Let's talk mecha campaigns Veeky Forums. And no, I'm not talking about which system is the best for campaigns

I disagree. The difference between your average murderhobo campaign and a mecha campaign is the way you present the campaign to get immersion, and the logistics.

Simply put, for your campaign to hold water, the mechas and how they relate to the character requires a set of logistics and in-verse justifications different from that of your average campaign. Some average dudes simply aren't going to drag around a giant mech. The mechas need a reason for existing and they need a reason for being in the possession of the players.

I'd do it kind of like Eureka Seven. The PCs are rebels, most of them former soldiers. They could have some influence over their commanding officer, so it wouldn't be all railroad. I wouldn't try very hard to justify the robots, mecha are cool and that's all the justification I need. Some resource management would be involved, the PCs are wanted criminals who can't just buy everything they need and as such finding ways to resupply could be a good source of adventure hooks.

>Who are the players? Soldiers? Mercenaries? Rich eccentrics? Idols?
There's a whole spectrum, from scared Zeku pilots, to the chosen one pilots of the experimental mecha destined to save the world. Personally, I prefer to run games where the PC's are the protagonists.

>Sandbox or get on the rails bitch?
Again this is a spectrum. Generally, nameless zeku pilot works better with sandbox, and protagonist works better with rails bitch, but you don't want to go too overboard either way.

>How do you balance out the mecha parts to the non-mecha parts? How do you balance out the fact that everyone is supposed to be a pilot?

It's not that much different from balancing combat and non-combat in any other combat-based system. It's just that the more interesting version of combat happens inside giant robots.

>How hard to you try to justify big lumbering robots in-game?
Not at all. It's silly. Justifying it only draws attention to the absurdity.

>if the players are soldiers, how do you resolve the chain of command?
I'd try to give them vague general objectives, and give them leeway in how to accomplish it. Player agency matters.

>Do you include resource management? What kind?
Well, I run 4e whenever I want to play mecha, so we use A/E/D/U to represent heat-synch cooldowns and ammunition, but there are probably other mechanical ways to represent heat-synch cooldowns and ammunition.

>Soldiers? Mercenaries? Rich eccentrics? Idols?
Any of the above, hell let them play idols who are secretly employed by the government to fight aliens in giant robots because of some inherent genetic compatibility with the mech. If the players are on board, you can do anything.
>Sandbox or rails
Depends on teh setting. Really, it just depends on how you've justified the setting and what situation the players are in. Are they an elite strike team fighting against a terrestrial foe? They can probably have some latitude with picking their own targets: military bases, raids on supply lines anything the brass has authorized them to do. Are they schoolchildren fighting aliens for the government? It's a monster of the week/slice of life campaign, so their options may be limited.
>How do you balance out the mecha parts to the non-mecha parts? How do you balance out the fact that everyone is supposed to be a pilot?
They're playing people, they have lives of some sort outside the suit and if that's not enough, go watch Heavy Object for some inspiration on how infantry might fight against mecha.
>How hard to you try to justify big lumbering robots in-game?
How hard to you try to justify magic in-game?
>if the players are soldiers, how do you resolve the chain of command?
Depends on the situation, if the players are the only ones who can use the mech, they might be able to influence their superiors despite holding low ranks. Or they might be the elite mech taskforce and just have a lot of latitude as long as they don't violate military doctrine or provoke another nation to declare war. In general you just don't want to be telling your players, "No, you can't do that because you haven't been ordered to."

>How hard to you try to justify magic in-game?

Pretty hard actually. Magic doesn't just happen.

That's fair, but personally I think it's something that can go unchallenged as long as it's internally consistent and not a plot point. It is, admittedly, more likely for the WHY of giant robots to become relevant, but even Gundam's paper-thin excuse of, "it's more intuitive to maneuver a human-like robot in space" is probably sufficient.

Gundam also has " radiation, radar, radio, microwaves, and sometimes the visual spectrum is heavily disrupted at any significant distance when any military action is taking place".
Minovsky particles are the gift that keep on giving. Tiny fusion reactors to power the giant robots, easy removal of the pesky missiles and artillery that would render giant robots useless, ect.

