Anyone running a game in a mecha setting? What system are you using?

Been running a game in Mekton Zeta. It's not perfect but I'm a big fan.

From what I've heard about Fuzion, and from what I experienced myself with the R. Talsorian myself trying to run Mekton using their Interlock system. My take away is that they geniunely love the things that they make, but generally suck at making a system that doesn't require heavy homebrewing and house ruling to get off the ground. My honest suggestion would be to use Heavy Gear instead. VOTOMS inspired with a pretty good setting to boot.

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LANCER

...

That's a man in a costume, not a mech.

I ran two "seasons" of a game in ChromeStrike.
System has flaws, but it's still fun. You just need to think on your feet and be open with your players that the system is flawed and unfinished.
But then again, at some point work started on a new version, so maybe that works better.

Glancing over it now, and I already hate the roll system that makes up the core of skill and opposed checks. Especially in the case of opposed checks. I can't imagine this being anything but a pain in the ass to resolve every damn turn.

I feel like Veeky Forums's got a hivemind when it comes to this stuff. A couple of months ago, a buddy and me started to get in to Gunpla, and we started using a mish-mash of two rules systems to run a miniatures game. (Mobile Frame 0 and Heavy Gear Blitz, both recommended by far/tg/uys.)

Slowly we've been building a setting every since.

(This is the one I'm working on currently. Since this pick, I've filled down all the nubs and repainted it with another coat of high-gloss black.)

What sort of settings do you guys use for your mech games?

Depends on what I'm trying to run, in particular what kind of tone I'm trying to capture. I have the benefit of consuming a bunch of /m/ stuff as reference to build off of, so I'm not limited in knowledge on how to capture a specific tone in a setting. However, I'd say that something in the vein of Full Metal Panic! or Gasaraki is my jam.

However, I always wanted to run a campaign set in a space western style setting. Something like a mash up between Cowboy Bebop and Braiger.

>Cowboy Bebop
That's pretty much exactly what our setting is like.

Cowboy Bebop or Firefly, but with mechs.

Most of our missions have been between rival organizations trying to lay claim to territory on dinky little moons and planetoids.

I've also been off and on penning a mecha musume setting that is very loosely inspired by Shattered Horizon. Way too many writing projects at the moment, will any of them be finished? Probably not, but the journey is fun all the same.

I've run many, many mecha games over the years with many different systems.

Most recently I ran Jovian Chronicles with WEG's D6, JC again with a Fate Accelerated conversion of Mecha vs Kaiju's mechanic rules, and tinkered a little with a OYW Gundam game using FFG's SW RPG (which is now on the back burner until their generic version of the rules Genesys comes out). I'm also planning a game in the IBO setting but waffling back and forth between using Fate again or Battle Century G.

TENRA BANSHO ZERO!!!

I haven't run a mecha game in years but when I did, I liked Heavy Gear 2e and Jovian Chronicles.

It's human shaped to better match the fact it's piloted by nerve link in the pilots power armor. Practically mocap

Trenchbreaker

Energeos!

Curious, since MHA is focused around single characters, how did you get your party to stick together?

Are any of those reasonably smooth to run?
Asking as a GM here.

I really want to make a mech campaign but I dont know what system to play it with, since my players are picky as fuck.

Not him, but it depends on how deep you go into the tactical rules.

If you run mecha combat the same way the RPG deals with character combat, it's smooth as silk, if you use the basic tactical rules, it gets a little chunkier but is still pretty easy to deal with, if you're running space combat and use the realistic space flight rules where you have to calculate delta-Vs and burn points and shit, then may god have mercy on your soul.

Which system is this?

I'm playing Lancer, run by the ONE AND ONLY Abbadon from Kill 6 Billion Demons fame! It's SO good!
drive.google.com/file/d/0B-VjHwZgQPqVbUtDeThuNXJtSk0/view

JC and HG use the same system.

I can't tell if this is fake shilling to invoke an inflammatory response or not.

I would use M&M, but I'm thinking of giving Lancer a try.

D-Did I do something wrong?!

