Format
This is where I've struggled the most. How do we run a massive multiplayer offline strategic wargame involving so many factions and players? We have all of the current line of core rulebooks, from the mano y mano A Time of War RPG all the way up to Interstellar Operations and the Campaign Operations book. ISO and CO have great ideas for abstract systems to represent forces in play, but whilst that is great for covering huge swaths of territorial conflict, that's just AccounTech, not BattleTech. But that's what being a Khan or House Lord really is - accounting, crunching numbers on a spreadsheet, weighing losses against the investment, etc. Tracking the minutiae of factory production and knowing how much you need in taxes to pay for a new company of FNR-5 Fafnirs is super important! If, you know, you're into that kind of thing.
Most of my players are not. Now, in my "professional" life, I'm constantly working spreadsheets and tracking logistics. That's old hat for me, and if I have to do it in my gaming, I'm not terribly sad about it. But my players are here to play, to conquer planets, to crush all opposition. Alpha Strike is a nice step in the right direction for a middle ground between the abstract ISO system and standard BattleTech play, since it's not feasible to play campaigns spanning thousands of planets one lance/3 hours of gaming at a time. The older MechForce idea is pretty sound too, wherein players tally up victories for their faction played in a certain period of time, and then translate them into X planets taken by that faction, but it maybe oversimplifies what we want to do.
GameMastering
In addition to the format of how battles are fought, there are a myriad of little additional things that can balance a war between six-planet Word of Blake and 2000-planet Federated Suns. Well, those 52 Divisions, Hidden Worlds, and WarShip fleet really already do that, but I mean more along the lines of intangibles, like anti-HPG electronic warfare, ROM operations, the classic ComStar "let's just kill all of their scientists" schtick, etc. Every major and minor power has some kind of intelligence apparatus for screwing with their friends and foes. And, in addition to that, each power has internal divisions. As opposed to Divisions, like military formations.
The Federated Suns, to continue with our examples here, isn't a monolithic organization. Sure, Victor "won" the Civil War and all is love, peace, & chicken grease on New Avalon with Yvonne in charge, right? Riiiight. There's also a bridge on Tharkad I'd like to sell you... Fact is, reading stuff like "En Passant" or pretty much any Hasek-heavy book, reveals that the noble families that produce the March Lords have their own schemes brewing. I'll get into this a little bit more below, and I'll use some Jihad examples, but suffices to say that the FS isn't alone in this. Free Worlds League? Divisive as hell. Draconis Combine? Do the "Black Dragons" ring any bells? Lyran Alliance? Well, Skye, Duke of Tamar, Democracy NOW!, I could go on all day with Lyran divisions.
With all of this, any massive campaign almost begs for a neutral, "has zero love for any faction" GameMaster to handle internal strife, external operations, and monthly/quarterly/yearly "time bombs" that hit factions. Except, well, that person a) has to have an encyclopedic BattleTech knowledge without any attachment and b) has to have the time to set everything up.
Clearly, I have the knowledge, but I am, unfortunately, biased as heck. I would love to use a lot of the canon happenings from '67 - '85 in the campaign, pursuant to what players are actually doing in between the turns/where their movements differ from canon, and hit all factions fairly hard, but at the same time, I want to play my Wolf Galaxies. Having the Word of Blake player, as one of the core kickers of the 5th SW be the GM would work great, but would require a lot more study and time investment on their part, and would take a bit of their enjoyment of BattleTech away.
The compromise there, and one Sean and I have talked about at length, is having a GM group of three or four people that can work on "storyline progression" as well as to coordinate, and approve or veto in-universe happenings.
Ie, places where a sourcebook is fuzzy or an operation needs to be carried out in secret - my Draconis Combine is going to launch a DEST operation against Jesse's Ghost Bears before a planned assault by my allied Nova Cats. Maybe we're going to sabotage a factory or assassinate a unit commander to cause a disruption to aid the assault. So, everyone in the committee is aware of what is going to happen, except for Jesse, and any rolls associated with this will be done in front of the committee so if it fails but the plot isn't uncovered, Jesse is none the wiser other than -something- happened. That works great for all the little in-fighting and back biting and internal strife. Continuing that, my Draconis Combine may or may not suffer a Black Dragon uprising on Dieron. So, without me around, one of the committee members rolls to see what happens. Of course, this requires that we build some catch-all random occurrence tables, but that is totally do-able. And every committee member would need a solid knowledge base to start from, requiring a little bit of study.
Metagaming
Is impossible to not do. One of the benefits to a vibrant universe is that so much of the backstory is filled in for you and you're not spinning much out of whole cloth to play. However, the downside to that, is if you're playing in a previous time to the most current (3068 vs 3150), you have "future knowledge" of many things, such as me knowing where all of the Word of Blake Hidden Worlds are, that is tempting to use in-game.