It looks like "gritty" was auto-corrected to "fruity." I'm glad my phone is so up-beat.

You can handwave as much or as little as you want. Again, your mechs could be so logical that really, they're poor choices as war equipment because of maintenance costs, or you could just jump into a mecha for fun, like you're a Power Ranger.

Depends entirely on the campaign you want to run. If you want a murder hobo campaign with mechs, just make mechs super common until they're like swords, assholes, and opinions: Everyone's got one.

Oh, and the human like shape is not just about being intuitive. Having a waist and limbs makes turning in space less of a logistical nightmare, since you don't need to use reaction mass for anything except thrust and braking.

What has rails? A rollercoaster. There is literally nothing wrong with forcing players along a path.

IRL, you actually use a gyro to turn in space, though the AMBAC or whatever it is called is actually a sort of clever way of rationalizing mechas.

>Having a waist and limbs makes turning in space less of a logistical nightmare, since you don't need to use reaction mass for anything except thrust and braking.

And cone again it's illustrated that you should NOT try to make mecha plausible, because you're pretty much guaranteed to hit a stupidity mine sooner rather than later.

They're giant fucking robots, that's your justification right there.

>Who are the players? Soldiers? Mercenaries? Rich eccentrics? Idols?
I like Mercs, but it seems cliche to me at this point. What I do now is have an independent command. Which leads to answering:
>Sandbox or get on the rails bitch?
You get to do what you want, but the higher ups can railroad your ass to a specific theater to move the main story along.

>How do you balance out the mecha parts to the non-mecha parts? How do you balance out the fact that everyone is supposed to be a pilot?
Make pilots not just badass robot operators, but all around elite troops trained in various specialties so they can engage in non-mecha operations when needed. For example, while everyone is a pilot only Pilot Sue can work as a field surgeon, only Pilot Alice has the training to effectively use demolition charges, and only Pilot Bob has the computer training to infiltrate enemy systems. The key is to come up with objectives that require more tact than "Robot Smash."
>How hard to you try to justify big lumbering robots in-game?
You don't. Respect the robot.
>if the players are soldiers, how do you resolve the chain of command?
Promote a PC to leader, but start with an NPC/DMPC "Chief" character.
>Do you include resource management? What kind?
Depends on the game. The only resources the players should worry about are fuel and ammunition. Making them worry about water/food/Oxygen could be optional. Spare parts could be over cumbersome.

I just watched Gundam: The Origin IV, and now I really want to run a mecha campaign or at least a one off.

Despite the fact that this is a conversation that will LITERALLY never end, it is if that's not what the players want. To give a relevant example, what if the players decide that they don't like their superiors and they want to defect? That certainly wasn't in the GM's plans, do you think he should just say no? Can you give a justification for why they can't do that if they want to? If they're willing to put in the work to make it happen?

Eh, AMBAC does the same thing, but also has that nebulous "more intuitive" part.

Same thing, while flailing around in front of sensors, guns and thrusters, having a very limited range of motion, being far less compact (which translates to a huge amount of mass if you want some armour on it), and requiring an enormously complicated array of something to make it all move, instead of having three motors take care of it all.

More intuitive is also obvious bullshit. Either all the limbs and AMBAC are computer-controlled, so there's no difference to the pilot, or it simply adds a lot of shit to keep track of. Turning left by twisting a control stick ain't hard, turning left by managing the position of four individual limbs, that's a challenge. Simply stuffing controls for everythign into the cockpit will be a nightmare.

Just go watch 08th MS Team, that'll get you like 75% of the way there, OP.

But that doesn't answer, which system to use?
I remember seeing something fanmade, with a special Encounters in Space splat...

So basically wargaming with Gunpla? I can dig it.

Was Mekton z Any good

I would suggest having a look at the Battletech RPG for some good insight into how you can mix big stomping robots with PC's going about their business.

>Who are the players? Soldiers? Mercenaries? Rich eccentrics? Idols?

All of the yes. Depending on your setting, you could have the players be anything, really.

>Sandbox or get on the rails bitch?

Sandbox is always more tricky than a straight-up story, unless you already have a universe you can use as your setting. Both are fun, but if you are the GM, it's gonna be your call.

