So, apparently, Battletech is the 8th age (with Shadowrun as the 6th age and Earthdawn as the 4th age)?
http://www.battlecorps.com/catalog/product...roducts_id=2259
or was this an April Fools joke?

Both....

It was also very nice to see published.

If you hark back to the era of SR2 and MW2, you would not need to work 1/10th as hard to meet the needs of both systems. My friends and I played "ShadowTech" for years.

BlueMax

You can put Earthdawn in there as well.

Something of a mistake from my unofficial point of view. However, easily ignored when I run a Shadowrun game.

Neither...

Don;t for get rebbrinks new game bump that to the 10th world XD

Does Battletech have magic? If not, it could very well be the *seventh* world.

Just saying.

Not that it will interact nicely with Equinox (8th world) at all, mind you... but still... no sense going to an even-numbered world if you don't need the magic level it brings iwth it

I am afraid.

Just say'n.

TD

Be afraid, be very very afraid.

BlueMax

Well, ok, then, I guess I'll go read it. If anyone else wants to download the free .pdf, here's a username and password.
Username: shadowrunner
password: openchummer

I gotta admit, I hate the very idea of Battlerun so much I still haven't been able to sit down and read it.

Gin Tonic helped me.

I don't see the Battletech setting as the 8th world (or even the 7th) whatsoever. Just because FASA incorporated elements from Shadowrun into Earthdawn, that doesn't mean all their settings are related. If so, I demand my street mage have access to a TARDIS or, at the very least, a Constitution-class starship.

It's just plain silly lampshading of many things ^^

Wow. Battlerun was written so tongue-in-cheek. Amazingly funny.

Glad you're enjoying it!

Jason H.

Well fasa did publish a Doctor Who game......

I liked the dragon PCs better. The fact that we knew free spirits and AI were going to be options made it just believable enough to generate some serious nerdrage a lot of character speculation and one GM who tried to flush a brick.

That's why I mentioned the TARDIS. They also did a Star Trek game, hence the starship reference.

Your loss.

I still believe that was a test run. Also, the dragon PC would, had they been put into the Comp, not have made for most stupid PC option (that goes to the Infected, but near ties with the AI - some things really should not be playable). Amusing, though, that seemingly Comp and Running Wild were entirely uncoordinated and now we're settled with three unplayable and several other playable WoD refugee emo chars that sparkle in the sunlight for no reason whatsoever.

However, I appreciate that, should I desire to, I now am able to play any race from The Theran Empire using SURGE and free spirit rules. Maybe I'll play a leafer. Nothing like a potted plant with an attitude suffering from Tourette.

Where does Renegade Legion fit into all this?

That's sad to hear. It's quite funny, and pretty clearly not meant to be taken seriously.

Afraid of BattleRun, not Equinox hopefully.

I have no strong feeling one way or another about the Infected, but I think the possibility of AI PCs is fairly nifty. What's your beef?

They're both too powerful in their one small niche of the universe and too limited as to make viable PC, force the game massively into one direction, are attention whores to no end AND are so incoherent with the background that I almost expect the paper in Comp, Unwired and Emergence to bleed whenever I open these books.

Not that the Matrix of SR4, with it's endless red tape and the horriblywong return to the node labyrinths of 2nd would not be messy in itself, but nooo, now we get AI which require everyone to waste loads of time on this unenjoyable stuff instead of doing what has been the convenient norm with the Matrix in every edition so far: mostly ignoring it. Essentially, AI are like everything that sucks about Technos, condensed. And they're useless in anything but Matrix stuff. Which, in SR4, is only halfway enjoyable if you largely disregard Unwired, which is essential for them to work.

As for the Infected, there is a line of games dedicated to them. If that floats your boat, play WoD. I see zero need to upgrade them from Threats to angsty gothy crybaby chars or food for the gorn trolls.

I always loved the fact that vampires in SR have nowhere to run on sucking blood. They need to do it, and when they do it they do massive and irreparable harm to their victims. Self aware victims. They can't suck rats and cry about how tortured they are. If they continue to live they are monsters, and that makes me very happy.

It also makes for some really interesting characters, the type of characters you got before being a bloodsucker became socially acceptable.

I can see your beef about AI and Free spirits to a point. We had our first death at the game store the other day and it was the free spirit. I would have bet on the orc murder adept. Both character types can work great in the right game with the right GM though, so there is that.

Of course they can. All that is required is basic emotions, for the emotional bond, and every of the more intelligent animals (including, but not limited to, rats, cats, dogs, crows, pigs) is capable of that. Since the prerequzisite of cognitive intelligence has fallen, you can easily build Twilight vampires. Especially with Runners' Companion.


