Glenn Jupp of The Seeking Wing is a role-player and war gamer who has a not-too-uncommon BattleTech fetish and started developing an old school BattleTech game using a combo of Mekton and MicroMechWarrior. That is, until he somehow stumbled across my War of the Mecha one-page RPG. Now he's not only playing WotM (with miniatures!) he's posting pix on his blog AND developing his own minutia and random tables for the game.
That's pretty damn cool, for a number of reasons.
First off, it's great that someone's actually using the rules. I liked them a lot myself, developing them because of my own BattleTech fetish.
Second, they actually work! And manage to capture the feel of BT without all the extra rolling...my whole design objective! Fantastic!
Third, in addition to providing someone with enjoyment (my numero uno priority), they're inspiring someone to add their own creativity to the mix (with salvage rules, extra crit tables, and the possible development of random missions and war campaigns). That is super-hip. Creativity breeding creativity can only lead to a more fun (and interesting) world.
Finally, Glenn's own sharing has inspired me. I don't have all the cool minis and such he has but I have a whole box of cardboard terrain and mecha cut-outs (i.e. the BattleTech boxed set) that I may just take down to the Baranof on Thursday. I mean, I plan on running D&D, too, but maybe a little mecha-inspired mayhem as a prelude would be cool. Hell, we can at least use the counters to represent goblins and such in our B/X game.
Super cool. I love this blogger stuff.
: )
P.S. Here's the link for the War of the Mecha supplement, Clan Invasion!
The day I manage to get a gaming group together to play my Bollymecha sandbox idea I will certainly try out your War of the Mecha. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteOn a broader note, this idea I've had has been on indefinite hiatus for the past decade or more because I've been locked into a way of thinking that I have to come up with the whole world, make it as weird and woolly as possible, and then communicate it to players in such a way that they get excited rather than glazing over. Thanks to the OSR I now realise the way to do this is to provide just enough for the first session and then enlist the players as co-creators. D'oh.
Just downloaded your War of the Mecha PDF. Looks good. I use to love Battletech when I was younger and still had the games. Keep thinking I should get the newest set, but never got round to it. Now, maybe I don't have to. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteHey, thanks for the kind words. Going rules-light and fighting the impulse to needlessly complicate things is a bit of a struggle for me, but you and the ChicagoWiz and so many others have set a fantastic example to follow.
ReplyDelete@Richard - Bollymecha sandbox? Do tell.
That is awesome. It rocks when you find someone else enjoying your material and then creating more stuff based on it.
ReplyDelete