Pyramid Pick: Mechwarrior 3rd Ed.

Pyramid Pick

Mechwarrior RPG 3rd Edition

Published by FASA Corp.

Designed by Brian Nystul

216 pages, $25.00

Big Mech, bad pilot or small Mech, good pilot. This was the basic choice of character design in previous versions of the Mechwarrior RPG. While you had skills and advantages, you weren't creating a persona as much as filler for the Mech cockpit. Personal combat was confusing and slow. But that has changed for the better with this revision. One of the most detailed and interesting game universes now has a game engine that will allow players and game masters the opportunity to explore it to its limits.

Mechwarrior 3rd Edition does not focus exclusively on Mech pilots as in editions past. The entire BattleTech universe is open to players both in terms of professions and origins. Mech warriors, tank drivers, pilots, spies, special forces, and merchants are just some of the various careers that are available. Reflecting the new political realities of the game world, characters can come from a number of affiliations in the Inner Sphere, Clan and Periphery locales.

Characters are created using a life path system, where players make various choices depending on their occupation and affiliation. Random events that affect skills, attributes, and traits at each stage give players hooks to develop their characters and make them unique. Traits have changed from simple advantages to a more standard advantage/disadvantage system, again allowing for more detailed and varied characters. . . .

This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.



Article publication date: October 15, 1999

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