>How do you balance out the mecha parts to the non-mecha parts? How do you balance out the fact that everyone is supposed to be a pilot?

Everyone doesn't need to be a pilot. If some players don't want to pilot robots, then give them the means to be a threat to enemy mecha instead. It should be noted as obvious, that if you have super-awesome mecha like in most anime, then you will need super-awesome non-mecha weapons to deal with them. Every Superman needs some kryptonite.

>How hard to you try to justify big lumbering robots in-game?

Again, Battletech is great example of this. You still have tanks, infantry, planes, nukes, spaceships and whatnot, but the Mech is king on the battlefield.

>if the players are soldiers, how do you resolve the chain of command?

That can be as complex or as simple as you want. Maybe they only need a superior officer who tells them what to do every time. Maybe they are grunts, who have to wait for the chain of command to tickle down to their squard of killer-robots, before they move out. Maybe they are mercenaries who decide on their own what command to follow or how to do stuff on the battlefield.

>Do you include resource management? What kind?

Money. Robots break down, they take damage, they need new parts. Money is the easiest way to keep people motivated.

> Having a waist and limbs makes turning in space less of a logistical nightmare

This is literally not how physics works.

The third law disagrees. It's the exact same principle that lets gyroscopic turning work in space.

Why are Zeon mechs so much better than Feddy mechs, Veeky Forums?

Remember that, ultimately, a mecha campaign is a character study more than anything else. It's not just about the clashing robots, it's about love blooming on the battlefield, oddly Oedpian one-liners, and passionate mid-battle conversations when you're trying to gut the other guy with a beam saber.

You also need at least one psychic love interest. It's sort of in the charter.

Because they're sore losers who think their shitty zaku upgrade packages can stand up to mass produced gundams.

Nah they had the same problem the Nazis did in WW2. They kept trying to produce new designs and machines.instead of optimizing their old production lines.

All players are in one mech, struggling to keep the damn thing functional while their enemy is doing the same. Boarding actions! Repairing damaged limbs! Unjamming mech guns! Aiming secondary weapons systems! Operating remote drones! Hacking the enemies systems!

>all this theoretical discussion

Fuck that, tell me about the mech games you're playing or running right now. You do actually play these games, right Veeky Forums?

>Battle Century G, homebrew setting
>Star gates throughout the galaxy left by an ancient alien civilization have allowed humans to start colonizing other worlds
>Colonies declare independence, war breaks out, etc
>Giant robots are created as the ULTIMATE WEAPONS PLATFORM, war machines that can fight on any terrain on any planet, as well as in space
>because fuck you, giant robots are based
>PCs are pilot cadets for Earth's first mecha unit
>PCs are: A tryhard guy from a military family, a daughter of some researchers who died under mysterious circumstances, and a genetic experiment that has been forced to become a pilot
>The cadets are deployed on a training mission in another system, but are unknowingly being used as security to retrieve the macguffin
>The rebels show up in their own mechs and ambush the cadets, all the instructors are killed/missing leaving the kids to fend for themselves
>The ship of cadets learn about the macguffin, a device that will revolutionize FTL travel and have a huge impact on the war, and decide to try and stop Space Hitler from capturing it for himself

Webm related, this happens at least once per battle

I've had an Only War/Heavy Metal Chivalry campaign gestating in my brain a while. Anyone got some stories/experience with the homebrew?

Maybe. Problem is nobody can figure out how to run the damn thing. So I guess the real answer is no. Though even building a mech is a pain in the ass with a formula.

I'd say to try out Chris Perrin's Mecha or Battle Century Z first.

*Battle Century G

I've been wanting to run a OYW Gundam game with either BCG or SimpleD6 (idea being that a Aspect could represent the mecha). But everybody on the Gundam forum I go to only cares about freeform RPs.

And I don't trust Veeky Forums enough to recruit on a Gamefinder thread.

bump

One of my favorite campaigns I have ever been in was a mecha campaign. It was, amusingly enough, run with a 3.5 supplement called Dragonmech, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like.

