I'm after a mecha system that handles *outside* the cockpit as well as it does inside. I love Battletech, I really do, but A Time of War is B A D, and getting the two scales to mix properly with a different system for individuals on the ground from the system in the mech is pretty troublesome. So I'm out for alternatives.
Any suggestions? I'm okay with crunch as long as it's not ridiculously heavy. Not GURPS, I already tried it and was dissatisfied.
Have you tried Adeptus Evangelion?
Or the 40k homebrew for imperial knights.
Silhouette Core, also known as SilCore, also known as Heavy Gear 3e and Jovian Chronicles 2e.
I'd recommend Battle Century G. It is rules medium and I've found it works quite nicely.
I've got the Knights homebrew, but a couple of my players hate 40k, so no go there. AdEva is probably gonna get shot down the same as Bliss Stage (as a joke) did.
I always hear bad things about Silhouette-based games; can you sell me on it?
First, what style of mech game are you aiming for?
Remnants is pretty good. From the same guys what made Warbirds if you're familiar.
I've never seen an RPG handle mixed scales well. It seems like a mechanical nightmare to try, which is why most games find a way around it.
Either you end up with very small scale mecha, like Remnants, or you completely abstract/disconnect the personal scale from the mecha scale, which Battle Century G or Lancer does.
The personal scale in Lancer isn't abstracted, I think, it just so happens if you are not wearing a ton of armor in the form of a mech, you are very likely to get gibbed.
Battle Century G, despite what its other fans may say, actually mixes personal and mecha scale fine. People have very little versatility compared to robutts, but if you specifically build for it and throw everything you have into it you can stay nearly as overall *dangerous* outside your mecha as inside it.
This. BCG/Z is a pretty good system for running mecha that doesn't make you feel completely useless out of the cockpit (just somewhat useless).
Really depends on what you want with your comment on 'outside the cockpit' Probably best off running 2 systems really one for the squishies one for the Stompies. Think Power rangers..
Once you go big the rules change, the squishies have no real way of influencing the mecha mash without being...well squashed unless the planning has already happened.
Squishies need to run from stompies.
GURPS but with slightly different, more enjoyable rules!
Aren't all their rules the same? Isn't that the fucking point?
No, there's often different rules for the same thing. It's trying hard to go from "quick" to play zany 80s action movies to realistic snoozefests, and everything in between.
yesterday's thread has some silcore conversation
Cthulhutech handles mechs combat just as badly as the regular sort. The only difference is it classed as a normal and mega damage.
For the medium-size mecha you want it so mechs still operate on the same scale as people but bigger.
Just given them flat bonuses ends up with weird situations where people can be stronger than mechs or they're simply untouched by people.
Maybe consider something more meta? You keep the same start array,but while In a mech you automatically get the better of two rolls, or roll 2d10 instead of 2d6?
>I always hear bad things about Silhouette-based games; can you sell me on it?
I don't know what you've heard, but what I've always liked about them....
Numbers tend to stay small. Your modifiers are (realistically) about +2 or 3 on the high end and -2 or 3 on the low end. When you roll, you just roll d6's and keep the highest, so with modifiers, the spread is rather small and sits along a steady bell curve.
The result? You have a much better idea of what your character can actually do and if you want your character to succeed, you have to create the situation you want through decisions made in game/roleplaying and just because you have an ungodly bonus to a given stat/skill or awesome gear.
Combat, for example is not about two people squaring off one on one and getting hit over and over and over. Success is about which side has the numbers, terrain advantage, concealment, surprise, etc to hopefully negate their foes' strengths.
Most attacks miss or get dodged/parried/deflected by armor, but when you get injured or damaged you are INJURED/DAMAGED. You take penalties to stuff and become more vulnerable to further injury/damage. Fragile characters/vehicles will go down in as few as 1 or 2 hits. Sturdier characters and vehicles ones will last longer, but nothing is really indestructible when faced with the stuff that usually kills it.
The rules also account for people who like things swingeier. You can increase modifier limits to +/- 5 and use d8's or d10's instead of d6's. It also has "genre points" that can be spent to offset the more "realistic" aspects of the game, allowing for things like your character getting action-movie style bottomless magazines, ignoring wound penalties like a badass, gaining bonuses in desperate situations, escaping instant death when nailed with a headshot, etc.
It also handles mixed unit co!bat very well, with things like tanks and infantry facing off with Mecha or captial ships being fielded
when I was looking into running something like this I was going to run mutants and masterminds it treats mecha just as powerful players with a few added rules
dungeons the dragoning looks like it might work
Silhouette is probably your best bet. Jover Chronicles and heavy gear are really interesting Mecha setting call system works well I just don't know if it scales between the two because it's d6 based by default.