I ran a one-shot recently utilizing the rules for Mouse Guard. Basically I redid the skills list, but kept the action card system and the generic weapons system. It makes combat fast, while still being tactical. Works better for a SEED/00 type mecha game than an 08th MS type, but it's satisfied my players. They build their character but there's no real special rules for utilizing a mecha other than that you end up counting as much larger. It's still a work in progress but the next step I plan to take is to add some form of upgrade system for the mecha, but I wanna keep it pretty rules light. MG has good rules for armor or other tools (they grant bonuses when they'd be useful), but I'm not sure how to implement mary-sue bullshit like organoid systems or Zero systems, which are such a staple in the genre.

I'm in an AdEva game which will be wrapping up soon. Great setting. The rules I could take or leave.

For future games, my heart wants Mekton Zeta, even though my head says it's probably slow and clunky and really easy to break in two.

Here's how easy it is to break mekton zeta. 90% of mekton zeta players pretend reflex 9 and below just doesn't exist for PCs. 10 is the stat cap.

>the ONE AND ONLY Abbadon from Kill 6 Billion Demons fame!
I don't know who that is, are we supposed to know or care who that is? Actually don't bother explaining, the way you put that makes me not care in the slightest.

>90% of mekton zeta players pretend reflex 9 and below just doesn't exist for PCs.
There is no "pretending" going on. It just doesn't, because the game is so fucked you've completely fucked your character over if you don't max it out out of the gate.

*crosses mekton out of the 'systems i want to try' list*

Did you just *action*?

Your kind isn't welcome here.

Makes sense, in a way. If all your pilots need to be agile, why would you hire anybody who isn't as agile as fuck?

Ran an Armored Core game, no followup yet because 2 of the 4 man group can't make it, used Strike! for it.

Of the dedicated mech systems I read over, I'd recommend Battle Century G and LANCE (pdf was posted yesterday, thread just archived I think).

I made a mecha vs. kaiju setting using Fate's pic related, but never got to play it, mainly due to being the only person in my friend's group who is into that kind of stuff.

>tinkered a little with a OYW Gundam game using FFG's SW RPG (which is now on the back burner until their generic version of the rules Genesys comes out)
Holy fuck are you me?!

Because they're retards who don't get the system.
Tell them you won't have a mech... build a support ship they can dock with instead. Yes, you can do that.

We are one, user.

JC chronicles with D6? Sounds interesting.

Well, that's a relief. I started work on mine after Genesys was announced, mind you. From the Gencon demo the system looks 99% the same as FFG SW, only fly in the ointment is character creation since that might turn out to be different, so I figure using what I know mechanically from running my horrible hybrid campaign for god knows how long would suffice.

Furthest I got was coming up with the framework for mecha in the SW vehicle rules. Then I got busy with other things and when I finally got in the mood to working on it again Genesys got announced so I figured I might as well wait.

It worked out alright, mostly the way I did it was using the conversion fomulas from Heavy Gear D6 and then adjusting dice down using the scaling rules from Mini Six. There ended up being a problem though with energy weapons doing piss poor damage. In Silhouette damage is based wholly on Margins of Success, and energy weapons have a high accuracy but low damage multiplier, which evens them out with other weapons that have higher multipliers but average to low accuracy. Since the conversion formulas didn't take this into account at all, I ended up with energy weapons that did little more than reliably scratch paint. Just some highly accurate flashlights.
Easy fix would have been to just give them an extra damage die and/or use the optional damage bonus for every X you beat the TN by rule from D6, but our test campaign petered out and my gaming ADHD kicked in and I moved on to other projects.

I'm intrigued. I have tentative statblocks for a few mecha, mostly grunt suits.
I gave my mobile suits these three special qualities:

Manipulator arms (unless stated otherwise the mobile suit is capable of human-like feats of dexterity such as grasping, obscene gestures etc. Yes, this includes improvised weapons)

Humanoid construction (A mobile suit can punch/kick/stomp as though it were a character with Brawn 3, although its unarmed attacks count as vehicular weapons. In addition a mobile suit's arm-carried/mounted weapons are considered to be capable of using all four firing arcs)

Rocket thrusters (capable of movement through space, can leap over/through difficult terrain as a manoeuvre, if in an environment with gravity can suffer 2 system strain to fly for one turn but must spend the next on land)

This is the super rough outline I came up with, our ideas are pretty similar, I wanted to make my mecha rules as in-line with the SW vehicle/starship rules as possible.
docs.google.com/document/d/1HJZLW49aUkVeWpurcoC1Pk5MWSPoG65OzaNeGUEQxpM

I like your SS for jumpjets idea though, I might steal that.

