Rules Questions and Comments

[chaosxtreme]

Please I am a true follower of Duke and we recognize only 3 games.

DNF'ers are blasphemers and DNF is a false prophet.

[Fatebringer]

Fate, did you read the bio rules?

Of course not. Why would I read it until after it's shoved down our throats?

[Dave Baughman]

Fate, did you read the bio rules?

Of course not. Why would I read it until after it's shoved down our throats?

I chuckled.

[Marlin]

Fate, did you read the bio rules?

Of course not. Why would I read it until after it's shoved down our throats?

I would and probably could not read it afterwards.

Gross.

[Fatebringer]

he he he. Now you make me chuckle I'm a Raven, I do the political thing which is mock it mercilessly like I'm about to do to the Vipers who lost two warships at New Hope station.

[Daemonknight]

harsh

[Fatebringer]

You can join me, it will be fun

[JediBear]

And Jedi- yes it is a perfectly viable MILITARY strategy. Its also a huge political gamble, which is what you're getting act, but from a purely military viewpoint, nuclear weapons are your best friend. The non-military backlash is likewise your worst enemy, atleast from your viewpoint. I disagree, but I have a sneaking suspicion that personal RL views on the subject are bleeding thru to the game. I personally don't have an issue with nuclear weapons, rl or otherwise, and you can view that however you like.

I'm about as pro-nuke as you can get IRL without being a screaming lunatic. That's no part of my argument.

My argument is based on the flavor and canon of Battletech, which is supposed to be the foundation of this game. Because, otherwise, why am I playing?

There are plenty of other settings I'd be comfortable RPing in, where nukes are an acceptable option or are even thoroughly passe. Battletech is not one of those settings.

[Cannonshop]

ON the nuke question, when you're about to buy one of those shynee party-poppers, remember this:

it costs more than a factory, and it can only be used once.  it costs more than some Warships and it can only be used once.  You can upgrade a world to RC for less, and the nuke only can be used one time...and that one time, might not be enough.

25 RP for a one-use item may be chump-change for a faction the size of the Dominion, Terran Hegemony, or Free Worlds League, but it's a seriously large chunk of change for anyone else, and it generates no income, requires another expensive facility to build (PF's aren't cheap)...

And it isn't guaranteed to be that effective a weapon.

Beyond potential social consequences in-character, there's just the simple COST of the things, vs. their actual usefulness.

[Daemonknight]

And the canon of Battletech is more or less useless in this subject. Yes, nobody ever used them in canon. Then again, the LA didn't splinter, the UIW never existed, CoPS never happened, the FedCom Civil War DID happen, the Jihad came about, the Ravens never joined the Dominion, nor the Falcons the LA... so on and so forth. So using 'canon' as a reason why we shouldn't be allowed a choice is basiclly a bad joke. I will give you flavor, but again- alot of what goes on, isn't really in the flavor/theme of how BT works either. Especially among the Clans- alot happens in the GC and between the Clanners that we don't see in any fluff or novel.

The idea that because something happened one way in an irrelevent alternate history, we should be barred from even having the choice to use a particular weapon, makes no sense. Ok sure, using nukes made people total pariahs in BT's canon. But as we've seen, there ARE consequences for in-game actions by other players. Case in point, the Hellions flying off the handle at the Falcons, though lets not go there in this thread. Marlin doesn't like my play, so he's doing something about it. I took issue with past Adder actions, I did something about it. If someone uses nuclear weapons in a way that offends you ic, its on your head to do something about it.

I'll point out a sore subject I could never touch IC- the Knights Sanguine of CBS. The whole idea was totally non-Clan in my opinion. Nor was the idea that a Clan would consider nuking Strana Mechty because of some percived impurity on our part. But that was part of the plan. And nothing was going to stop that, from an internal standpoint. However, if the other Clans found out, I'd expect the Spirits to pay dearly for even discussing such, for lack of a better word, heresy.

So, I disagree with your assessment that BT's flavor/canon should somehow bind our hands from even considering nuclear warfare. After all, there is a group of people who used nuclear weapons in BT canon. Granted they're total fanatics, they've also got quite the following. If nukes are banned, and we played out the Jihad...well, it wouldn't be nearly as horrific if it was just normal warfare, would it?


As people keep trying to impress on me, it's a roleplaying game. I disagree that the RP takes precedence over the rules, but I also don't think rules that stifle RP should ever be allowed, nor should the omission of rules be allowed to achieve the same end. Lack of NBC rules, stifles a writer from introducing them as a story piece, because they have no in-game effect. I enjoy writing RP because it has a direct correlation to the game; I'm not a fanfic writer, I don't write just to be able to have people read my writing. This isn't a fanfic website either.

