It's my turn in our group's DM cycle, and thus far the requests are action sci-fi, bonus points for mecha and remaining upbeat (IE: no AdEva).
Finally settled on a SRW-style pastiche of the mecha genre, starting out with man-sized power armor and really low-end grunt things (think missile trucks or at best an Anf) and eventually finding their way up to good old 70's style planet smashers. Most of the mechs are to be pre-built and they just come across them and use them, maybe give them basic equipment swaps. Player custom-builds aren't out of the question, but at least to start, I want these to feel like stock items they acquire and have to work to tweak.
Of course, this leaves me needing a system to accomodate both a lot of out-of-mech ground adventures and in-mech rock'em sock'em robots. Searching around I hear a lot about how BESM, OVA, GGG, and Mekton Zeta. Any of these particularly suited for what I'm trying to do, or are there others that might do better?
I'm currently converting WEG Star Wars D6 into a mecha game with a homebrew setting, but my group is aiming more for a gritty experience rather than a playing out a Super Robot anime.
>>45525861
Mekton Zeta is crunchy as fuck and basically awful
GGG is the precursor to Battle Century G so if you're considering that just go check out BCG instead
BESM is a generalist system at its heart so meh
Don't even know what OVA is
I'd personally use Battle Century G
>>45528544
This, BCG is practically SRW the tabletop.
>>45528183
I want this posted when you're done. Like, seriously.
>>45528183
Are you the nigga from the other day who was waiting for my JC conversions?
If you are, my bad, shit happened and I was much later than anticipated and too dead tired to upload anything, but here's my Jovian Chronicles to D6 coversions:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-rs__06lBfEOuAQHXKjt69XHNkKYEYk0gstvzA3sV00/edit?usp=sharing
Just use HGD6 and/or Mini-Six as a base, (honestly all D6 System stuff is compatible with each other it doesn't matter which iteration you use as the base mechanics).
>>45528544
Original Video Animation, used to refer to anime tha is neither TV series nor movie theater anime. They usually run 40-50 minutes each. The aforementioned Bubblegun Crisis, the orginal Full Metal Panic, and the original Vampire Princess Miyu are OAVs.
>>45525861
Mekton Zeta is probably the best of them for anything closer to Gundam than Mazinger. But there are some minor issues, like certain stats being far more valuable than others. Some people complain about the difficulty of making Mecha with it, but I find the process really fun.
>>45529984
While I'm thinking of it I should warn you of the wrinkles that need ironing out:
Some of the weapon damages are too low. I'm debating just bumping up almost everything across the board by a die.
Pathfinders and Syreens are FRAGILE AS FUCK! It's fine for Syreens because they're supposed to be cannon-fodder shit anyway but I'm considering bumping up the Pathfinder's armor to 3D.
Qualities are all compiled from all the existing HGD6 PDFs and a couple I converted myself from Silhouette. Either way a lot of them need tweaking. Armor Piercing is broken as fuck.
>>45530032
I think he was talking about the RPG spun off from BESM called OVA.
>>45530059
>like certain stats being far more valuable than others
That's an understatement. You literally don't need any stat but Agility above 5.
>>45529984
That guy is actually me and >>45529847. Thanks though, I'm glad that you remembered. Appreciate it.
>>45530083
I almost forgot until I saw this thread and saw another anon was jumping on the D6 wagon.
>>45530129
This looks really glad. I'm stoked that you went the direction of adding art and in-universe descriptions on exos, especially because I am far more familiar with HG than I am with JC.
>>45530079
What gets me about Interlock (the parent system for Mekton) is that it has 3 different social stats (Empathy, Attractiveness, and arguably Cool), has a stat for how much you can move in a turn, 3 mental stats (Intelligence, Tech Aptitude and Education) and then has 75% of the skills fall under Reflexes. Hell, Education is especially fucked because all it does is give you extra skill points which Int does as well. Int also applies to some skills and Education applies to no skills.
>>45530175
Thanks, I mostly put it there for my player's benefit because it's easier for them to reference.
But like I said there's still some bugs to work out.
Also I probably won't be statting the plethora of capital ships in JC because frankly thus far I've just found it easier to treat them like set pieces than actual units.
>>45530234
Interlock actually shares common roots with Fuzion, so you can very easily port the rules over to Fuzion, Instant Fuzion, or even Hero System.
But as is Interlock is just a big poorly designed pile of bad decisions that probably made sense to someone in the 90s but did not age well at all.
On the plus side, it's not the WORST mech system I've ever played.
>>45530620
>Also I probably won't be statting the plethora of capital ships in JC because frankly thus far I've just found it easier to treat them like set pieces than actual units.
Do they actually work the same in regards to converison?
Also, do you know whether or not JC and HG operate in the same universe? I'm somewhat new to both, despite claiming to know HG more than JC.
