ACE Universal Mecha Roleplaying System

Heya Veeky Forums. So I like Giant Robots, and I like Tabletop Games. I previously tried to make a full RPG named Armored Dragoon Gunstrider, and that didn't work one bit- I'm just not good at setting stuff. So Instead, I went 'Fuck It' and put my nose to the grindstone.

And I took the system and any salvageable parts and made the ACE System, a d100 based fast paced vehicular combat game, meant to be used to play anything from futuristic gundams fighting one another to Escaflowne and Dunbine stuff.

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The System is intended to be highly customizable, and comes with a variety of optional rules that can be added or removed to give a GM the desired feeling of chunkiness.

There's also indepth mecha, weapon, and armor creation rules allowing you to make anything from a Baneblade to a Mazinger.

Sounds cool. I'm going to give this a read, then.

This is neat. Fresh out of the oven? Dope.

I've just skimmed it so far and it looks good. But just as a consumer, I'd use some/ art of all sorts of mechanical stuff to give someone a vague sense of how much variety you have to offer.

Sometimes it's neat to see a Shinanju or a Scopedog to inspire me when I'm peeking around the mecha mechanics.

Art's fine and all, but I don't want to get bamf'd by an overzealous legal department stooge.

Shouldn't be a problem if you're not trying to make money off of it; but then I'm not a lawyer.

Fair use is dead.

Anyway, have some Robots

I'll have to take a look at this later. Maybe I can finally run that 1st Crusade WITH MECHA campaign I've been planning.

I scanned it, and it seems pretty solid. We definitely need more mech games out there. As for recommendations, I'll take another look and see what I can think of.

That sounds really neat. More details, please.

...

Only thing that comes to mind is Mekton Zeta and battle century H

Mekton Zeta is so unbalanced it isn't even funny. Sure, its playable, but all you need to do to have a character good at combat is to pump Dexterity. Because all Combat runs on Dexterity.

I ran a session using Strike! a bit refluffed. It worked out pretty well.

I want to tweak it a bit before next session (if there ever will be one), admittedly.

Mekton Zeta looks good, but I haven't been able to stay invested in finishing the book. I guess looking up a guide would help me.

Battle Century H, isn't that a newer version of Giant Guardian Generation?

And on the topic of mechs there's always Chromestrike. It's more in the style of armored core. Anything else that I might have missed?

Here to ask the hard hitting questions:
Can I play a psychic loli?

This is why we can't have nice things user.

But super powered children and psychic lolis are a staple of the mecha genre.
It's one of the few settings where they'd actual be viable as a choice.

I'm pretty sure that you can, even against my better judgement, because for SOME REASON Psychic Lolis are a staple of the genre.

>d100

Roll for anal circumference.

It doesn't use a d100 in the same way as Dark Heresy. Instead it's a d100+Attribute+Mecha Attribute vs a target number.

Looks nice. But I have to ask.

Will it let me run that Mecha in Vietnam game I always wanted?

youtube.com/watch?v=2Yf4AhoGDkQ

Yes, there are rules for that. And for getting ambushed by guys with RPGs, and having your mech hijacked.

If 08th is Nam, then what is Victory?

Also, the system looks neat. I might give it a try here and there inbetween my normal campaign. I'll let you know how it goes if I do.

>Attribute 40-50
>Get out of here Yamato

Still reading but so far it looks solid. Been looking for a mech system that wasn't Mekton Z levels of mathematics but not too watered down so I hope this hits a good balance

Haven't gotten around to Victory yet. It's on my to-do list, but from what little I've heard it's Twilight 2000 with Mechs.

Victory is Depression, with a side order of straight Shota and mechs.

>Depression
>Straight Shota

This combination seems dubious.

Victory is weird, but it has some sexy Mobile Suits.

Nothing's sexier than the F-91 in its Crossbone colors, though.

No, it's an apt description. It doesn't even bounce around like ZZ, it's straight on Horrors of War, but with random SS shit thrown in places.

Like pic related is an enemy officer interrogating Uso. By taking a bath with him. It's also the series with the Bikini Babe strike force and the Shrike Team.