Thought I should mention tribe 8 asway. Which is probably the only game in the system which isn't hard Sic fi Mech.
nobody is gonna bring up mekton zeta? i like mekton z, but that is the only system i know besides a time of war and mechwarrior 2e.
It scales well, basically vehicle scale weapons and infantry scale weapons work on a multiplier. There was a good description in the last thread how infantry scale interacts with vehicle scale.
Anyone has tried mechs in SWN? Seems like a simpler traveller with some DnD mixed in, but the rest are top tier (Star system generator, the factions system, the sups...)
Sorry, went to sleep. Like I said in the opening, I'm a fan of the way Battletech runs things; I like a marginally more realistic style than, say, Gundam presents.
Warbirds was great, I'll have to take a look.
mechs in SWN basically play and are built the same as starships
Heavy gear is a lot more realistical than battletech then, its more real robot (Votoms inspired) and it has plenty of factional dickering,moral greys and interesting characters, without as many mary sues last time I checked.
Other plus for me (than aren't for others) is than mechs are small and more grounded. Combined arms are a thing, much more than in BT, and a tank is the final boss, you got a visigoth vs your Kodiak and if you are in a grassland or any other terrain without cover you are fucked, tanks can carry a lot more firepower and armor than even the biggest gear (not counting striders, than are more like BT mechs). The setting is very nice too once you plungen in, D9 are fucktards than don't know how to juice it tough.
Neat. I'll try and find a copy, then.
And, it has model support as well thanks to the wargsme
So, is this the unoficial mech general?
Tribe 8 is legit my favorite RPG ever and I ape a lot of its elements shamelessly whenever I run other games.
Too bad a lot of people seem to focus on the sexual aspects of the Sangis Z'bri. It's like players who can't get over the sex related stuuf in Slanesh of Warhammer.
I'd probably just use two systems. With some quick house rules for merging them.
well Palladium robotech is equally bad at both, so it technically works
I'm really mad at palladium, the setting and the art are very fun, in a wacky way, but the system is utter shit.
Oddly, I wish DP9 could do the rules as they're Jovian wars and heavy gear games they're put to,g out are very fucking nice to play.
Yes
All mecha RPGs list [part 1]
=====================
5150: No Quarter Mecha Combat (from Two-Hour Wargames)
A Time of War (the new Battletech RPG)
Adeptus Evangelion
Aegis Project, The (three eras of mecha)
Aeon Trinity (has VARGs)
Anime Hack, The (includes mecha)
Apotheosis Drive X (FATE-powered mecha RPG)
Armageddon 2089: Total War (OGL D20 mecha mercenaries game)
Armature (Veeky Forums and other forums)
Armor Grid: Mech Attack! (miniatures wargame)
Armored Trooper VOTOMs
Backland Stride (Veeky Forums and other forums)
Battle Century G
Battle Century Z
Battlechangers - A Quick Play Transforming Robot RPG
Battlelords of the 23rd Century
Battletech
Big Damn Robots
Big Robots, Cool Starships (part of core BESM book since 2nd Edition)
Bigger Bads (supplement for Monsters and Other Childish Things)
Bliss Stage: Interim Stage
Bubblegum Crisis
Chromestrike (1D4chan/tg/)
Cloak of Steel (fantasy mecha by Postmortem studios)
Combat Armor Mecha
Cthulhutech
D20 Mecha (from White Wolf)
D20 Mecha Compendium Deluxe Edition (from Dream Pod 9)
Daikaiju Die! (Pacific Rim style RPG)
Dark Horizons (D20 robot mecha post-apoc warrrr)
Digital Mecha Wars (kinda silly)
Dominion: Tank Police (uses BESM’s Tri-Stat system)
Doom Striders (standalone D&D mecha)
Dragonmech (D20 fantasy mecha)
Exosuit A-OK
Fullmetal President: White House Mecha Chaos
Gadget Guide: Mecha (Mutants & Masterminds)
Gear Krieg (Silouhette system mecha in WWII)
Giant Guardian Generation (SRW homebrew)
Giant Transforming Robots (more Cartoon Action Hour mecha)
Going Japanese (for Cartoon Action Hour)
Gunwave
GURPS Mecha (includes setting “Cybermech Damocles”)
Heavy Gear (Silouhette system VOTOMs)
Infinite Mecha (rules for Infinite Frontier)
Iron Tyrants (minis wargame)
Jovian Chronicles (Silouhette system U.C. Gundam)
Kaiju Patrol (for Fate Accelerated)
Living Steel
Lunar Reckoning 69(1D4chan/tg/)
Machine: Overdrive (D6 Zen system)
Macross II
Maruader 2107
Maximum Metal (Cyberpunk 2020)
All mecha RPGs list [part 2]
=====================
Mecha!!
