RISUS Battletech

[NukeHavoc]

Here's a more coherent version of my idea to use the free rules-light RISUS RPG to power the role-playing aspects of the Battletech sub-campaign. I've fleshed this out based on some feed back from the RISUS Talk Yahoo Group.

THE GOAL

We want the Battletech campaign to be a little more than just a fragfest between giant robots, and plan on having a small role-playing component to it. The RPG aspect will be limited -- negotiations in a bar, gambling in a bar, fights in a bar, etc. Rather than go with a rules-heavy system like d20 Modern, which would be tough to integrate into Battletech and has way, way more information than we need, I recommend RISUS, a rules-light, easy-to-learn (and free!) RPG.

We would still use standard Battletech rules on the battlefield, but when it came to role-playing, we'd switch to RISUS.

MECHWARRIOR CLICHES

Battletech uses two primary skills to define its mechwarriors - the piloting skill and the gunnery skill, each of which operate on a range of 0-6, with 0 being better and 6 being worse.

The scale is right for RISUS, but the range runs the wrong way. For purposes of RISUS, we'll buy ranks in the corresponding cliches normally. We'll invert them on the battle field, subtracting the number of ranks from six. For simplicities' sake, we'll list the battlefield stats after the RISUS ranks, separated by a slash.

For a typical mechwarrior, whose usually has a piloting rank of 5 and gunnery rank of 4 this yields:

Mech Pilot (1/5), Mech Gunner (2/4)

MECHWARRIOR PHSYICAL STATS

Mechwarriors traditionally can take five points of damage before being killed on the battlefield. For simplicity's sake, we'll keep this rule in battle, but outside of the cockpit combat is resolved using normal RISUS combat rules. We won't have an in-game mechanic for buffing up a character's Mechwarrior physical stats using RISUS dice, though perhaps you could have an ad hoc rule giving an extra hit point to Mechwarriors who take intensive physical cliches like "Bodybuilder".

SAMPLE MECH WARRIOR PCS

* Gunner MacFearson, Reckless Mech Pilot (1/5), Mech Gunner (2/4), Hair-trigger Gunslinger (3), Backroom Brawler (3), Half-assed Gambler (1)

* Jake "The Kidd" Toller, Jenner Obsessed Mech Pilot (2/4), Mech Gunner (2/4), Hacker (3), Maker (2), Bad Shot (1)

* Derrick Gray, Thoughtful Mech Pilot (1/5), Hotshot Mech Gunner (3/3), Mercenary (3), Criminal Mind (2), Occasional Bounty Hunter (1)

EXPANDING YOUR CHARACTER

RISUS has two optional rules that can give you additional dice: a hook and a tale, each of which grants an additional D6 you can use to buff up your character.

Hooks are adventure ideas that give the GM something to play with (e.g. "Lost Scion of House Davion". A tale is a piece of your character's background (length determined by the GM) that explains some key aspect of his or her past past (e.g. "Saw parent die on Solaris VII and has dedicated life to avoiding familial responsibility and seeking revenge")

So for example, Derrick could use the Solari VII tale to beef up his "Occasional Bounty Hunter" cliche to two dice instead of one.

(btw, both examples were taken from the RISUS Yahoo Group).

[NukeHavoc]

what, no comments on Ken's crazy-ass plan?

[erilar]

It's so crazy-ass it just might work!

Sorry, busy day at work here. This system sounds fine to me. IMO, the role playing in this campaign should take a major back seat to the mech trashing, so a lite system like this makes sense.

[NukeHavoc]

It's so crazy-ass it just might work!

Sorry, busy day at work here. This system sounds fine to me. IMO, the role playing in this campaign should take a major back seat to the mech trashing, so a lite system like this makes sense.

That was my thinking exactly. We don't need feats, skills (beyond the basic) or anything else that d20 gets us, because 95% of the campaign should be about what happens on the battlefield ... and the remaining 5 percent should be about the role-playing that gets us back there.

[Jonkga]

So, I'd definitely be down for the more-semi-regular, occasional game of Risus Battletech.

Who'd be running this endeavour - Damon? Ken? Some wierd amalgam of the two?

[Lars Porsenna]

I assume I would be running it, since I have the advantage of 25 years of Battletech materials to draw on...

Damon.

[NukeHavoc]

I assume I would be running it, since I have the advantage of 25 years of Battletech materials to draw on...

Yes, Damon would run it. I was just volunteering to run us through Risus character creation and perhaps an initial playtest, but Damon can do that just as easily (it's not like there's a lot of rules to read).

Ken