I'm going to be able to do it now, unless I have a specific reinforcement encounter ahead of the ranch attack.
I feel like there's more to say on this topic, but somehow, its not coming.
I feel like there's more to say on this topic, but somehow, its not coming.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
What About Simon?
I'm still plotting out the research facility for Session 14. Although it is Clark's capstone, I'm trying to wind in checks and excitement for everybody. In this the problem character is Simon.
Simon is normally easy to give something to do, because he's the communications wizard. He's always monitoring enemy communications or decrypting data channels or hacking into this, that, or the other thing. The problem with this session is that its pretty much a flat-out assault, and during our last combat-heavy encounter Simon's player (Anthony) extremely bored; I failed to engage him properly. So for Session 14, I'm trying to think of how to get him engaged in a way that doesn't radically complicate the mission for the rest of the party.
I've gone over Simon's character sheet to see what things the character was built to do. All told, five skills had over a hundred skill points coming out of character creation (Small Arms, Interest/Game Theory, Computers, Communications/Conventional, and Technician/Electronics) of which the last three had 170 vested points. Since then, my XP log shows me that he has been dumping XP into Communications/Conventional, Career/Communications, and various attributes (primarily INT, WIL, and DEX.)
All this tells me he's doubling down on his Communications skills; so I want to give him another communications challenge of some kind. Anthony also enjoys the out-of-game puzzles, such as the logic puzzle or cryptograms. That makes me think some kind of interest puzzle, perhaps a door-opening problem, would keep him satisfied, especially if he could have various levels of success (such as bypassing combat encounters) based on his ability to solve the puzzle and a number of checks Simon would make.
The Interest/Game Theory makes me want to somehow wind a game theory puzzle into the story, but I'm unclear on what that would look like. Perhaps some research into game theory will spawn a few ideas.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Monday, December 26, 2011
Time Flies When You're Busy
'Twas the night after Christmas, and I hadn't written an entry for Monday yet, and my brain was fried from going flat-out for three days. Tomorrow doesn't look like much relief, but hopefully I'll have useful content again by Wednesday.
Friday, December 23, 2011
Picking Out New Battle Armor
First off, the Master Unit List is a glorious thing.
I ask a simple question, like "What Battle Armors were deployed by the Word of Blake in the Jihad era?" and it tells me.
32 results come back, representing all variants introduced between 3069 and 3078. I can't actually sort the data the way I want on the page, but I can copy and paste into a spreadsheet, and manipulate it there. First, and most obviously, is that this operation is taking place in 3073, so I can strike from my list all models and variants with an introduction date of 3074 or later.
That eliminates 11 of the options, mostly variants and a Manei Domini prototype that was off the table anyways for plot reasons. That cuts me down to 21 options, which fall into 8 models: Purifier, Tornado G14, Djinn, Tengu, Phalanx, Nephilim, Asura and Se'irim. Morgan has previously expressed a preference for the Mimentic-armor equipped Purifier Adaptive, but let's take a quick look at the field here.
The Battle Armor BAR Table on p. 187 of A Time of War tells me that there is a direct linear relationship between the armor value of a Battle Armor suit and its BAR in A Time of War-scale combat, so I'll concern myself with those numbers first.
Yeah. We ain't in 3025 anymore -- that Nephilim suit has damage resistance on-par with some recon 'Mechs. But let's look at what we have to work with.
It looks like we have groupings in the 5-7 range and the 12-and-up range. I'm not interested in the 12-and-up range, so that leaves six models to work with. Morgan really wants to play with being in a stealth-equipped battle armor unit, which takes the Asura off the table.
The rest of these choices look just fine. Cross-referencing their numbers, the Tornado is the closest match to the capabilities I want Shin to have -- no real anti-vehicle weapons, and light (comparatively) BAR. The G14 carries only "Mission Equipment", though, which for an idle suit would be a grand total of nothing. A quick review of the suit on page 15 of Technical Readout: 3075, though, shows that while the G14 suit isn't really suitable for my needs, the G12 variant is, and has the benefit is being considerably older and more likely to be lying around. It also has the basic stealth armor and camo system that Morgan wants to play with, and no integral weapons and low armor, which makes me happy.