Can I be a human that punches giant robots? That's also a staple of mecha.

Who'd win in a fist fight? Master Asia or Alberto the Impact?

youtube.com/watch?v=5OjBulwHIc8

You can be Mellowlink.

youtube.com/watch?v=TpCtbM741tg Relevant to killing giant mechs in the system.

Or, yes, you cna make a handheld gauntlet to punch robots.

Also, you can probably tweak the armor rules to run a Tekkaman Blade game.

youtube.com/watch?v=GTOplYCfKTA
This really explains how it can be both at once.

Uso is lucky he came out of that war as well adjusted as he did.

>But super powered children and psychic lolis are a staple of the mecha genre.
name 10 - apart from Zeta gundam, Double Zeta Gundam or Evangelion

Full Armor is best armor.

>Name 10
>Apart from these 10, because I'm literally retarded.

You realize loli newtypes have been part of Gundam since literally the first series?

Coquelicot, Iris Chateaubriand, Rei Mii, Chloe McCaffrey, Takashi Waku, Masaru Kodaka, Daiichi Yamura, Mako Nakarai, Isao Kako, Chizuru Honda, Kunihiko Moji, Maki Ano, Yōsuke Kirie, Takami Komoda, Aiko Tokosumi, Kanji Yoshikawa, Kana Ushiro, Jun Ushiro, Seiji Takasugi, Takuya Harashima, Kazuki Tokimura, Dai Suganuma, Yuuta Tomonaga, Kouta Hoshikawa, Daisaku Kusama, Shotaro Kaneda, Deck Afta, Piper Lou, Uso Ewin, Kio Asuno, Daiki Ryuuzaki, and I could go on.

He's probably never seen the first series.

>Name 10
>N-Not these ones, though!

I'm not going to say anything. I'm just going to let you think about what you've said.

>name 10
>except for these ones
This guy knows what's up

>or Evangelion
Also, the pilots in Eva are generally 14 to 15 if I remember correctly. The list I posted here is all 13 and under.
If I add 14 and 15 year olds, it grows exponentially.

...

>All this rapid-fire TOLD

That's some heavy incoming fire, user.

Ah yes, the best Gundam series.

>wearing headset
>covers ears anyway because the headset isn't enough
The good little details

>Attacking in the ACE System has the
>Attacker roll a d100 and add the sum of their
>Weapon Accuracy or Skill Level along with the
>relevant Attribute and any modifiers.

>The Defender’s Defense is the sum of 25
>plus their Ability, the Agility of their Machine or their
>Defense Skill, and any other modifiers.

Both of these say "or." Is that correct? To an attack you either add Weapon Accuracy, or Skill Level, but not both?

>Mazinger

You have my full and undivided attention. Current mecha games don't do Super Robots well.

If we roll 3d5+5 for Instinct, why does it then say "Characters also begin with 12 Instinct;"?

Do I get 12 Instinct or do I get 3d5+5? Instinct is an Attribute, it says I roll 3d5+5 for my Attributes, so... which is it?

>A character begins the game with a Max AP equal to 4 plus their Ability divided by 5
I am pretty sure this means to say 4 + (ABI/5), but it might mean (4+ABI)/5. Which is it? With 16 Ability, the first method gives me 7 AP and the second gives me 4.

> A character begins the game with Health equal to Endurance + Composure divided by 5.
Same thing here. Is it END + (CMP/5) or is it (END+CMP)/5?

Yes

I noticed a lot of talk of hexes, does it also support grid-less combat?

>Skill Checks
>Outside of combat characters will sometimes need to perform tasks that have a modicum of difficulty or a chance for them to fail, such as interacting in a high society event or attempting to hack into an encrypted piece of software. In these situations characters will make Skill checks

>Skills are used to do things outside of combat like trying to convince people of something or in researching a thing
If Skills are supposed to be used out of combat, implying that in combat you use something other than Skills, why are nearly half of the 12 skills used in combat?
>Combat Skills are used for personal combat.
The phrase "Combat Skill" never appears elsewhere in the file.

