From My BattleTech Archives – The Planning Documents For Twilight of the Clans (Part I)

Am I dropping a hint or just using a photo from Gen Con?  You never know what secrets this might reveal!  Then again, I could just be an ass trying to mislead you.

I dug these out of my files recently because we (the creative team at Catalyst plus a few of us honored to join) are undertaking a similar Herculean task – mapping out the next big thing for BattleTech. I thought it might help to see what we did back for Twilight of the Clans.
When you map out something this complex, things DO change over time. Take a look at page 5 and you will see it was not Morgan that died en-route to Huntress…but another major character. Authors get a little bit of discretion in tweaking things. Not a lot, but if they can make a case that it is cooler, they will be heard.
I have been undertaking the role that Bryan did for Twilight – capturing our ideas into a cohesive format. I am proud to have worked with Bryan, and I learned a lot from him. I also know the incredible burden that rested on his shoulders with a project like this. I am looking at some of the stuff that is coming and saying to myself, “Holy shit, this looks awesome to me. I wonder how it will play with the majority of our fans?” I say majority because there are always some trolls that will take shots at whatever we do, even if we did everything they asked for.
This all came out of our summit meeting at Gen Con that year. It is a pretty cool peek under the covers at the creative process that goes on when you get some top-notch (not me, the other guys) talent in the room to map out something huge.

I remember when the document arrived.  It was so much fun to read, despite having been there when we brainstormed it.  A few times I almost tossed it…but didn’t because so much BTech history had already been lost.

I think I’m safe in posting this to the net at this point

With BattleTech we don’t talk about endings, we talk about what is coming.  Brace yourselves boys and girls, this one is going to be a hell of a ride.  More to come on this document.  I recommend you follow my blog, just to make sure you don’t miss out on the next installment.