To go back to the Federated Suns - one of Sean's first orders of business is to create an "Outback March" and funnel resources that direction to bring the Suns' least cared for worlds up to snuff. This will help prevent the breakaway of Filtvelt and Malgrotta, which happens during the Jihad. So that is metagaming. But, it's also super logical - why would you not create the March and work towards making sure your people can at least read? Also, there's the mystery of Panpour (consensus is that they are either trying to rebuild a Texas-class WarShip, or build a new one from scratch, TPTB killed the plot thread before it went anywhere) and the whole issue with the black boxes, that have basically been written out of universe, or strongly de-emphasized over the years. Black boxes, though, only really aid military commands since they can't transmit much data in one shot, and don't lend too strong of an advantage to the FS (or the DC and LA, who also have some). Neither does the creation of a new March, really, but that one comes with some consequences - in "En Passant," noted above, the Sandoval family is not the strongest supporters of Victor, and by extension, the seat of government on New Avalon, even if Tancred is married to Yvonne. And the Haseks are the Haseks. So, as he and I have discussed, making a new March is a great idea, but at the same time, it also puts an upstart in the March Lord position alongside families that have supported the FS for centuries in the Sandovals and Haseks, inevitably leading to intrigue. And that's awesome. Because, at it's core, BattleTech is all about hitting the table top with your 'Mechs and doing a frighten, but the BattleTech UNIVERSE is a living, breathing, dynamic thing, populated by so much gray, you'd think colorblindness is a rampant trait. Any campaign that isn't just AccounTech needs to take that into consideration. We are all the "good guys" from our point of view, even the Word of Blake or the Clans.
Speaking of the Clans, there's another metagaming situation afoot. Operation: Ice Storm is the invasion of the Clan Jade Falcon and Clan Wolf occupation zones by the Ice Hellions and the Hells Horses respectively. Except, that'll be changing to the Cloud Cobras and the Blood Spirits. The former because they're tired of being in the Star Adder's shadow and the latter because it's their only long-term hope for survival. That's less metagaming (knowing the outcome of the Wars of Reaving) and more because I have an Iota Galaxy Blood Spirit cluster that I'd always planned on bringing to the Inner Sphere. The bigger metagaming, though, is that for it to logically work, a couple of things need to be moved up on the time table, and I'm loathe to "rewrite" history. But it only takes a tweak or two and suddenly, you can have a new invasion kick off as the Wars of Reaving hit full swing. Of course, me, as a Wolf player, knowing what is coming, could quickly send Galaxies worth of troops to the Periphery side of the Occupation Zone to stop that from even happening, but I'm actively looking forward to a mini-WoR campaign for the Spirits and Cobras to establish a foothold, with my weak-ass Omegas back there.
3068?
Given that 1 April '68 is about five months after the Whitting Conference where the Star League is desolved, and about 10 months after Field Manual: Updates, it might seem a weird starting point. However, one of the biggest hurdles to a 5th Succession War is, well, a lack of a war. So, we start in June '67. Star League meeting comes up, everyone stays in and votes for a new First Lord and then... PeaceTech? That may be the only outcome worse than AccounTech. Having the Word occupying New Avalon (whether they stay or not...), Tharkad blockaded, the Free Worlds League and Lyran Alliance going at it, the Capellans and Feddies going at it, Luthien dealing with a three-way battle, the Clans dealing with the Homeworld stuff, it all forces players to actually play.
Players can forge their alliances, break their vows, set up coordinated strikes, or lone wolf it all they want still. Using a base chart to show "alignment," ie "we are hostile to A, neutral-hostile to B, allied to C, and neutral to D" gives a starting point. Where everyone goes beyond that is up to them. Something I would like to see (not making this official, just throwing it out there) is that Arthur Steiner-Davion, the not-dead S-D who is now known as the Master's Protege (but not, thank the Gods, Devlin Stone, Ben and Herb confirmed), be returned to the FedSuns by the Word of Blake, after they pull their forces off of New Avalon, and in exchange, he brokers a temporary cease fire with the FedSuns wherein the worlds from Acamar/Genoa inward (worlds the Word takes eventually anyway), be given to the expansion of the Blakist Protectorate, freeing FedSuns troops to push against the CapCon, or defend themselves better against a renewed Drac invasion. I'd also suggest the death of several current leaders (Teddy Kurita, Yvonne and Peter S-D, that guy from Rasalhague) during the period after the Conference, to replace them with "more suitable" candidates (Hohiro Kurita, Jackson Davion, Adam Steiner, so on) as a further universe shake up. THAT IS ALSO NOT OFFICIAL DON'T BE UPSET YVONNE FANS.
