Has anyone tried TROS in Modern Settings?

[Rattlehead]

You adapted the TRoS rules to the BattleTech universe? Now that sounds cool... I'm a long time BT player and I've always loved it. I have the 2nd and 3rd editions of the Mechwarrior game, but I can never get anyone to play it... :-(

Any chance you can post your adaptation? Hey, that's an idea.... Maybe there could be a page on the TRoS web site with various people's adaptations?

Brandon

[prophet118]

id suggest buying palldium books "Compendium of Contemporay weapons".... very useful, and easily converted to other systems... also, having a quick look into something like ninjas and superspies might be useful...thats about the only spy like modern game i have played... i don really know anything about spycraft

[JSinclair]

Hmmm...Mechwarrior plus Riddle of Steel.
The thing that truly terrifies me about this is the thought of an Elemental swinging a big sword and jsut how amazingly scary that would be with tros mechanics.

[Shadeling]

Not exactly... I adapted it to BattleTech, which is somewhat futuristic, but retains many modern elements, like firearms.

It worked great :)

Any chance you can send me any of your conversion notes...?

[Psychopompous]

Not exactly... I adapted it to BattleTech, which is somewhat futuristic, but retains many modern elements, like firearms.

It worked great :)

Any chance you can send me any of your conversion notes...?

I'll post what I can remeber... Okay: Gunnery and Piloting were proficiencies that created a big fat dice pool (Gunnery linked to Aim and Piloting linked to Reflex). I had a big conversion table for the dicepool to BTech skills so you could basically play TRoS characters and go to normal BTech for 'Mech combat, or you could make all your rolls with the dicepools against a TN of 10 (it worked with my table mathematically, I considered dropping it to 9, but that was scary...).
The table went something like: dicepool (gunnery or piloting)/ 2 (round down) subtracted from 10 (it was based on a formula something like that, the table was for easy referance)... Meaning you could start veteran, but you basically had to completely dedicate yourself to mechwarrioring.
I added modern weapon proficiencies by weapon group, Pistols, Subguns (easy default to or from pistol and rifle), Rifle, Heavy Weapons, and such.
For autofire, just split your pool between shots (each weapon had a max fire rate).
I gave everything a damage rating (most weapons were Piercing), base TN and range values, but heck if I'll remeber all of it. I allowed spiffy guns and ammo (at fine prices) Armor Piercing, Flechette, and Explosive iirc.
I had conversion for all the personal armor types as well... I should dig it all out some time.

[MrGeneHa]

I'm going to contradict my earlier post here.  I think a modern TRoS campaign would need lots more rules.  IMHO, of course.

I began thinking about trying to roleplay a "Saving Private Ryan/Band of Brothers" WWII campaign in TRoS, and it doesn't seem to work with the current very simple missile rules.

What rules are there for called shots?  Use of cover?  If the only part you can (or are trying to) hit is the head, there should be a significant penalty.  It wouldn't be hard to write appropriate rules for this, but they aren't there yet.  Currently, it's a puncture attack to Zone XIII, no penalty.

(There would be a penalty from inability to aim if your opponent popped his/her head up and down from a fox hole).

Scopes would increase the total possible MP (Missile Pool).  But it would be impossible to reduce prep time while using one.

There are no rules at all for firing at massed enemies (ie enfilading fire).

Covering fire seems like a maneuver, with mechanisms resembling Beat (you're trying to create shock so the opponent can't fire back).  But there would be a small chance of actually hitting the opponent.

Explosive rules would resemble the damage rules from falling.

Finally, a game focusing on missile combat would depend much more upon maps than TRoS currently does.

Gene Ha

[Brian Leybourne]

Have you read the rulebook? :-)

Called shots? In there.

Cover? Check.

Aiming? Yes. (and if he's popping his head up and down then you simply can't do it. Easy).

Firing at mass enemies? Easy to fudge, far easier if you just pick a target and if you miss that, the Seneschal ajudicates who else it hits/might hit instead.

You've already answered your own questions on the rest. :-)

Brian.

[MrGeneHa]

Hey Brian!

Yes, called shots are in the rules.  ALL shots are called shots (there is no "aiming for center of mass" general purpose shot).  But that's the problem.  In TRoS it is NO harder hitting someone behind cover than someone NOT behind cover.  If only my head or one arm is sticking out, it's no harder to hit than my whole body.  The only advantage of cover is that you can 'force' someone to aim for your head or arm or whatever.  (Well, you can also try to hide, but that only lasts until YOUR first shot).

"I'll fire my pistol from cover so he can't shoot me in the thigh."  There needs to be expanded missile rules on this, even if you don't use a modern setting.

For instance, it's much harder to hit the head than the torso with a pistol or a crossbow (thus the real world rule of thumb, "aim for the center of mass").

IMHO, all missile shots default to the torso.  Apply an MP penalty for other locations.  Simple.  BUT, there is no rule like this now.

Also, it is possible to be shot while peeking from behind cover.  Police and military training assumes this.  If you peek around a corner, do it VERY quickly.  If you do it again, don't do it in the same spot (lean down, for instance).  If your target is peeking from behind cover, let the bullets skim off the wall.  But I actually think the rules cover this pretty well (except skipping bullets off the wall, but I don't think arrows do that quite as well  ;-).

For an unaimed snap shot you get only your Wit in MP, and any penalties the Seneschal deems appropriate such as -2MP for target movement (imho, again).

Gene

[Jake Norwood]

Actually, it does cost an extra MP to fire at the head, as per the optional rules in the appendix. Check it out.

Jake

[MrGeneHa]

I completely forgot about that one!

Thanks for all the help,

Gene