Ep 101: Running Campaigns 101

0:00Hello, mech warriors and welcome to the mech bay where we fix your mech and fix your game What's going on mech warriors? I'm your host Steve. I've got my co-host lore master denim Howdy, howdy and we are the mech bay podcast your number one source for all things casual to competitive battle tech and today's episode is sponsored by mech warrior Ned McDermant and cadets Brock and Mac Ronan call sign seawiz in his black Python along with chad holes and subtle calm We thank you guys for your continued support and really appreciate you help it us out You may have noticed that Josh is not here today and this is because Josh has locked himself in the supply closet taking refuge from all those Adoring fans pounding on the doors asking for blue chips the rare blue chip

1:04So elusive so secretive I must have for any true mech bay podcast fan Today We're talking about campaigns Welcome class to campaign running 101. That's right. It is episode 101 It oh my goodness. It is yeah, I was gonna make some other joke. I like that one way better. This is episode 101 How to run a campaign. It's a correct campaign. It's rudimentary. How we run our campaigns. I think this is gonna be a great episode denim you've done a lot of this I've done quite a bit myself But before we dive into it Let's get started with news hobby progress games played and even a little bit of fan mail ooh For news today we have silent assets a new book released by Daniel Eisenburner And it should be out extremely soon if it's not out by the time this happens. It's been announced a little while ago We have seen the release of both the carita ranger and carita command lance Which is pretty exciting denim. I know you play a lot of carita

2:07Oh, I'm super excited about both of these the avatar alone Is is amazing We've got multiple mechs with swords um It's it's I'm super super happy and we'll get into that in hobby progress But uh, but we've got some problems in my office because of that But um I like both lances. I like the iconic mechs. They picked out Um, I'm not too sure about the panther because it looks so similar to the other panther They've done that a couple of times with some of the reposes like the morgan kel archer is just like a torso twist with an arm raised We got a couple different black checks that are minimally reposed But I am glad they included the panther in this box because if you didn't it would feel wrong Well, yeah, yeah, I'm a little surprised they didn't have a gender Um, the grand dragon needed to be like you needed to have a model for the grand dragon But it does look really similar to the regular dragon like super similar

3:07It's just like the weapon ports that are different sure sure Well, we'll talk a little bit about that uh more in hobby progress for sure Other news we have force manual mercenary is now available through cgl I believe fortress miniatures and games has them as well Uh, I'm not sure if he has a pre-order setup. I have to look into it. I Don't know if I'm going to get a copy of this um, I know it's been looked at for a while people I'm kind of excited for it, but from what I've seen Uh, it looks very similar to the previous mercenary handbook Yeah, it's super similar to the combat manual series uh, because they did a mercenary one of those um and a credo one and To be honest a lot of it is it feels like it's copypaced like word-for-word exactly what what it was before there are some new things They have a push the era forward a little bit. So if you don't have the combat manuals. Yeah, you should pick it up if you do

4:12Um I mean you know me Steve. I'm going to have it on my bookshelf next to all of my other ones So I am I'm definitely buying a hard copy um But that's because I got a catch it all yeah personally. I I'm kind of the opposite. I do not have a lot of the books. I don't have any of the arrow books I don't know of any of that stuff. I've got the rule books The couple of fiction novels that I have been interested in but a lot of the other stuff I pass on mostly because Lore's not my jam. Do you have the the Spine Art uh books? I think I'm only missing total or not total war. I have that one um A time of war time of war. Yes that one. I think that's the only one I'm missing that one doesn't have any timber wolf on it So if you're gonna miss any of them, that's the one to miss but but I definitely have all of those. I like the Spine Art books Yeah, it's pretty cool. You just gotta make sure you put them back in the right order. Otherwise, they'll just be annoyed Yep Do that on purpose to throw people off their game It works

5:12Things to note about the first manual mercenary there was a slight hiccup with a digital release I believe that has been repaired and they should be available on CGL's website So yes, if you're interested go check it out It's always nice to see new Books coming out at least you know it means that the printers are still working Sorry CGL's website and drive-through RPG both of those places if you purchase it from them If you if they ever put out an update they will automatically allow you to download the updated PDF for free Are they updating drive-through RPG now? I think originally they weren't oh they have been for for it almost a decade now. Yeah, I've I've done that before When I first started getting back into battle tech about seven or eight years ago I got a lot of stuff off of drive-through RPG and I have routinely updated you know downloaded updated versions of my PDFs through that No great great Any of the news that I missed

6:13I'm sure there's news out there, but I don't I don't know it's been a busy week you know tournaments and stuff sure has been Hobby progress denim What have you done up to oh? My Hobby desk looks like a crime scene. It definitely looks like I have murdered multiple people on there um, I have both of the new Corridor Lance packet actually I have two of each of both of the new Corridor Lance packs And because of the avatar I grabbed some inner-sphere elementals and everything is being painted red Um, there are splatters spills Uh speckles from from dry brushing. It is a red mess on my desk It would be wouldn't it? Yeah Gross actually I painted them all blue and they all turned red due to the blood of my enemies. I have defeated I think that's the wrong IP denim

7:13Something something blood god Corridor mechs swords equals blood spray everywhere Does my armor bleed? Um, my armor bleeds red steed I must have missed that part of the lore. Would you gotta kill a mech first? I am with the way I've been rolling that's hard to come by man I too have acquired both the Corridor Ranger and the Corridor Command Lash thanks to Bobby at Fortress Minatures and Games Thank you Bobby Yeah, Bobby's great man. He's a great supporter and Bobby is just about everything that you could imagine regarding battle tech and other related games He even helps feed Josh's halo addiction, which I don't think is healthy But uh, I've also started painting my Corridor models um, which is I guess really a surprise to no one if there were one inner-sphere faction that was not a bird and talked about honor all the time They're about as close to clanders as you can get in the inner-sphere real there. It's so honorable

8:15But not too honorable and there's certainly not humble But just the right amount of humble Absolutely not But no, I started painting mine. I did not paint my red I'm going for ganyoshia, so I'm gonna be doing that ash gray um Which I'm kind of excited for I got a I got a recipe that I'm going to try to follow and it's looking good so far Nice the problem is I didn't Really do the part where you like do a test model with like one or two or even four or eight Nope, nope. I built out two full companies that I'm paying 25 models already because I hate myself apparently This is the way I just dive in face first into the shallow end and you know go from there But it's slow going more than half of her Kind of a mess, but um, I don't have anything to show for him yet But it's been kind of fun experimenting with colors that are not yellow or white

9:18So getting back to normal paint colors has been a breath of fresh air. Hey koreeda is a fun faction to play It is look. We've got all these things with swords now. I I cannot pronounce it, but the row Row could be Sure, I just keep calling them bryobies like my tools in the shed, but My bryobie gang no, but they the models are nice man. They got like swords going every which way you get an extra arm Yeah, in case you want the four the sword going forward or the or the proper The proper hand yep, yeah, yeah, you know what I'm gonna do. I put the reverse hold on mine So he's got it like sword down, but it is with a very specific reason I want to take the regular arm with the sword upright And I want to use it as a terrain piece And I want to paint the arm Because that arm looks extremely similar to a certain faction's logo So I want to paint it in the liao arm color right with the sword

10:22That's amazing and I'm gonna stick it underneath the next foot Because it's gonna be gross and rad all at the same time the kids don't say rad anymore. Do they done? Well, you know what we're bringing it back bringing it back rad right here. I'm gonna back rad sick That's that's kind of better than what I'm doing with that extra arm All I'm doing is taking one of the um the chimeras and and one of those the jumps seven Um has a c3 and a sword So I'm going to just pop that on to the right arm and and give it a sword on my model as well Oh nice doing a little bit of wizzy wig. All right. Yeah Um Trying to think of this any other progress I am helping my son build his very first pinewood Derby car Nice. So that's a gas land style No, I let him pick he wants like a Like an old school racing kind of car with a big you know nose and like the little Welled out seat with the dude in the goggles and like a little windscreen the old school. Let's go a little scarf

11:25Yeah, exactly. That's that's the that's the look he's going for he showed me a picture What he wanted to be and I've butchered it horribly because my skill saw skills are Not great But I am using your brush. He's supposed to be doing that. You're just supposed to be helping He is five if you think I'm letting a five-year-old anywhere near a skill saw you sir are insane I bet he still all has all of his original fingers still to he he does and I have most of mine. So we're we're okay Um No, so it's been it's been good man. We've been Doing some hobby stuff. It's been low pressure for brawl in the bluegrass. I did not paint a single model I just used out anything I had laying around so it's been pretty stress-free. I'm not You know racing to get anything done. It's been Kind of nice. I'm trying to Get over a little bit of hobby burn out and I'm trying to ease my way back into it by painting two full Companies of getting you know sure, but that that aside we're we're easing our way into it. We're getting we're getting

12:31But next up denim Steve games played Have you played a game? I Can't have these two new Forcebacks out without Feeling some serious Karita and my friend Thiel local guy awesome guy love Thiel Yes He he did the same thing, but with the the Davian forcebacks So he challenged me publicly Uh, with his fanatose forest falconer 8R Hellspawn 9F and the enforcer 5R very Davian force however That force has a lot of MRM's and a lot of Heavy lasers of all sorts Also more than one Gauss rifle. I think there's two Gauss rifles in that list Oach Yeah, yeah, it was scary So I wanting to have some fun

13:33Took the the Akuma 1x the Shiro SH1v the grand dragon dr g7k and your favorite Roku Roku b rk 4t Yeah, the royal favorite because you don't know how to pronounce it. Yeah, right precisely The drill the rio b the skill saw he's got blades and Vibrates hang on So all of his have jump jets none of mine have jump jets. That's a problem. It it We played on the badlands map. So there's a lot of terrain But I lost initiative A lot but that gave me the opportunity to control the battlefield Um So I made it so he had to follow me over to where I wanted if he wanted to get any kills So I was able to set up like ambushes stuff like that Uh I will tell you those Karita max especially the ones with the swords like the Shiro and the Roku Roku b They don't have a lot of firepower especially four max of their size Roku Roku b has a single light

14:37Auto cannon five I did put the proper ammo in there because it has two tons of ammo. So I have one ton of precision one ton of armor piercing Groose yeah, yeah precision We'll pack at anybody moving too fast and the armor piercing will uh Will make people hesitant to stand still But maximum damage is five points in the shooting phase Maximum damage is five points with that sword in the in the melee phase Uh surprisingly weak Yeah, yeah, uh the Shiro's got four LRM tens and an LB2X But they're playing LRM's so no no uh No minimum range that's something Um Those two though the Shiro and the Roku Roku b may not have a lot of firepower, but they both have hardened armor And they're pretty fast for their size Um then the other one of the akuma is just a tank. It's just there to to absorb hits