Plus, planetary campaigns - I'm still down to run a Total Chaos style fight over Tikonov between the Feds and Caps, to give one or the other ownership as we go into the April 3068 start, akin to the Total Chaos campaign I ran for the Word of Blake to conquer Outreach (which went way better for the Word than it did in canon), giving them an extra manufacturing planet and strengthening their position in the Chaos March.
Factions
Something I've said forever, but will reiterate, is that I want people to play the factions they want to play, so long as we cover all our main bases. There's no reason we can't have multiple people rocking Lyran or Feddie or Drac, so long as we don't have half the universe with no players. And people are welcome to play more than one faction as long as they aren't bordering one another, or that they are willing to pick one or the other (if playing two) if a new player would like to head one up. THAT ONLY RELATES TO A MASSIVE CAMPAIGN THOUGH. To throw that out there more - pick up games, we can all play different units of the same faction, that's fine. Just based on what we have for assembled forces right now, here is where we're sitting with players and units (* = hard dead set on using, either because it's one of my mains, or because the force belongs to that player);
IS
Capellan Confederation - Three Kingdoms Lancers (Jesse)
ComStar - None (None)
Draconis Combine - Otomo, 1st Genyosha (Fen)
Federated Suns - 1st Davion Rangers* (Sean)
Free Rasalhague Republic - None (None)
Free Worlds League - 19th Marik Militia (Tiffy)
Lyran Alliance - 4th Skye Rangers* (Mitch)
Mercenary - 26th Royal Tyran (Jer), Kuroi Kaze* (Fen), Khaos Chevaliers (None), Song's Sentinels (None)
Word of Blake - 53rd Shadow Division* (Fen), 54th Shadow Division (Rachel)
Clans
Blood Spirit - Iota/Zeta Galaxy (None)
Cloud Cobra - Pharaoh Keshik (None)
Diamond Shark - None (None)
Ghost Bear - 1st Bear Regulars, Tau Galaxy (Jesse)
Jade Falcon - Generic Camo, Turkina Keshik (Sean)
Nova Cat - Nekoryu Cluster (None)
Wolf - Golden Keshik*, Alpha Galaxy*, Beta Galaxy, Delta Galaxy, Omega Galaxy* (*Fen)
Periphery
Marian Hegemony - I Legio Martia Victrix (None)
WIP
Clan Diamond Beta Galaxy
Free Worlds League 1st Covenant Guard
Now, I don't expect to fill every slot, and we have players that haven't really decided where they want to go yet, but if we're all running one or two (I would give up Draconis Combine and run Marian Hegemony/Clan Wolf, for instance, using my Kuroi Kaze as a full on merc force where other players need me to be, as example), we can cover a lot of interstellar ground. Plus, I start a new unit at least once a year, if I'm not expanding current ones (I only have a 5-'Mech star for the Diamond Sharks right now), giving us even more options as we go. On the Draconis Combine front - if two people wanted to play Drac, one could go 1st Genyosha and one can go Otomo, and then use the 8th Arkab Legion or the Nova Cats Nekoryu Cluster (both are works in progress) to round out their forces as needed, or as a supplement or whatever, depending on the system we use.
Non-Canon Forces
And that is really the best part of the above - all of our mercenary forces are non-canon, giving them supreme flexibility. Sean's FedSuns unit is (per our conversations) the core of a new brigade. The Three Kingdoms Lancers don't exist in the canon CapCon. So, we can use FM:U to nail down where canon regiments are located, but our custom stuff we can place anywhere to really drive home some drama. Since I mentioned Tikonov, the Three Kingdoms Lancers could be there to aid in the Warrior House defense, where Sean's FSU is in the vanguard of the Suns' campaign to retake the world. The 19th Marik Militia can choose to have close ties with the 53rd Shadow Division, where the 26 RTM and Jer can decide to either back Tiffy's faction, or side with Mitch against her, or even pledge service to the Draconis Combine and run that power.
What that means in play is that for every non-canon unit, a world of deployment will need to be picked after a faction is decided on (if applicable) and this can plug some serious canon holes in the old defenses.
BOOM. Campaign map added. NOW, an actual 3067 map will also need to be used to track which worlds are specifically in each region BUT here's how this will break down however we do the things;
Target power has less than 10 regions = 4 victories to secure
Target power has 11-15 regions = 3 victories to secure
Target power has 16-25 regions = 2 victories to secure
Target power has 26+ regions = 1 victory to secure.
This means the powers that divide their sections the most also have fewer forces in each section versus other powers. IE, there are fewer total units in one of the Capellan Confederation's 30 subdivisions than there are in one of Clan Wolf's 5.