Thus, a bit of review of the available hardware and cross-checking with the TRO's has solved my Battle Armor issue, and now Shin will find a shiny new gift waiting for him in the Word of Blake bioweapons research facility! Merry Christmas!
I ask a simple question, like "What Battle Armors were deployed by the Word of Blake in the Jihad era?" and it tells me.
32 results come back, representing all variants introduced between 3069 and 3078. I can't actually sort the data the way I want on the page, but I can copy and paste into a spreadsheet, and manipulate it there. First, and most obviously, is that this operation is taking place in 3073, so I can strike from my list all models and variants with an introduction date of 3074 or later.
That eliminates 11 of the options, mostly variants and a Manei Domini prototype that was off the table anyways for plot reasons. That cuts me down to 21 options, which fall into 8 models: Purifier, Tornado G14, Djinn, Tengu, Phalanx, Nephilim, Asura and Se'irim. Morgan has previously expressed a preference for the Mimentic-armor equipped Purifier Adaptive, but let's take a quick look at the field here.
The Battle Armor BAR Table on p. 187 of A Time of War tells me that there is a direct linear relationship between the armor value of a Battle Armor suit and its BAR in A Time of War-scale combat, so I'll concern myself with those numbers first.
| Model | Armor Value (minus trooper) |
|---|---|
| Purifier |
6
|
| Tornado G14 |
2
|
| Djinn |
5 (standard)
6 (stealth)
|
| Tengu |
13 (support)
12 (medium laser)
|
| Phalanx |
7
|
| Nephilim |
16
|
| Asura |
7
|
| Se'irim |
6
|
It looks like we have groupings in the 5-7 range and the 12-and-up range. I'm not interested in the 12-and-up range, so that leaves six models to work with. Morgan really wants to play with being in a stealth-equipped battle armor unit, which takes the Asura off the table.
The rest of these choices look just fine. Cross-referencing their numbers, the Tornado is the closest match to the capabilities I want Shin to have -- no real anti-vehicle weapons, and light (comparatively) BAR. The G14 carries only "Mission Equipment", though, which for an idle suit would be a grand total of nothing. A quick review of the suit on page 15 of Technical Readout: 3075, though, shows that while the G14 suit isn't really suitable for my needs, the G12 variant is, and has the benefit is being considerably older and more likely to be lying around. It also has the basic stealth armor and camo system that Morgan wants to play with, and no integral weapons and low armor, which makes me happy.
Thus, a bit of review of the available hardware and cross-checking with the TRO's has solved my Battle Armor issue, and now Shin will find a shiny new gift waiting for him in the Word of Blake bioweapons research facility! Merry Christmas!
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Big-Ticket Gifts
We're starting to get into the part of the campaign where the ComStar characters start getting their nifty toys back. I've already allocated a mission for Alex's mech-retrieval, so I need to decide if Session 14 is Shin's Battle Armor, or David's chopper. Given the nature of the mission, I'm decidedly inclined to go with the former.
I feel like it is not terribly unreasonable for a spare battle armor suit to be laying around a Word secret laboratory. The real trick is I finally have to face the reality of what putting Shin in Battle Armor will do to the campaign. He will become the dominant military option available to the party for close-in combat. There's not terribly wrong with that, but I do need to make sure sessions don't become me and Morgan running a game while everyone else watches.
The trick is, I think, that I want him to be in something mid-range; something that can handle the attention he'll draw to himself, but will deal with those threats accordingly. To put it more clearly; I can handle Shin taking care of three-quarters of the enemies if he's also taking three-quarters of the fire.
Referring back to the charts I made about TNs against BAR, the inflection point for inbound damage is somewhere around BAR 3 or 4, which makes it a good place to put a party member's resistance. That's high enough to deal with most of the stuff you'd expect to bounce off of battle armor, but low enough that a serious hit (such as a support weapon or a vehicle-scale gun) is still a problem. A bit of this is also me factoring in Shin's absolutely hideous BOD score (currently 8), which makes me worry a bit less about him.
Tomorrow I'll go digging through the MUL to figure out what mid-to-late 3070's Word of Blake Battle Armor Shin is going to find hidden away in a closet.