15:39And the grand dragon is just to get into position I don't think I've ever had a grand dragon last more than four or five turns ever really But But he serves a purpose he's out there to to get in front have everybody shoot at him while everyone else gets into position for the kill Um Yes, Thiel's Davians put out an incredible amount of firepower gals rifles heavy improved lasers MRM's uh But the hardened armor and just the massive amount of armor in the akuma at weighed one the day The grand dragon did go down. I think he fell unconscious turned three um So he was unconscious all of turn four turned five. He went to stand up failed his piloting role Um impaled himself on a tree Uh with the embarrassment he had from that he committed sepecu on turn five

16:41So he was technically out by turn three, but he finished himself off on turn five brutal Yes Yes, absolutely brutal. I will say I love the akuma's model Oh, yeah, it's got like the mask thing going on. It's got like a little only face I think that's that's great. I'm really excited to paint mine. It was modeled after the atlas. So it's a it's creed as budget atlas And it does its job. It has it has a lot of firepower just like the atlas. It's got max armor just like the atlas It's slow But it doesn't need to be fast um So with the with the other three this year or the rokuro kubi and the akuma Yes, they were undergunned But they could absorb so many hits that you know gals rifles in the head Oh, look, I still have internal structure left things like that. Wow Yeah, the Davian's just couldn't couldn't Put out enough damage before I got in there and uh and got a few kills this hero did run over because the

17:44Show's got the four LRM's and the LV2X, but it also has a sword and um It ran over and uh and decapitated the Thanos when it fell to the ground Uh, it attacked it while it was on the ground sliced the head clean off So and Thanatos or the prototype from Marvel both Both excellent. Okay. Both. Yes, the Thanatos Who is being piloted by Thanos? Don't confuse me. Well, I don't know Okay Denim next time you paying a Thanatos. Can you please paint one arm gold with a couple of different colored knuckles for you? I will yes, I'd be great. I want a Thanatos with a infinity gauntlet. Thank you denim. Yes done consider done um Right All that was left on his side was the health spawn Uh, who tried to DFA my akuma and was just obliterated by by everything That's a bold move. It was it was Fantastic game

18:45Carito won feel did admit to be later because he is also a huge Carita fan He tried his hardest. He wanted it to be a big fight. He was secretly happy that Carito won I mean feels a very good player So he may have lost on purpose and you didn't realize he absolutely did not we had that discussion, but he may have lied to you denim He earned a chip. So good. That's good. He has he has a red Carita colored chip Excellent Yes, excellent But you and he games Got a couple got a couple uh, we played a campaign day in a local shop which went relatively well I can talk about that little more later when we talk about our um You know our campaign stuff, right? Uh, but I did have Possibly one of the best Fridays. I've had in a very long time Work has been kind of keep me down and uh been really stressed out recently, but My son had a

19:47My son had his first Field trip for school, which was very exciting So I went as a shaperone to the zoo And I have not been to the zoo In a surprisingly long time and it was very exciting Steve how does this relate to battle tech well after the zoo We came home because I was a shaperone so we didn't have to get on the bus I could just take him back to the house and we have all afternoon to hang out and do whatever we want And he's like dead can we play battle tech and I'm like absolutely What is he want brownie points probably he got an extra helping words. Yeah, absolutely um But you know, I know a while ago I'd mentioned that I picked up the clan command star with him because he'd come with me in the the shop So he had his you know, dire wolf and his um, you know summoner and Shadowcat and all that stuff that was in that box and we'd we'd put base coats on them And he was happy and often didn't want to meet a fuss with him anymore. So they're just bright colors um

20:47So I made an equivalent force of Jade Falcons, right? And so I took like a Turkina a summoner Fire Falcon Helbringer and And Might have been a black laner was my other one. Mm-hmm. So I just tried to bring like very Jade falcony falcon max just something fun to do And easy on the kid I see. Yeah, well For the first several turns I was kind of concerned my dice luck were not very good and he was smoke And we played with single attack role so he could just do you know, seven damage with his dire wolf at a turn You know deleting things always a kid fox is what it was I took a kid fox not a black laner. I apologize very very different. Yes. Well, no, no I I couldn't remember the other one was but I remember now because the Dire wolf just consumed it whole But what ended up happening is he started to miss and I started to get you know behind him and start to take some shots Um, and it really came down to his summoner and needing to roll a five plus to kill my fire falcon and he would have tabled me

21:53He rolled a three Now dear listener You may be asking Steve You didn't table your five-year-old did you? Wait, wait, wait, you were playing Jade falcon weren't you? Oh yes Lessons must be taught Jade the Jade falcon tomon has no place for weak-willed warriors friends Say what? We use this as an object lesson and Really trying to teach him that you can still have fun Even if we lose That's right and as I say it not as I do right Absolutely. I need to learn that lesson 100% um But oh he he kind of I think he understood man. It's good. You know we're we're trying, you know And we're doing our best here. So uh, I think he he he was bummed But he said he had fun and he wanted to play later And I said do you want to play again now? We got enough time before you know mom and your brother come home And he goes no that's okay

22:55Can we play gas lands instead? And I'm like absolutely buddy. We're playing gas lands and I once again learn the lesson the yellow cars can jump when confronted with you know cars trying to block their path. So Um again news to me, but I got to play gas land so I didn't complain too hard That's right. I see why he wanted a pallet cleanser after that and gas land seems to be more uh More friendly to him winning Well, when your yellow cars can jump over obstacles. Yes. That's a Yeah, we tell you learn to about the yellow mechs But no, um, that was a great Friday. I got to go to the zoo. I got to play battle tag I got to teach my child lesson and we got to play gas lands. Oh, that was a Did you get to pet the rhinoceros at the zoo? I highly recommend it. Do you know how hard it is to chase Three children two of which are not yours around the zoo and make sure that everybody comes home with other fingers Yeah, I used to I used to do that for school kids

23:55For my kids all the time at school. I was the I was I was the chaperone all the kids wanted because I would you pay the little extra money to let them go into the To the petting parts or whatever whatever was it took extra money and the other parents would be like no We're not doing that. I'd be like everyone go So they almost me. That's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah. No, I was the um I was a slave driver on that trip I'm the one who's like you get off the railing you come over here everyone's standing together These are the rules no running sit out and I was The children I was in control of were well-behaved Watch what happens when Jacob falls in the lion pit go Jacob Oh, I had to ask all the kids, you know What's the one animal you want to see so we could make sure all the kids got to see what they wanted Of course the kids picked the three animals that were furthest apart in the freaking zoo Uh-huh. We spent a lot of time walking but the kids were tired, which is good. So Any tales from the hiring hall

24:56Uh, none that I am prepared to talk about right now. I did start a new a new mercenary unit Um, and uh spoiler alert. I have to start another new mercenary unit. So Oh, you're gonna make us wait until next time. Yeah. Yeah, it's a story I'm I'm excited to hear it I have one track left in the wicked hogs And I may wrap that up Thursday this week. We'll see Um, I'm hoping to We've been installed for a week or two. We haven't had a chance to play our contract So uh when I finish that up, we'll we'll have a report Nice We do have some upcoming events coming um Several over the next several months and these are just the ones that I was able to think of off the top My head and sticking this list if I miss something Food free to email us at the mechbay podcast at gmail.com And we can make sure the your event ends up on the calendar or at least in the announcement section of the discord Upcoming march 25th through the 29th in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We have a depth to come

26:02Should be a good time. It's a big deal. It's still a new place So it works out uh the trash panda open is April 12th Um, sorry, April 11th and 12th in new port news, Virginia That's close to me Are you going? No Well, okay We have the Richmond opened that is May 1st through May 3rd in Wait for it Richmond, Virginia Okay, I I want to just be clear that that I'm not not going because I don't want to It's because my April is already full. I realize that my nose sounded like no No, I would love to go, Steve. I absolutely would Um Just people keep uh Scheduling these tournaments for for days that I already have stuff. So it's not very nice I never doubted you for a second denim. Yeah, but they might they don't know me like you do It's fair Uh next event as one I'm particularly partial to motor city mayhem is May 16th in Farmington Hills, Michigan

27:03Which is just north of Detroit for those of you that don't know the area uh motor city mayhem is Filling up we got 42 people signed up already down. That's pretty exciting. Wow. That is that is fantastic Yeah, we're not even all the way through March yet So I've got lots of space if you're interested in coming to the new venue It's in a hotel you can walk from your room to the venue very nice Um, I'm excited. We got some new missions that we're working on for this year uh, we're print and swag already So should be a very good time We also have wars on Atlanta, which is May I think 20 second to the 24th Um, and that's in Atlanta, Georgia We also have strategic comm which is May 22nd to the 25th in Los Angeles, California And we have ACO the Atlantic City open, which is a battle tech and alpha strike event from June 12th to June 14th in Atlantic city

28:04New Jersey That one is run by Brad Nichols who is a wonderful guy and if you have the opportunity to go hang out and play a battle tech with Brad You should absolutely do it. I've played him twice now and I have learned something new every time So if you're in that area or have the ability to travel and your calendar is open check out any of these great events I'm sure you will have fun For the first time in a long time denim We have some fan mail Mail man got some mail here It's exciting stuff We did get a listener from the ua e uh, his name was john john want to appreciate all the kind words you sent us and we will address her question But we need some additional time because we want to make sure that we put it in an episode that it is well suited for But we will tackle the subject of your email soon TM Yep Yep, yep, yep We also got an email from Jacob s Jacob writes Hello there

29:04General canobi Just getting hidden put that part in there No, but I was about to until you said it It's just a reflex. It's just a reflex can't help it He says figured I'd make this an email instead of a discord message since you guys need more emails I'm hosting a game night for my work next week I've heard rumors that some co-workers do tabletop and RPG And it's a pretty nerdy group there are much a satellite engineers apparently So I'm gonna try and get a few games of battle tech again I don't play very much and I haven't done an intro game with more than one person before You guys have much more experience introducing players And I'd love some advice on how to set up and run an intro game for a few people I've got the 2014 introductory box the alpha strike box and the merc box plus the battle mic manual I have 3d printed maps in terrain And the game should probably run less than two hours What is the best way to hook a few new players? Thanks Jacob

30:07I have a go-to mission. I noticed that you don't have the game of armored combat box But inside there is a mission and I'll list the becks that it it recommends, but you can use anything that's similar But it checks all your boxes It can be played in less than two hours. It looks great if you've got maps with 3d terrain Um, and it works with several people. I tend to play it with up to four players So on one side you have an assault class mech in the box said it's a it's a battle master Um That battle master is trying to make it back to his unit. He got cut off So you put the two maps short edge together. So it makes one long map So that guy starts at one end of the map and his objective is just to walk all the way over It doesn't have to walk you can run a few ones and get off of the other edge Um, the other mechs in the box that are coming after you

31:10Uh, those would be the locust the wolverine and the commando So You can have up to four players in this one It's really good about teaching the differences between likes mediums and assaults Um It's really important to show off the uh, how how melee works and how zoning works So it's it's not a kill mission because the battle master is just trying to get off And the other three are trying to stop the battle master so I would put the most experienced person on the battle master and uh And use it as an intro to teach the other people to play which means that if it's intro came and they've never played It's a great game to just pause and say okay Let's go over this here your options. What do you want to do or I see you moved over there? Um, your locust only moved one the locust's armor is speed not armor So even if you want to go one you should run the long way around and have that one hex move take seven hexes to do