>>45530683
>Do they actually work the same in regards to converison?
Nope, I said screw it to trying to convert them with the HGD6 style and started rebuilding them using D6 Space: Ships, then decided that wasn't worth the effort either and fudged how they worked in-game and it worked almost perfectly.
>Also, do you know whether or not JC and HG operate in the same universe? I'm somewhat new to both, despite claiming to know HG more than JC.
They're definitely not the same universe, and even if they were somehow the time difference between the two settings is so vastly far apart it wouldn't even matter.
>>45530620
>On the plus side, it's not the WORST mech system I've ever played.
Oh? Which is it?
>>45530756
Not him, but Palladium's robotech.
>>45530756
Not him, but AdEva 3eAlpha
>>45530768
Isn't it in Beta? That means it at least got better from alpha to beta? Right?
>>45530756
Him, and probably d20 Future. Literally unplayable with Gargantuan size mechs (which is where Gundam and most similar sized mechs fall according to the book's size chart).
It probably could have been fixed with some houserules but d20 Mecha did it perfectly fine barring the fact you were still playing d20. Then I moved on from d20 games and discovered that just about anything was better.
A close second would be this weird d20 OGL Mechwarrior ripoff that I forget the name of.
>>45530762
>Palladium's robotech.
Yeah, it's pretty bad, but using Sketchley's houserules on the Sketchley's Statistics site actually makes it a decent if crunchy game.
>>45530768
>>45530777
You know, I've never actually played AdEva.
>>45530818
>d20 Mecha
I'm honestly kind of interested despite how much I don't like the d20 system. Do you have a copy?
>>45530777
>Isn't it in Beta? That means it at least got better from alpha to beta? Right?
I stopped keeping up with it once it hit beta, so I don't know, but yeah I was an alpha tester.
In absolute fairness, it was probably less the actual gameplay itself, which managed to be pretty tense and fairly fun to play, and more the circumstances surrounding the campaign itself that was unfun as hell. Total lack of decision points made the game feel railroady and boring. A desire for a "white room test atmosphere" meant that the GM couldn't get especially creative with the angels we fought, so after a while they all started to kind of feel a little samey.
But yeah, I dunno what's going into the newer versions, so I can't even begin to judge how it is.
>>45530876
Guardians of Order released it as an SRD so there's a million iterations of it floating around.
If you can find DP9's "d20 Mecha Compendium Deluxe Edition" it includes a bunch of example settings for different subgenres (including d20 versions of Gear Krieg, Heavy Gear, and the only place I know of where you can find Gear Krieg Modern which is GK in Desert Storm instead of WWII), and I think some other expanded construction rules.
There was also another really cool book called "Military Vehicles from Around the World" that statted a buttload of modern military vehicles using the d20 Mecha ruleset.
Honestly they were the best mecha rules for d20.
Only problem? They were d20.
But, oddly enough, they're almost parallel to SilCore's rules.
>>45528544
>Mekton Zeta is crunchy as fuck and basically awful
Numerophobe detected.
>>45530974
No no. It's not awful because it's crunchy ("crunchy as fuck AND basically awful", not "crunchy as fuck, thus basically awful".) It's awful because you have 10 stats for your character and only 3 matter for being a mech pilot (1 mattering even more-so than the other 2.) It's awful because skill advancement is faster if you "crit" a task, which means you beat the difficulty by 10. That means that people with higher starting stats not only have higher ratings in those skills, but are more likely to get extra xp to those skills, rewarding them with a nice little feedback loop. It's a terrible system because 1 stat (luck) is actually enforced by the rules to not be applicable to mecha-combat ever. It's terrible because the core system (Interlock) is terrible from the beginning and then got applied to a mecha-system that would have been better off without it.
>>45531033
This.
I LIKE MZ+'s construction rules, but holy shit is the actual gameplay itself awful.
>>45531033
Isn't Interlock the engine behind Cyberpunk 2020?
>>45531106
Yes.
>>45531106
It worked better in CP2020 because it's expected you weren't going to be doing one thing for 99% of the game. You'd actually get to use all those other skills and stats.
In MZ it's kind of expected 99% of the game was going to be doing awesome shit in giant robots, so when all of that falls under two or three skills all under ONE stat, the whole system collapses on itself.
>>45531117
Interlock works better for foot-level stuff, doesn't it?
On an unrelated note, has anyone ever used Mechwarrior (any edition), GURPS Mecha, or GURPS Vehicles (to design the mecha)?
>>45531138
>you weren't going to be doing one thing for 99% of the game.
>netrunners
That's not entirely fair, NRs do have to get out and about sometimes.
>>45531140
>Using GURPS Vehicles ever.
The single source for GURPS's unfair reputation for being an autismal calculus simulator? Never.
