Starting Things Up
Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2021 3:34 pm
Hey there... here's what I propose just to show that this forum is still alive. We three that are here (and anyone else that is reading this and wants to join us) create a new unit and each run a lance in the unit. We start a "contract" that is really just a baseline that we are writing from and towards... putting together the contract objectives and the W's of it (where, who, why, what) then just write.
The idea of the new unit is so we can start a new storyline that is not necessarily tied to any past or any history so we don't have to worry about keeping that straight. It also allows us to build this unit and story as a new beginning, like we are trying to do with the game as a whole. We are not worrying about word count or getting paid or any of that, we worry more about the story and moving it forward. This is not about the C-bills, it's just writing and creating something new.
While I am using it as an all encompassing term and will do so for this discussion: "Lance" can be defined as lance of Mechs, lance of ASF, squad or platoon of infantry or battle armor, or some mixed force like the Capellans use with Mechs and armor in the unit... just something to work with and help give structure to the characters. Maybe we even assume responsibilities for additional lances as we go, just to flesh out the unit's tactical needs. I think we stick to lance level writing at the moment so we don't get too bogged down with the number of characters. Just dealing with a lance of Mechs with techs is like 12 or so characters by itself, barebones on the techs end, not including anyone's family or hangers on or whatever so I think it's a good start that would still have some depth to it.
And we write for everyone in our lance... all the techs and MechWarriors or whatever and look to make real characters out of many of them so we have a complete story with a backstory and all that. We could go with a rule that I have seen in professional writers' shared universes (Thieves' World from the 80s is the first one that comes to mind) where we can use and work with other peoples characters up to X point... I think their idea was use them but don't break character or get them killed. We play as nice as we want with the other character so we can stir up the story some as long as we remember that others could stir up the story with our characters too... that would help to temper things a bit, me thinks.
I am also thinking we don't adhere *really* hard to some of the BTM rules for this beginning operation. Lose the restrictions on number of characters and on Mech customization (within reasonable boundaries … for example, house rules for Classic BT in my group was that you could swap out weapons and gear on a ton by ton basis, but you cannot change the internal structure of a Mech because we are reworking the Mech, not building a new one). Maybe even toss in equipment that is not in our hardware brokerage as long as we have canon material (Sarna works) to show what the equipment is and does. If something gets too crazy, then we (politely) point that out and go with majority rules then make changes to the storyline to accommodate that result. No retcon, but a twist to the story that makes the point of contention go away... the tech breaks and cannot be fixed so is replaced, a character is killed in a mugging, or whatever. Then as things expand more, we can make sure to readjust things either back to BTM norm or adjust the norm to fit what we are doing at that point.
As new people join or rejoin, we invite them to come write in that unit... give them the lance they want to write from and weave them in. Maybe they are a part of the unit that just hadn't been seen yet or reinforcements from off-planet or the remains of another unit on the planet that gets adopted into this one. If they don't want to do that, then they can start their own unit in the same fashion and we can support them as much as everyone wants to see happen. For example, if we are doing Mechs and they want to do just infantry then they make their new unit... if they want other writers in there, we volunteer as we can... if they want to run it on their own, then more power to them.
If you guys and anyone else that may be reading this would like to chime in and give suggestions, then please do so. I want to make this move forward and get things going again and I really think that this is a great opportunity for us to do that.
The idea of the new unit is so we can start a new storyline that is not necessarily tied to any past or any history so we don't have to worry about keeping that straight. It also allows us to build this unit and story as a new beginning, like we are trying to do with the game as a whole. We are not worrying about word count or getting paid or any of that, we worry more about the story and moving it forward. This is not about the C-bills, it's just writing and creating something new.
While I am using it as an all encompassing term and will do so for this discussion: "Lance" can be defined as lance of Mechs, lance of ASF, squad or platoon of infantry or battle armor, or some mixed force like the Capellans use with Mechs and armor in the unit... just something to work with and help give structure to the characters. Maybe we even assume responsibilities for additional lances as we go, just to flesh out the unit's tactical needs. I think we stick to lance level writing at the moment so we don't get too bogged down with the number of characters. Just dealing with a lance of Mechs with techs is like 12 or so characters by itself, barebones on the techs end, not including anyone's family or hangers on or whatever so I think it's a good start that would still have some depth to it.
And we write for everyone in our lance... all the techs and MechWarriors or whatever and look to make real characters out of many of them so we have a complete story with a backstory and all that. We could go with a rule that I have seen in professional writers' shared universes (Thieves' World from the 80s is the first one that comes to mind) where we can use and work with other peoples characters up to X point... I think their idea was use them but don't break character or get them killed. We play as nice as we want with the other character so we can stir up the story some as long as we remember that others could stir up the story with our characters too... that would help to temper things a bit, me thinks.
I am also thinking we don't adhere *really* hard to some of the BTM rules for this beginning operation. Lose the restrictions on number of characters and on Mech customization (within reasonable boundaries … for example, house rules for Classic BT in my group was that you could swap out weapons and gear on a ton by ton basis, but you cannot change the internal structure of a Mech because we are reworking the Mech, not building a new one). Maybe even toss in equipment that is not in our hardware brokerage as long as we have canon material (Sarna works) to show what the equipment is and does. If something gets too crazy, then we (politely) point that out and go with majority rules then make changes to the storyline to accommodate that result. No retcon, but a twist to the story that makes the point of contention go away... the tech breaks and cannot be fixed so is replaced, a character is killed in a mugging, or whatever. Then as things expand more, we can make sure to readjust things either back to BTM norm or adjust the norm to fit what we are doing at that point.
As new people join or rejoin, we invite them to come write in that unit... give them the lance they want to write from and weave them in. Maybe they are a part of the unit that just hadn't been seen yet or reinforcements from off-planet or the remains of another unit on the planet that gets adopted into this one. If they don't want to do that, then they can start their own unit in the same fashion and we can support them as much as everyone wants to see happen. For example, if we are doing Mechs and they want to do just infantry then they make their new unit... if they want other writers in there, we volunteer as we can... if they want to run it on their own, then more power to them.
If you guys and anyone else that may be reading this would like to chime in and give suggestions, then please do so. I want to make this move forward and get things going again and I really think that this is a great opportunity for us to do that.