I feel like it is not terribly unreasonable for a spare battle armor suit to be laying around a Word secret laboratory. The real trick is I finally have to face the reality of what putting Shin in Battle Armor will do to the campaign. He will become the dominant military option available to the party for close-in combat. There's not terribly wrong with that, but I do need to make sure sessions don't become me and Morgan running a game while everyone else watches.
The trick is, I think, that I want him to be in something mid-range; something that can handle the attention he'll draw to himself, but will deal with those threats accordingly. To put it more clearly; I can handle Shin taking care of three-quarters of the enemies if he's also taking three-quarters of the fire.
Referring back to the charts I made about TNs against BAR, the inflection point for inbound damage is somewhere around BAR 3 or 4, which makes it a good place to put a party member's resistance. That's high enough to deal with most of the stuff you'd expect to bounce off of battle armor, but low enough that a serious hit (such as a support weapon or a vehicle-scale gun) is still a problem. A bit of this is also me factoring in Shin's absolutely hideous BOD score (currently 8), which makes me worry a bit less about him.
Tomorrow I'll go digging through the MUL to figure out what mid-to-late 3070's Word of Blake Battle Armor Shin is going to find hidden away in a closet.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Mounted Warriors
The Creatures section of A Time of War starts on page 238. It is fantastic for finding a beast to maul your party that they can put down without having to get into politics or potential alliances or anything else; a bear just wants to off you, and isn't going to be wildly clever about how it does so. I am not paying a visit to this section to evaluate the combat statistics of creatures, though: I am here to evaluate their usefulness as impromptu aircraft.
A number of creatures have it mentioned in their write-ups that these animals make suitable mounts for humans. Indeed, the Creatures table on p 246 contains a note indicating which animals listed there are appropriate for such a task. Our favored animal of the campaign, the branth, is among them. So with some trepidation I opened up A Time of War to read the rules on how mounted combat works. This is never an easy rules condition in any human-centric RPG I've gamemastered or played in, so I was braced for an arcane array of checks and conditions to put the maintenance rules to shame.
The rules weren't arcane. They weren't torturous. They weren't even there -- although what animals are fit to carry humans are distinguished from those who are not, there are no rules for what checks are required to mount one, or how carrying passengers affect their performance characteristics (of particular interest to a flying creature.)
So I am trying to establish what mounting a branth looks like from a mechanics point of view. Fortunately, we can piece some rules together here.
First, mounting. Animal Handling has a subskill of Riding. The rules on page 143 describe this skill as being something you make when attempting a special maneuver of some kind, but for a marginally-tamed giant winged reptile, we're going to call climbing aboard a "special maneuver." Modifiers are specified for the physical and emotional state of the animal (not good in our poor lab rats' cases), demeanor of the rider, and general stimulus (such as alarms and gunfire.) So let's presume our characters are going to be making an Animal Handling check to climb aboard.
Second, navigation. Again, these won't be trained riding branths, so an Animal Handling check will probably be required each turn to keep them under control once they're aloft, with a Margin-of-Failure threshold determining if they go in the wrong direction or try to dislodge the rider.
Finally, landing. Simple check to determine how well the riders is able to bring down and dismount the branth. Again, likely with a Margin-of-Failure between "uncooperative" and "pissed off."
For the moment, I'll assume that the branth's flight characteristics aren't changed when it has a rider (which is patently absurd considering a human would be something like 13% of it weight, but so it goes). Now I have a set of checks to add some adventure and excitement to the branth escape scene, especially if Alex Black is forced to flee that way. He has Animal Antipathy, you see.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Planning for the End of an Arc
Over the weekend I posted a question to the Lead Developer's forum regarding some of the concerns I expressed yesterday. Given that forum only has about an 80% reply rate, though, I'm not holding my breath for an answer.
In the meanwhile, I'm turning my attention back toward setting up session 14, which is the conclusion of both the Branth Bioweapons plotline and Clark's personal character arc. This mission will be the first real base assault since the TerraSec building, so I'm approaching it much the same way: construct a layout appropriate for the kind of facility my players will be invading, then tinker with it to achieve the best dramatic situations. In this case, we're looking as a super-secret underground bioweapons lab eastern Montana. Unlike the TerraSec infiltration, I can give the party an attack plan via the Resistance for how they're expected to tackle this.