> Skills are measured by how many levels a character has in them: higher levels in a skill means that the target number for a skill roll is higher
Isn't the target number for a skill roll set by the difficulty of the task? It wouldn't make sense for higher skill to increase your target number. You wouldn't be getting any better at the skill!

>A Character starts with Skill Levels equal to 2 times their Composure.
How do I distribute these? Say my Composure is 11. I'd have 22 Skill Levels. Do I distribute them one by one, raising a single skill by that amount? Like raising Athletics from 0 to 10 for the cost of 10 Skill Levels?

>Characters start with a set amount of Credits, or CR, that are used to purchase items, MBP, and to increase their Attributes. Certain Traits increase and decrease the amount of Credits that characters start with. All Characters start with 0 Credits.
>Characters start with a set amount of Credits
>All Characters start with 0 Credits

Hey, 0 is a set amount. Exactly what it says on the tin.

That's true, but why not start the paragraph with "characters start with 0"? Why imply we start with a positive number?

A lot of this looks like OP set particular amounts, or formulas for rolls and whatnot, and then updated it down the line and forget to fix all the entries.

No idea.

This is a cool start OP, but your formatting is for shit.

It looks like the entire Weapons page and Weapon Trait page is repeated twice

Martial Artist says it doubles your Endurance for calculating damage with your machine's Inbuilt Weapon, but I don't think your Endurance factors into that at all anyway.

he means Battle Century G

No they don't, you've misread Martial Artist.

>A character with Martial Artist gains advantage on using hand to hand combat or a machine’s inbuilt weapon to attack, and doubles their machine’s Armor and their own Endurance for calculating damage.

I think what people aren't getting is that there's rules for mecha combat, Pilot Attribute + Mecha Attribute; and then rules for personal combat on the ground, which is Pilot Attribute + Relevant Skill.

Hence why here is confused. For combat in a mecha, you use Attribute + Weapon Accuracy; on foot you use Attribute + Skill Level.

Your Defense score is the same way. On foot it's 25+ Ability + Defense Skill + modifiers, while in a mech it's 25+ Agility+ Ability.

It isn't, actually. The weapon section under Mecha Creation is for creating weapons for a mech. The section under Equipment is for creating handheld weapons. The rules for each are different but similar.

As for this, I should clarify that you don't roll for Instinct. You purely get a starting amount.

I originally had these as pure mathematical equations, but people didn't like that form.

>I originally had these as pure mathematical equations, but people didn't like that form.
Well, "people" are wrong. The formula format makes it perfectly clear what goes where. What you have now is ambiguous.

Reminder that the character from which the term loli is derived was actually 15.

>I originally had these as pure mathematical equations, but people didn't like that form.
You also didn't answer the question. Which is it?

>Hence why here is confused. For combat in a mecha,

Is English your first language?

When in doubt, put Attributes together and divide them, then add or subtract.

What it means is that Max AP is going to be (Ability / 5) +4, while Health is (End+Cmp)/5

>when in doubt

These clarifications need to be in your rules somewhere. Having the formula clearly stated helps tremendously.

You won't be alive forever to clarify things in your game to the Mecha Nerds to the future

Don't worry bruddah, I'm already working on Version 0.15 that'll address these issues.

Cool, looking forward to it.

A lot of this PDF is black and white, consider color coding sections with a simple border or something, maybe just highlighting the titles of sections with a color.

Some Zaku Green, some Char Red would look fantastic to highlight which section you're in.

bump

>Tekkaman Blade
>Posts pic of Detonator Organ

Mah nigga.

Just a hint of things.

Alright, you got my attention.

Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita? Pretty sure Dolores Haze was 12.

She was a teenager in the kubrick movie, that might be what user is thinking of.

Was she? Never saw the movie, had to read the book for High School Lit though.
How is it?

Not a clue, I just looked it up to find out.

I think they never explicitly state her age but the actress was 14.

>Char red
So that we can create chracters three times as fast.

I HAD TO SAY IT, I'M SORRY.

