The Battletech: Time of War (BT: ToW) tabletop RPG was made back in 2010, and it has this very difficult to sort through character creation system where you have a total of 5,000 XP "to spend" and every ability and skill levels up with an individual XP total and skill level. Also, skills are rated on a different XP chart than attributes, and skills have three charts based on the "fast," normal," or "slow learner" traits, and from the book:
...so a character with 525 XPs assigned to his STR Attribute is considered to have a STR score of 5 in game play, with 25 XPs left over (or stored toward later advancement to STR 6). Likewise, a character with 232 XPs in the Small Arms Skill—and who does not possess either the Fast Learner or Slow Learner Traits—is said to have a Skill Level of 6 in Small Arms.
It feels like a massively complicated system with dozens of large and separately tracked numbers on a record sheet, and by the time you get to the equipment chapter and realize every piece of gear is rated on three eras for legality and availability, with an added technology level added into a code for every piece of gear and your brain explodes. And some of the data just feels arbitrary, like spears needing industrial era technology to produce (sorry Neanderthal peoples), and in the Clan Era their legality goes to "controlled" meaning there are spear registration laws or something.
And there are differing legality levels for different types of handguns and small arms. In a 700-year war where 30-meter tall mechs are crushing people under their feet. Maybe if this was a Shadowrun or Cyberpunk game, yes, I could say the legality and availability of gear and weapons (with 95% of it worthless against a mech), and the legality of esoteric weapons like nunchakus is really way too much detail for the RPG companion game to a wargame.
Honestly, if I wanted a point-buy system for skills and abilities GURPS is the king. BT: ToW has the advantage of having the XP levels "unlocked" once play starts, and if you get 10 XP in pistol skill, hey, add that and check a chart to see if your skill increases. You don't have to worry about how much that next level costs and if you have points to buy the next one like you do in GURPS. Honestly, this entire system reminds me of the old Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes system where you had a "skill leveling" mechanic as well.
I can see how the system appeals to those wanting the official Battletech experience and a "level as you go" record of character progression. Every character feels like a mech, with little subsystems, xp levels, and calculations. But there are times when I do not want to read and learn a heavy system just to have more detail to my characters.
Why Not Something Simple?
We played Car Wars in the pre-GURPS days and we wanted a simple RPG to track characters. We saw a similar 2d6 system in Traveller, and that became "The Car Wars" RPG for us. Frankly, the basic Traveller RPG system could be used for any type of 2d6 style game, and as the "wargame RPG" for just about anything. But these days we do have something way better for simple, OGL 2d6 roleplaying:
And yes, that is the incredible Cepheus Deluxe engine that is now powering everything from fantasy, modern, and sci-fi games with simple and blazing-fast character creation and combat system. The skill levels range from +0 to +5, and that about matches Battletech's skill levels, so the characters work right on the board. Since Battletech lowers the target number by skill level (piloting starts at 5 and gunnery at 4) and puts a hard limit at a target number of zero, I would stick to those limits and say the extra skill levels do not apply.
Use Cepheus Engine for person-to-person interactions, and the Battletech engine for mech combats, and you are 99% there for a simple RPG system to use with the wargame. And in character generation, simply replace "grav vehicles" with "mech pilot" and you have a character creation system all set to go.
The weapons are also remarkably similar to Battletech's selection of guns, and frankly, none of them work all that well against mechs except for the ones noted in the infantry equipment of the main Battletech game being: ballistic rifles, energy rifles, machine guns, SRMs, LRMs, and flamers - your heavy support weapons can be considered as the 20th Century models: rocket launchers are SRMs, guided missiles are LRMs, and so on.
I could use this as a drop-in system for Battletech and I would not notice the difference, and I would gain blazing fast character creation and personal combat rules. There are 12 pages of charts in the back of the Battletech RPG, and one simple table of target numbers in Cepheus - along with an advantage/disadvantage roll system familiar to 5E players. Skill level bloat is even controlled in Cepheus by limiting skill ups to one level per year of adventuring, so while your character could improve during play, you will need a longer career to reach the higher skill levels. There is a trait system that utilizes the advantage/disadvantage system very cleverly.
And the social standing score works extremely well in Battletech if you consider the nobility and heredity aspects of the universe that play so strongly in the lore. Even in the Clans social standing works as a measure of warrior status, and it leads to interesting situations like a warrior of high status who really lacks the skills to have earned it - thus creating a bit of tension and intrigue.
And the system lets you decide on matters of availability and legality. Got a core world unaffected by war? Assume Earth-like gun laws are still in place. On the front line world with active invasions going on? Yeah, citizens will be walking around with assault rifles and SRMs like this was Ukraine. In a high-tech industrial world with good manufacturing? Yes, energy weapons can be purchased. In a back world with only machine shops? They could fabricate bolt-action rifles and knives. It is up to the referee, as it should be.
Cepheus Engine: The USB Stick RPG
And the Cepheus Engine still works as the "USB stick" roleplaying game for any wargame, from Car Wars, to World War II or III (with the incredible Modern War game), Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, Federation & Empire, and any other system where you do not want to change the wargame system you love, but you want a little more detail to the characters with a simple and clean system. You can adapt movies to this system and have a quick and dirty movie RPG in a half-hour.
The system is there to use and does not take a huge amount of record-keeping or mental space. You could put a character on the front of a small 3x5 card, and still have room for skills, gear, and notes.
The character creation rules and skill lists are completely hackable. If I wanted special tables for different character types all it would take is a skill list revision for my setting and one page of charts for a character type with a few skill tables and that is it. For some games, like Car Wars or Mechwarrior, the character types and creation systems they give you work very well, and all you need to do is substitute a few skills instead of the starship ones.
For Car Wars or Battletech, or even a game like Star Fleet Battles or Federation & Empire, a simple 2d6 system that meshes well with the main rules is all I need or want. Don't give me a giant alternate set of tabletop rules to understand and play, the wargame is still the star of the show and I don't want anything that plays differently. I want a fast and clean system that gives me that extra optional level of detail for characters, handles personal combat, and does task and skill resolution in a clean way.
The system is being used for an amazing number of interesting games, from historical to sci-fi. We have Cepheus Engine, Modern War, 1520 HRE, Sword of Cepheus, Hostile, Zaibatsu, and a ton of other interesting games that all use the same system and can plug into almost any concept or game to flavor the experience.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?filters=45550_0_0_0_0
And it works with the six-sided dice found in almost any wargame.
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