32:14And get your modifier up there. It's great for learning stuff like that Um, I've always had a lot of fun. It is my go-to Intro game at hangry team. So that's my advice You know one of these days. I'm gonna read the actual stuff that's in those boxes Some of them are really good. Yeah, I just pull the plastic out and I should probably start reading that stuff But no, that's a great option denim and you know Jacob if you were to ask me I normally recommend Like a two on two style game. I'd recommend using mostly mediums if you don't want to do denim's game idea I'm sure by the time this gets out there your event will have come and gone and I hope that the email response we said earlier helps you um But this is you know Another option for the next time you and your co-workers get together, but normally when I do intro games I do maybe You know Two on two maybe both mediums Try to give them no case try to make them explosive right have something exciting happen

33:15Get those ammo crits and and watch things explode Rather than giving everything case and pulse lasers and watching them all do it out for 10 hours So that's always another option recommended minion backs would be stuff like like hunchbacks things that Have big guns. So when they hit you know it And so it makes for an exciting and short game Which is good because if they like it then they can take the other max that can take more punishment Uh later on, but yeah, yeah, nothing gets a person hooked faster than getting kills I I agree um Jacob I hope that information is helpful to you and I'd love for you to write in and tell us how it went With that said We're gonna take a short break here and we'll come back with our main subject How to run campaigns Good evening. I'm chipdarrington

34:16It is well known that plan jade falcon has been reduced in both size and number after their catastrophic bid for terror led by the notorious Melvina hazen Since then jade falcon holdings have been rapidly dwindling and the need for fresh mac warriors has been marked by an increase in jade falcon claimed Tonight we focus on one such group of said bonsman they call themselves the desgro luchadors The former DCMS mac warriors were involved in what is now known as the battle for the bay The group was reportedly defeated and claimed by a star captain only identified as Steve former chute of the group chris tebow stated that initially the luchadors were not well received by the falcons Not only due to their free-birth status, but were labeled sohama given their age They are named for their fondness of the old terran lucheliebrae style of wrestling and have internalized those lessons and flare When in the cockpit these mac warriors don their colorful leather masks and have a penchant for physical attacks

35:18seen as desgro by the falcons their tactics prove strangely successful And thus they are permitted to continue operating within the clan As the jade falcons continue to consolidate their power in the hinterlands It can be expected that more mac warriors will be claimed as bonsman in the near future This has been chipdarrington, signing off Welcome back class to campaign day 101 We're going to cover what to do when you want to run your own campaign Now we did already cover campaign operations in episode 21 And again cast campaigns in episode 61 So we are back after another 40 episodes to take another look about how we run our campaigns denim You've had a very long running very successful campaign you run out of hangar 18 And I've had not to do it my own horn some success the my own local game shop

36:20Yeah, but it's going to get better because as we'll touch on I've been doing my campaign. I think I'm on year seven now Um, and what we'll explain why that matters later, but uh yours is doing fantastic for how long you've been doing it Yeah, I'm I'm very pleased um Technically running about three-ish years I had a kid somewhere in the middle of that so things got slowed down a little bit It does close things down Yeah, it's amazing how busy your life gets when you've got two children running around um But We did this episode a because it was funny to do one every 40 episodes and we felt like we had two The 101 the 101 is just it's just perfect just icing on the cake. I thought so I thought so I thought it was fitting So um not to mention that people have also been asking for quite a while we get quite a few questions on denim how do you do your campaign or Steve you were running an alpha strike one? What do you do? What's your rules set? How do we how do we emulate what you guys do that you talk about on the podcast so much?

37:24And we thought we finally had enough stuff To really do a decent episode about you know, what are the five top things you're gonna need for running your own campaign And how to go about doing that to hopefully Have the most success possible um We should start off by saying that there are many many different ways to do campaigns You can do you know campaign operations you can do cast campaigns like we talked about those other episodes You know you can do whatever you like and whatever your players enjoy just because we talk about what we think works Well for us and our local groups does not mean that it will be a perfect fit for you So don't feel obligated to copy everything we do you are welcome to take bits and pieces of whatever works for us and form it and mold it into something that your group will enjoy exactly because You could absolutely do a whole different direction like a like RPG campaigns stuff with destiny and a time of war

38:29And these are not the campaigns we're going to be talking about today. We are specifically going to be going over Just tabletop based mech action In type of campaigns there will be some persistence in them, but it's not like It's not like the indie roll the dice type of type of campaign Right And I guess we should probably double back to the very beginning and how did we get started In our campaign settings and and and what worked for us. So dental. How did you I just started this seven years ago Right, I didn't have anyone to play battle tech with but I really really enjoyed it This was even before the new game of armored combat box that came out But I had gone to dragon con and they I still saw they had battle tech there. They had this group called the CDT The catalyst demo team and I was intrigued by by what they did And then I'd gone to a store and

39:30And They had some interest in battle tech like I found a store hangar 18 actually had battle tech on the shelves So I wanted to make it Something more legitimate something more more permanent. So I asked if as the owner of he minded if I ran some games Um, I wanted to lend some legitimacy to it. So I became a CDT agent You do not have to that is not a step that you have to do for this But but I did that so that he could say that he had a CDT agent At his store and then I started looking for inspiration to do more than just pick up games because we played some pickup games And people wanted wanted more they wanted to talk about the stories of their pilots But since her pilots changed every game They they didn't have that persistence And since there wasn't really anything out there that that took you There were books out there that gave you tools like the campaign operations book

40:32But none of them walked through and said okay. Here is step one. Here is step two. Here is step three It's more like here's the toolbox. Just go figure it out. You'll you'll be fine So um, I started Figuring it out That old added fake it till you make it. So I just did things that were interesting to me And in the end it worked out and we'll go through a little bit more in detail How that how that happened. How about you what what got you started into that So Similarly, right We had been doing quite a few pickup games locally. I had a decent group of people that had started Right, I mean we were getting people for games pretty much every other Friday is when we like to play and You know, we had wanted something that was a little Like you said a little more, right? I mean, it's fun to smash robots together and blow things up But at the end of the day, you know a lot of us at our local shop We did play a lot of engines and dragons. We did play a lot of other role-playing games

41:36and we wanted Something to tie these Episodes together, right? We could have the same pilots fight week to week to week um, and I looked into cast campaigns and I didn't Like the feel of it at all So I I'd want to do something in alpha strike because that's how it was more comfortable with at the time And I reached out to Ed Stephens or metal ed right he's been doing a lot of play testing and work on everything That's a great guy. He is a fantastic guy very knowledgeable love ed So ed thank you for kind of giving me some basic framework To work off if and I made quite a few changes to ed's, you know Structured what he had been running locally Because I wanted to simplify it a little bit and make a little bit more digestible for the local group So we ran several missions for alpha strike um And I discovered very quickly how much work it was Get things ready for month to month Uh, and eventually, you know, I had a had a second kid and that kind of put a slow on that for a while

42:41Um, and then when the kids got older, I Decided we were going to pick it back up and I asked everybody hey, would you rather play alpha strike or would you rather shift over to classic and While there were some holdouts most people voted to move over to classic because I feel like you get a little bit more of a Simulation feel you get a little bit more granular play with classic which Lends itself better to more narrative storytelling rather than well you lost four pips of armor and now you're crippled It's you've lost a large laser you've lost you know a leg actuator and now you're hobbling off the battlefield right you don't quite have the same granularity and alpha strike right so so for that I would say that uh Classic battle tech is you tell stories about the pilots Alpha strike you tell stories about the unit. So it's more it's more about the collection It's it's a group of mac warriors You're focusing on the larger picture and not necessarily the individual pilots with their individual machines

43:46precisely So that's how I got started that was really there was really the majority of it um when you were putting your Kind of packet together. I guess if you have a packet or at least your rule set that you were going to use What inspiration did you pull from you know? I like I mentioned earlier. I did not care much for cast campaigns um They were okay, but there was a lot of Paperwork and a lot of conversions between war chest points and other stuff that I said you know what I'm not dealing with this no. Thank you Um, what did you end up pulling from what what did you really lean into so To begin with since I've really had no idea what I was doing I went looking for other people who had done that and uh this CDT agent named James curtley Had a campaign system that he was running and was willing to to share and allow people to run Which was fantastic Um, it was a great starting point however His campaign didn't progress past uh introtek like it's just by design and

44:51He did not allow for custom mechs and as a as a player who played in the in the 80s You know when we started we only had 16 mechs So you had to custom make mechs to have any sort of variety And uh and I had a lot of fun with that And I wanted to make a campaign system that allowed the people who wanted to make uh custom mechs to really just go wild and crazy with it So James curtley's missions did a great job of getting people into the store and then one they wanted more I Took a lot of inspiration from campaign operations like a lot and uh less or so the the uh chaos campaign hinterlancid didn't didn't exist yet Uh the mercenaries box set was now it wouldn't be out for years But I took those rules and like is the war chest points are weird And doing the conversions from sea bills to war chest points to supply points and back Was a lot of paperwork

45:51So I had done things like I just I just used supply points. I didn't use war chest points at all. I just had the one system. There's no conversions And it's just the abstraction of money And this was before hinterlands you said this was before hinterlands. Yes. Oh look at you first mover advantage That's right It it it worked out surprisingly well I love the idea of supply points where it's an abstraction where it uh It encompasses everything like sea bills um bribes opportunity luck So it's just a general pool of resources that are ambiguous So so you don't have to worry about exactly What you're paying And to whom you just know that that you're using these supply points to get what you want You're in lear in space, but don't have enough wooden nickels to buy this large laser you will only have merit dollars And yeah, so it supply point is a good

46:52Catch all for yes Yes So yeah, I took I took campaign operations Chaos campaign and and a few things that were just in my brain from from playing for 40 years And I created a packet out of that and it's gone through several revisions I think we're at version 2.2 right now and I admittedly Put more in there than I ex Then I needed really But I'm okay with that because I guess I guess what I started to do is I was excited about campaigns And I knew that other people were excited about playing more And I knew that there wasn't a product out there that took you step by step But I wanted to show people how to play the campaign So I started this with the intent That um as people came into the shop and played it they would get excited about it And there would be so much stuff in there that they could say well I like this, but I don't like that or this part is cool

47:53But I want more granularity there And they would find like-minded people at the at the tables who agree with them And then they would break off into permanent groups where they would just run their own campaigns Whether it be at the store or at their houses Where they would just come to my campaign day to learn about campaigns And then break off and and go do their own thing Now denim that is not what happened Of course not you have to know That the vast majority of people are lazy They are And they would simply show up and play With your hard work to design the mission With your hard work to come up with the story And your hard work to do all the running And the providing of mechs and maps and tables and terrain And they'll just play Why would they have to do all that work when you're willing to do it for them You are not wrong You're not wrong at all Because we did we started with three players And seven years later we have

