Trying to run a game with mecha in which both pilot and non-pilot pcs are equally important

Why not just let every player be a pilot?

Everybody is both a pilot and a non-pilot OR everybody makes both type of characters.

>Trying to play a game in where super special forces formed by peak physiche savants and tetraplegic retards are equally important

Characters who can be as useful as mecha when mechanical exist:
>spaceship captains and fighter pilots
>electronic warfare nerds
>drone commanders
>tank driver bros
>spec ops guys who go where mecha don't

Characters who will never be as important:
>anything that does what mechas do but shittier, like straight up soldier characters who can't even hurt a mecha

Just play Battle Century G. Pilot and mech stats are completely separate so the system already allows the concept (though it's certainly not the intended way to play it). There's also technically nothing stopping a PC from using their Genre Powers (your special piloting abilities) while outside of a mech, so they could still help the actual pilots by using support powers. There's also an NPC only boss trait called Giantslayer that negates the usual disadvantages you get from fighting a mech on foot and even gives you some bonuses to it, so if you really wanted to you could open that option up for PCs to let them go full Mellowlink and wreck enemy mechs on foot. Lastly there's also the option of just using the mech building rules to give the non-pilots a command vehicle of some sort or maybe a power armor. Crunch wise it would function just like any mech in the system but the fluff would be different.

>play Battle Century G
No, don't do it!

this

Alternatively, go full on Giant Robo and fill the cast with badasses.

Why not? It's one of the better mecha systems out there.

Not really. Mekton Zeta (of all things) is better than it.

Wow, I was even about to say something like "watch it be an autistic faggot who recommends Mekton Zeta", but stopped at the last minute.

Should have listened to my instincts I guess.

Mekton Zeta remains the superior system. It's true, there's no denying it.

>trying to run a game with mecha in which both pilot and non-pilot pcs are equally important

Very, very difficult.

A game with mecha in it is gonna have a pretty strong focus on mecha combat. There are some options, though:

Multi-crew mecha, with maybe a pilot and a systems engineer or something. Systems Engineer's efforts add to, modify, and/or enhance the pilot's actions and/or the mech's capabilities.

Another option: some of the characters are pilots, some of them are Macross-style "bridge bunnies" (or, for non-space games, "base bunnies"). The bunnies send tactical info to the pilots, acting sorta as co-pilots, navigators, guides, observers, etc. Again, the bunny's efforts add to, modify, and/or enhance the pilot's actions and/or the mech's capabilities.

Otherwise, you need mecha that aren't totally out of scale with people. Small mecha, as in VOTOMs/Heavy Gear, can interact with, play with, and fight with people. People will be at a disadvantage in some ways, but their small size and better maneuverability would help offset this.

Generally, though, if you're running a mecha game I'd say that your players should be all pilots, one way or another.

I'm denying it right here. It's an outdated, clunky as shit system that has worse balance, plays slower, and is bogged down by inane decisions all over the place. It's largely unplayable without using some anons homebrew excel sheet to calculate shit and a fuckload of houserules.

You are allowed to enjoy whatever shitty old game you like, but please do not try to push it as an actually good game for anyone who wasn't already infected by it in the 90s.

Battle Century G does it well.

It's older, but it's less clunky and abstracted than BCG. It's not hard either, unless you have difficulties with addition and basic multiplacation

Mekton Z is fun stuff. I've played probably more than a hundred sessions of it over the years. You don't like it, and that's fine, but saying things like:
>it's a clunky as shit system
>it's bogged down by inane decisions all over the place
are matters of opinion, not objective fact, so you'd be wiser not to state them as such. And then, to say:
>It's largely unplayable without using some anons homebrew excel sheet to calculate shit and a fuckload of houserules.
is provably false. If you think mecha construction is overly complicated, again, that's opinion. But there are pre-generated Mektons in many of the books, so that whole element isn't even necessary to play the game. The mechanic is just Stat+Skill+1D10 vs a target number or opposing roll -- it's pretty similar to about a zillion other games out there.

I don't think it would be too hard, it just depends on how super robot you're being. We're playing with a modified genesys system where we have three players as pilots and I'm the captain of the not!Federation cruiser flying them around space in a Gundam-esque setting. I don't do any fighting during battles but I make sure the crew is ready to offer support when they need refueling and repairs or barrage the enemy ships with suppressive fire while the GM gives me objectives I need to guide the players through to make it out of the battle alive. Battles are usually short and have a good bit of time between them to roleplay and build on whatever struggle we just survived.

>AdEva
oh you wayward soul

>less clunky and abstracted

It's more clunky because it is less abstracted.

I'm happy that you have found a game you enjoy. I would not have exploded on that guy as long as he didn't claim it was superior to BCG. Maybe for people who already enjoy it, it is, but if OP was that kind of person, there's a good chance he'd already know about it.

>Battles are usually short and have a good bit of time between them to roleplay and build on whatever struggle we just survived.

VERY uncommon gaming experience. And kinda missing the point, too, if you're playing in a Gundam-esque setting.

Fair enough. But, saying that BCG is superior like it's objective fact is, again, unfair. Said superiority is a matter of opinion. It's superior based on your preferences, not based on any objective measure. (I say this as someone who has played both games, btw, and likes both for different reasons.)

Eh, that's the kinda group we are. As hyped as we get for action we're usually too busy roleplaying and talking to get anywhere. It's more slice of life with mecha than anything.

>Multi-crew mecha, with maybe a pilot and a systems engineer or something. Systems Engineer's efforts add to, modify, and/or enhance the pilot's actions and/or the mech's capabilities.
>Being a dice-bitch for another player
>A good idea
I don't know about that.