Only one of us could actually pilot a mech, but it was a gestalt campaign, so we were all various forms of broken. The three members of our party who didn't pilot mechs could still battle mechs one way or another. We had a crusader/paladin who battled mechs on foot, and won; a rogue/beguiler/prestige class (some kind of dimensional shifter based prestige class detailed in the supplement) who could teleport into mechs and kill whatever was inside; and me, a steamborg/coglayer, which were two classes unique to the supplement which was essentially a variant warrior, and a class that revolved around building contraptions with weird modular "steam powers." (My favorite creation was a tiny robotic dragon that with a flamethrower that rolled multiple d20 for damage, which was mostly more hilarious than it was efficient)

There was a bunch of factors that made this campaign so great, but what I think it boiled down to was:
-Great GMing, who always found a way for everybody to participate
-Actions that could occur both inside a mech, and outside, as opposed to what I imagine a standard mech campaign is like, which probably relegates all the action to mech combat, which I have to imagine gets pretty same-y
-Great party composition, where everybody played a a fairly unique concept. Each person had a unique place in the party, with each party member having a different method of fighting mechs, rather than it just being four dudes in mechs doing basically the same thing, which basically just makes it a standard RPG. By allowing both people in mechs, and people outside of mechs to fight against mechs, it created a sense of actual scale to the fight.

>trying to outline a mecha campaign other mecha enthuasists
>"why don't they just replace the pilot with a bigger computer?"
>mfw

I'm extremely close to just make everyone into sentient AI:s instead.

>other mecha enthusiasts
>can't appreciate the romanticism associated with the genre

Sounds like they're faggots desu

Sounds like a pretty decent summary of their personality

could just establish that AI technology advanced enough to make a Mech better than a piloted version doesn't exist(and maybe stick in something like Minovsky Particles or GN Particles to justify why they aren't remotely piloted either)

Yeah, I'd probably go with
"Minovsky particles messes up the smallest transistors and quantum computers, so you can't actually automate the suit too much" or something like that.

Some sort of minovsky particle is almost a necessary part of any mecha worldbuilding I think.

>Who are the players? Soldiers? Mercenaries? Rich eccentrics? Idols?
Can be any of these... But one thing I noticed is that you have to keep all of the players viable. Similar to Shadowrun with hacking, you don't want to have to leave your not-in-a-robot players out of the fight or have to side-table something.
>Sandbox or get on the rails bitch?
More of a GM's choice thing, but I think that it could do really well as a hex-based map sandbox.
>How do you balance out the mecha parts to the non-mecha parts? How do you balance out the fact that everyone is supposed to be a pilot? Everyone's in the cockpit, or everyone's not. Make it clear to the players why this is the case. Same as with edgy characters who want to go off on their own, if you want the game to work, you can't.
>How hard to you try to justify big lumbering robots in-game?
If you can justify magic, vampires, superheroes, and bugbears, mecha is perfectly fine to rule-of-cool into the game. If players hate it that much, fuck them with a stick and they can participate in your other games.
>if the players are soldiers, how do you resolve the chain of command?
I usually leave this bit up to the players. Rank is usually part of chargen, but the dynamic is up to the players. It usually just means the leader is the party face.
>Do you include resource management?
I would... Repairs and maintenance are a thing, but I leave them up to expert NPCs when appropriate. If players are doing the whole merc deal, it's better to check with them how crunchy they want the experience to be. Is it just "Pay x, fix everything", or skill rolls and stockpiles for each component. Consider how they're going to buy/source the gear, unless you're going to leave that up to NPCs, as well.

It depends on the style of the campaign you run for them. Typically I like to model my campaigns after an 80s Tomino show, so have the players be an irregular or special unit of some kind to allow them a bit more freedom, have them have a home carrier to use, set up stages of threats and development and have a few special squads of baddies to throw at them from time to time.

That's actually less common than you might think.

There was nothing special about Kouji Kabuto, he was just the one who had been given Mazinger Z. Banjo was an adult, as was Chirico Cuvie. Amuro was the one who had the most combat experience with the Gundam and was the only one who could pilot it after all the original pilots were killed. J9 were adults. Kamille was a gifted pilot, but there wasn't anything overly special about him until he awoke as a newtype. Jiron was a melonhead. Hikaru wasn't an adult but he wasn't that skilled at first while the main characters of Southern Cross, Orguss and Mospeada were adults. Young pilots are very common, but not ubiquitous and actually not as widely spread as you may think, even in the 70s and 80s.