48:55Three time slots with four tables for each time slot And approximately 60 people who come every month for this campaign We even have makeup games at a different store for people who can't make That date or that location And we have Other people in three different states who are using my my rule set to run their own campaigns at their own stores So they're using my rules and my missions and just just running them And I'm happy to say that all of the supply points are It all works together. So if somebody from from Tennessee brings their character over to my game They can pop in seamlessly See denim Working is intended other people are taking your system But you still have 60 players because no one locally wants to do that So that is that is true. That is working mostly as intended. We'll say Do we just want to dive straight into The things that players need to know to run their own campaign or is there anything else we should cover before we get into it No, I think I think a lot of this stuff will definitely fall under those categories and we'll

49:58We'll have our little blurbs and stories about about how we handle certain problems or or opportunities All right Well class get your notebooks take good notes and if you need to this lecture will be recorded and you can listen to it as many times as you need We're going to address now I'm gonna say that the test at the end will comprise 40% of your grade. That's true. That's true Now What are the five things that you need for running your own battle tech campaign Number one you need a rule set Two you need players That's kind of important Three you need to design missions for a campaign For you need to be prepared to resolve issues that occur at your table and five and possibly the most difficult one Scheduling yes, so we want to go through these five topics in some detail

51:00And hopefully give you guys a little bit of a flavor as to what we do and other options that you may decide to use or come up with your own And then um, we'll just kind of see where the episode takes us. How's that sound? I sounds fantastic Number one rules So you want to run your own campaign? First thing you're going to need to do is figure out What bounds and what boundaries are you going to put for your players? Uh things you need to consider are Game feeling right what is your goal of the campaign? Uh, so for me I like a game that is I guess if you were to put it on a scale it would be more on the realistic and or gritty end of that scale I want my players to sweat. I want my players to bleed and I want my players to struggle and suffer in order to achieve success

52:02Because I am a firm believer That victory is sweetest When you have to work the hardest to achieve it right Does that frustrate my players? Sometimes But by the same token A work exceeding the hard to make sure my missions are more or less fair And that the players are duly compensated for the problems I put in their path, right? Um Then I know you have a different Kind of philosophy when it comes to game feel I do um and part of that is because of how many people are there and the fact that my campaigns Um are have multiple tables and so it's a drop-in drop-out campaign You may not be playing with the same people you played with last month So it's very hard to coordinate you know who's bringing which mech all the time And to counter that I make the feeling of my game more like like my players are the heroes of their own story

53:07So uh, I I want them to be challenged But in the end like they are the heroes even Even getting a cockpit crit like having your cockpit shut out like they always make their their ejection rule They might be in the hospital for a while, but they're they're never completely dead And they're allowed to have multiple mechs and multiple pilots But they're only allowed to bring one of each per game So they do get to pick and choose like well once in the hospital they can bring in their their uh their second string mech warrior So there's no fear of death in denim land and That's true the early on when I started doing it We had quite a few people who would die to headshots in the first turn or two And then they'd just sat there for three hours and watched everyone else play I don't want that to happen until at least turn five or six So I make sure that everybody starts the game with an edge and I warn them that that is there to Protect their pilots not necessarily to get those early hits in on the op 4

54:10I do I do challenge them like I said and I do uh scare them and I am not afraid to take out mechs or or mech warriors I just don't make it permanent for these drop-in drop-out campaigns. It's very hard to do that level of persistence Went when I don't know who's going to be at which table every month so Well, maybe we'll dive in a little bit more into that um in a few minutes But let's cover what kind of options exist out there for rules for people who may want to be Running their own So we mentioned previously that there is campaign ops there is also the chaos campaign Nowadays you have the hinterlands rule set which is what my campaign is based on right And that goes with the mercenaries box set like that's the that's the core box for that correct Now I have heavily modified the hinterlands rulebook slash mercenaries box set for my own tables use just for simplicity and ease um I use that mainly because I'm trying to tell a consistent story

55:15With my players and in my local group I have an announcement channel that I simply just post updates for you know in universe updates for what's Going on with them They're all part of a group called the motor city mech warriors. They all run their own little companies. It's almost like Like lone wolves type thing right? There's like one group But they're all consisting of smaller units within the larger hole right And they all keep track of their own sp And I picked the contracts. I tell them what they're gonna get paid permission. I tell them how many bsp's they get I tell them what you know salvage rules are and you know what repair costs are covered And then I give them a mission and then they get to decide what next they want to bring I give them a point value for the mission per table And they have to decide amongst themselves. We're getting about 18 to 20 people So I'm running between three and four tables. You know when I do my campaign nights And you know we we let people kind of like you know you have 8,000 bv for this table You get 32 bsp's figure it out between you

56:18So if you want to bring an atlas somebody else has to bring something way smaller So they got to work it out between themselves Hindsight. I really wish I had done that You can always start over denim pull the plug That's right. Okay, man. I could But what that does is that allows people to get a small stable of max We have I have a maximum of one edge per player They can buy more edge using their sp in between missions And if it is extremely important If it is extremely important that they have an edge and they need it right then and there We play in a bar They can go buy me a gin and tonic and they can get an edge And this is how I have a great Friday evening Yeah, yeah, I like that a lot I'm not about bribery sometimes but um No, so I think the hinterlands Unadapted hinterlands campaign works very well for That type of that type of campaign and then the players just show up all they have to do is bring their max I have the mission set out. I have the op force laid out. I have the terrain setup

57:22And they just play the mission and then they earn sp based on what they accomplished during the mission Now we can talk about this a little later when we talk about missions But something that I've started doing that has been very fun denim Is I have one overall operation that the players are playing But sometimes different maps have different objectives that will affect other players maps So if there is a base that they're charging into They have turrets on the outside of the base If table one can blow up the generator that's on that table it will shut off the turrets on table two Right That's amazing. I like that a lot So all the players are working towards the same objective But You know table one's goal is not blow up the generator tables one mission is escort some trucks somewhere But if they do the secondary objective and blow up the thing it's gonna make table twos job way easier So I like to do that kind of intermixed mission stuff where every table is a little bit different And this also allows players to

58:23Look at their stable and say I'm really well suited for x job I'm gonna go on that table because that's the mission for that table right versus You know, I'm an analyst. I should not be doing the escrow mission I'm not fast enough to keep up with the transport or whatever you know what I mean Yeah, yeah, that makes sense Because I I also have like with the multiple tables I give them all the exact same mission But we do have because I don't have bv limits Which is another thing that you know hindsight. I absolutely probably should have done So you have uh My table is the beginners table that's for people who've got a back that's like less than 3000 bv Including their their pilot gunnery skills and and no crazy tech So or who have not played ever or have played very little or it's like their first three campaign games So they will sit at my table very friendly table much more relaxed Um, and I I allow things like oh I didn't know that's how that rule worked. Can I take that back and I'm like absolutely let's let's go back

59:28Let's uh, let me erase that and then let's just go And start again and this is how that works the race you're not playing a pen No, no, no, not at that table and then we've got like the medium tables and then we've got the advanced table And that's the people who've got like mechs whose whose individual mechs are are in the 8000 plus bv range And the the game master on that table They're allowed to go like wild at crazy and and uh and just have all sorts of fun Um, so we yeah, we have different tables and you go to whichever table Uh, it's it's basically what kind of challenge you want Sure, that sounds nice gives players a choice right how hard did they want to work that day It's interesting to hear that you say that you don't do um Or rather they they pay for pilot upgrades Uh, I just do hinterland stuff where every mechs bv is valued at four or five and then their pilots You know, they can upgrade over time and spend SP on but I also don't I mean if they blow an edge and they take a headshot

1:00:30They're cooked there's no Magical fairy from the sky that'll pluck you out of your cockpit and set you down nicely on the ground No, you You're done right and yeah, we have a wall of heroes that people can post The poster mech warriors on and what mech they were riding in and how they died and they can you know Write a little epitaph for them in the in the discord and people can look at that and You'll remember all the folks that have died along the way Um, that is again super cool and I love that what one of the issues with with me Not doing that way is because again hinterlands didn't exist yet I also unlike James curtley which again his missions are fantastic And if anyone's looking for just a quick easy thing they should absolutely check him out but I wanted to have a system that if people went off and did their own campaign game They could say oh hey What books do you use and my answer isn't well? I made this part up and then I made that part up And then we changed all these rules over here and then we modified this so it's really difficult to tell you

1:01:31I wanted to make a system that worked well that I could say here are the three books you need Done like everything that I do Are in these books and and you just have to like read this chapter that chapter in those two chapters and you're and you're good to go So that did put some limitations on On some of the things I was willing to to do for it Okay, so Just to do a quick recap here, right? But I don't want to move on yet But I just want to make sure we're summarizing because I feel like We've covered quite a bit of ground. We've talked about what you've done. I've done But we really haven't talked about like rule Sats so we we mentioned right campaign ops Yes campaigns hint or lands. I think mercenary's handbook has some stuff as well Pick if I if I were to tell new people who wanted to do this pick your Basis right pick you pick your your your seed And then tack on whatever auxiliary things you'd like

1:02:33For me We do not use SPAs All right, this is something that you need to decide whether you want SPAs in your game Do you want edge in your game? Do you want permadeath in your game? These are all plug and play options You can kind of flick on and off what optional rules do you want it right? We have a short list of optional rules We always use we use You know walk backwards up and down hills We do tax We do it enhance flamers yep enhance flamers is key we do Sometimes I think we do careful stand, but not always right the one rule that I insist that everybody play with They're not always happy about it, but I insist we play with stack poles Or whatever advanced to engine explosions or something like whatever the technical rule is they're called stack poles and we use those two The house rule Is it if a table has a stack pole happen at their table They'll have to go to the bar and get a shot of fireball Oh, man, I have to I have to get Brian to open up a bar at a hangar 18. Yes. Yes, you do that

1:03:37Yes, you do because there's nothing quite as exciting as watching an enemy mech explode Take out the orphanages standing next to having everybody cheer And then everybody leave to go get a shot at the bar That is great because we have had several stack poles over the years. They're exciting, aren't they? And it is always it is always the whole table cheers no matter who it happens to bad guys or good guys It doesn't matter everybody cheers Yeah, so now you have to pick what optional rules you want to use Just make a short list of ones you like don't get into some of the crazy ones unless you really want to do them Yeah, and just to Just read it. I know we have something else to talk about here. And that is special pilot abilities I don't like them. I don't think that they're balanced and It's funny because you would say Steve SPAs are great for narrative campaigns. You're Playing in a narrative campaign. You're running an narrative campaign. Oh, why wouldn't you want to use these things

