Bromad Academy Mission System
Oh hello there! I’m Professor Bambi Calaveras, BA, MS, PhD, Vice Dean for Curriculum Development here at the Bromad Academy! I assume you’re here as you’re curious about the Bromad Academy Mission System, or “BAMS” for short! Funnily enough, “Bam Bams” was my nickname on my college softball team. Serendipitous, really.
Here’s the latest news posts about BAMS:
Mission Statement
The Bromad Academy Mission System (BAMS) is a tool to release new ITS-like missions and light-touch rules patches (no profile changes) specifically to address perceived stagnation in ITS mission pool and negative play experiences resulting from rules interactions. It is not intended to “balance the game” or as a criticism of Corvus Belli’s fantastic ITS offering.
BAMS is simply an alternate play mode intended to help grow the player base by attracting players to return to the game as well as pulling in new players and to provide currently invested veteran players with some fresh content to enjoy. We will also be soliciting and posting ratings on BAMS and ITS missions to help guide newer players in selecting and approaching missions (e.g. complexity rating, second turn power level, etc).
The BAMS intended usage model for tournaments is as an alternative to ITS–you use the rules patches and may include a mix of BAMS and ITS missions in the lineup. For non-tournament play, feel free to use the rules, missions, both, or neither. Talk to your TO and encourage them to give us feedback! In short, please enjoy BAMS as best suits you!
BAMS Releases
You can always find the Stable version of the rules below for use in Tournaments, and a bleeding-edge Development version as well if you want to see what we’re brewing in the lab!
You can also find a complete list of all versions here, if you’re interested in exploring the previous versions or want to replay your favorite missions from a particular version. Ah the good ol’ days of college softball!
| BAMS | ITS | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| v0.1 – Stable/Dev | 15 | BAMS Launch: Reinforcements, Guided, and NBW. |
Development Process
Here at Bromad Academy we believe in a disciplined and transparent development process for BAMS.
- Release Cycle: Whenever we can–this is a fan/free time project. At minimum, once a year, slightly out of phase with ITS season drops.
- Get Involved: Check out the #bams-general channel and #bams-feedback channels on The Dice Abide Discord!
- Data Store:
- www.bromadacademy.com – This landing page, Development Notes, Mission Ratings, Release Candidates, and Releases.
- bams.bromadacademy.com/stable – The current stable version of BAMS for use in Tournaments
- bams.bromadacademy.com/dev – The current development version of BAMS under test
- TDA Discord: #bams-general – General BAMS discussion
- TDA Discord: #bams-feedback – Feedback forum (please stay on topic, don’t make Prof Calaveras spank you!)
BAMS Missions
Selecting missions for inclusion for in BAMS is a bit of a process:
- Curated List – Bromad Academy faculty (TDA discord moderation staff) actually play the mission and recommend the mission for inclusion.
- Mission Format – Missions follow the ITS structure (10 objective points, table sizes, point/SWC values)
- Consent – The original mission author(s) must grant permission for inclusion!
If you’d like to submit a mission for consideration, please reach out in the #bams-general channel!
Rules Patches
We are exploring a very limited and restricted set of rules patches. The general guidelines are as follows:
- No Profile Changes – Too complicated!
- Light Touch – In general, we strive to minimize the overall impact to the original rules (they’re pretty good, after all).
- Maximize Fun – We’re not trying to competitively balance the game, it’s already pretty darn good at that. We’re just trying to address some negative play experiences.
- Limited Releases – We’re going to cap the rules patches per BAMS release to about 3-ish to manage complexity per release.