Nothing is more annoying than knowing someone who's as into robots as you but can't grasp the fact that it's inherently silly and that there's really no difference between an Armoured Trooper and a sentai robot .

Chirico was a badass among badasses before the show even began, to be fair, though it really did come down to him being in the right place at the right time in the end.

Escaflowne-style homebrew setting and system. Primarily set to a backdrop of an age of rapid imperial expansion and political upheaval. The campaign's going to be starting in a couple weeks- I'm hoping I've made the system in the long-term as the playtests have been.

This does get into system stuff a little, there's a game out there just called "Mecha" which has each session broken down like a robot anime episode. Each player character gets a scene where they do something related to being a giant robot pilot (repairs, downtime to recover from injuries/visit someone recovering, sneaking around gathering intel, etc) and based on the "success" of those scenes they get bonuses to do stuff in the next mission/giant robot fight that ends every session.

That structure might not be everyone's favorite thing, but I thought it was a cool way to make things in and out of the robot count.

While Chirico is Chirico, with all the badassery that that implies, he's not quite the most badass MC in his own universe.

This, OP, is how I run a Mecha Campaign. Shadow of the Colossus-style.

I've done the Gundam-style space opera, the gritty 8th MS Team war story and the more general military-drama thing at different points myself.

Chirico was a VERY young adult, to be fair.

Running a Gundam-themed game in a mashup universe that combines elements of multiple Gundam series.

You, talk more.

D'okay.

It's a system I've been working on for about eight months now. Metal is excessively common in the world due to an idiosyncracy involving magic and the elements- it's effectively an abundant form of arcane-geological scar tissue that serves as a magical conductor. In its abundance it spurred the use of magic as an energy source (since it can't really be manipulated in the raw, sorcerous sort of way), encouraged prolific mining... and from there, the construction of mining equipment which would eventually be slowly adapted for wartime use. (On average they're only about two to three stories tall)

There are four different 'elements' of mech depending on the varieties of metal used to build and power it, each resulting in different abilities the player can choose from to shape the spec/build of their machine. From there, they can custom-outfit the equipment as they see fit. So far the construction and customization system's been one of the most appealing draws for the playtesters.

It's also led to some interesting reasons for why the players have the machines in the first place. One of them is AWOL with military gear, one of them had them it handed down as a legacy much in the way a hero might wield an heirloom sword, a couple of them were apprentice metalworkers tasked with bringing their final work as apprentice to bear in a field test...

Thats pretty cool. I always liked Escaflowne a lot. The magic-liquid-ferrofluid stuff the zaibach had was really interesting. Too bad they never made any other media really besides the manga, movie and anime. Would love an Advance Wars game with guymelefs instead.

Screen people from Veeky Forums, thats what I do.

Tell us about it.

I have been trying to remember the name of that anime for nearly two decades. Thanks for the reminder, user.

Hey, there's reasons why they're called Active Mass Balance AUTO Control m8, of course its computer controled, just like modern jetfighters today. Only its a bit more complicated but hey, in the future where people already master robodynamics, can build 37km worth of space colonies in thousands and treat programming as easy as flipping back of their hands, everything is possible. oh and ISS already done their own AMBACS as a fast methods on turning the whole station, search it for your self

You mean the keknek Steel Batallion: the PnP?

Don't be a cuck about le Veeky Forums army. The Gamefinder is perfectly fine if you filter out shitty players like you would with any group by talking to people like an adult.

It's gonna keep happening.

>easy removal of the pesky missiles and artillery that would render giant robots useless

Missiles are still exist in Gundam tho, its just either laser guided or optical guided. And the damn robots are still dance around them easily.

And fucking artilleries are exist, why do you think Guntanks, Xamel, Messala, R10, Hildolfr, Guncannon, Dakka Jegan, GM Cannon, GP02 (aka Metal Gear Gumdam) are a thing.