Given this an arc-closer mission, I want the stakes to feel much higher, and I want there to be a lot of excitement. Fortunately, the abbreviated nature of Session 13 meant we have most of our session-start paperwork out of the way already; if I send the party the battleplan in advance, they can be ready to rock the moment we're done with breakfast.
So right now I'm brainstorming exciting events that will make this a memorable episode. I'm thinking of making the initial complication disarming the base's nuclear self-destruct (ala The Andromeda Strain), which allows the Resistance to start capturing useful data and equipment. Once the self-destruct has failed, a WarShip on orbit is reallocated to bombard the facility, but it needs to pass over the site. Adjusting its orbit will take some plot-appropriate amount of time. In the meantime, the party takes/destroys some critical objective, which they complete just as the bombardment starts. The first few shells take the roof off the Branth enclosure, and some subset of the party escape using the Branths as mounts to escape before the next round of fire from the WarShip lands and destroys the remainder of the base.
It sounds suitably epic on paper, but now I need to plot out how I'm going to make this plan fly.
In the meanwhile, I'm turning my attention back toward setting up session 14, which is the conclusion of both the Branth Bioweapons plotline and Clark's personal character arc. This mission will be the first real base assault since the TerraSec building, so I'm approaching it much the same way: construct a layout appropriate for the kind of facility my players will be invading, then tinker with it to achieve the best dramatic situations. In this case, we're looking as a super-secret underground bioweapons lab eastern Montana. Unlike the TerraSec infiltration, I can give the party an attack plan via the Resistance for how they're expected to tackle this.
Given this an arc-closer mission, I want the stakes to feel much higher, and I want there to be a lot of excitement. Fortunately, the abbreviated nature of Session 13 meant we have most of our session-start paperwork out of the way already; if I send the party the battleplan in advance, they can be ready to rock the moment we're done with breakfast.
So right now I'm brainstorming exciting events that will make this a memorable episode. I'm thinking of making the initial complication disarming the base's nuclear self-destruct (ala The Andromeda Strain), which allows the Resistance to start capturing useful data and equipment. Once the self-destruct has failed, a WarShip on orbit is reallocated to bombard the facility, but it needs to pass over the site. Adjusting its orbit will take some plot-appropriate amount of time. In the meantime, the party takes/destroys some critical objective, which they complete just as the bombardment starts. The first few shells take the roof off the Branth enclosure, and some subset of the party escape using the Branths as mounts to escape before the next round of fire from the WarShip lands and destroys the remainder of the base.
It sounds suitably epic on paper, but now I need to plot out how I'm going to make this plan fly.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Content In Utilities
One problem that I often struggle with when I'm writing utilities for BattleTech that I intend to release to the general public is the question of how much intelligence about the rules of the game I should build into it. While I've been around the game industry long enough to have a pretty good sense of what will and will not get me sued, I nonetheless want to respect the wishes of developers, especially Catalyst, whether or not they have legal grounds for those wishes.
For instance, I have no problem creating a master list of Skills and Linked Attributes; that information is fairly easily available online. I'm less inclined to input the whole set of Life Paths into a tool, even to create the much-needed A Time of War Character Creator. I may need to post to the forums to determine what Catalyst is comfortable with accepting in terms of official content in user-created applications.
For instance, I have no problem creating a master list of Skills and Linked Attributes; that information is fairly easily available online. I'm less inclined to input the whole set of Life Paths into a tool, even to create the much-needed A Time of War Character Creator. I may need to post to the forums to determine what Catalyst is comfortable with accepting in terms of official content in user-created applications.
Friday, December 16, 2011
First Product
For the limited amount of time I had to code this week, I produced a fairly simple utility that outputs half a character sheet. You might find this handy if you already have a data system storing your characters. It takes in an XML file and spits out a PNG of a character sheet for the character described in the XML file. I tried to keep it as simple as possible.
The XML file only has four possible tags: the <character> tag (only one per file), and within, <attribute>, <trait>, and <skill> tags. I included an example character to show how these work. The only real curve balls are the tiers vs. combined linked attributes. Combine attributes are listed with a '+' sign between them in the linkedAttributes attribute of the skill tag, while tiered attributes (in which the second attribute is used if the skill is at least +4) are listed with a '/' between them.
