Back in the mid to late 80's one of the holy texts of my game group was the BattleTech Technical Readout 3025. It was an 'equipment porn' book full of giant robots and we took that sort of thing very seriously. For several years BattleTech actually replaced Dungeons & Dragons as my group's most-played game. The Clans and their munchkintech killed a lot of enthusiasm I had for BattleTech, but I still have quite a passle of old BTech stuff.Another of my favorite bits of old BattleTech crap I own is a half-dozen or so issues of StarDate magazine. During our BattleTech craze this magazine was considered by my peers and I to be just as critical as Dragon. StarDate only lasted a dozen issues or so. It started as a FASA house organ devoted to supporting their licensed Star Trek rpg. My group didn't care much for that game, but the attached ship-to-ship rules, the (deep breath) Star Trek Starship Tactical Combat Simulator, was a fun little SFB-lite sort of affair. FASA back then was the new king of sci-fi. GDW had begun its slow slide into irrelevance and FASA (which had started as a nifty Traveller 3rd party publisher) decide to pursue other sci-fi roleplaying interests, notably licensed properties Star Trek and Doctor Who as well as their own hits BattleTech and later Shadowrun. (FASA was also one of the bidders on the original Star Wars rpg license. When West End won that license FASA filed the serial numbers off their preliminary work and re-tooled it as the Renegade Legion/Leviathan/Centurion line of games.)
After the first 6 issues or so FASA sold off the magazine to another publisher, who re-tooled the format to focus on sci-fi gaming in general. BattleTech remained a favorite, as did the Star Trek rpg. But you could also count on some Traveller material as well. Every issue featured at least one new BattleMech or Star Trek ship, sometimes both. And it also featured some solid generic sci-fi articles like a random encounter chart for spaceport bars or an article on building believable techno-babble for fleshing out your sci-fi setting. One issue included an interview with sci-fi illustrator David Deitrick, which I have blogged about before in my article on Deitrick's work.
Because of the sci-fi slant Dungeons & Dragons was never mentioned. It was almost as if StarDate was published in a parallel universe where sci-fi rpgs were at the top of the food chain. The last issue of StarDate, which I *think* was the twelfth or thirteenth put out, was actually labeled StarDrive, volume 1, issue 1. I always figured the publisher ran into trouble from Paramount, but it may be possible that the astronomy magazine of the same name sent them a cease & desist. Either way I cherish the 7 or so issues I own and wouldn't hesitate to buy the rest for cheap.
Here's an illo from that last issue of StarDate/StarDrive. BattleTech fans may recognize the basic Catapult lines. This is the House Kurita variant of the Catapult, which replaces the missile packs with Particle Projection Cannons.
Most 'Mech variants don't change the silhouette of the machine much. The Thunderbolt-S, for instance, takes off the arm-mounted Large Laser and replaces it with a PPC. That's swapping one tube-shaped zap gun for another. The Catapult-K was one of those variants that I always wanted to see an illo for. That the folks publishing StarDate/StarDrive casually obliged on the table of contents page of their last issue really says something about how in touch they were with the fans.
I haven't played Battletech in years, but I still pick up the TROs. One of the most recent ones (Project Phoenix) did the cool thing of including pictures of /all/ the described variants in a special appendix to the book.
ReplyDeleteMy TR3025 was much loved, to the point of disintegration. I ended up handing the loose-leaf version off to a friend when I found another pristine copy for myself. These days, however, it's buyer beware -- if it doesn't have the classic cover, then it's a new edition and missing the Macross/Dougram/Crusher Joe derived units (like the classic Marauder).
I'm on my second copy of 3025 as well! Just like my first AD&D PHB, DMG, and UA, my group and I just destroyed the original through frequent use.
ReplyDeleteI bought one of the new 3025 books, partially with the idea of writing a scenario pitting the 'forbidden' mechs against their replacements.
Did you know that we Germans have the sweetest thing in Battletech?
ReplyDeleteThe "ultra-rare"
Atlas der Inneren Sphäre.
It has all maps and stellar data combined into one handy tome.
http://www.twobt.de/661.0.html
Man, you guys get all sorts of neat stuff! I really, really wanted an English version of that all-in-one Traveller Aliens compilation.
ReplyDeleteOh and we xeroxed all maps out, and pasted them together.
ReplyDeleteThe Inner Sphere in all it´s 5x5ft glory!
They also added all factories, shipyards, space stations etc.
I have one of the all in one Alien books.
ReplyDeleteNow you are in for a big shock:
It was the original english stuff inside!
Along with a Marc Miller autorgraph. Not a german word inside these faux leather covers!
They guys at Essen who sold me this tome said:
"Marc liked our idea of such a collection. It started him on the idea of doing this with all the old material."
That was in 1999, the rest is history.
Cool as ice, man.
ReplyDeleteI understand that at one point a wall at GDW's offices was devoted to the sector maps from the Atlas of the Imperium. Somebody (Dave Nilsen, maybe?) wanted to map all the J1 routes in Charted Space.
Hi Jeff,
ReplyDeleteI loved Stardate... I have all of the issues!
I even submitted illustrations of mechs and aerospace fighters to them...
I got a note thanking me for my submissions and they planned to use them...
Then they went out of business! Bummer!
Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.
I just remembered -- if, like me, you were a big fan of Duane Loose's work in TR3025 and TR3026, you can also see it in TR3058 (and in TR3057, but that's warships, which never look particularly exciting in the Battletech universe).
ReplyDeleteIt's good to remember FASA's many groovinesses (and my own groups were huge fans of FASA Trek and Doctor Who).
ReplyDeleteAn offering of trivia on the subject of refitted Star Wars: Filing the serial numbers off of preliminary Star Wars work was a tradition that even West End themselves would indulge in when they had the license. They created their "Shatterzone" line entirely as a refit channel for Star Wars RPG material that West End liked, but that didn't pass muster with Lucasfilm in the approvals process.
I miss BattleTech. I always felt it followed the same trajectory as Traveller: a really good game that drowned in the minutia of its ever bloating setting.
ReplyDeleteThe Rifleman and Locust mechs are, hands down, the greatest Battlemechs of all time.
ReplyDeleteAs the Publisher for a while of StarDate and StarDrive, I miss em too. The budget was nill, and the costs were very high, but the books were fun to put out. THanks for the kinds words.
ReplyDeleteBob
I still play occasionally and love the game. If anyone out there has scans of the StarDate/StarDrive Magazines I would love to see them! They had such cool stuff for Battletech!
ReplyDelete