Lorcan Nagle wrote:
Friday!
Good morning Gencon with B.Dave Walters, Thor Knai and Beth The Bard
Partha Wars chat with Randall, Tommy Rice, B.Dave Walters and Thor Knai
Around 2014 Josh was regularly playing X-Wing, and one of the organisers mentioned it’d be cool if they had a campaign game with a
GM to play the OPFOR and Josh was thinking “who wants to play the OPFOR? Can we automate this?” A few people had played around with the concept.
He had injured his knee and was stuck not able to get around that much, looked at the various other attempts to automate and put together Heroes of the Aturi Cluster. A 17-mission campaign with automated Imperial forces and pilot improvement for the Rebel player.
From there he got a meeting with Wizkids which lead to Star Trek Alliance, a three-box trilogy using the same concepts for Attack Wing.
By that time he was working at Lynnvander and they got the rights to make Snap Ships alliance, which also has automation
During Covid, Randall and Brynn decided to take the downtime to become masters of game design. Randall stuck his neck out and just started mailing people to ask for game samples because they couldn’t trade at cons. They ended up playing over 100 minis games, one of which Alliance. He said that most automation options were meh. Like if a game says 2-4 players “and you can go to 5” you know it’s not fun with 5 players
When Randall first reached out to Lynnvander to collaborate they were already working on Snap Ships. Randall recognised something similar could be done with Alpha Strike.
Lynnvander suggested doing little packs and Randall said “no no no, that’s not what I want”
Tommy and Randall had a bunch of conversations before Josh even knew they were talking about it.
Loren had to be sold on the idea, conversely Randall had to be sold on Gothic and the Continuum boxes.
Randall talked about how he wanted box sets, new minis, campaigns set in the new settings. Loren told him to “stop asking for ponies”
The prior games Josh developed uses a bespoke movement system with templates, but Alpha Strike is more freeform. With the other games once you pick your target it’s straightforward to have an optimum move.
The Aces cards has three columns for behaviour which are decided on based on conditions, and they in turn determine target, movement and attack for the turn.
They’ve almost completely scrapped and redone the system since the open playtest during the Mercs Kickstarter campaign (which was version 4 or so). Josh has some examples of cards which changed through the various iterations.
A military friend of Josh talked about how it should be based on contact priority, this helped prevent light mechs from being baited into overextending.
At this point they had a deck that can run a mech. But they wanted a narrative box set because it’s so important to BattleTech.
Josh wasn’t aware of this when he begun but he’s fully sold on it. He’s done so much research into the setting now that he knows more than some 30+ year veterans he plays with. He started reading Warrior and the Gray Death Trilogy, and then jumped to the Dark Age and backfilled the Clan Invasion, Civil War etc.
Josh began to think about how do you have a commander in charge of the force to give the game some personality. So they made a commander deck. The Aces cards have colour-coded priority, red, yellow and blue, and the commander card shows how you determine which criteria select these priorities. The Commander also can have special rules that can override other elements of Aces.
You can swap out a different commander and it’ll play the same scenario differently.
They got a spreadsheet of all the units in the MUL and Josh searched out units on the extremes of stats to see what ones break the Aces system or come close to. Like units with TMM 0 will never want to move unless you build in an exception
Randall was hoping to have the first box out a year ago, but production issues, shipping, and life all got in the way. Randall thinks the final version is worth the wait.
Randall thinks the co-
op play is very engaging and it’ll help bring players who don’t like competitive play into the universe and the game.
Chris talked about how in a one on one game, a new player is going to be intimidated if they’re facing a 30-year veteran. But if it’s co-
op that veteran is a mentor instead.
The campaign book has 22 missions, and the average campaign should be 7 missions.
The campaign book has a guided tutorial to bring players through the game
They showed off the new terrain in the box - 3D hills, rivers and canyons/ditches.
Other boxes planned:
-Snowblind: Ghost Bear Civil War. Mercs get dropped onto a backwater world in the Rasalhague Dominion and end up in the middle of the conflict. -Josh described it as the path to hell being paved with good intentions.
-Wrath and Reprisal, set on the Andurien/Capellan novel, described as Mercenary’s Star in reverse. The players are garrisoning an Andurien world facing an insurgency.
-Controlled Burn. Set on the Snow Raven/Davion border, the players are fighting a holding action against the Ravens who’ve just hopped across the border. This set will use terrain and biome similar to the Fungal Crevasse map from the Alien Worlds set
For minis production, they followed the same format as the Alpha Strike box where there are two brand new mechs, but Alpha Strike does so well as a combined arms game, so they planned to put cardboard vehicle tokens in the box, and then went “no, plastic tanks” so they swapped out one new mech for two Fulcrums.
The Kraken 3 is the “chase” mini in the set. Not only does it look great but it’s also disgusting in-game.