Mecha [“Chris Perrin’s MECHA”] (from Heroic Journey Publishing)
Mecha & Manga (Mutants & Masterminds)
Mecha Aces (FUDGE system)
Mecha Clash (from Starbright Games)
Mecha Construction Guide (for Pathfinder system)
Mecha G-Core (FASERIP Marvel-inspired G-Core; Xenomorph Invasion & Cybermorph Invasion)
Mecha Omega (D20 OGL mecha and kaiju rules)
Mecha Smash (from Starbright Games)
Mecha vs Kaiju
MechaForce Tactical Combat Game
Mechagenesis : The True20 Robotic Roleplay Sourcebook
Mechamorphosis (D20 transformers)
Mechwarrior (the old Battletech RPG)
Mekton (and Mekton II and Mekton Z[eta])
Metal Wars (Cartoon Action Hour’s version of Transformers)
MetalKrushers (mecha gladiators tactical board game)
Musha Shugyo: Hyper Armor (mecha supplement for Musha Shugyo)
O.R.E. Mecha (One Roll Engine)
OGL Mecha (via RDP)
Origin of the Species: Transmechs Revisited (Spycraft 2.0 transformers)
OVA: The Anime Role-Playing Game
Planetfall (has many Mecha Manuals)
Psibertroopers
Quantum Legions: Vanguard (miniatures wargame)
Remnants
Rifts
Robot Jocks (mecha gladiators card game)
Robot Warriors (Hero system mecha)
Robotech (Palladium)
Rune Stryders (fantasy mecha)
All mecha RPGs list [part 3]
=====================
S.I.Net. (sentient transforming mech RPG ala Bayverse)
Sentai Spectacular! The Ultimate Guide to Playing Sentai Superheroes
Shifter Bots (mecha and transformers RPG)
Super Fun TV Hour (another Super Sentai RPG)
Super Happy Sentai Hour
Steel Roses: The HeartQuest Guide to Mecha (Heart Quest mecha)
Strike Legion (minatures wargame)
Super Mega Ultra Mecha Fighting for You, Me, and All of Our Friends (for PFRPG & D&D 3.5)
T.I.T.A.N. 2100
Tears of a Machine (teen angst & giant robot drama)
Tenra Banshô Zero
Tetsujin Shogunate [Gossamer Worlds] (Diceless)
Tokyo Heroes
Ultimate Vehicle, The (Hero 5th edition)
Vanguard: Varmisk Fallen (mecha piloted by furries)
Vesna Thaw (Soviet post-apoc salvaged mecha GMless semi-competitive story game)
Wardogs (miniatures wargame)
Warhammer 40,000 (Adeptus Titanicus especially)
Warmachine
Weapons of Mecha & Power Armor Destruction (for D20 Future)
Mecha Minatures Wargames:
---------------------------------------
5150: No Quarter Mecha Combat (from Two-Hour Wargames)
Adeptus Evangelion (homebrew doing Evangelion with WH40K rules)
Armor Grid: Mech Attack! (miniatures wargame)
AT-43 (miniatures wargame)
Battletech (miniatures wargame)
Big Damn Robots (miniatures wargame)
C.A.V. (miniatures wargame)
Digital Mecha Wars (tactical wargame; looks kinda silly)
Dust (miniatures wargame)
Exalted (White Wolf anime-esque fantasy; has mecha called Warstriders)
Giant Monster Rampage (toy battles wargame, has giant robot rules)
Heavy Gear Blitz (Silouhette system)
Infinity (manga-influenced minis wargame)
Iron Tyrants (minis wargame)
Iron Warriors (miniatures wargame)
Quantum Legions: Vanguard (miniatures wargame)
Mech Attack (miniatures wargame)
Mech Brawl (homebrew)
Mecha! (minis wargame with some storytelling elements)
Mecha Front (miniatures wargame)
Mecha War Ultra (miniatures wargame)
MechaForce Tactical Combat Game
Mekatac (miniatures wargame)
MetalKrushers (mecha gladiators tactical board game)
Mobile Frame Zero (wargame using Lego minis)
Mobile Suit Gundam Skirmish (free homebrew Gundam minis wargame)
Relic Knights (card-system miniatures wargame)
Robot Jocks (mecha gladiators card game)
Robotech Tactics (Palladium)
Strike Legion (miniatures wargame)
Valkyrie (miniatures wargame)
Wardogs (miniatures wargame)
Warhammer 40,000 (Adeptus Titanicus especially)
Warmachine (miniatures wargame)
Wehrmacht (diceless mecha miniatures wargame)
YAGRAG [Yet Another Giant Robot Apocalypse Game] (miniatures wargame)
Other anime, manga, and mecha-ish games:
-----------------------------------------------------------