Sure, they will work great in dedicated campaigns. I could also imagine a naga-only campaign exploring the mysteries of SE Asia. It would be great fun. Seriously. As much as the WoD types may work wel if you're so inclined, and a Technomancer/Ai only campaign could work out well too.

But that doesn't make them viable overall characters, if they only work in their own, tailor made setting.

Yep, I have to say reading that April Fool's Joke was hilarious.

Clan Sea Fox's (Diamon Shark) path to Megacorp-dom comes down to a single slogan.



Anyway, yeah, one of the funniest gaming jokes I've read in a long time. I haven't seen a game company do a full-fledged joke like this in some time. The very fact that Catalyst will sell you a print copy, kind of scares me. ;p

This also has to be one of, among the very many worthy candidates in the pdf, the funniest blocks of text to read in the book.

Wait what?
There's a PRINT Version of Battlerun? O.o
I must investigate immediately! Tomorrow.
Or some day else . . in my FLGS i think ^^

The print version even has a short story the PDF doesn't have.

Jason H.

Ouch, I just read up on that. So Running Wild trumps SR4A on critter powers?

Someone told you that publishing your April Fool's jokes was madness, right? Pure, unadulterated madness? I mean, the only publication that could ever manage it, and I'm 42% sure they sold someone's soul to Satan to pull it off, was EGM, and they had, you know, actual magazine around it as buffer.

The PDF was free, the printed book was not cheap, and the combo actually cost more.

I remember wondering if they meant to print it, assuming at first that no-one would sign up to pay for what they could get free.

Of course I ordered two (one as a gag gift) since I have everything published in English and more on top of that in my Shadowrun collection.

THAT sure isn't a money making scheme. But it is awesome, in a kleenex boxes for shoes mad sort of way.


Well, not that much, but this little change, just like Krieger's suddenly stopping being curable, make their new options all the more unappealing. Looks a bit like grab for some of WW's fanbase. Cheap, if you ask me.

It'S a real pity they didn't use the Infected chapter intro fic in Runners' Companion and failed to coordinate both into one article for the Infected in either book. I'd have loved to see more Awakened flora, and the Infected get far too much attention that way, with loads of redundancies. Between SR4, RC and RW, I think really everybody knows what a Wendigo is by now.

That was part of the joke. But I don't know that $15 is so expensive for a 56 page book.

And seriously, feel free to start laughing now. I bought the combo, without paying attention to that fact, since I typically always bought the combos. Last I had heard, I was still only one of two who did so.

If i can get that in my FLGS and not just online, i will buy it too . .

Wait, Battlerun was meant as a JOKE??

No wonder I couldn't find any more players for my group


So, Mr. Hardy, any truth to the rumors of a second edition coming out, Battlerundawn?

Huh, magical creatures fused with mecha battling it out with other magitech mecha, and all in an urban magic setting. Sounds pretty cool!





The Cthulhutech folks will kill you, though.

If there's anything the last few weeks have taught me, it's that all rumors are automatically true!

Jason H.

Battlerun could have been something great.
A simply silly setting that incorporates both shadowrun and battletech.

I'm in!

OK, AIs have no resonance abilites as it was speculated in Emergence (probably to keep them seperate from sprites), but apart from that I can't see too large derivations from the background.


That may be how you play infected, but not how they have to be played. Sounds more like a group problem than a rule problem

ORLY? How do the infected have to be played, pray tell?


They have AI abilities which are more powerful, and add their rating to any device, which is just begging to be abused. I should look if I find my Master Chief/Cortana build again ...

I consider ED to be separate to SR, and SR to be separate from BT/MW. There are similarities at certain points, but I leave those alone.

I thought BattleRun was one of the better, more acceptible April Fools jokes played on gamers like myself. But then, I've always despised April Fools "jokes".

Anybody remember the Orca Class Mech for Battletech? *snickers*

I once believed this, but was informed that Battletech has history back to the Soviet Union which verifiably lacks the Awakening.

~J

There is no "have to". If your want to play your infected as chaste emos or goths engaged in byzantine plots that's perfectly valid - but I really can't see how this is a problem of the rules, your criticism is like intentionally driving your car into a wall and then complaining that it's possible and the results are what could be expected.


You mean the home node?


And BT indeed has a history which goes back to an alternate end of the Cold War and moving more and more towards one world government and later intergalactic governments from there. A 7th world would have a Defiance Empire and not House Steiner.

As for the awakening in battletech:
Nova Cats and the Phantom Mech ^^