>first character, first test fight
>roll 3d5+5 for stats
>get 19, 11, 16, 7 AP, 3 Recovery, Speed 3
>Basic Mook has 25, 25, 25, 8 AP, 4 Recovery, Speed 4
>me vs. him in Zaku IIs, 8 hexes away
>he has more speed so he goes first
>he moves and shoots the 120mm MG at 5 hexes
>1d8+2-4 gives natural 7 and 8, 11 damage
>Critical is Overheat, 1d4 damage gives only 1, but second 1d4 at the start of my turn gives 3
>15 damage, 15 structure
>only survive because of my 2 Vital Soak
Sheeeeeeit

Yeah the system is not intended to be low lethality, "It takes ten turns to kill a person". WHen you die, you die fast- unless you have Instinct to burn and Vital Soak to take up damage.

That's why Mooks and most enemies don't have Vital Soak or Instinct, while Rivals do.

It doesn't say how you burn Instinct. There's a paragraph that describes what you spend Instinct on, but that's it. We spend 1 instinct to turn a hit into a miss after it's rolled?

>"Instinct can be spent to ensure that an Attack succeeds, make a successful attack miss, re-roll Skill Checks & Damage, to increase all of their Attributes by half for one turn, or to successfully eject from a machine reduced to 0 or less structure."

There you go.

Can it represent small robots, kept by kids? For some reason this is a recurring genre, with Medarot/Medabots, Custom Robo and LBX as its members. Kids keep small robot partners, battle each other, go to school, defeat bullies who bully at robot battles, compete in tournaments, then halfway through the big worldwide tournament have to fight villains.

Man. I've been trying to find a good system to do Kid Robot Battles FOREVER. I've never been quite happy with any of the ones I've found so far.

Strike!

It's generic, but it fits pretty well. The combat side of your character is your robuddy, the skills belong to the kid. It's dead simple too.

Can't you just treat it as a normal mech but piloted remotely?

Can they mix though, or do you just miniaturize everything universally? Like one of the armaments of a mecha is a mini-robo deployer for infiltration? Or could a party of medabot-sized robo users take on a mech of several size categories higher with good enough skills and gear, as a boss?

I'm surprised none of the kids-with-mini-robos series use a setting where the school is a junior-junior academy and the minis are actually given as training to use real mechs someday. That would be a logical thing in a heavy military setting.

Eh. I'd imagine that's too complicated for toyetic franchises. It's easier to go "LOOK! HERES THE THING! IT'S GONNA BE THE SAME!" Simple concepts sell better.

>Can they mix though, or do you just miniaturize everything universally?

You'd be using the tactical combat on the miniature scale, so yeah, you'd be just have "medium" sized robots be actually the tiny sized ones and go from there.

> Like one of the armaments of a mecha is a mini-robo deployer for infiltration?

That could be a trick (tricks are like FATE's Stunts).

There's also a class that is a summoner type that gets to summon 10 mini-creeps as a first level ability, so it'd fit that.

>Or could a party of medabot-sized robo users take on a mech of several size categories higher with good enough skills and gear, as a boss?

Yes. Although depends on how big. If it's really big you are better off handling it with skills, Shadow of the Colossus style (or possibly statting out each limb as an enemy, that could work too).

It's logical but it undermines the setting-relevance of them fighting cartoony villains all using the kid toys. No one would ever give these semi-lethal robots to their kids anyway so it's best to keep it lighthearted and ridiculous.

Is there an optional rule to make it more survivable.
I know a few groups that like getting attached to characters and dislike having to sit out a fight or go through a pile of pre-builts because of lucky mook rolls.

Someone build Mazinger. Let's see if this system can deliver.

>There's also indepth mecha, weapon, and armor creation rules allowing you to make anything from a Baneblade to a Mazinger.

I hope it will. We have enough 25 page rules-lite RPGs.

Sauce for cover?

To be fair to LBX, it's a canon fact that the mecha are all using live rounds and ammunition. The toys were banned before they invented that indestructible cardboard shit.

Take a look at Jovian Chronicles 1E