1:04:37In the exact scenario you know, it's the exact scenario they're designed for why aren't you using these things? And I I think they're just not balanced well enough and I think that they turn the game into a little bit of Almost a circus, right? You've got everyone's gonna take jumping jack everyone's gonna take a bleak attacker Then the next mission everyone hides behind a hill and no one wants to go poke their nose out to spot to fire all this stuff Because they're the only ones who even get shot and killed and no one wants to have their pilots die So you get a little either a lot of same choices or people kind of fighting who's gonna be the star of the show And then someone takes fist fire and then they kill two max and everybody wants to fist fire because they wanted to do the same thing I don't like SPAs so I elected not to use them. I know denim that you do and I like to hear about Why why you allowed them and be how it's worked out All right, so first of all you have no secret. What's that First of all, they were not made for narrative campaigns We actually know the person who wrote those SPAs were written by a Jason Hansa

1:05:39Specifically for the RPG games. They are there for D&D style role-playing where you do play the heroes and it's not even like for narrative campaign Specifically for role-playing games Which is kind of a narrative campaign. I wasn't totally wrong. Yeah, no But but they weren't they weren't designed to be balanced by on purpose like they weren't supposed to be balanced So this is just something else we can blame Hansa for right? Well, no because he's not the one that grabbed them and put them into the campaign Operations book I'm gonna blame whoever did that because that's where I pulled them from because originally they were in One of the like a time of war or something like that But somebody put them in campaign operations as if they should be part of these campaign games Because I was picking and choosing and stuff. I made the mistake of both picking SPAs and allowing quirks Mm Because I wanted my players to have a lot of choices. I wanted them to see what what they could do again

1:06:43Assuming that they would take the stuff they like they would cherry pick the bits They liked and didn't like with other like-minded people and split off into into their own permanent group So mine was supposed to be more like a showcase like a buffet and then people were supposed to To find People who thought like them and go off and have their own adventures Very with you know much more granularity much more specificity and they didn't and you're exactly correct like Everybody picks any mech that has that has a narrow low profile Because they want that quirk they they pick any mechs that have like like medium range master or whatever They pick mechs with stabilized weapons because all of these give give Minus ones to hit they all take the jumping jack and the the melee master or melee master with fistfire or Obliq attacker with with like different range abilities type stuff So you do have those people groups of people entire tables of people who have almost nearly identical builds

1:07:47We have talked about that with the players And through conversation I'm like I'm not taking these out yet But I might I would like some more diversity and and people did start listening and they did start picking uh Different ones just to try them out and that that has added some diversity in there But I would say jump jumping jack uh with targeting pewter and puls lasers is still the worst offender So in the immortal words of Michael Keegan key You done messed up a run Yeah, uh Yeah, if there was one thing that I could go back and not allow from the beginning It would be quirks and SBAs. That's what I would just say. Don't we're not doing that and and quirks are an interesting one mostly because I feel like quirks are less Broken than SBAs But still I mean they're still very clearly winners and losers, right? Yeah, well they took out um The no torso twist so any mech that has a no torso twist quirk that does not exist anymore

1:08:52So they officially eroded that one But there are a few that are just more powerful than others and therefore that's the chassis that everybody gets and since I allow Mech customization Um, which I stand by completely. I love that rule and yes, there are some broken builds But that's easier to compensate for on the back end with the op 4 Then some of these quirk slash SBA combinations Yeah, customs is something that I am working on broaching with my local group I've been asked several times Can I modify this can I change a variant can I do this and I said look I got to figure out a way to balance this cost-wise at our tables based on how much you're earning first done You know how what the coffers look like Because I don't want everybody running out and slapping pulse this is all over everything, right? Yeah It's gonna happen. I'm sure a will but it just means that I'm gonna have to get a little bit nastier in my In my mission balancing then if that's what they're gonna do so We will see when I get a good solution to that problem

1:09:56Anything else under rule set decisions the new game runners may need to consider before we move on I like to like rule spec set specifically Uh, especially since I allow custom mechs My first rule is it has to be in the battle mech manual Um, it just makes it easier. I only need to have a one Equipment book on the table when I need to look anything up I know that there's a lot of really cool stuff and you're like like shields and so I mean I know that shields will eventually be in the battle mech manual and that's fine when it is because then it will be in the one book that I need at the table So when they're designing mechs when they're buying mechs when they're taking mechs it all has to be Battle mech manual type stuff and I do allow any optional rule that is in the battle mech manual so We tend to run with all of those But that's that's my big thing is it uh just just one book, please Yeah, it really simplifies things at the table, so I think that's a good idea

1:10:56So I guess in short Find a set of rules that you like to use Customize those to fit your game play style pick a feeling for your campaign and uh You know don't allow quirks for SBAs Yeah, yeah, I mean they make sound cool and they they might come out with some balanced like some balancing later They've been talking about that there's rumors, but until then I would I would just avoid them. They're they seem fun They're going to be more trouble than it's worth down through it Hopefully we can talk about the new balanced SBAs in episode 141 when we come back the campaign. That's right. That's right So the second topic in our five things you need for a campaign is players Yeah, literally the reason why I started doing it is because I like battle tech and I couldn't find anyone to play with That's it. I said you need to find these players you need to dig up the rocks in the garden and get them out from underneath their hidey holes And then we need to talk about

1:11:58How many work for you right how many is too many so You know, I think Big thing is gonna be Putting word out there, right? Put up a sign in your local game shop. Yes, be present Talk to the people that you normally play with and just float the idea see if you can sell them on it Ask them if they want a little bit more out of their battle tech experience, right? And obviously when you finally get your players You're gonna have to have an open discussion with them say this is the rule set that I had selected And this is what I was thinking of doing. This is the vibe I want to go for either a gritty or heroic type game mode Would they be interested and you may want to run a very bright and happy Look at us. We're all the big heroes. We can never do anything wrong Nothing bad can ever happen to us type of game and your players may say look This isn't my this isn't my speed. I want something more realistic I want something more dark. I want something that's gonna make me struggle to win

1:13:02And that may make you either change some of the rule sets that you have selected or You're gonna lose some players and you need to decide which of those options you're happier with Yeah Again, that was a big thing of mine where I just wanted to present them with options assuming that they would decide what they like and break off I didn't ask them a lot of questions. I more just said here is the campaign we're running Feel free to take what you like and go play somewhere else whenever you want and their response to that was no we're fine So you know don't don't Don't tweak and modify your rule system trying to make everybody happy You're not gonna make especially as you get more players. You're not gonna be able to make everybody happy A lot of people come over and say hey, I've got a great idea What if we do this or can we allow this and I'm not gonna say tell them no, but I'm not gonna say agree to everything either You should say let me think about that and and you give it a week or two and you actually think about how that would

1:14:07How that would react in your campaign before just adding it in because some of those things seem like a good idea to begin with But then you have to think how can this be abused? How can people take advantage of this if I wanted to be very disruptive How would I use this to do so and sometimes you're just like it's not worth it's not worth the trouble Yeah, so one of the things that we had in our local campaign is there was a mission and I admittedly botched the balance I gave the enemies like maybe for Six too many turrets on their side of the map But we're not counting those But at the end of the day they were the BSP turrets right and the players were having a really hard time taking these down They just kept failing you know destruction rolls and everything else and one of the things in the packet or the rulebook states that You know when you do enough damage and they fail a check they get a permanent minus one of the role it had been proposed that If they had gotten the damage very high Right on a turrets say they did enough damage to invoke a negative four modifier on the BSP destruction roll

1:15:12They had suggested well if it survives that should receive a minus four So their next check and not just a minus one because there's a ton of damage. It's going to waste And they were having a tough time destroying them now I think a lot of this was born out of the fact that I had botched the balance of the mission. That's on me alone that one um But I had to think about it and I kind of said no, we're not going to change our BSP's work Despite that being an incredibly interesting idea Right that if you get the negative modifier two to three four high I mean all that armor's been stripped from the tank from the tower from something you're shooting at Why would it revert only to a negative one? Right why wouldn't it maintain that minus four for the next time you shoot at it Maybe it makes them too weak. I don't know if that was play tested or worked on or what made it a permanent minus one But it was something to consider and at the time I didn't want to modify the rules for simplicity. I didn't want to start making more and more exceptions to my rule set

1:16:12Right right take you mentioned before I want to say here's one book. Here's the packet. Let's play But you know, I thought about it and it's not Totally out of left field so don't be afraid to say no to your player sometimes But sometimes they do have a good idea or two Yeah, I agree with your decision there The way that I get around that is that I do allow airstrike BSPs for purchase So I have a list of how much these all cost and each player is allowed to call in one per turn So with like six players at the table we get have six airstrikes going And then so if they're really close on a turret or a tank They can hit it a bunch of times to make sure that that number gets to to you are going to to blow up Like there is no role because it is too high. I'm going to adopt that. That's a great idea Let them spend SP to get stuff on the table exactly So so at the end of the campaign at the end of the game when they're tallying up all their points Then I'm like, okay, here's the bill and this is how much support points you use bringing in these airstrikes

1:17:17So let's subtract them from your total and they go home with less But it's a it's a cost offset like am I am I going to get enough points in salvage to to justify me Calling in a few more airstrikes or artillery rounds Now you did mention salvage and actually this is something this is a mechanic that I put into my game That I really enjoy and I guess I should have mentioned this Earlier in the rule set section, but I'll bring it up now because you mentioned it. I have The concept of a salvage tag Because people drop in and drop out they play some some play more missions some play less But every time you come you get a plus one to your salvage tag count When they manage to salvage max right either they drag them off the table or they get them as a reward They you know do whatever they do to get them There are maybe 12 players that participated in that mission Who gets first crack and buying that destroyed mech So that could be a fist fight. I'm not going to allow them to fight over it

1:18:19The first rule is that you had to attend the mission In order to be eligible to get that mac Secondly If more than one person would like it They can bid any number of their salvage tags for first claim And then they spend them right so if you go on four or five missions And I've got five salvage tags and you've only been on three denim and that timber wolf shows up I really want that thing I'm going to use four of my salvage tags to guarantee That I get first dibs on that versus your three right and it encourages people to attend It encourages people to continue to show up and that way the players that show up more often are more likely to reap the benefit of their hard work for salvage Now do they self to pay for it? Absolutely have to buy it and then they have to repair it so they don't get it for free But it does incentive by showing up to play more often so that we if something good does show up you can you can get it So I think that's any idea that is um I of course want to very

1:19:21Much more abstract way because especially because they can they can design their own mechs or purchase their own chassis I just took salvage and I converted it all down to supply points So they don't get any specific mechs They just get X number of supply points for the mechs that they Crippled or destroyed but not totally destroyed because again zero points for that And then I split that up amongst the players who are at that table That's a good way to do it too. Yeah. Now how do you allow your players to buy new mechs? You just let them buy whatever they want or do you have rotating Um, because what I do is I do a random assignment table I roll three or four times for every player and I say here the 20 mechs are available This is what you can buy them for and we have a we have a traveling merchant that we call cousin miloche That cousin miloche, you know, he He finds these mechs that fall off the dropship. They're a little dinged up But they're perfectly good. It's cousin milo. She has good deals. I like it. I like it a lot No, mine is is they they start when you start the the campaign

