thread: 2007-12-13 : Mechaton rules questions?
On 2010-07-09, Magnar M wrote:
I just wanted to say I really love Mechaton. I randomly met Luke Crane when visiting NY in the summer of 2006, and he told me about the game. Last summer I bought the rule book and I've played one offs 10-15 times, introducing the game to new players each time.
For the last months I've been planning the startup of an Oslo-league. I just found your campaign rules draft today, and they look smashing. I didn't know anything was released yet and was considering hacking something together myself.
I'm an avid BloodBowl player, and my drafts for campaign house rules look somewhat like blood bowl when it comes to squad management between matches. But it doesn't feel right.
I've fallen completely in love with your campaign rules for two reasons. First of all they merge completely with the scoring system of the one offs. That makes it much easier to explain them to someone, especially if they have played a one off or two already.
Secondly, and more importantly, because it doesn't contain any experience or leveling or buying systems. You have that in BloodBowl league play, and it does two bad things for the game. One is that some players will care more about building their team than winning the league. That will make league play boring unless everyone share the same agenda for the game or you have enough players that 3+ players compete for points and 3+ players can compete for the "best" build. But that's only an annoying side effect.
The more troublesome problem with the build agenda is that builders will not play ruthlessly with their most valued resources unless they run no risk of loosing them. And if their most precious figures are killed you run the risk of the player killing the mood of the game by guilting the attacker, or just quitting the league because it's not fun anymore.
But I wonder two things: Do the campaign rules work with more than 3 players? And if so, should we add more objectives for each player?
I really like the concept of a campaign doomsday clock but it makes one thing harder and that's leaving a flexibility to play matches without every player present. Maybe you could add the option of letting players play matches where you don't adjust campaign wide score but the winner get's to take an objective point from the loser? and no ticking the clock after the match? I dunno. I think I'll try something like that.
(and to pick up a really old thread: a big advantage with the "no ranged weapons, get a green d8"-rule is that a mech will always be able to get one die for defence and one for movement, until the very bitter end. I think that makes the last couple of rounds more exciting.)