The second curve ball is that the system automatically detects and accounts for "Fast Learner" and "Slow Learner" when computing skills -- you don't have to redo those manually.
This still needs a lot of work, and is probably destined to become part of something larger, but I'm making the link available here:
A Time of War Character Sheet Renderer (1.1 MB)
The XML file only has four possible tags: the <character> tag (only one per file), and within, <attribute>, <trait>, and <skill> tags. I included an example character to show how these work. The only real curve balls are the tiers vs. combined linked attributes. Combine attributes are listed with a '+' sign between them in the linkedAttributes attribute of the skill tag, while tiered attributes (in which the second attribute is used if the skill is at least +4) are listed with a '/' between them.
The second curve ball is that the system automatically detects and accounts for "Fast Learner" and "Slow Learner" when computing skills -- you don't have to redo those manually.
This still needs a lot of work, and is probably destined to become part of something larger, but I'm making the link available here:
A Time of War Character Sheet Renderer (1.1 MB)
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Starting Out
To kick off my development time, I'm writing a little bit of code that converts my Character Data Structure into a PNG of a filled-out character sheet. I'm finding the sheet providing in A Time of War makes this the easiest, since it has very few fields pre-filled. The sheet still has the issue of not having enough lines for the skill blocks of an average Life Path-created character, but I'm not worrying about that at the moment.
As I'm doing the math here, I realize I could relatively easily write a wizard that takes you through the life paths, and allows you to create an entire character from whole cloth. I don't think I'm going to do that though. It would require taking more actual content from A Time of War than I'm comfortable doing.
As I'm doing the math here, I realize I could relatively easily write a wizard that takes you through the life paths, and allows you to create an entire character from whole cloth. I don't think I'm going to do that though. It would require taking more actual content from A Time of War than I'm comfortable doing.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Data Structures
The way that A Time of War's character information is laid out makes it slightly awkward to handle by computer, but not overly so. Most ways you can spend XP equate directly to a number on the character sheet: Attributes and Traits have costs that are directly and easily calculable, usually just by dividing and rounding down. Some additional data needs to be stored for Traits, such as what the valid range of points for a particular trait is, and whether it is positive or negative, but all that is relatively simple as well.
Skills are rather more complicated data structures, as the rate they translate into a bonus changes depending on which traits are present (Fast Learner and Slow Learner), and skill also have subskills, which they interact with at play-time in complex ways. For a character sheet, though, any two subskills can be considered skill unto themselves.
All of the above I have currently explained to my computer, which has given me a solid skeleton from which to build out information processing systems that need to analyze and store A Time of War characters. I hope to have a bit more useful tools soon.
Skills are rather more complicated data structures, as the rate they translate into a bonus changes depending on which traits are present (Fast Learner and Slow Learner), and skill also have subskills, which they interact with at play-time in complex ways. For a character sheet, though, any two subskills can be considered skill unto themselves.
All of the above I have currently explained to my computer, which has given me a solid skeleton from which to build out information processing systems that need to analyze and store A Time of War characters. I hope to have a bit more useful tools soon.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Going into the Holidays
Now that Session 13 is done, we're accelerating into the Holiday Season in the US, and Session 14 isn't likely to occur until early 2012. In the meantime, I'm going to focus on doing some of the support development I said I'd be doing for A Time of War, in terms of coming up with little widgets to help organize and quality-check the fairly hefty amount of data this game uses. Hopefully some of you will find uses for this gizmos as I finish them.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Session 13
Session 13 was the party visiting the Sarna HPG in California. This was another fairly laid-back session that involved the party arriving after the Resistance group had gotten there, and finding that the HPG originally built to create the Sarna attack film had been refit with an HPG projection weapon, but the site had since been abandon. Significantly, in the basement, they found a board being used to track the progress in killing off the Capellan HPG personnel who were working at the Sarna HPG when it was destroyed.
This was another session in which Morgan immediately made the backstory connection, but his character, Shin, obviously couldn't know so much. This session also had more of a "researchy" feel to it as there was no shooting. Partially, this was because I didn't get as much prep done for this session as I normally do. It became one of the weakest sessions I've run so far, although the level of tabletalk and speculation padded it out appropriately. We also pre-ran the downtime XP and expenditures for next session, so we'll have more time than normal there, which is good, since next week is the capstone session of Clark's arc.