Anima Prime
Black Tokyo (hentai horror & ero-guro)
Bounty Head Bebop (Cowboy Bebop & Outlaw Star imitation)
Colonial Troopers (OSR game with powered armor and some mecha content)
Damage Control: The Advanced Disaster Department RPG (GMless)
Demon City Shinjuku RPG
Dominion: Tank Police RPG (uses BESM’s Tri-Stat system)
Dual! RPG
El-Hazard RPG
Fantaji – Universal RPG
Fight! The Fighting Game RPG
Fight! Unlockables: Shonen
Fushigi Yugi RPG
Godbound (has fantasy Mecha in the full paid version, not free version)
Hellsing RPG
Kazei 5 (anime cyberpunk with mecha for Hero)
Living Steel (features powered armor; extremely complicated rules!)
Maid: The Role-Playing Game
Monster Force Terra (play a kaiju!)
Musha Shugyo (another Fighting Game RPG)
Nova Praxis (post-singularity RPG with really fancy enhanced interactive PDF)
Open Anime
Otherworlds Zero (Maybe? Might be lame. Looks like “Destiny.”)
Panty Explosion
Project A-Ko! RPG (has a modicum of mecha rules; early Silouhette game)
Revolutionary Girl Utena RPG
Sailor Moon RPG
Serial Experiments Lain RPG
Shonen Final Burst
Slayers RPG
Sparks of Light (magical girls RPG)
Stars Without Number (OSR game w/ robots & mechs - in paid version, not free version)
Super Gachapon Fighter Omega Infinity!
Tenchi Muyo! RPG
Thrash (fighting games & shonen)
Tokyo Brain Pop (psychic schoolgirls)
Trigun RPG
Trinity (White Wolf’s dark sci-fi, previously “Aeon”; has VARGs)
Valor: The Heroic Roleplay System
That would be nice desu.
I should note that this is an incomplete list by the way.
>recommending Black Tokyo
You're evil, but I like your style.
Seriously tho, thanks a lot for the list, man. This should be on 1d4chan.
Just use Battle Tech for inside the mech and Savage Worlds for outside.
Hell, just pick any system where you like how the fleshies act and use it for outside mech stuff.
Don't know how you feel about Fate, but I've been tossing it around as an option for a mech game I've been writing up. I was planning to deal with that problem by using the Scale mechanics from the Toolkit. Either I'd do two scales: Personal and Armor, or if I really want PCs to stand out, Grunt, Pilot and Armor, but that seems like it'd add extra, probably unneccsary math. There's options though, at least.
Of course I haven't tested it yet so not sure how well it'll go.
Check out Fate Worlds Vol. 2 and in it CAMELOT Trigger. Has pretty niftty mecha rules that are easy to separate from the included setting stuff.
Just where would one put it? Most of these games don't even have write-ups.
And sadly shall never happen probably.
Mecha vs Kaiju has fantastic mecha rules for Fate, and you can play it as a straight mecha game by just ignoring kaiju.
Oh shit, really? I saw the name of that when I was looking up Fate supplements this week, but didn't download it to myself.
I need to check that out too now.
Yes really, it even has some optional rules for different scales, uses point-based mecha construction, and is much more detailed than the rather anemic Camelot Trigger.
Some of the kaiju rules do come in handy for boss fights and the like, though.
Went searching for Heavy Gear and there's, uh, a lot of books. What's the core that I would need?
I would imagine the one called the core rule book...
There's three different rule systems. Which all work differently, and all three have been recommended by different people.
I'm trying to see what that guy thinks is the books *for the specific one he endorses* should be.
Blitz is the miniatures war game, just ignore that.
Heavy Gear RPG has always used the same system, called Silhouette, since 1e. DP9 updated Silhouette at one point and made it a generic/universal system called “Silhouette Core” or “SilCore,” and published Heavy Gear 3e under the SilCore umbrella.