1:20:26You get either a light or medium intro tech mech like you get that for free Everything else you have to buy you can start modifying those mechs The most expensive things of course being excel engines clan excel engines being the most most expensive But yeah, they they just save up their their supply points But but mechs are expensive so it does take quite a few sessions Especially if you want that timber wolf like I know people took about six to eight months to be able to to afford that timber wolf Now to make it easy if they have a favorite mech, you know people who like the shadow hawk But want to make it a good mech. They're gonna modify it every year Or so I tend to do it in April that campaign mission is just like a salaris style Like a grinder or a salaris match Some place where they can earn prizes and like the grand prize would be you get a free clan excel engine upgrade to one of your mechs Oh, wow sure we'll fight to the death for that Yeah

1:21:27Now we did not cover Back to the player section this is supposed to be an order and we're we're doing a poor job with this denim We're being confusing for our listeners. We talked about how to find your players how to get them to the table How many's too many when do you cut it off do you cut it off? Yep, I start when I started but we had three players that was okay a little bit light Once we got up to seven The turns were starting to get very very long I do I don't know how you do it, but how I do it is we have a table All of the players are on one team and then I control all of the op 4 So whoever is the game master of the table controls the entire op 4 Everyone else controls one mech what once you get to seven and above it just takes so long We weren't hitting our our three hour time limit that I had put out Some of the games were running very very long So I started saying look if we get up to two to seven We're going to split it up into two tables one of three and one of four four to six players is my ideal number

1:22:29My missions are balanced for four to six players I don't like less than four and anything above six is just Just too many so we do something similar we do one GM per table And then four players per table right so they're all in the same team and the GM runs the other side So when we have 15 people show up we have four players at each table and one GM at each table And we'll run three tables at a night you know Occasionally we will allow five players at a table in order to you know if I've got three tables going I can have five players at each table But as soon as one more person shows up we'll put them all at a new table You know what I mean? We'll try to try to keep those numbers down for faster turns and everything else. It does it helps a lot now We've got our rules We've got our players What are we going to make these players do right? Let's talk about mission design specifically for campaign play because this is different than a tournament

1:23:32setting which we Are going to talk about at some point. I do want to do a a game theory episode about Mission design and we can do a little bit about what we did for Southern assault and everything else there That would be a good topic. Yep very different mindset those right this this and that very different I think the first thing you need to keep in mind when you're doing a mission for a campaign game is You are hoping to lose at the end of the day you are not trying to grind your players into the dirt because they won't come back and that is Counterproductive for what you're attempting to do by growing your battle to community locally So but also on the flip side of that coin you want them to think that they're going to lose yes Yes, make it as close as you can The last mission that Iran I put the absolute hurt on a rhyme otter And that rhyme otter had taken two engine hits Center torso was open right torso was open and it has reinforced structure right

1:24:33And if I had done two more damage Anywhere on that Mac it would have floated into one of the torsos that was open And it would have destroyed that permanently That player was sweating And I like to pick on Howard Howard's a nice guy but You know he was he was sweating and I'm like good. This is this is what I want I want you scared that you are about to lose your Mac Not all the time, but occasionally And that is what makes That's what makes it exciting. That's to get your adrenaline up right yes How do you balance your games denim and what do you think are the important things to do? This and this is from years of experience that I've that I've Cultivated These ideas that I do first of all I like to make the opt for about 80 percent Um 75 to 80 percent of what the players bring

1:25:34I don't tell them that but that's just what I do therefore be as the opt for I'm already fighting an uphill battle But then again, I play way more than they do So if they were even bvs the games would go poorly A lot more often I Similarly do I think I'm about a 70 percent is what I do for mine But I often have extra reinforcements waiting in the wings a lot of my missions are timed So if they start to dilly-dally or they start to try to like Get cute and salvage stuff or intentionally like shoot off legs to drag max off the field That's when an extra guillotine will walk in off the field. There's you know something Oh, there's another heavy that we now have to it's time to go yeah I try to incentivize my players to play smart and play quickly Turn wise right so they're not making this a 20 turn game Yep, another thing I do is I've had a lot of experience playing dnd I was at gm for for many many years I will make changes to my mission on the fly if their

1:26:38Dice rolls are going super poorly. I will change my tactics based on that If they're doing super super well I will have reinforcements come out of buildings that were always there of course. They just didn't know that Or I will have landmines. I will have like artillery come in like I can change that and I can I can modify it So that it always keeps them challenged Whether they're doing super well or super poorly. I like to make sure especially since I run the beginner table That everybody gets shot at I don't want anyone feeling like they're being ignored So I will take shots at certain people even though they're not they're not ideal I'm certainly not trying to min max any games. I'm not being super efficient But I'm there to have fun and I'm there to make them feel like I am paying attention to them Which makes them feel that I think they're a threat which makes them feel good So a lot of my decisions are there to drive the story and the player interactions That's a good way to do it. I do something similar but not quite the same

1:27:41Depending on what they're doing Right if they're trying to blow up buildings The enemy units will try to block those shots stand in front of those buildings and Normally they will attack the person doing the most damage to the target Right and that tries to force that person to fall off that also has the desired effect of letting the other players step up and become More threatening or they get if I'm punishing the marauder to that hanging out on a hill You know the the poor guy in the blackjack can run up and actually do something like oh I'm not getting shot at great blah blah blah look at me go dad You know it's it's that type of equal participation that you're really looking for When it comes to mission types I think there are a couple Go-tos right Obviously there's the fight right just destroy the enemy force Go nuts right that one that one can actually take longer to play than most other ones Whenever we have games that run long it's oftentimes because I have some sort of a brawl or stand-up fight

1:28:46Mission and I did not Calculate something correct and those are the ones that just drag on Yep, so keep in mind if you're gonna run those games a lot for a little bit of extra time Scouting missions are always fun run out scan an objective get off the board those are great I try to put secondary conditions in there such as You know Try to stay three hexes away from any enemy max so they can't identify you or they don't know who you are Right And they get a couple extra supply points if they manage to do some of these secondary things right Destroy all enemies on the map or rather don't destroy any enemies on the map right just trying to like leave no trace type Secondary objectives. Those are always kind of fun to do Other missions can include escorts Hold the fortress hold the line type things right don't let the enemy get through Escape is always an excellent game mode their goal is just to get to the other side of the map and The op-force waiting for them to catch them in a net, you know

1:29:49So all sorts of mission types that you can really use as a Basic framework to kind of tell your story Denim did I miss any or do you have any that you like the one the one that I use a lot as well that you didn't specifically mention is the Like like go to a building pick up a person of interest Or something of interest and bring it off the map so a fetch a fetch quest basically Sure, like capture the flag almost But yeah, but you know, you never want to say capture the flag in a in a campaign mission like that's fine for a tournament But but you want to have a story behind it or whenever but yes, absolutely capture the flag Well, right right the go out and grab a thing and then come back to it. So here here's a secret There are only like five missions That's it everything else is flavoring It's it's what flavor is this is this recon mission, you know, what flavor is this capture the flag But but yeah looking through all the missions that I've written There are just Maybe maybe there's six five or six distinct types of missions and everything else is just variations from those

1:30:55And you can get really creative because this is not a tournament setting It doesn't have to be fair. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that was gonna be another one my points We're not looking like yes balanced fair no We don't have to make it fair for either direction But you have to be willing to make those changes on the fly as well But yeah, you can just do something that's totally like like that's not how the rules work And you're like yeah, but I don't have to follow the rules. I'm the GM I'm here to make it interesting and fun and exciting Not fair Yep, yep, like you said either hidden units surprise units my favorite is You know if they if it's after turn four or five They all of a sudden pick up a whistling over their comms and a hex explodes right like oops You took too long time to leave And they go hey wait a minute. That's not fair and maybe Maybe they get hit really hard for a couple of turns and then Maybe they ran out of artillery shells

1:31:56Yeah, they only had a couple solos. They only had a couple. That was it You know, you can kind of balance it that way Sometimes the players see through it But I think as long as they're in it for the story and they're in it for the ride They won't mind too much. Yeah, I know So you got to consider balance you got to pick your mission type you got to think about what kind of mechanics You can throw in there to make it different fun interesting You got to be flexible to adjust it on the fly I think the last point with mission design here is really like One of the major cruxes and then I might be curious to get your take on this How do you as a GM play to ensure that all your players have a good time? I know you mentioned a little bit about how you engage with everybody you shoot everybody But what do you do if someone at your table is just not having fun? Well, obviously you can't Make everybody happy all the time. There are gonna be some people who just aren't gonna have fun no matter what you do and engaging story is is Like like on the table not in engaging not so much like the overall story about what the mercenary unit is doing

1:33:00But on the table itself my pilots like I said I'm not playing for efficiency I'm not playing like like my tournament brain is not on so all of my pilots out there have their own little goals And they'll do things even if it means it's like a slightly inefficient play or it allows like a fast mech to to flank me Stuff like that. I want to make sure that everybody has something to do The light fast mechs get a chance to do flanking maneuvers or get into that scouting position Even though I could probably stop them if that was like my goal The big heavy hitters want to have a chance to hit something hard The medium mechs want to have a chance to to get in there and grab the objective I try to give little openings to let people shine. I want everybody to shine just a little bit Again, not making it not making it super easy for them Uh, so it's got to be challenging So you've got to do a little bit of yes and you've got to do a lot of adjustments on the fly

1:34:02But basically it's the engagement. I want everybody to feel like they're doing something Yeah, everybody has that like like five minutes to shine at the table I find that yeah, you call it shine. I you know For me, it's everybody gets their turn on the spotlight. I want everybody to do one cool thing during the mission That's my goal. Yes, if everybody gets to blow up like hey I took all the armor off with a couple of really good PPC hits and then my buddy shot an SRM cell phone hit that engine, right The PPC player gets to go yes, I ripped off all that armor to help my teammate And then the SRM trebuchet gets to go yeah, and I got the kill. How cool is that high five, right? Yeah, you want people to kind of feel like they're participating and doing something now We have balanced our missions. We have chosen our mission type We've figured out how to be flexible. We figured out what mechanics we want to utilize and we're trying to make sure everybody's having a good time

1:35:02This is the next step for running your own campaign. You have to be able to resolve Issues at the table because like you said denim Not everyone's going to be happy all the time. Can't do it I want to talk real briefly about Some of our top issues that we run into And how do we kind of resolve those what do we do at our tables to try to keep things moving smoothly And we'll just kind of see where we go It is the hardest topic I think like we're going to have some ideas We're not going to have all the answers and you and I both still have problem players So it's not like we it's not like we know everything here. So and I think you have to anticipate having problem players, right Sometimes these problem players take different forms and we'll talk about some of them as we go through this But these problem players They're not necessarily bad folk They're not bad people they just Maybe don't understand what they're doing at the table or how it's affecting other players