The thing is, those damn robots are versatile as fuck and Minovsky are so insane it can make a 18 meter robots do a full round waltz ( in Zeta and onwards at least).

All of the missiles and artillery in gundam is very short ranged. Artillery in particular is almost always in direct line of sight or just over a single hill. That's laughably short ranged compared to what artillery can do with spotters. Half the time, the best way to deal with it is to literally go punch out the artillery platform in melee because it's so close by.

I've just started a mecha campaign, and our first session was last night. I can answer some of these.
>Who are the players? Soldiers? Mercenaries? Rich eccentrics? Idols?
Currently a criminal, eventually a mercenary. Solo campaign. Learned to operate industrial mechs as a dockworker, fired when he got caught helping smugglers, now in the employ of a 28 as a lieutenant and tasked with retrieving a combat mech. Set in 1981 South Africa, for reference.
>Sandbox or get on the rails bitch?
Sandbox, though some events are predetermined. Only ones outside PC control.
>How do you balance out the mecha parts to the non-mecha parts? How do you balance out the fact that everyone is supposed to be a pilot?
20-foot mechs can't handle social situations, can't handle cramped interiors, and moreover, are extremely visible to the SA military as well as their foreign "advisors". While the mech (which I don't have yet: that's the objective of the first couple sessions) is geared for heavy fighting and slugging it out with other mechs, the pilot has enough speed to pull off Gundam jacks, and is useful in noncombat situations.
>How hard to you try to justify big lumbering robots in-game?
American company devises what amounts to an APLU. Slow and clumsy. Exported worldwide. Third world makes technicals out of them. Soviets build a proper armored version. Americans respond in kind. they're a nuclear proliferation metaphor except the third world got involved That's the extent of the justification. All the tech used in them is period-accurate, it's just never been combined this way.
>Do you include resource management? What kind?
Yep. XCOM: The tabletop game soon.

Nearly every mecha anime I've seen has the characters undergo existential crises and some real fucked up shit. Start there?

One of the reasons is the communication breakdowns at distance. The only reliable communication is direct LOS so spotters need to see both the target and arty platform, otherwise you are just wasting ammo.

Sounds like the way to play a Titan

Exactly my point. One of the reasons why mechs are not viable at all irl is that you can easily kill them from over the horizon because they're such large targets. That weakness is eliminated in Gundam.

Nah, the only short artilery MS was only Guncannon and GM Cannon

Xamel do their shot from across the Sydney crater

Guntank have an effective range of almost 300 km

R10 was a Guntank that can transform, so its generally the same.

GP02 lunge her Nuclear from the Solar System 1.0 to Luna II, that is being more than 1000 km away.

And Hildolfr...... well it was never actually confirmed.

So no, its NOT laughably short

Soldiers, part of the Xth autonomous unit. So basically here's a White Base, some token support now go wreak havoc.
A little bit of both. Make a bunch of cards detailing ''main'' and ''side'' events and randomly draw them. Keep the events as simple as possible and narrate them together.

Eh depends on your mech m8

17-18m is like having an F-22 standing up, and if you expect the mech are gonna be BT kind of slogging machine then sure.

5-8 meters ? Can be feasible as multirole machine, and with limbs it can maneuver far more quicker than regular cars and make them better at skewing dense forest and urban areas (Which is 80% of modern combat anyway) But don't expect them will be as thick as MBTs, treat them at the same class as Scorpion or Bradley. They can work at best as tank support in urban areas, scout, salvage unit, field construction unit, etc.

3 meters is an infantry fit so you can expect em to be a mobile weapon platform for those footsloggers. They can be above but in smaller scale and maybe a bit less powerfull.

>Can blast them over horizon

Wasting 10mil worth of tomahawk on one that maybe have some sort of AMS was not worth it. And regular artilery was never that accurate either irl.

>And regular artilery was never that accurate either irl.
Modern artillery is accurate enough that they can fire half a dozen rounds from a single gun using different angles and have every single one of those rounds hit a target the size of a truck all at the exact same moment.

Yes , and its all assuming that those truck was gonna stand iddly as they are in the next 2 minutes. Moving targets? Not as effective isn't it? Especially totarget that can move at 50km/h regularly and can do evasive maneuvers by simply do a sidestepping.