While I'm at it here's my JCD6 stuff, too.
docs.google.com/document/d/1-rs__06lBfEOuAQHXKjt69XHNkKYEYk0gstvzA3sV00

You should. I'm likely to yoink stuff from your treatment, because I'm a terrible person.

And since we're trading Google docs...
docs.google.com/document/d/1ghZG6QYrKniSORX6pqa2wGXh5e9ozYz4OuiE6x-vBuI

yeah i'm like 90% sure, no one would type like that otherwise

especially considering the shitshow of the thread yesterday

That's kind of how it should work. Mechs require a lot of skill to use.

Of course, in regards to actual flaws in the system, invincible shields are pretty annoying.

I also had a mechanic in mind for Minovsky interference I've not implemented yet. Essentially it upgrades the difficulty of attacks with the Guided quality a number of times equal to severity, with obvious consequences if a despair is rolled.

I'm considering creating a talent that helps negate this, for if someone is weird enough to play a fighter jockey in a stompy robot game.

You enthusiastically like a thing.

> actual flaws
You are pretty fucking lenient with what an "actual flaw" means if having a stat that is essentially superfluous is not one.

But it isn't a flaw. Not all characters are pilots, and having a "pilot tax" allows players who are doing otherwise to invest in other important stats.

>game focuses on mecha, if you aren't in a mecha when a fight breaks out you're turbofucked
>make a character who can't use a mecha at all
???

Battle Century G had the right idea.

How would you do electronic warfare/hacking in a mech system?

There's plenty of other roles, such as Bridge Commander, hacker, mechanic, on-foot fighter and etc.

>on foot fighter
In a fight with mecha they get pasted regardless. Sure, you need them for boarding ships and whatever, but their fate is inevitably decided by the bigger fish

Literally everything you have just said can be fulfilled by a BCG character that also has a mecha (or a ship-as-mecha if you really want to go with a literal definition of bridge commander). Nobody has to sit around and be useless when it's the pilots' time to play

Dunno, perhaps it's dumb, but why not playing with a "lance" of tech, infantry etc for every mech? Like with Ars Magica where you use grogs and mages, but instead normal guys with normal jobs and the mecha pilot as the sugoi MC.

Personally, ran it as an analogue to poisons and other status effects.that don't usually make sense for a machine.

LANCE was posted above, if you want a more simulationist approach it looked good.

BCG already kinda does this with its Reinforcements (fixed Initiative in combat, they show up and do a thing to help out, like focus fire on a single mecha, recon a target so you know what it can do, or soak up a hit for you).

Wow, what a shitty mech. Also, was one shill thread not enough?

>an attempt at discussion was a shill thread

It was literally shilled by Abbadon's boifriend.

>i think this is a shill thread
>time to shit it up

you are really this fucking jaded

you actually think someone coming out saying "hey, here's a game we play my GM made, what do you think?" is actually somehow a bad thing

like there's some ulterior motive behind sharing a free PDF

you are so much of a joyless grog you can't even imagine people genuinely liking things, they must be shills for it to make sense to you

this is just fucking sad

Let's get back on topic. How well does the Battletech RPG handle mechs that aren't battlemechs?

You mean protomechs?
It handles them about the same as it handles battlemechs, to be honest. Protos have always been basically just ultralights that work in packs.

What era of the AC setting was it in? I would fucking love to play something during 4/4A times.

Running anything outside the Battletech setting is a bad idea

Battletech itself is a great resource of stuff tough, specially with all the vehicles it has.
I love to steal shit like drop ships or the aerospace for my mongrel SWN mixed with traveller.
The atlas is still best boy.