1:36:03So don't come down on like a sack of bricks instead maybe You know either work with them or do things in your game to try to just sway that type of behavior So I think the first type of person that we run into most often Are your power gamers. Yes. You're going to get people that I want that use the LAS I want you know those you know You know, give me those four heavy PPCs give me all those headcappers You know Give me the jump nine max that just are untouchable. What do you do to try to curb the power gamers, you know Yeah, because this is what I messed I messed up on early on with some of the these power gamers Because I'm like, okay, I can I can adapt I can adjust I will just make sure that I focus them down because they're just so powerful They've got their jumping jack they've got their they're seriously 14 medium pulse lasers and the target and computer And and all of this stuff like they need zeros to hit and so I would do things like

1:37:07Use reflective armor Use pulse targeting myself target them now and even if I have better Other targets all that does is make them very very angry Yeah, because then they think that you're picking on them or you're targeting them which I am and it's it's a lot of well This isn't fair and what's that's happening is Those people are now not having fun and they're causing other people to have to not have fun and and it's it's It spreads like somebody not having fun can really contaminate an entire table Yeah, I do find That the best way to handle them Is to give them something to do which comes into the whole being adaptive and being creative So now I have a like I've got the mechs that I tend to choose from For for the up for but when I see some people like that I do have a separate stable of of mechs or objectives that I can throw out there

1:38:09To make them Really feel like they're doing something, but it also distracts them from the actual mission So that other people have fun doing the mission and this person has fun taking out these these incredibly hard targets For you know, but it benefits the whole table because everybody gets extra sp Right, yeah, it's like it's like throwing a shiny ball to distract that the overly excited dog Sure, and that's a good way to handle it right you can you can give these people certain tasks But I think the other thing that DMs or GMs or whatever we want to call the The person running the table right the campaign runner you need to not be afraid of Confrontation and I don't mean go, you know meet them in the parking lot with a tie iron type of confrontation What I mean is you need to just have a direct and open conversation with them say hey I appreciate that you've got a modified hardened armor Oozio lat s with you know Three targeting computers and extra coupons pods right you're having a negative effect on the table

1:39:11And what we'll say is your pilot Get selected for some crack commando unit within the lear and Commonwealth Great congratulations. You're no longer a mercenary now. You're some you know guard, right? You're you're a hero among among the Your countrymen or something you've made it as a legend on Solaris good job. You know, you can you can move on now let's Roll it back a little bit and see How we can kind of work a little bit more together with the rest of the tables And this kind of brings me to my next type of player which is similar to the power gamer, but not the same Who I was going to say that that all all of these examples like yes Steve communication is the best answer like Like if we can all communicate better that's going to solve a lot of these things. So yeah, sure But some people are definitely afraid of telling somebody hey You're negatively impacting the table and you got to be prepared to do that And I'm not saying got to be mean about it. You can find all sorts of ways to talk to people But you really got to be it's your campaign

1:40:14You're running it at the end of the day the onus is on you to deal with problems, right? And sometimes that's also responsible for making sure that your tables are not disrupted Or that they're having fun, right? It's on you, but very similar to the power gamer You have the selfish player these the type of people who are this is my fantasy versus our fantasy they focus on Them having fun them doing the objectives them getting the kills and they don't necessarily want to Share the excitement with their fellow players, right? This is anybody who yells at someone else for saying you stole my kill Not knowing that the whole table benefits from the kill nobody counts who got that last shot But it's very very important to them And this one I think is a little bit harder to deal with than the power gamer right the power gamer You can either set caps or limits or you know, maybe target them a little bit more or you have a conversation with them to do it

1:41:14The selfish player it feels silly to say this but Sometimes they don't recognize what they're doing at the table You know, maybe they've always been the center of attention Maybe they've always had a little bit of a blind spot for for other people They may not know Right and and then I'm how do you deal with someone who is more focused on their own good time than making sure that everyone around them is having fun Yeah, like say it's super hard Step one of course is to explain to them that I am here to make sure everybody has fun And I would like everybody to have those moments and have their time in the spotlight It would be very nice if they would also allow that to happen Otherwise they are being very disruptive. So you're right. Yeah, maybe they don't understand that First step is to explain to them What your plan is and why you're doing what you're doing the problem is is when that has no effect on them Because then then what do you do because then it's about all wheels and I don't have time for that and by table And you know this

1:42:15Was gonna talk about this little later when we wrap up the section, but I guess we'll cover it now because To answer your question and what do you do with that situation sometimes you have to politely yet firmly Ask them not to come back. Mm-hmm. If they really are super problematic Sometimes They come up with the idea themselves sometimes you got to explain it to them say hey You know, I've noticed this for last couple of months you have actively Been detracting from other people's good time Um, I'm glad you like playing battle tech. I'm happy to play pickup games with you where we can be as as sweaty as we like But I can't have you at my tables anymore Right you explain to them that maybe this is not the outlet that they're looking for just yeah Like luckily for battle tech there are many ways of expressing yourself and and picking and choosing what game modes that you prefer to play So yes, you are no longer invited at my table please partake in one of these other many options and and

1:43:23And maybe though one of them will will fit your your persona better Yeah, and that's an extremely difficult conversation to have because you never want to be the bad guy no one likes being the jerk But sometimes you have to excise the cancer right you have to remove what's harming your players so keep that in mind as well This next problem Is always a tough one. I mean we're talking about like resolving issues at your table. This one's kind of fun You don't have this problem denim based on your rule set, but I call it the Oops, you died problem Sometimes headshots happen sometimes your pilot manages the skin of the teeth ejection and you're sitting in the hex behind your mac And then your engine goes critical and while you get a shot of fireball you're still dead You know denim obviously you use edge and you also have the automatic ejection rule, but Right, but you still have the problem of of again your dead What are you going to do for the next two and a half three hours?

1:44:24First of all Permadeath Is absolutely something that should be talked about before the campaign starts and he new players need to be told here is how we handle death So it's not like they're going into that blind. They can't say I didn't know or well, I didn't understand Anything like that they know what they're getting into so if they have a problem with that That's something they need to talk about With the game master beforehand my frustrations or the frustrations I encountered are Like I said people who whose mech goes critical for one reason or another in the first two turns of the game. I don't like that The things that I do to prevent that of course everybody gets an edge If you want to use it for for an aim shot location or anything like that wait till after turn four is what my advice is Also, and this is something not all of my game masters do but as the beginner table I specifically do this None of my mechs have headcappers not a single gouse Single Clanny or ppc not a single ac 20 is on my side at all none of my mechs will take out another mech with a single shot to the head except for a tack

1:45:33Even the tax that's what the edges for well, no I get I understand that but my point is Headcappers won't one shot ahead But if there is a tack and they're out of an edge say you get lucky so you get two headshots in a game and the first three turns well Bad news right you've used your edge and now something bad might happen right so tax are still a constant threat Even if you don't have headcappers on the field yes The point stands right you can do some those are so rare that sometimes it's a laughing point where we'll be like look Here are the odds because we can calculate the odds of that happening and we're like you know This is like a one in in in 10,000 chance literally Welcome to battle tech like this is how that works and sometimes they get a big laugh at that and if it's super early Like I'm running a field of six mechs on my side Come on over to this side of the table you are now in charge of these two guys while I'm playing these four guys Let's have it absolutely keep those players engaged if something tragic does happen to them right

1:46:34Yeah, get revenge on your fellow players Now this is something interesting that I wanted to bring up because you you mentioned it again And we I realized we didn't talk about this earlier Everybody says we use edge at our table Hmm, I said we also use an edge and I've called it edge, but in reality it isn't Truly edge as written in the book Because edge can be used to make the opponent reroll a die Right yes I dislike that immensely I have a personal aversion to forcing the other person to reroll something because And this is a little bit broader in scope. This is not just for campaign games, right? If I'm the GM and you want to make me reroll something I still don't like it because I'm trying to make a thematic and exciting game But especially in a tournament setting If I roll a 12 and you say yeah, yeah, no, you don't do it again. I get real mad because you've taken away

1:47:34You know a statistical unlikelihood that I was about to benefit from right I agree with that so much. I do not think edge should be like that in a tournament game at all I have very different from you in my Campaign games if they want to make me as the GM reroll a headshot or or something else cool I am a hundred percent okay with that. I will even make up something like like oh I had you dead to rights and then right as I pulled the trigger. Oh looks like I happen to sneeze You know, I've got stock all over my screen and I will make something up. I have no problems Separating myself from from from the op 4 and and having them miss those shots I would rather the players cheer and have fun or laugh than Maybe inconvenienced by a shot that that would have been really really cool On the other hand with the tournament I never want to make my opponent have to reroll a headshot or something like that They would have insta killed me. I that's that's such a bad feeling on both on both sides

1:48:35Do not like that. So instead what we use is a little bit of a blend between lucky And edge right it does a little bit more than lucky so lucky you can reroll miss shots You can reroll critical hits you can like you can reroll certain things from you right I need this to to benefit my shooting. That's all perfectly allowed in our tables What we use edge for I say edge and air quotes you can't see this in this audio only format But what we use edge for here is you can reroll a miss shot You can Relocate you can shift a critical hit so if I roll a critical hit and I hit head You can spend your edge and it will float down through the damage float chart Into the center torso Right or if you've got ammo in your arm and you still have armor in your left torso you can float it More central right you can readjust where I am hitting you to somewhere that you have armor Yeah, so you can like change the direction a little bit But a hit is a hit you're gonna take damage

1:49:36But you can kind of mitigate where it's going. Yeah, that's that's how we use edge in our in our campaigns So it's like a yeah, it is a mitigating factor, but not a get a jail free card Yeah, so and mine again because I wanted it to be Accessible to everyone and easily look up a bowl. I just took it straight out of the book at the time Yep, and that's that's fine You know and again a different different solutions for different players, right? And I wanted something's a little bit more gritty than heroic So we said you're getting hit sometimes bad things happen Yep as long as you know that to begin with I'm totally fine with that Yep, I mean it's it's right there in the packet So the oops you died problem is a big one for us, you know, we're doing a hinterland style game So you can just get another pilot obviously the loss is sad, but you put them up on the wall of heroes And keep going because sometimes people die in combat. I love the wall of heroes I want to introduce permanent just so I can have a wall of heroes. You should I think you should do that Maybe a little poster board and everything people can put little pictures up

1:50:40Then and we've been at this for almost two hours at this point We need to talk about another type of problem player The socializer versus the player How do you deal with chatty kathies who are there to talk to friends rather than play man It's rough. It's rough. I try not to yell at them because again, they don't know what they're doing The 99% of the chatty kathies as you call them that I've encountered have no idea what they're doing They're excited. They want to talk they sometimes are talking about battle tech sometimes they're not but when you have Four tables of people running games it gets loud in there and when other people are trying to hear what's going on It's it's very difficult and and you have to be You have to communicate and you can't do it mean And you have to just be aware that you're going to have to remind them several times during the game I don't have a permanent solution So I'm curious to see what you come up with because I'm looking for ideas

