If you want soemthing really simple, Savage Worlds is a very easy-to-play generic system that has several sci-fi setting books you could adapt rules from to play Battletech. This may seem a little out of left field but you could do soemthing with Rogue Trader, one of the books for the Warhammer 40k rpg.

This unfortunately is out of print so will have to track this down. That would cover what you need to play but that's 3 books to buy. Great game and an easy transition for D&D players if you have some in your group.Īnother d20 option, but more expensive to get together, would be d20 modern+d20 future+d20 mecha. If you can't find that you can get the actual Spycraft rpg books still. Heck, Shadowrun could be made to work without too much effort. All the Star Trek and Star Wars games I have played would all work with some fiddling. Of the Sc-Fi role-playing games I have played, I think the Mongoose version of Traveller would be the easiest to utilize for Battletech.Īlthough you could probably take just about any sc-fi RPG and make it work with some effort. OTOH, what's the point in playing in the BattleTech universe if you never see BattleMechs? ATOW is workable enough that it's worth saving yourself the bother of adapting TW rules into your RPG of choice. If you're going to run a campaign where noone suits up in battlearmor or climbs into a battlemech's cockpit, my personal opinion is to just adapt the setting to a better rules system. Can be very frustrating to keep everything straight. ATOW's attempt to force that square peg into a round hole is instituting numerous scales of combat, complete with special rules that apply only to each scale. It's basically unreconcilable to have armor that can make you shrug off a PPC blast yet still vulnerable to a lucky SMG burst. One very awkward problem any BattleTech RPG has is BattleArmor. The rest of the mechanics focus a great bit on combat. But, the upside to the life path system is that every character comes with a background story already made! It's far simpler to just do the optional point buy method instead. If you plan on integrating alot of mecha action into your RPG, it's probably worth putting up with learning ATOW for avoiding the headache of converting TW into your RPG of choice.Ĭharacter generation is a major bitch the first couple of times you try to make a character going through the suggested life path system. What ATOW offers is compatibility with the boardgame. So, definately keep the idea of porting the BattleTech Universe into a more familiar rulesset in your back pocket. Not when compared to other RPGs out there. Personally, I don't think BattleTech has ever had a decent roleplaying game engine.

Battletech review