This was another session in which Morgan immediately made the backstory connection, but his character, Shin, obviously couldn't know so much. This session also had more of a "researchy" feel to it as there was no shooting. Partially, this was because I didn't get as much prep done for this session as I normally do. It became one of the weakest sessions I've run so far, although the level of tabletalk and speculation padded it out appropriately. We also pre-ran the downtime XP and expenditures for next session, so we'll have more time than normal there, which is good, since next week is the capstone session of Clark's arc.
Friday, December 9, 2011
When Drama Falls Flat
So at the end of last session, the party took the last page of a report on the Word of Blake's bioweapons program off the the convoy they struck. The page gave a few conclusions to the report it was a part of, and had the end notes, which extensively referenced Clark's doctoral thesis as the basis for the Branth research and the weaponized viral agents the party encountered earlier in the campaign. The goal here was to give Clark the sense that his research was the basis on which the whole WoB program was built on, and give him the opportunity to explore the angst and self-questioning that implies; the kind of roleplaying experience Cameron excels at.
The party got the page and Clark read it. His response?
"Awww!" he said, overjoyed, "They referenced me!"
Facepalm.
Somehow, someway, my PC's always manage to take a different lesson from my plot points than I mean them to. Thank God I'm not a professional writer.
The party got the page and Clark read it. His response?
"Awww!" he said, overjoyed, "They referenced me!"
Facepalm.
Somehow, someway, my PC's always manage to take a different lesson from my plot points than I mean them to. Thank God I'm not a professional writer.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Determining the TN
One problem I had during Session 12's combat was sorting out the appropriate modifiers for the vehicle's turret on the fly. Ultimately, I worked off my GM screen's Combat Modifiers table, but that was clearly not meant for the job; I ended up winging it with the modifiers I could find in under 30 seconds. I'm certain I missed something. My first impulse in reaction to this was to put together another flowchart detailing how vehicular combat works, and given that my previous PDF's are some of the most popular entries on this blog, I may do that yet, but there's a deeper problem here that goes into how the rules in the new BattleTech core books are written as something between a design document and a treatment, especially in A Time of War. They are not laid out in a way to provide a GM or a player with a step-by-step method of executing an attack; they are more general than that.
The problem that made me realize this is the same problem I had the first day I started playing BattleTech 15 years ago; there's no easy way to verify that you've added all the appropriate modifiers to your roll. Certainly, A Time of War isn't unique in this problem. Anybody who has player a D&D boss battle, especially in 2nd Edition or 3.x, has a memory of a caster flipping through the rule book looking for that one modifier that's going to make the difference in a boss battle. It breaks flow. It snaps the player out of the moment and back into the minutiae of stats and searching for one line they thought they read somewhere about two thirds of the way through one of these sourcebooks...
Anyways, we've all been there. This is a non-trivial operational problem often glossed over in the rules with the words "determine the TN." I've occasionally tried to solve this problem with flowcharts, modifier grouping, or a number of other methods, but one of two things always happens: first, I end up with a lot of special-case scenarios that are as general as I can make them, but somehow real game situations always seem to fall somewhere in the middle, and the end-all list of situations ends up becoming just another tool of approximation. Second, I can get the problem down to a bunch of categories ("select the range modifier", "select the target size modifier", "weather", etc.) but this is how the book does it, and like the book, I always end up with a worrisomely long list of "Miscellaneous" modifiers, usually tied to specific pieces of equipment that have an asterisk in one of their fields on the Equipment tables (I'm looking at you, missiles.)
Vehicular combat again threw this issue into sharp relief because it had me jumping between A Time of War and Total Warfare. I understand why this is; to avoid reprinting rules and to make sure that the core rulebooks sell each other, but it greatly exacerbates the problems of trying to find all the modifiers that apply to a particular roll.
Unfortunately, this issue is more of a statement of a problem than a proposed solution; the kind of statement that would get me kicked out of boss' office. I've tried a number of different ways of getting around this problems and all of them come up short. I'm sure there is a way to do it, because there are a finite number of modifiers in A Time of War, even in the Tactical Addendum, but giving a player or GM confidence that they've found them all quickly and efficiently has thus far eluded this game, and that needs to change.
