What is microMechwarrior? It is an adaptation several rulesets: 1st edition Mechwarrior™ RPG, microlite20 and microlite20 modern. In 8 pages, it covers chargen, task resolution, combat, healing, equipment, advancement and conversions to use your characters within the Battletech™ boardgame.
From the designer notes:These rules are best used for quickly adding an RPG “rules-light” component to a Battletech game, for playing a convention game that combines RPG and the Battletech boardgame, or if you simply wish to have a quick alternative to the current Mechwarrior role-playing games. The idea is that these rules are simple and that the Game Referee will usually say “Yes” or “Roll dice” to most situations. Not all situations are covered by these rules; a certain amount of flexibility and Game Referee creativity needs to be employed.These rules have had some playtesting and I'll be using them in my upcoming WinterWar convention game as well as any Battletech/Mechwarrior campaigns I might start. Your feedback and input are always welcome to help make the rules better. I'll leave this blog post up as the permanent home to the rules, as well as record any discussion on the rules in the comments.
To have the best “rules light” RPG/board game experience, my recommendation that you combine these “micro” rules with the Classic Battletech Introductory Rulebook and the Vehicle and Infantry Combat rules from the Classic Battletech Quick Start. No attempt has been made to include any of the other vehicle types, such as conventional aircraft, Aerotech or Starships. The GM should employ their best judgement and houserule as they see fit to make the characters work within the boardgame in a straightforward fashion. I’ve also left out a lot of things that are going to be campaign dependent, such as creating a unit, figuring out Battlemech assignments, dealing with salvage and a 101 more things – but these are all things that you as a GM would want to figure out either on your own or from existing source materials.
A character record sheet is available here.
Further legalese - Battletech and Mechwarrior are trademarks and copyrighted IP of Whizkids, FASA and Microsoft. This is a fan-derived set of houserules that I'm sharing for the general interest of others and to bring value to the Battletech game universe. In other words, I ain't makin' a dime on this and please don't sue the crap out of me.
6 comments:
This looks great, Chgowiz! You really do a good job with these rules distilations. I never did play Battletech as a young gamer, but I think this might be a good starter to run for my nephews.
I didn't distill Battletech the Boardgame - to be honest, the Quick Start and the Intro rules do a really cool job of that already. I wanted something light to go along with those rules for RPG'ing.
The Quick Start is enough to get young kids into the game in a hurry. Highly recommend it.
This is awesome, good work man.
This is really interesting stuff. I definitely like that it allows for quick and easy integration. It would be fun to try out a squad v. squad with these rules.
I have a couple of suggestions. Why not have the skill level subtract from the TN like 2d6>=(TN-skill). I know its algebraically the same, but aesthetically it fits better with the boardgame. Also why not determine piloting and gunnery by taking TN-Skill?
Hi Taharqa!
Why not have the skill level subtract from the TN like 2d6>=(TN-skill).
I was thinking consistency more than anything - all the combat rolls add/subtract modifiers, so I decided to be consistent. I'm guessing that like anything else, the players will quickly develop shorthands.
The Battletech G/P gets a little more complicated. According to the 1st Edition MW rules - "Find the Skill Roll Base Target of governing attribute [stat] and modify this number with skill level."
Since in mMW, skill levels progress more slowly and without point builds ala MW1e, that means an average Mechwarrior (DEX 7, MIND 7) would have a Piloting/Gunnery of 6/6 (Mechwarriors start with skill levels of Know 1, Coor 1) - that just sucks in the boardgame. So I went with what is the "average" n00b stats from the Quick Start and Intro Rules - a 5/4 P/G. Game Masters are free to alter that to their liking, thought - I think a 6/6 would make for a long Mech fight.
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