Every box will have 8-9 minis along the same pattern
They just wrapped fiction on Snowblind
The new plastic minis for Snowblind are the Rime Otter and the Viking IIc
Scouring Sands is printing now. They were incredibly close to having copies at Gencon but it didn’t work out
It’ll hopefully be on boats by the end of August, aiming for November/Black Friday release.
Gothic Aces playthrough with B.Dave Walters, Mike Ciaravella. Jesse Kay (Mech7 GM), Paul Clarkson (Focht’s Network director), Chris Lowry and Josh Derksen
Objective is that there are two disabled Maxim hovertanks, the players have to get base to base with the maxims with no enemy also in base-to-base, pick up cargo and then retreat off-board
The players controlled the Gothic mechs, Josh and Jesse used the Aces decks to control the Mech7
Mike shouted out the Demo Team - over 150 agents working the con (they planned for around 100), and mentioned Focht’s Network, Wolfnet and CamoSpecs Online, all of which are affiliated groups to the Demo Team now
Some of the player mechs were new variants, notably the Phoenix Hawk with a sword, SRM rack and four medium lasers
The game was a narrow victory for the players - both sides secured an objective, but they players got more kills
Quincy and Mike Richie play a board game
Industry pros panel with Loren Coleman, Mike Webb (Wizkids), Paul Alexander Butler (Owner of Games and Stuff, co-owner of Free RPG day), John Ritter (former Kickstarter, runs consulting company called Very Creative Name), Meredith Placko (former CEO Steve Jackson Games, CEO of Turbo Dork paints and accessories)
Interview with Chris Birch (owner) and Ben (Lead writer and design director) at Modiphius
Interview with Suzanne Sheldon, “master of fireworks”, essentially head of marketing at Restoration Games
Fiction panel with John Helfers, Michael Ciaravella, Michael Stackpole, Phil Lee, Bryan Young
BattleTech is 41 years old. Why did you want to start writing, and what keeps bringing you back
Mike Stackpole: It was the mid-late 80s when he started, Dragonlance had just shown that
RPG tie-in fiction worked and everyone was trying to catch up. He shared samples of his then-unpublished novel to FASA, they sent him some BattleTech material and asked him to write a trilogy in nine months. He said “of course”. He was still shopping around his first novel so this was his first work under contract. The setting excited him, the political setup especially interested him due to his history degree.
Bryan: He approached John to write Shadowrun and was told they were full up, how about BattleTech? He’d been introduced to BattleTech via the SNES game in the 90s, so it was familiar enough to him. He got more into it as he began reading the material. He loves the challenge of writing in the shared universe, finding spaces to tell stories that interest and compel him while furthering or not hindering the goals of the developers.
Phil had been writing original fiction for many years, he always wanted to be a published author. He decided to take a shot writing BattleTech fiction, submitted to Battlecorps and Jason Schemtzer published it. He sent in another one which got picked up as well. 18 months later Jason asked him to help with editing, he recognised that Phil had a good eye for storytelling. Phil ended up editing Herb and Ben’s sourcebook material as well in short order.
Mike Ciaravella had a similar story. He sent in a bunch of stories that were rejected, “started buying John dinners” and ended up with a duology. John joked that it was Jason Schmetzer who was rejecting him, put the blame where it’s due! The Warrior Trilogy was his entry point, he loved the mix of politics and drama and action.
John was introduced to Loren via Jean Rabie. BattleCorps still existed at that point, he ended up proofreading but the work he ended up closer to editing. Loren called him up asking how much his fee would be to edit a Shadowrun anthology, and it ballooned since then.
What’s coming up in the BattleTech universe?
Catastrophe Unlimited, the third novella in Stackpole’s
HBS BattleTech tie-in books is out electronically now. Print compilation after the 4th is out
The Longest Day, Jason Schmetzer Battlecorps serial based on a battle in the Clan invasion is just out
The Longest Road, upcoming Jason Hansa story about a Dark Age character John didn’t want to spoil. It picks them up after a long pause and gives them sort of a coda.
An all-Gothic Shrapnel special
Outfoxed, a full-length Fox Patrol novel, out before the holiday season
Silent Assets, the first Silent Reapers novel by Daniel Isberner has been translated from German and is out in December
Next year they’re moving to six novels a year
Wars of Reaving Trilogy finishing up soon
Ghosts of Timkovichi by Bryan Young, taking the Ghost Dogs into the Hinterlands out next year
Snow Raven novel by Mike Ciaravella “when he finishes it”
4-part Ghost Bear novella series by Bryan Young adding detail to their civil war due out between late 2025 and early 2026
Graphic novel scripts are in, they discussed the art with Eldon Cowgur at the con
What’s been keeping Phil going on the Free Worlds League books
He fell into writing the FWL while writing a sourcebook, he forgets which one. Everyone was pitching to write for different factions and he was the only one to pick the League, so he got them by default. When they were developing Shattered Fortress, there were plot points he felt would make good novellas. As he thought about it more they needed novel length, he went to John and asked about expanding the scope and he agreed. He likes how the League is a dysfunctional family, and the Inner Sphere in miniature.