The problem that made me realize this is the same problem I had the first day I started playing BattleTech 15 years ago; there's no easy way to verify that you've added all the appropriate modifiers to your roll. Certainly, A Time of War isn't unique in this problem. Anybody who has player a D&D boss battle, especially in 2nd Edition or 3.x, has a memory of a caster flipping through the rule book looking for that one modifier that's going to make the difference in a boss battle. It breaks flow. It snaps the player out of the moment and back into the minutiae of stats and searching for one line they thought they read somewhere about two thirds of the way through one of these sourcebooks...
Anyways, we've all been there. This is a non-trivial operational problem often glossed over in the rules with the words "determine the TN." I've occasionally tried to solve this problem with flowcharts, modifier grouping, or a number of other methods, but one of two things always happens: first, I end up with a lot of special-case scenarios that are as general as I can make them, but somehow real game situations always seem to fall somewhere in the middle, and the end-all list of situations ends up becoming just another tool of approximation. Second, I can get the problem down to a bunch of categories ("select the range modifier", "select the target size modifier", "weather", etc.) but this is how the book does it, and like the book, I always end up with a worrisomely long list of "Miscellaneous" modifiers, usually tied to specific pieces of equipment that have an asterisk in one of their fields on the Equipment tables (I'm looking at you, missiles.)
Vehicular combat again threw this issue into sharp relief because it had me jumping between A Time of War and Total Warfare. I understand why this is; to avoid reprinting rules and to make sure that the core rulebooks sell each other, but it greatly exacerbates the problems of trying to find all the modifiers that apply to a particular roll.
Unfortunately, this issue is more of a statement of a problem than a proposed solution; the kind of statement that would get me kicked out of boss' office. I've tried a number of different ways of getting around this problems and all of them come up short. I'm sure there is a way to do it, because there are a finite number of modifiers in A Time of War, even in the Tactical Addendum, but giving a player or GM confidence that they've found them all quickly and efficiently has thus far eluded this game, and that needs to change.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Encounter Timing
Session 12's combat encounter I expected to run 90 minutes. In the end, it came in a hair over two hours. That worries me a bit in that it was a very simple encounter; there was almost no maneuver on the part of the party or the bad guys -- it was largely a "stand and shoot" engagement. On the other hand, the combat went a dozen rounds -- meaning I can determine that on average a round of combat took ten minutes to compute. In reality, it was considerably less than this, because we did have some interruptions that chewed up time, but I'd say an average turn did take at least 300 seconds to execute.
I'm not drawing any conclusions from that particular datapoint, but the time it takes to run turns is something of great interest to me, and how it is affected by variables such as number and type of opposition and mobility on the terrain is also something you can expect future posts on.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Vehicle Combat
The vehicle combat in Session 12 was rather less exciting than I was hoping it would be. One response I got from the party was that for a large section of the event, the turret was firing at the resistance members, so their turns were just load and fire on alternate rounds. The civilians were particularly susceptible to this, since their role was just to support the gunner of each rifle. Once the turret turned on the party, the game became more exciting, but only in a very anxious way -- beyond taking cover, there was little the party could do to mitigate their risk in being shot.
The result was a battle that felt grindy for about an hour of gameplay. With static vehicles, there was little or no maneuver. There was no real chance for brilliance on the party's part, which I think left them disappointed. It did allow Alex and Shin a chance to show off their impressive combat skills, which was good. I think I need to re-examine vehicles before I use them again as a combat encounter in Ten Years on Terra; there is obvious potential here, but it is harder to harness than I thought it would be.
The result was a battle that felt grindy for about an hour of gameplay. With static vehicles, there was little or no maneuver. There was no real chance for brilliance on the party's part, which I think left them disappointed. It did allow Alex and Shin a chance to show off their impressive combat skills, which was good. I think I need to re-examine vehicles before I use them again as a combat encounter in Ten Years on Terra; there is obvious potential here, but it is harder to harness than I thought it would be.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Session 12
So session 12 worked and didn't work in a lot of ways. Pretty much the entire session was eaten by the vehicle encounter, which at least at the beginning broke down into the party mechanically reloading and firing their recoilless rifles over and over again. The party was able to accomplish the mission, but everybody but Simon was shot at least once.
