Harmony Gold vs Harebrained Schemes

[Cazmonster]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVphRmbx9Uo

When new Robotech stuff comes out, Harmony Gold can climb back out of their graves.

I want the mechs I started playing Battletech with!

[El Jefe]

I want Battletech to die in a fire. I'd like Bills and Coleman to be pied as often as possible.

[Cazmonster]

What is wrong with Battletech? Who doesn't want to cut loose with all the guns on a Rifleman or Highlander burial some newb?

Battlemech on Battlemech is good time fun.

[El Jefe]

The setting is an utter mess, made even worse since post-2005, when they decided that there definitely wasn't enough Alpha Male in an almost exclusively Alpha Male setting. They decided, decades after the fact, to begin using retcons to strip out material written by former freelancers, to eliminate significant POC characters from the metaplot, and to retroactively change orientations and relationships of major setting NPCs. They also decided that incest and rape were great drama devices, so let's use them twice, for the same character. Then let's set up repeated encounters with the rapist, and leave pretty large hints that it would probably be best if the victim married or ended up with the rapist.

The company is run by an actual embezzler, supported by an enabler who uses religious ties to excuse shit-ass behavior, and both continue to do bone-headed things like sit on completely finished projects for several years and overturn a decade long rebranding plan because of neckbearded grognardia. They make awful business decisions ("let's have a totally segregated electronic delivery system for fiction and material...and then let's charge for it, and make sure it is a decade or more out of date to modern web design standards!"). They've managed to be sued by the same terrible author THREE times in the last 20 years, all over continued non-payment. To say nothing of the three different waves of freelancers who left over non-payment. They set up a campaign of harassment for female and non-hetero freelancers and employees, hid it as a power struggle, and dragooned segments of their fanbase into support their personal, religious bullshit. Then they tried to write some fiction in-setting to explain how that was really all cool to do. They dragooned one of their hardest working fan coders, who built the most successful free unit creation software out there, into doing two years worth of free, web design work for them, on the promises of getting a license for him and making the software official. They have forced the fanbase to stick with a company for officially recognized unit creation software that has raised money twice for something that is still now vaporware after 14 years.

Yeah, fuck that game. Fuck that company. The best thing that could happen to Battletech is for Topps to finally yank that license.

[Mike]

Okay, I caught "fuck this" and "fuck that," but the rest was too complicated for me. Can you just give me the two sentence summary of why Caz's desires are so stupid?

[El Jefe]

I can, and should. I was in the middle of a follow up post.

My personal issues with CGL aside (and they're copious, re: above), there's a simpler answer. There's absolutely nothing wrong with smashing some 'Mechs together. Not a thing wrong with what Caz said, at all. I had a moment, because I generally do when this particular game comes up. It wasn't fair to crap on his love of the metal mayhem.

But to answer his actual question, why NOT use Battletech to smash some robots in glorious metal mayhem? Because there are far better options. At its core, Battletech was designed as a closed system. Even the current table-friendly BattleMech Manual is an extremely outdated design philosophy that isn't in any way welcoming to new players, overcomplicates metal mayhem, and limits future design space. The options for wargame rules in the market place (before you even look to something like the various FATE worlds that already handle this well) give a wealth of options that let you evoke the old school 'Mech on 'Mech slam fest that made up Battletech...better than current or past Battletech rules. If you've got Battletech available, go for it. But if you're looking to get that particular robot gunfight feel of older BT, you can get that better and cheaper from non-BT rule systems. There's a beauty of a FATE conversion out there for it, that gets you out of the static combat approach of BT and lets you really rip into some mecha mayhem. Warmachine and a host of skirmish conversions for 40K can get you closer to Battletech than Battletech can.

But if you've got the BT rules, go for it. My issues aside, I still felt there was some value in pointing out some other options. I simply should have led with that.

[Mike]

That makes sense.

I've never been into giant mechs the same way a lot of my friends are, but I get it.

[El Jefe]

And to be more on topic, Caz is also right. Harmony Gold needs to go away. Almost their entire function as a company at this point is to exist as place to pursue frivolous law suits rather than manage or create any kind of content. When they eventually lose their own license in the next decade (hopefully), they can also go away. Along with CGL's stranglehold on Battletech.

[akiva]

[El Jefe]

Outside of HG's role (and it was REALLY shitty what they did), Palladium continues to run into debacles for one simple reason. Because Kevin Siembieda won't let go.

[akiva]

[Cazmonster]

Well now I have to look at how FATE powers Mech on Mech mayhem. Because at this point, I'm trying to convince my kids to play MECHATON: GIANT FIGHTY ROBOTS with me.

Building mecha out of Lego is pretty damned cool though.

[El Jefe]

Just so Mike doesn't believe I'm a complete bag of ass (just a partial one), links were provided to the Monster.

[Mike]

I don't think you're an ass, just human. There's nothing I'm picking on you for that I haven't been guilty of myself.

[El Jefe]

Then why do you keep sending pictures of pack mules?

[Mike]

It's a sex thing.

[Phoebe]

Explains a lot of my feelings over the last decade.

[Cazmonster]

I need to find a quiet study somewhere to read FATE. I think it's cool, but there's a lot to it to unpack and doing it through a browser window does me no favors. Justice sent me good stuff, so I am happy about that.

Also, I still want a lance of Griffins and Wolverines pounding the crap out of Clan badguys.

[akiva]

Fate isn't for everyone, but it is really damned good. I ran an Age of Arthur game a few years ago that was a blast.

[Cazmonster]

Harmony Gold's case against Harebrained Schemes has been dismissed with prejudice. Fuck Yeah!