>>45531173
>being this much of a pussy
I use it to make guns all the time.
>>45531138
It worked better in CP2020 but by a loose definition of better. Reflex is still a god-stat in CP2020 for example (even more so than modern systems with dex as a god-stat.)
Cool and Appearance have like 2 skills each.
Reflex has a skill list so large it got split into three categories.
Hell, to give that "You succeed to get xp" feedback-loop a frame of reference:
The lowest stat you can have as a pilot (in rolled gen) is 4. We'll assume that one unlucky sod was playing under a GM who decided to do honest rolls for everyone. This poor fool ends up with a 4 reflexes. Someone else in the party managed to get a 10 in reflexes.
Sod, wanting to no be left behind horribly by the system, puts as many points as the system will let him at character creation into Mecha Piloting so he doesn't get shot out of the sky. He has Mecha Piloting at 5. That's a total bonus of 9 to his rolls.
Gallant, being lucky but not a dick, puts no points into mecha piloting to not upstage Sod. He unfortunately (in his eyes, he's a bit of a sap) still has a total mecha piloting bonus of +10.
Well, they're close enough so it won't matter too much later, right? Sadly not. When you succeed at a skill you earn 1 IP towards that skill. You beat the DC by 10 and you get a +1 to the IP you earned. For the sake of basic math, we'll assume no crits happen and they succeed the same amount of times. Gallant would not only succeed more often but crit more often as well, meaning he'd earn more IP than Sod, we'll ignore that even though that would prove my point more.
For Sod to get to mech piloting 6, he'll need 50 IP. That's pretty much 50 successes needed to get to it.
So it takes Gallant 10 IP to get mecha piloting 1, then another 10 to get to 2, then 20 more to get to 3. So in less successes needed for Sod to get from a +9 to a +10, Gallant will go from +10 to +13.
Worst part? By raw you can't increase attributes. Sod is stuck with that 4 reflexes forever.
>>45531140
Sounds like that might be what OP was after, then? Interlock for the foot traffic and Mekton for the ground-pounding?
>>45533842
BCG does both perfectly fine with less autism. Plus there's no "Piloting: Mecha" skill you need to have maxed out or suck.
Can confirm, I've ran both CP2020 and am currently doing a BCG campaign. Interlock is fucking terrible in both CP2020 and MZ.
>>45530715
didn't someone figure out via playtesting that it'd take a whole squad of high end HG mechs to take down one mid tier JC mech?
>>45533842
>Interlock for the foot traffic and Mekton for the ground-pounding?
Mekton IS Interlock. "Interlock" is Mekton's game engine.
>>45534470
Yeah, HG's mechs are completely different style and function from JC mechs.
Jovian Chronicles is Gundam, Heavy Gear is VOTOMs.
>>45534593
could be a cool way to make players feel stronger in JC, just have them mow through HG mechs that you basically refluff to be the equal of Zaku in your setting.
>>45530032
>>45530068
I'll just leave this here as an example.
https://www.goofansite.com/index.php/forum?view=category&catid=103
>>45529847
I'll make a pdf and post it whenever I get it done.
>>45534627
That's a bit difficult as a matter of scaling. The Gears are only about eight to ten meters tall, whereas the Exos average at about sixteen to eighteen. I don't think it would feel all too cool unless your Exo pilots are explicitly rescuing another unit from a swarm of Gears.
Gears are supposed to be an in-between for tanks and infantry. In fact, one of the HG tanks can act as a good boss fight for a Gear squad. You can expect to take a few losses, but with some good luck and better planning, the Gears will come out on top.
Exos would just chew through them. From what I understand of JC, they're supposed to be the predominant form of warfare in the Sol System, effectively--though not entirely--replacing pretty much everything but larger star ships.
The scaling of Gundams and VOTOMs is pretty accurate. I don't know about you, but if I were piloting a Tallgeese and mowing down VOTOMs, I would feel pretty shitty about it and feel really bad for those VOTOM pilots unless I were rescuing a friendly unit from them or those VOTOM pilots had some new VOTOM-scale anti-Mobile Suit weapon that was really top-notch.
I don't see the interest in giant mecha games; like it seems like it would be very easy to make the game just all about the big robot battles.
>>45535944
Most mecha shows don't revolve entirely around the battles. Character interaction and the politics of the time/world in question are very important, and they often serve as far more than just a fancy backdrop for giant robots shooting at each other.
At least, that's what it is for me. I'm interested in the world around a lot of mecha shows, and a TTRPG would be a lot of fun with what could be explored (from the GM perspecitve) as well as what can be influenced (from the player perspective).
>>45535944
>>45536044
To build on the point a little, I could take the exact same universe in an interesting mecha game, remove the mecha and make the player characters fighter pilots or just power-armor soldiers instead, and I would personally be just about as interested. It's just as much about what's happening outside the cockpit as what's happening inside the cockpit.