I've always had a soft spot for FUDGE's Mecha Aces, if only because one of the settings is basically "G Gundam, but you race mechs around the planet instead of fighting them". I like the idea of giant robots stomping along the Champs-Élysées, trying to take the lead over their cocky hot-shot rival without smashing anything too expensive.

Did you use 1/444 scale for the Gunpla? Because that's still pretty tall for a good number of them. What'd you use for terrain?

I'd love to run this, but I have no idea how to do it online, since I don't really want to make a custom character sheet.

I'm currently working on a setting that focuses around mechs with heavy Kabbalistic elements greatly inspired by Gene Wolfe's Solar Cycle. Though some mechs run on more mundane power sources most draw their energy from beings such as angels and demons. It's going to use a modified version of the d20 system but it still needs a lot of work put into it. The pic attached is a mech from the setting that draws its power from the demon Moloch. If anyone has any questions I would be more than happy to answer them.

Did you paint it? I like it, it's very professional, perhaps the feet too small if I'm going to nit-pick.
How big are the mechs?

No it wasn't me - I have hired various people to work on the art. PC mechs tend to be about 50-70 meters in height. However there are also much larger super weapon type mechs that exist in the setting. which are about 1000 meters tall. They draw upon fragments of God instead of angels or demons. The mech in the attached pic draws on the power of Baal.

Nice piece, power levels are too high for what I enjoy, but the idea it's cool, enslaving demons/angels/extre-dimensional being it's an appealing concept.

I mean using LAMs in the game as Valkyries, for instance

>especially considering the shillshow of the thread yesterday

That looks like the Gundam Epyon drawn in the style of a Transformers comic.

Currently writing and AdEva 3.0 campaign for my players.
Should be starting in about a month.

Veeky Forums what are some fun ways to fuck with my players?

He literally said he was Abbadon's lil pet shill and got butthurt at any criticisms of it. What other proof do you need?

Thanks man. The game is certainly isn't going to appeal to everyone. Believe me I love some of the more compact front mission style mecha and enjoy the hell out of those style of games. One of the reasons I went with a higher tier is that I think we have something of a lack of that kind of stuff in the West. I also was a bit sick of the super robots being used by highschool students /kids convention that Japan loves so much. So instead it's a bunch of magic techno knights and asshole Machiavellian sorcerers that mainly use them Pic attached is of the 'necromancer' pilot class known as the Knights of Samael.

Lol I have had people point out to me that it looked very transformerish but I didn't pick up on the fact that It looked like Eypon. Though that's probably cause I haven't watched wing in like 15 years. I like both of those things though so it's fine with me.

LAMs are terrible. Don't make anybody use them.

I feel like this one of those times where we're supposed to be hating on some literally who e-celeb, but since no one else knows who that even is you're not getting the outrage you want to be seeing.

>It's going to use a modified version of the d20 system
Don't.

To be honest I never really put a lot of though into Minovsky particle interference. SW and Gundam already have the same dramatic approach to space and vehicle combat, both being sci-fi settings where battles take place at naked-eye range and space battles are just WWII naval battles... in space, where fighters just have zero G dogfights at naked eye range and realism be damned as long as it looks cool. The only real difference is Gundam uses Minovsky particles to justify it while SW just says fuck it rule of cool.

How about a question for you guys:

What SHOULD a mech system (and setting) have to make it good? What about a system and setting where mechs are not the main focus but are supposed to be used if you can "acquire" one.

>What about a system and setting where mechs are not the main focus but are supposed to be used if you can "acquire" one.
You would need to make it like Metal Gear and have a ton of other bizarre and interesting things the player can do and interact with beyond the titular mecha. But then it wouldn't really be a mecha game at all, since Metal Gears are actually one of the least interesting parts of their setting.

The setting/system in question is set in the early 7000's, it's galaxy spanning and in the Milky Way, so there is space magic, mercs, a plethora of alien baddies and factions, and of course loot. I haven't playtested mechs yet though, so yeah, how would they work best here?

I also would still like to posit again as to how a mech system or setting should work?

But the game coming out called Left Alive is exactly that in the Front Mission universe.