Battletech/ Tunnels and Trolls from Jeffro's Space Gaming Blog

 So I tried out Jeffro's Battletech/Tunnels and Trolls mash-up today, I was quite pleased.  I was serendipitously intrigued when I had both read the article that chronicled the early games and design ( https://jeffro.wordpress.com/2023/09/09/mecha-in-tunnels-trolls/ ), and picked up a copy of Battletech 4th ed for real real cheap at the Brimfield Antiques Show all in the same week.  a thorough reading of the article and referencing the mech stats from the back of the rulebook was enough to make converting things over to T&T, which is another system I have no prior knowledge of.  I got a pdf of that (1st ed) for $2, and that was very easy to digest, in all my years of gaming I always just assumed T&T was just too simplistic and really just for choose your own adventure type solo games.  the combat and saves mechanics are really all you're using so I found 1st ed to be a fine version to use though it seems 4th ed is the preferred version.  It took me about an hour of understanding the ranges and combat numbers, the movements bands and activations.  I very much like it for quick solo games or over discord resolutions. I could definitely see this going well over a discord chat and using a die roller in the chat.  it also could be used for quick combat resolution in a larger more rpg type game.  there's a lot of options I could see people using it for.  I really like its simplicity, and ease of making adjustments.  I allowed my teams to have 4 points they could distribute amongst themselves to give bonuses to either movement or shooting rolls.  I also ruled that Banshee's PPC would reroll 1's on damage to represent it's power.  

I ran an Atlas and a Cicada vs a Banshee and an Assassin.  The Atlas and Assassin both had long range missiles, and fired them at each other while holding still (I allowed a +1 to shooting if the mech did not move that round)  The Atlas hit and did 39 of 40hp damage to the Assassin.  I ruled it would be fully stunned 1 round then -1 to move the next round.  It simultaneously fired its LRM back but missed!  the Cicada lept forward 1 range band.  I just broke up the map into 4 slices, 2 on each side of the fold to represent 4 range bands.  each time a unit moved closer i moved them 4 hexes forward.  I ignored terrain for the first game, but would like to add some at least for line of sight blockers affecting combat a little.  After that the Banshee was able to get 20 damage off on the Atlas, but it wasn't enough to affect his rolls the next turn, and the cicada got in close range with its med laser and the Atlas hammered away with its AC20.  I could have got the Assassin back in the game on a suicide run, but it was kind of over at that point and I definitely got the gist of how this game plays.  It's quite slick.  I would highly recommend, Battletech 4th ed pdfs were free online, I was fortunate enough to score those cardboard cutouts from the box, they had all the standees and even the little unit decals, but you could use Tau models from 40k, legos, or I bet there's sci-fi chits easily found online.  Give this mashup a try, click the link to see the original article/concept.  

Appendix N+ Book Review- Planet of the Damned by Harry Harrison

Harry Harrison- Planet of the Damned 1962

With Harry Harrison’s Planet of the Damned we have the first review of a book not mentioned in Appendix N, but representing the “+” in this series- basically Appendix N adjacent material I’m researching and reading.  This is pulpy sci-fi, no fantasy influence here, but I’m very interested in this book because it’s connected to a side project I’m working on- an Escape From New York inspired Braunstein RPG.  I’ve always been a huge EFNY fan, and in researching my game idea I found out that this book was a big inspiration for the film.  In the book, a heroic winner of a planet wide greatest warrior competition is dispatched to a primitive and dangerous planet that has been accused of having weapons of mass destruction capable of destroying a nearby inhabited planet.  He and his crack team of experts have mere days to navigate the dangerous new world, infiltrate its strange peoples and find out if in fact they do have the weapon and if so neutralize it before the planet is bombed to oblivion from orbit.   I have not read any Harrison before, I have heard good things about his Stainless Steel Rat series, but this is my first reading, and i must say he pulls off some things that in this day and age may seem tropey and overused, but as this was written in 1962, was probably seen more as an upping in the intensity and tension in pulp sci-fi.  The classic “timed mission” that will end in some kind of doomsday event is a theme explored in other genres such as war and action/adventure, andHarrison does it well.  The pressure of the short time of the mission, fighting fatigue but needing sleep, and a few tics in the story that shorten the already feverish pace of the story work well and don’t feel hokey.  Also, Harrison does a thing seen often in more modern stories- introduce a strong heroic character, then kill off said character early in the story as a way of disjointing the reader, and conveying an extreme sense of danger in their story.  Our protagonist is originally the subordinate of this character, the one in charge, the one with the plan, and  with his death happening in the first few minutes of landing on the planet, Harrison excellently and concisely brings the reader into the seriousness of the situation.  There are some cool sneaky/ infiltration scenes in the book, some great action/ fight scenes, and a great frenetic pace.  The chapter lengths are perfect, each a bite sized capsule that leaves you wanting to read the next, and some great descriptions of the desolate Road Warrior like planet and its dangerous hearty people.  A great fun ride that at the time likely pushed the envelope on edginess.  Must read for EFNY fans, you can definitely see things that influenced John Carpenter.

Planning this Mashup, PC to Domain Level Play