RE: Blue Sky Thinking (was: Re: [GZG] re: Wanted)

Jon (GZG) wrote...
>>...What form that takes in the end is something that's still 
open to a lot of debate, but personally I favour some sort of system 
that allows you to build your units, then a scenario generator that 
determines your mission for that game and how much of your force you 
can actually use on table to accomplish said mission.<<

Back in the day (before there was fire practically), I played with a
group
that did this for a Battletech campaign. Everyone built a company of
mechs,
then we had a random scenario list that we rolled on. The scenario would
determine what force could be used and what the victory conditions would
be
for that player. 

Every week we got to choose to be an attacker or defender, which would
determine who rolled IIRC - but I seem to recall that at times both
people
would roll - which resulted in people with vastly different victory
conditions at times and who didn't know it. It was a great deal of fun.
The
other question ended up being if both players used their own forces or
if
one used "scenario supplied" forces (usually the Defender IIRC). 

We had a very basic experience point system (that was far too difficult
in
retrospect) that was designed to allow the Mech pilots to get better at
piloting and gunnery - so people generally tried to use multiple lances
from
within their company to spread the wealth around (we could do the same
thing
with unit and leadership quality I suppose, or include one for those who
wish to use it).

What really became interesting is when the scenario called for a certain
type of lance or force and the player didn't really have anything like
it -
which forced them to try an complete a scenario with less than optimal
units
(sometimes seriously screwed units). This had the effect of people
building
balanced companies for the most part because after a couple of times of
watching someone get blown off the map (or having it happen to yourself)
because they hadn't included a fast-attack lance or any assault mechs or
whatever nobody really wanted it to happen to them.

In any case, just putting in my two cents that I think that this is a
great
idea- From a marketing standpoint this would also allow the potential
for
"theoretical" scenarios in a book (Kobayashi Maru anyone?) to
"historical"
-letting people fight out portions of certain campaigns from the history
of
the GZG universe. 

David Rodemaker

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