The first part of the session was spent resolving XP. I'm finding this activity has grown to a half-hour long process even with all the aids and players being comfortable with the system. Once we had that squared away, we moved onto the meat of the session; the contact from the resistance telling them about a convoy ambush.
The party hustled out to the target point and found a weapon drop: three heavy recoilless rifles. They moved into position and Shin chopped down a tree across the road to block the convoy's process. The convoy ended up being only two vehicles; a lead escort and a following science van. The escort was a fairly beefy truck with a machine gun turret, but the party opened up on the vehicle with solid hits, and were quickly joined by resistance members on the other side of the road.
The truck's turret targeted the resistance fighters first, and managed to mow down most of them within a few rounds. After that, the turret turned on the party. The civilians had a lot of trouble with morale checks, especially after the turret opened up and hit Alex and Clark. After that happened, Simon broke and ran, and Shin, unable to operate his rifle without Simon, grabbed two rounds and manually delivered them to the target. He escaped, entered the science van, in which a close-range gun battle ensued, while Alex and Clark were able to get off one last round to disable the van's turret. The turret shutting down tipped the balance of the battle and the party was able to get into the van and claim its contents.
The first part of the session was spent resolving XP. I'm finding this activity has grown to a half-hour long process even with all the aids and players being comfortable with the system. Once we had that squared away, we moved onto the meat of the session; the contact from the resistance telling them about a convoy ambush.
The party hustled out to the target point and found a weapon drop: three heavy recoilless rifles. They moved into position and Shin chopped down a tree across the road to block the convoy's process. The convoy ended up being only two vehicles; a lead escort and a following science van. The escort was a fairly beefy truck with a machine gun turret, but the party opened up on the vehicle with solid hits, and were quickly joined by resistance members on the other side of the road.
The truck's turret targeted the resistance fighters first, and managed to mow down most of them within a few rounds. After that, the turret turned on the party. The civilians had a lot of trouble with morale checks, especially after the turret opened up and hit Alex and Clark. After that happened, Simon broke and ran, and Shin, unable to operate his rifle without Simon, grabbed two rounds and manually delivered them to the target. He escaped, entered the science van, in which a close-range gun battle ensued, while Alex and Clark were able to get off one last round to disable the van's turret. The turret shutting down tipped the balance of the battle and the party was able to get into the van and claim its contents.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Reflecting on TN's
After meditating on the last two entries, I'm coming to the conclusion that Anti-Vehicle weapons only make good sense en masse in the A Time of War system. There is no dramatic shot of the bakooza popping out from behind a building and blowing up the tank in this system. Tanks are tanks, in the RPG sense, and take a load of damage before they're stopped. The real value of Anti-Vehicle weapons, so far as I can tell, is they allow relatively untrained personnel to reliably put a point of damage on a vehicle each time they fire.
This leads me think the way I need to do this ambush is to supply the party with a considerable selection of antivehicle weapons so that Clark and Simon can help put 5 points/round onto the escort vehicle. With three heavy recoilless rifles, they could also serve as support crew for the weapons, and likely keep all three guns firing almost constantly.
We'll see on Sunday.
This leads me think the way I need to do this ambush is to supply the party with a considerable selection of antivehicle weapons so that Clark and Simon can help put 5 points/round onto the escort vehicle. With three heavy recoilless rifles, they could also serve as support crew for the weapons, and likely keep all three guns firing almost constantly.
We'll see on Sunday.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Target Numbers and High Explosives
Explosives tend to have very high AP values, and very high BD values as well, so I want to show a few other charts before I get around to discussing TNs on Explosives. The essential difference is that for BAR's below 7 or 8, it is reasonable to expect to tag the target with multiple points of damage for a single blast. Assuming an exact impact (no bonus damage), the damage curve for Anti-Vehicle ordnance looks like this:
Now, assuming BAR 8 as we did yesterday, we can generate TN's, but the data won't be very interesting as any success will do at least 1 point of damage. We might be interested in the curves for how much damage we do with various MoSes, but MoS does not affect Blast Damage. As a result, we fine that Anti-Vehicle weapons will all but guarantee we put some damage on the target, but they are an expensive alternative if an entire vehicle needs to be disabled.
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