Some people just like a little drama and politics with their giant robots.
>>45535944
Pretty much. It'd be the very definition of hack and slash on its own, and if you tried to make the descriptions of moves actually guide what happens instead of being randomized by dice rolls, you'd be better off just freeforming it. Nothing like coming up with a cunning strategy to counter a move only to botch the roll.
But too much of anything becomes repetitive, so having more kinds of play to pull out is always helpful. Maybe one session is mostly downtime and dialogue. Maybe another you're poking around an abandoned base on foot. Then another you're trying to get away with a robot and end up fighting your way out. Still another you might be overseeing a fleet engagement.
>>45535618
>Tallgeese
Of course you'd feel bad, that thing has bullshit thrust acceleration. Try it in a Zaku and see how you feel then.
>>45525861
At the risk of coming off as a dick, but is this the same Autistic Motherfucker posting the same thread every day? or did a mecha anime just come out recently that's spurred interest.
Either way, stop fucking about and call it "Mecha RPG's General" or something.
>>45531033
I feel for you, Math also murdered my dad back in the 90's
>>45536624
>legit problems with the system
>hur cant du math
Maybe he can't, but you can't read
>>45536528
>see greentext "Tallgeese,"
>this nigga 'bout to talk shit on my suitfu--
>wait
>this nigga gets it
But in reality, I would still feel the same about it being a Zaku or a Dom against a squad of VOTOMs. They might bring me down, but I'm killing way more of them than they are me. And while it might go to a logistics win for them, I killed more men. And to borrow from ANOTHER mecha franchise, that's a win in a Clanner's eyes against each and every one of those fuckers I killed.
>>45536550
> Did a mecha anime just come out recently that's spurred interest
No, but that might itself be a reason. The latest Gundam isn't winning many friends, Active Raid is one of those love it or hate it, and I don't think Schwartzmarken has enough impact either way.
The general lack of something to get excited over might be making people hungry enough to try a tabletop. At least until the next SRW gets here.
>>45537012
>the latest Gundam
Which one is that? I can't remember if the latest was Unicorn or Build Fighters. I took a bit of a break after the travesty that was 00's second season.
Man, I miss the days of 08th.
>>45537012
That could be a reason, hell I've been reading Strike Legion all week and I haven't even seen a Mecha anime in Christ knows when.
>>45536550
I second this. If a specific western mecha RPG gets its own general, then mecha RPGs in general should get some.
>>45536624
It's funny because you're slamming a dude for being bad at maths despite being unable to read.
>>45525861
>>45537044
> the travesty that was 00's second season.
Same, but it was popular as it was more 'traditional' gundam.
Movie made up for it.
>>45537395
I honestly thought the movie was meh at best. Just way, WAY too far up its own ass. I mean, the action was top notch for more traditional Gundam, but that's about it.
>>45537044
Iron-Blooded Orphans. The mech battles are few, far between, and there's a lot of QUALITY all around. Been a couple recent eps that weren't so bad, but that's after 15+ where nearly nothing happened except repetitive exposition and whining from the female lead over powerlessness. Also pic related. Thanks Okada.
This is after Unicorn had some great installments and then a pretty rushed, physics-breaking finale, Build Fighters that was a love letter to the franchise (but ultimately a kids-toy-tournament that relied heavily on a single finisher the last half), Build Fighters Try (that took the things people -didn't- like about GBF and made a whole 25 episodes out of it), and Reconguista in G (which was Tomino coming back with a beautifully animated but heavily stylized and bizarrely paced and ultimately inconsequential romp). There's also The Origin OVA (CG mechs and -heavy- dashes of comedy covering Char's backstory), and a series of 15-minute shorts covering Thunderbolt (that are pretty sexy graphically, but far too short).
Sad thing is, outside of maybe Fafner, I can't think of a really good mecha anime entry anytime recently.
>>45537497
I enjoyed it. I actually enjoyed that it showed legit aliens and did them in an interesting way (AKA: How in the hell do we even communicate?)
>>45537653
Those ELS are pretty much made to be RPG villains, too. They can assimilate people, hack into any machine, take the form of anything from a door handle to a massive battleship, and you basically just have to shoot them until nothing's left.
Granted, they're basically the T-X on a giant robot scale, and it could make for lazy storytelling in an extended conflict, but they make for versatile mooks to plow through.
>>45525861
You could get the game system Mecha. It's an interesting and abstract system that focuses on the dynamic of the mech and its rider.
>>45537562
Don't forget the part where the Gundam's weapon progression has been Giant Mace -> Dobergun -> Giant Katana -> Dino Chainsaw.
>>45537044
>08th
my negro
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bf_xZVhaAKs
>>45530756
Cthulhutech?