[Daemonknight]

ON the nuke question, when you're about to buy one of those shynee party-poppers, remember this:

it costs more than a factory, and it can only be used once.  it costs more than some Warships and it can only be used once.  You can upgrade a world to RC for less, and the nuke only can be used one time...and that one time, might not be enough.

25 RP for a one-use item may be chump-change for a faction the size of the Dominion, Terran Hegemony, or Free Worlds League, but it's a seriously large chunk of change for anyone else, and it generates no income, requires another expensive facility to build (PF's aren't cheap)...

And it isn't guaranteed to be that effective a weapon.

Beyond potential social consequences in-character, there's just the simple COST of the things, vs. their actual usefulness.

thats a function of the basic rules Dave B put down to have them exist in the game. I'm actually writing up a piece that would put them on par with the BioWar weapons, in terms of detail and whatnot. Don't know that it'll be looked at, and I'm sure they will be vehemently argued against considering how many people are against their existence at all, but its my opinion that if they're going to exist, they should exist with solid rules, and be worth their cost.

[JediBear]

And the canon of Battletech is more or less useless in this subject. Yes, nobody ever used them in canon. Then again, the LA didn't splinter, the UIW never existed, CoPS never happened, the FedCom Civil War DID happen, the Jihad came about, the Ravens never joined the Dominion, nor the Falcons the LA... so on and so forth.

So what has changed between 3062 and 3091 that has made the use of the traditional battlefield boogeymen more acceptable?

The idea that because something happened one way in an irrelevent alternate history, we should be barred from even having the choice to use a particular weapon, makes no sense.

Who's arguing that? It's a common feature setting that NBC weapons are considered absolutely abhorrent by all sides. Nothing has changed that.

Ok sure, using nukes made people total pariahs in BT's canon. But as we've seen, there ARE consequences for in-game actions by other players.

Not of the right sorts. Generally, one must eliminate a faction in order to penalyze bad behavior (itself typically just bad RP) by a player, and the game is generally worse off for it.

After all, there is a group of people who used nuclear weapons in BT canon.

Oh, there have been a few. Generally small bands of renegades. Are any of us actually playing any of those factions?

We are not.

I also don't think rules that stifle RP should ever be allowed

To an extent, I agree. But quietly disposing of the NBC rules would lessen player and GM workloads while "stifling RP" in precisely the same way as not having nude models for MMO characters does.

I enjoy writing RP because it has a direct correlation to the game;

So what's wrong with RPing without nukes?

Unless it was actually your intent to use them despite the supposed consequences.

Which pretty well makes my point for me.

And in any case I pretty much have to disagree. Some of the best RP I've done in the FGC has had absolutely nothing to do with the rules. Including one time I got to help RP the aftermath of a nuclear explosion.

Beyond potential social consequences in-character, there's just the simple COST of the things, vs. their actual usefulness.

That's part of why I haven't offered them real opposition before now. They might be the worst way to lose a Leviathan II, but they're not a good option in economic terms, so most players shouldn't go for them.

Maybe we could riff off this a little bit, reducing the cost to make the things (in our terms, they're cheap, low-tech weapons) but introducing a cost for using them that reflects....the social cost of using them. Naturally, this should be greater for larger, more stable factions.

Thoughts?

[Daemonknight]

People are different. Just because the people in the canon universe don't use them, doesn't mean everyone, everywhere, universally hates the mere concept of nukes. I disagree with the base assumption that nukes are bad, regardless of what BT's canon has said, and seeing as how the vast majority of characters in power were not in power at the time we deviated, I see no reason why I can't RP someone being okay with nukes. You might prefer to RP that your faction universally hates nuclear weapons- thats fine, and its your call. I choose not to.

I say its not abhorrent by my side. Why? Because I choose to have characters who are not idealists. They're going to do whatever it takes, and so long as nuclear weapons arn't required, we won't use them. However, if we're better served by using nukes than expending huge ammounts of manpower and resources, we might go down that road.

I disagree that destroying a faction is the only recourse. You can reduce a faction's power by a large ammount and leave it alive, and let that faction try and rebuild itself. That sounds like punishment. I've got a feeling someone is going to try such a tactic on me in the near future, so perhaps we'll see if it works. Also, refusing to RP with a player is a form of punishment, if you can get the majority of the playerbase to agree.

I was talking about the WoB actually, not a small band of renegades. Quite a popular faction last time I checked, not playable here, but its by no means a small band of renegades.

I don't see how removing the nuclear rules would lessen anyone's workload. Its not like putting * next to a unit is a huge bookeeping issue, and thats basiclly all it takes to denote the existance of a nuclear token. The difference is also that nuclear tokens serve a purpose in this game, whereas a nude model in an MMO servers no actual game-mechanical purpose.