That implies they now exactly where the truck is standing.

Not a realistic scenario.

>5-8 meters ? Can be feasible as multirole machine, and with limbs it can maneuver far more quicker than regular cars and make them better at skewing dense forest and urban areas (Which is 80% of modern combat anyway)

This is the justification I would want to use for mechs. Something moderately sized. It's pretty much common knowledge that tanks and infantry work best in tandem with each other. A mech could be a fusion of the two, something armored and with heavy firepower, while having the flexibility of an infantryman by virtue of the humanoid shape. Of course a tank offers thicker armor, but even the best modern tanks are vulnerable against a variety of infantry based anti tank weapons in an urban environment. A mech with good mobility and advanced sensors could have more "proactive" protection against anti-armor threats.

Still a silly concept, but that's how I'd rationalize it. They could be like Wanzers from Front Mission. They don't wholly supplant the role of a tank.

>There was nothing special about Kouji Kabuto, he was just the one who had been given Mazinger Z
reminds me how in the original Toei Anime, Kouji is completely awful at piloting Mazinger for the first 5-6 episodes

bumping

youtube.com/watch?v=FgNTO-4ukkk

user, I have experience with gamefinder games That's WHY I don't trust it. If you want the stories, I can give them.

And have you ever surfed on /m/? If I ran a Gundam game recruiting from Veeky Forums, I'd get a bunch of neo-nazis wanting to join in as players for GLORIUS ZEON THAT DID NOTHING WRONG. Like Gamefinder can be a problem already but the subject matter would make it worse.

Precisely. Plus Mazinger Z had to worry about energy consumption, repairs, etc.

Ah, a sensor round isn't it?

Yes, but why we still use tanks, apc etc again if this exist? Oh yeah there's a things called jammers, cover, terrain density, and fucking professional mobile unit that not just stand still like an idiot.

And all those test was conducted by stationary target, so no still not realistic scenario.

He literally only gets by because of how powerful Mazinger is. He was taught everything he knows about piloting by Sayaka, an eternal Jobber. But she's the only one of the three pilots who seems to know what she's doing or take the job seriously or have any training or experience. I'd say "Put Sayaka in Mazinger and they'd beat Dr. Hell faster" but her dad barley even let her pilot Aphrodite A.

I'm a zeonfag that just triying to make living and survive throught out of stupidity of our overlord so i can afford my family's housings and their shelterence guaranteed, are i'm fit EFGM?

That's why you only pick people whose favorite is G Gundam.

>but her dad barley even let her pilot Aphrodite A
man that reminds of that really terrible episode they had early on that was pretty much just "Kouji and her dad are sexist assholes" the whole episode, with it ending with her just accepting their desire for Aphrodite A to continue being useless, was so bad it killed any desire to continue watching it

>EFGM
Nah, I'm Ameria-GM. I just mean the group being full /pol/ would make everything OoC torture and /pol/ loves Zeon.

I actually never tried to run a tournament in a campaign. I wonder how a "tournament" arc would even work. I guess you'd have to a lot going on behind the scenes to make sure everybody always has something to do. And you probally need dungeon brackets for a player character who lost early on to have a chance to make a comeback.

Just go the Mortal Kombat route. Tournament as an excuse for everyone to meet and then the bad guy just says fuck the rules and it's up to the now-allies PCs to fuck him back.

I play wanzer type mecha but with insane magitek techs to justify different damage types.

Wanzer is easily justified as big ass infantry type power suit which can carry tank cannons and other weapons easily while having a lot of mobility.

On rails but I make the path based on player decisions. Basically I have a good idea on how I want the campaign to end and continue but I only flesh out enough content for one session each time.

4e DnD is great for playing mecha campaigns.

>How hard to you try to justify big lumbering robots in-game?
As in, why giant robots and not giant tanks or spaceships? My favorite excuse is that humans would rather fight in something resembling themselves, especially if fighting against aliens with different body shapes. The morale/psychological effect would be considered more important than objective efficiency, because fucking up aliens with giant metal humans feels that much better.

I would kill someone to have this game run at my table.
The Phantom Pain meets Armoured Core. Pic related.