1:51:41So it's not super common at my at my tables But I I could point out one or two that I'm like those people you have to make sure that they don't get out of control Yeah, so we have some of that we have a lot of regulars that are showing up to the game tables and Shock collars are not the answer And no comment No, but I mean for real we we've got a lot of regulars and we're all becoming you know the more we hang out the more we get together the more we play Everyone's genuine to be coming friends with one another which is great to see you're building a community which is amazing Uh, we have one guy name is Jesse Jesse is He's our lore master. I mean he's read almost every book he's read in this guy's got a mind that's a steel trap He can pull up whatever lore book he read and he can tell you the exact passage and get the words most of the way right It's scary impressive unfortunately Jesse will oftentimes get on tangents and talk

1:52:41Jesse also has a self-awareness to know this and he has told us multiple times to our faces he goes if I won't shut up Just walk away from me Just walk away and I'll get the message and it won't be offended I just he loves battle text so much and I hate to do that to him It's good to have that self-awareness though that is that that's the best case scenario I think So occasionally what we'll do with Jesse is we'll be like hey, you know clap clap like Let's focus up chance. Let's uh, you know keep our games moving smoothly and you get Jesse a lollipop No, he's a super nice guy. I love hanging out with him But it's like, you know, what do we do about Jesse and It's the gentle reminder and when it gets later and Some people have needed to purchase a couple of edges throughout, you know the evening my patients wears a little thin Sometimes and maybe I'm not as gentle as I ought to be but the occasion like hey you let's go You know kind of keeps people on track, but This is one of I think the least offensive Problems that you're gonna have on a table because it means that people are having a good time. Yeah

1:53:45so you deal with it gently remind them Maybe give them something to chew on so they can't talk but overall, you know, it's it's just something you got to deal with but Annoying nonetheless But again as long as you're aware that things like this could happen It's less likely to disrupt your game than if you just had no idea that uh because this will happen at your table It just will the longer you play the more the more likely all of these will happen. Yep. Yeah Now How frequently these issues occur? I think is the last of the five things that you need to worry about when running your campaign and possibly the hardest Yes, scheduling Yep, how and when do you run your games? Denim you do Once a month. Yep on a Saturday the second Saturday of every month and The hard part was that that's not the day that we started But because of scheduling with other games we had to move it at some point like a year and a half two years in

1:54:49That was one of the worst things to ever happen If you can talk to the talk to the place where you're where you're running it like if it's a games shop It or whatever find out what works for them and do your best to make sure that that never changes because people are Are habitual and if you change one thing You're you're going to we lost players because of that we game some for some who couldn't make it to the other one But but I think that was the biggest loss of like one one time loss of players was because we changed it to the second Saturday of every month Instead of whatever it was before Yeah Like I mentioned we normally play on Friday nights for our pickup games My general schedule allows me to go to the game shop twice a month One Friday I hang out just play whatever I want and one Friday I run the campaign Which Friday is which changes month to month to month because my schedule is ever changing But it will always fall on a Friday game night

1:55:51So the players know I announce it in our discord They get a mission update They get a couple of days to plan what they're going to bring and who can make it I get kind of an idea is to how many players We're going to have and then we go from there like I said is drop in drop out all the players get you know mission updates They get you know mission recaps I lay everything out for all the other players who couldn't make it So they're keeping up with the story and they kind of learn what happened So yeah, I think the first thing you got to do is consistency right Yes You got to keep it the same try not to change it if you can but that's that's the best way to grow your player base too Because like I said, I started off small it it only got up to like seven players probably the first six to eight months but the longer it went even if even on the days where you look It's campaign day and I've got everything set up and like nobody's there or one person shows up But they're not there for campaign So you play something else, but you leave everything set up and people will get used to seeing it And people will start making time and people will be like well, I want to try that out

1:56:53And it will start to grow and that's how you go from three people to begin with to 60 people seven years later That's its consistency you have to pick a day or you know a Friday or whatever You have to just keep doing it every single time Yeah 100% if you can't be there get someone who can cover for you Yeah, yeah, just having bodies that sit there with battle tech out right have the little poster saying hey learn how to play Battle tech or come join us right yeah And you got to have someone who's friendly and open you really got to put on you know Your your friendly cap in order to kind of entice people over now you also Want your games to be exciting right because We have a thing where if somebody's using an LBX or they get a lot of cluster hits Literally will have 15 people chanting box of death As we rummage around to find who's got their their box of death handy right yeah And all the match of the gathering players and I just out of the store look over us going what the heck is going on over there

1:57:56And you know we've had people literally walk up to something like What game you guys playing play battle tech they're like Why is everyone chanting like oh we're just having a good time and someone's about doing a lot of damage to somebody else It's really exciting. Yeah, you say hey, do you want to roll some dice? Do you want to see us from robots move and like uh okay And then you slowly just kidnap people from magic the gathering and you bring them over to check step one for that is Well, I don't have time to play that's fine. You don't need to play. Let's see. I've got six guys Just just roll the dice for this guy. Please don't you don't have to move them or anything I just need to make these attacks you get to roll those dice and that gets more people addicted than anything else Just the simple rolling of those dice the first roll is free. It's that it's that dopamine rush. It's that yeah It's it's it's like crack it is Couple of things about scheduling real quickly You got to have a conversation with your group as well first things first pick a day that works for you Don't think it's inconvenient for you, but then you really want to say hey

1:58:58I can do the second Saturday the third Saturday or the first Saturday What works best for people? And try to accommodate you know, you're gonna lose some sheep along the way You're never gonna get 100% attendance and you can't lose sleep over that right I mean people are blowing the flock are gonna fall off for something's gonna be inconvenient And it's gonna be okay, right? You'll find other players, but Do try to be again like we talked about for mission design Influxable right try to our solution for that was was steel again Field steel stepped up he runs my campaigns on a different day during the month at a different shop So it's anybody who can't make it to mine for any reason They can make it over there to his and it's just fantastic Same missions same packet same everything Just a different day with a different person and it makes a lot of people happy And that's something I didn't do that that branched off naturally So that was not something that I set up I'm just super happy that it did Perfect. Well, that's great. It's great to have dedicated, you know

2:00:00Effectively co-toes or yeah, I mean, you know officers or whatever you want to call them to to really help kind of Keep things moving right especially if you can't be there. So um, I think That's the majority of what is important to get your own campaign off the ground I mean pick a rule set find some players Design your missions for campaigns to be fun balanced and you know, pick some fun mechanics to make them different and unique Have a plan to resolve your issues with players that are gonna come up even if they don't come up all the time And find today they works find some scheduling works for your players and then I mean really step six the secret step six is just get out there and roll dice right and a big thing is make it your own Like yeah, I have my packet you have your packet. I took it from certain things find find what you like Not even your players find what you like And then you will attract players who who think like you and you're gonna have a lot of fun that way

2:01:01But if anybody is interested in our packets I'm gonna post mine on the discord so you can get to it You can get the the the whole packet that I wrote and any of the missions that I've done I've got I've got years worth of missions that I've written in a google doc folder I'm not gonna say that all of them are like super pretty or well edited But they're they've all been played So um, you know, I have my favorites, but feel free to draw for my things and modify it As much as you want you will not hurt my feelings if you're like well This was a fun place to start, but I you know, I didn't like this and I wanted to change that I encourage that super awesome Yeah, I mean, I'll see if we can figure out a way to put those in the show notes so people don't have to go digging the discord if they don't want to Um, but I can post my alpha strike packet as well if you want to run a campaign an alpha strike And I'll dig up my classic one so people can kind of see what I'm doing with the hit line style campaign Um, we can certainly put those out there and if you guys have any questions please Campaigns are something that we hear a lot about. How are you doing yours? What's your rules?

2:02:05What do we do? How do we do this? This is why this episode came into being Yes, send us emails And we'll either answer them in other episodes or we'll try to squeeze them into episode 141 when that comes around Or if it's a very specific question, we'll just we'll just reply to you. Yeah, we can just do that too Because yeah, we we covered a lot of of the generalizations But I'm sure that some of you trying to start it up will have very specific questions like what would you recommend for this specific situation Just just send us a message and you know, we will do our best to answer that in a timely fashion Yeah, you can shoot us emails at the macbaid podcast gmail.com You can find us on discord, you know, and and encourage your fellow players To give campaigns a chance. They're a great way to have laid back fun Storytelling experiences That you can make a lot of memories doing it's a totally different way to play if your traditional method is a regular pickup game or even You know, mainly campaign play so I think I think campaigns are great

2:03:10They will take a lot of your time There's no doubt about it. I mean between building up for building missions trying to balance things trying even trying to figure out Where the story's gonna go or like what do you like what are you gonna bring you have to decide that What are you providing other players like for me? I provide everything somebody could come in off the street Not have anything and I will provide everything for them But that's not viable for everyone because not everybody has three or four of every single mech put out They just don't have the resources So figure out what What you have what you can provide what they have to provide and make sure that they know that before before showing up Yeah, and you have to anticipate the unanticipated right For example, I had a I had a mission where the bad guys were trying to break their leader out of prison This is the base defense mission and we had some Carnob's coming in that we're gonna land inside the prison walls and they were going to

2:04:12snatch their leaders off the roof of the prison and take off well One of my players said hey, that's weird. They're these like helicopters or v-tools kind of hanging out over here on the side of the map We should prioritize those and shoot those down Well the next three missions that I had written revolved around that bad guy boss being out of the prison And it totally messed up my narrative because they shot all the planes down. I I can't I can't unshoot those plans down for them I'm not gonna rob my players for a job well done So you just have to be able to adapt and maybe your maybe your plot art gets cut short And then they move on in the next contract or they have something else happen, right? So be flexible I mean being flexible. I could not agree more with that that I think that is a Overall strategy that I've mentioned several times Anything else done before we wrap up this episode I mean we could probably talk about it for another hour or so just giving little stories or or Anything like that, but I think I think we've done some good work here today And again folks if you have any questions reach out to us send us an email

2:05:15We're more than happy to To try to help you guys out and get your campaigns off the ground because if there's one thing I want to see It's more people playing battle tech Well, come on back next time where Josh and I are gonna cover our experience at brawl in the blue grass You hear about that tournament and all the fun things that happened when we were down there Want to thank you for listening and thanks to all of our patrons who helped keep the lights on And I certainly want to thank Bobby from Forch's Minatures and Games for being an absolutely fantastic support network for the hobby and helping the community at large and of course helping Adam and I and Josh getting our hands on the latest and greatest plastic that our hearts desire Feel free to join in the conversations. We have every day on our discord and send us your questions at the mechbay podcast at gmail.com Also Get out there and tell your friends about us. I keep writing into people who don't know who we are or what we do So go ahead and spread the good word Don't forget to support your local game stores and get out there and roll those dice

2:06:15Thanks for listening and remember through salvage all things are possible You You

2:07:33You You

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