OBT Forum

I split the topic, since it had little to do with new releases.

So the question begs? What would you like?

Before you answer, a small caveat:This is a business question. I'd love to read your suggestion and also justification with an eye towards the market. If you don't have firm knowledge of the market, that's cool, but I'd still like to hear why you'd want things to be a certain way.

Have you mentioned it to Joel?

Good deal. I'm not sure it's worth clogging the pipeline further, but I wouldn't mind seeing the LAM rules in final print. 

Having to analyse CMP's and HMP's for work makes life easy for I suppose.

A 2-year-moritorium on advancing the story past 3145. Return to the previous time periods and detail them, introducing people to each of the major eras:

(1) Star League

(2) Succession Wars

(3) Clan Invasion

(4) Jihad

Potential products could be...

BattleTech Era Set
Any time a major split in the time period happens, either a Starter Set or Boxed Set is published. A "starter" would be a pack of miniatures geared toward the time frame, as well as a separately-published book (which could be purchased in tandem with the miniatures pack for a discount). It could include a short detailing of the time period, in the form of a manual like Era Report: 2750 combined with technical data from the 2765 Field Reports, with RATs, scenarios and a description of the politics and conflicts of the day. Bios on the major players and a cliff-hanger setting for potential games the players could create. (e.g.: "The Lyrans have massed their armies along the Loburg salient and are poised to retake their territory").

Boxed Sets
The Boxed Sets are just completed, prepackaged versions of each of the major eras of play, which happen to include a basic, kickstarter rule set like CBT.com has on its main page. The difference being that each kickstarter is geared toward the era. A generic rule set, reprinted from book to book, followed by a section specifically detailing each type of equipment specific to the era. (Variable Speed Pulse and Small Cockpits for Jihad, for example). These would come with the maps and a larger, poster-sized map of the era, including cards for tables and RATs.


I'd like to see each of the previous eras covered in this manner before moving on to 3145. We need to move past the Succession Wars as a starting point and get people into the eras being published. We just had a whole bunch of Star League books come out (eight? nine?) and practically nobody I know has bothered to start a campaign in this era of play. Why? They know very little about it and haven't been told that they should be interested.

While Boxed Sets could be limited in printing, Era Sets would be like the starter packs you got for MechWarrior AoD and available in varieties at a game store. You might only need one Boxed Set, but you could buy an Era Set to get you used to each time period.

They've been doing this already and will be continuing to do it as they fill in some of the back history with Historicals, Era Digests and the FR2765 PDFs

No, not PDFs. I mean physically printed miniatures and books available at game stores. Historicals assume you know the rules to BT already and have some familiarity with the game. Take the rule book from the Boxed Set and combine it with a Historical + miniature pack from that era.

in terms of plot no, but in terms of game mechanics, it is quite relevant