And there is nothing wrong with RPing without nukes...unless I want to write RP about nukes. And I'd like you to point out where I said I was planning on using nuclear weapons with the intent of ignoring the consequences? For that matter, if I used a nuke, all I can write is how members of my faction respond, your response is upto you. Just because people don't use nukes, doesn't mean that the use of one will cause widespread rioting, or a massive social upheaval, or a military coup or anything like that. What happened in canon the last time the leader of a Successor State used a nuclear weapon? I'm serious, I don't know, but I assume you do since you keep saying how bad it would be.

And what are you disagreeing with anyways? I made a statement of my personal preferences...so you like writing RP thats irrelevent to the game. okay...so? I don't, I like my RP to actually have some meaning in the larger scheme of things. Its either foreshadowing future events, or adding substance to something I'm doing. Robert's speech on Tharkad was meant to be the kick-off point for the trials against the Adders. It dealt with a situation covered by the rules- combat. So I'm not really sure how you managed to write an awesome RP piece that had zero impact on the game at large.


I don't think there should be an abstract system for saying "you've done something 'bad' and now you're forced to deal with it". My faction doesn't react in the same way to 'bad event X' as the Cappies. Something might set the FedSuns off, that the Lyrans don't really care about. Introducing a 'social stability' meter means making a whole slew of new rules. Are nukes the only thing that affects it negetivly? What affects it positively? What're the drawbacks of a low number? Are there any benefits to a high number? Is there a cap on the number/benefits? Is there a bottom? Is there a way to 'attack' another faction's stability? Is there a way to abstractly defend yours? Can you proactivly counter the effects of doing something(nuking a target) that would downgrade your score?

People always say they like simplicity, but throwing in a stability scale just to scare people off from using nukes is alot more complicated than just making people police themselves, or having the GMs do it abstractly.

[Dave Baughman]

Far be it for me to poke my appendages in the hornet's nest, but isn't the basic premise that nukes are anathema in canon not actually borne out in recent canon?

• Great houses - even whitehat House Davion - confirmed in canon as maintaining secret stockpiles
• Nukes used in FCCW - commander of the unit that deployed them is demonized but no concrete action is taken to punish her.
• Nukes used against outreach prior to the start of the Jihad - no one bats an eyelash
• Nukes used in Jihad... houses respond by using their own nukes. In the case of the Capellans, using them vigorously and with even less discrimination than the WOB
• During the Azami/DC nukefest & orbatfest, no one seems to care. No cries of outrage over "obvious DC repression" and/or "EEEEEVIL Azami terrorists," not even from the FS.
• General attitude to WOB BW use seems to be "too bad so sad, but its not happening in my back yard" throughout the majority of the IS. WOB BW, Nuke, etc use isn't an effective propaganda tool in the hands of the allies and doesn't deter mass collaboration (often quite enthusiastic) with the WOB

Nor does the use of "lesser" WMD like orbital bombardment seem to generate any real outcry in canon. Orbital strikes are used several times in the FCCW (including against targets on important worlds like Hesperus) and no one seems to care, and there aren't exactly screaming mobs demanding revenge for Turtle Bay until the incident is used as a fig-leaf to give a more compelling reason to attack the Smoke Jaguars than "easiest logistics and/or Mike Stackpole is angry at a Smoke Jaguar player he met in a convention and wants to get some payback."

My observation on Nukes in canon is that no matter what the "official party line" of the houses and especially of ComStar is, nuclear arms aren't something that induces gut-wrenching revulsion at the mere thought of. Instead, the Houses' continuing abstinence up until the 3060s as strongly grounded in the inertia of 3rd Succession War-era honors of war that were already starting to break down in the face of the Clan Invasion and the resurgence of nationalism spherewide. By 3060, the Sphere seemed to be primarily upholding a "no first use" policy that was really better defined as "really, please, just give us an excuse tough guy."

Of course, in canon 3091 attitudes seem to have changed again in favor of strictly conventional war, but that's the result of the Jihad, which as far as I can tell was a far bloodier and destructive conflict than the Blood War - and more specifically of the truly gruesome battles for Terra, Circinus, the extermination of Gibson, the "march of death" to reclaim the CapCon, and the general economic collapse that finally "brought the war home" to most of the apathetic peasants. Even then, when nuclear arms are used in the Dark Age... get ready for it... it was mentioned in the news and no one cared.

[Marlin]

Far be it for me to poke my appendages in the hornet's nest, but isn't the basic premise that nukes are anathema in canon not actually borne out in recent canon?

• Nukes used against Outreach prior to the start of the Jihad - no one bats an eyelash

Of course not. Traitors can be destroyed by scum. All means possible allowed. [/list]