Generally its gonna be the books before silcore came out. I think,that's 2e I sadly know Jovian chronicles better.
>I'm after a mecha system that handles *outside* the cockpit as well as it does inside
Living steel with phoenix command rules, if you are even more hardcore try to mix the sword path glory rules with it
It’s the same system.
JC and HG use the same system.
SilCore is the same system used in all previous editions of HG and JC, just updated.
Question for my BCG I peeps.
Does the circumstantial advantage that Melee and Shooting weapons get negate the innate disadvantage default weapons get? And if so, does the upgrade that removes the innate disadvantage from default weapons mean they get the circumstantial advantages inherent to Melee and Shooting?
All right, thanks. Blitz threw me off.
get Heavy Gear 2ed core
if you want fluff get Life on terranova, Into the badlands and Earth companion (only if you like history or the CEF) then if you want to expand get the Life on "X" series. those are mostly people and culture focused books. if you want robot ones pick the technical manuals and vehicle compendiums.
Flemis represent.
Is that a fatima? wich one is it? I mostly like the Z'bri lore
t. rifts
Mekton Zeta. The rules are exactly the same, but the scale is the only thing that changes.
Yes but I don't have memory of the fluff enough to tell you which one
It's power armour in Living Steel, and I think it's meant to be some sort of alien symbiotic nanotechnology to boot. Hence the name living steal.
Despite being just as complicated as Phoenix command, the setting is really out there.
Is there any games that actually scale the combat levels so they still interact a meaningfully way rather than just simply squishing anyone below you?
I'm remember DC heroes having a complicated periodic chart to abstract combat about what power level heroes can do what to who.
So if say the joker was fighting Superman, he could never go toe to toe against the man of steel and win, but he could stuff still that could distract or delay him.
Not saying it worked but it's an interesting approach.
>Is there any games that actually scale the combat levels so they still interact a meaningfully way rather than just simply squishing anyone below you?
It's interesting that you brought up Supers games. There's an idea in the back of my mind to use Marvel Heroic for a mech game. Characters have a set of basic traits, and in addition have "power sets". It's pretty fluffy and narrative, but it does include built-in support for shape-shifting, power armor, equipment, and other things that are mechanically equatable to hopping into a mech, and they're all in a system designed to let characters like The Punisher and Spider-Man meaningfully interact without one absolutely crushing the other (The Punisher being a metaphor for out-of-mech play and Spider-Man representing mech play in this example).
This is accomplished through a roll-and-keep system and a pervasive meta-currency mechanic. Powerful characters get to roll more (and more-faced) dice, but at the end of the day everyone only gets to keep the same number of dice, and the give-and-take of players and the GM bidding meta-currency allows for players to get stuff done even in situations where their power level is drastically lower than their opponents and vice versa.
What I'm getting at is, it's at least in theory mechanically supported (with a fresh coat of paint) to have characters with a power set that includes "Mech", which is assigned powers and dice, and that the character can still function without in a meaningful way. I say in theory because I have yet to actually run this campaign.
Like others have mentioned, Silhouette or Mekton Z. Both handle scaling well along with action outside the cockpit.
Silhouette Trove
mega.nz
Mekton Z Trove
mediafire.com
That could work yeah.
I think part of the problem here is most mech games are very hard-core military simulation games. Which is cool but means one and one involving Armour and infantry last as long as you think they would.
Superhero games on the other hand it's moralist take it as a given that the angel Summor and the BMX kid will an equal match the matter how contrived the set up requires for it.
Thinking this thread will die quietly during the night? Naive!
All you did was delay the inevitable!
Hey, thanks for linking those. I've been wanting to look at that game for a while. I tried and was a bit disappointed by the predecessor, Giant Guardian Generation, but I've heard BCG improves on some things.
>A Time of War is B A D
Agreed, I like the premise but god damn its bad.
That's true but more I know nothing of the book titles for heavy gear.
You know I'm doing a very similar thing with wild talents. Making a power into a mech is as easy as throwing a few device modifiers its way, and making a few additional powers conditional on its use.
The only real difference between mech and not mech scale is the size of your numbers, not your dice pools (mostly movement, flat damage, armor and penetration). Willpower is the system's meta currency, and it absolutely can lead to protag powers. Though not the kind you can rely on frequently.
It also has a mecha fan supplement already which I mauled to fit my needs.
What is your issue with AToW besides the needlessly granular character creation rules? I've found that once you get past them, it's not really any worse than any other edition of the MW RPG or a lot of the other military SF/mecha systems usually suggested as alternatives.