Bryan’s got a few lines going - Fox Patrol, the Clans, the Graphic novel, what’s been inspiring him and catching his attention?
He really likes exploring different corners of the universe. Like he never thought the Fox Patrol would explode as they did. Exploring the Sudeten Falcons as they fight for survival and adapting has been really satisfying as he doesn’t feel there’s been a lot of fiction about how the Clans changed over their century in the Inner Sphere. He feels the cultural change elements are real science fiction and he hopes that people enjoy reading as much as he enjoys writing it
What continues to inspire Mike Stackploe?
When he wrote the Warrior trilogy, everything was still entropic and they realised that had to change if they wanted the game to last. They worked that into the trilogy and then 20-year update, when they had the first writer’s summit. Since then the game’s had a bit of Stackpole’s DNA in it and it makes it very special to him. He’s got a lot of landscape to play on and room to explore characters. When you’re writing novels, everything you’re doing is trying to break a character and there’s so many characters to apply pressure to. Some of them will succeed and some will implode in interesting ways
How has being at the helm of BattleTech during the renaissance for John?
In the mid-late 2000s fiction was at its lowest point, John believed writers were doing full novels on-spec when Loren wanted to start bringing the story forward. The first step of this was A Bonfire of Worlds, it was very amphibious, got most of what they wanted and gave them a way forward. John wanted to start doing original stories which the fans loves, and when they got Legends on the go it gave them the financial base to bring the backlist up to date and move forward on a regular basis. It’s been challenging and humbling at the same time.
To Mike Ciaravella, how does he feel bringing the story forward
He’d been recommended the BattleTech novels back in the day for the politics and Space Opera elements, not even the Mechs. He talked about how Bryan creates amazing characters but he prefers to show the whole scheme from different perspectives, and taking characters who’ve laid fallow for a bit, He feels it’s very humbling to be able to bring pivotal characters forward
Mike Stackpole: The setting, writers and audience have matured to the point that we can do an awful lot in the setting. When they were starting out there was no place for units that are small and fun. It’s fascinating for him how the new writers who’ve come up with the universe looking to explore more. He feels pressure now to push things further because he can’t let these whippersnappers show him up
John: Some elements of the FASA era were a little one-dimensional, such as humour. He’s always wanted to bring that forward and loves how there’s a lot of funny stuff in Shrapnel, like the Ace Darwin stories, the wry comedy of the Death Kangaroos, or some elements of Fox Patrol’s found family being earnest, engaging and amusing all at the same time. It’s not just military
SF any more, it’s the human condition
Mike Stackpole: It’s moving from military science fiction to science fiction. We can have stories not focusing on grand political stuff, more how people are dealing with things, satire and “all that fun stuff”
Mike Ciraravella: And we’ve got stuff like the cookbook, the romance novel, The Art of War and they’re selling very well. The fanbase has inspired them
John: This is why we’re all excited for the graphic novel. There’s been comics before. He’s read some of them… they’re interesting. This is an attempt to do BattleTech the graphic storytelling the right way. BattleTech deserves it and is built for it and he thinks it’s going to be terrific and hopefully pay off in a big way and lead to more bigger things.
What message do you want to give to prospective writers and fans?
John, he loves to interact with fans, and say thank you for playing the game, for reading the fiction, for keeping it going.
Phil: It’s humbling how often people come up to him and say they love Shrapnel. They’re doing an all-Gothic issue in October. Next year issue 25 will be double-sized
Bryan: One of the big things is fundamentals. Learn how to tell a good story and part of that is reading good stories. Take classes, find a community that will help you tell a good story. Talk to writers, get excited about storytelling. And Shrapnel has the open door for submitting stuff. People don’t realise how rare it is that franchises as big as BattleTech to have an open door like Shrapnel
Mike Stackpole: Writing is something you have to do. You have to sit down and write, and you have to read critically. Take notes, break it apart, see what someone else is doing. If you read Shrapnel and if you like three and dislike two stories say, figure out what you like and dislike in each one. Figure out how to do things to make people like or hate characters. Approach it as a job you want.
Mike Ciaravella: If you want to write, write. You can have the best of intentions but you need to write. Also keep the faith, it’s easy to get distracted but if you love what you do, you can keep focus and get inspired.
John: Everyone around the table has surprised him at least once. At least one story in each issue of Shrapnel surprises him. He loves that the question of “how many times can you write big stompy robots” has yet to be answered.
Shadowrun Anarchy 2.0 playthrough with Rem Alternis, B. Dave Walters, Thor Knai, Tommy Rice, Tyler Buckner (director of crowdfunding for Rem Alternis Productions, and Amber (Georgia film worker, art director for the geek forge, played Shadowrun on Gencon TV with Rem in the past)