If you think Gundam is about the fights, you've probably never watched an actual gundam season.

Me neither, but I bet it could be made to work with some effort and playtesting. And hey, I only said "There are some options" and that it would be "Very, very difficult."

The only Gundam series that's about the robot fights are Build Fighters and G-Gundam

Muthafukka I've watched almost ALL of them. How many Gundam anime you seen that didn't have tons mobile suit fights in 'em? Of course there's tons of drama and non-fighting, but if that's what you're after, why bother playing in a mecha game at all?

What would be a good system to emulate Titanfall for in and out of cockpit combat and mech buddies?

Battle Century G.

I'm not sure if you are baiting for this answer, but I genuinely think LANCER is a good candidate; much better than most mecha games I've seen anyway.

The fights are cool and fairly common, but they are not at all what the shows are about.

GURPS. I'm not joking.

>The fights are cool and fairly common, but they are not at all what the shows are about.

And yet the shows wouldn't exist without them.

Giant robots are basically just a kind of superhero form.

This should be very easy depending on your setting. In addition to the plethora of roles related to Mecha support (scientist, engineer, psychiatrist, etc.) there's also loads of options for non-pilots to be important.

Battle commanders who can direct overarching forces, provide targets and coordinate artillery strikes.

Pilots of big warships, planes, artillery officers, etc.

Scientists in charge of secret weapons, energy weapons platforms, defense systems, all designed to fight against the enemy.

Just use your imagination.

I would LOVE to be in charge of NERV artillery. Tbh I think they got it all wrong, they should have the Eva's/N2 bombs disable the AT fields first, then open fire with everything they have. But I understand in most cases conventional forces were simply used as a delaying action to buy precious minutes for the Eva to arrive

Superhero just means "things with extraordinary powers" so basically everything falls into that category.

If you think about it CoC is just the players fighting against Fishman, the amazing half-human mutant with the power to drive people insane!

Pic related

You could also just bring in Alberto the Shockwave again and have him fistfight the angel.

Piloting becomes a skill for all characters but is a resource that eliminates character growth and ammunition costs. It is their transportation at most times unless they get a carrier vessel, but they can freely exit their mechs to face reasonable opponents to sharpen their skills and relax face-to-face. Piloting is basically made to be so simple that it's more of an availability issue as to why mechs aren't everywhere and everything, they are primarily used against colossal beasts that sometimes rise up and go crazy. Pretty much with the party having mecha among them all they are begged and pleaded by everyone to solve every issue because, "holy shit, x many? These must be legendary warriors or kings or something!" And a part of the campaign is learning what motivates different nations before picking a side. Things like that. Mechs are rare, fighting in nexus is unnecessary a good number of times, but this is your rad ride and you're the badass roaming around making panties wet by merely existing.

When it does happen there's a serious badass and his badass pals being a dick and the party doesn't approve, or maybe they form a band and carve the land up for their taking? Then there is the giant monstwe fights. Powerful magic summoning demons to be controlled, grand spirits of the world, savage abominations that invade from realms beyond our comprehension, shit like that. Just an idea.

I actually really am wondering. Never played anything mech related or otherwise like it on tabletop but I think it'd be interesting. Seems like a lot of things are more eastern mecha oriented.

Yeah, this sounds like the right idea.

Make sure that the non-pilot characters still have some kind of combat role. Ideally, this should have a physical presence on the battlefield: ships, guns, drones, etc. You don't want to just have 2 or 3 people sitting around making rolls just to give the mecha pilot a +1 morale bonus. The captian should be flying the ship around. The mechanic should be driving an APC to resupply ammo and weapons for the mechs. The ECM specialist should be coordinating a drone swarm.

You can also consider having very large mecha will multiple pilots, like a 70s japanese show.

it has its own bridge with each person having a position, like commander, driver, engineer, doctor, etc.

>Battle commanders who can direct overarching forces, provide targets and coordinate artillery strikes.

Similar to the "bridge bunnies idea from >Pilots of big warships, planes, artillery officers, etc.

But those are still pilots. OP specified "non-pilot PCs".

>Scientists in charge of secret weapons, energy weapons platforms, defense systems, all designed to fight against the enemy.

What do they do during the mecha fights? Sit and watch?

>Just use your imagination.

We're trying. It's hard! Brainmeats are so confoozing.

Or Samurai 7 and have dudes who can cut mecha in half with a sword.

>Piloting becomes a skill for all characters but is a resource that eliminates character growth and ammunition costs.
Um... what?
>they can freely exit their mechs to face reasonable opponents to sharpen their skills and relax face-to-face.
Huh?
>Piloting is basically made to be so simple that it's more of an availability issue as to why mechs aren't everywhere and everything
What?
>fighting in nexus is unnecessary a good number of times
Huh?
>When it does happen there's a serious badass and his badass pals being a dick and the party doesn't approve, or maybe they form a band and carve the land up for their taking?
What?

the old jedi problem. either all of them are jedi, or none of them are.

I think it's bit more extreme than that. You can have a buncha characters go into battle alongside a Jedi. They may or may not be as effective as the Jedi, but they can at least participate.

Figuring out something for non-mecha pilot PCs to do at all during a mecha battle is much harder (as this thread is demonstrating).

However, your point does pretty much still apply. I'd say that if you're gonna play a mecha game, all your PCs should be mecha pilots.

>rolled nat 1
>got NTR'd
That's why I don't play mecha rpgs most of the time. I just want to pilot a mech and hit shit.

>What do they do during the mecha fights?

When you've been spending all of the non combat time helping to construct the latest and greatest heat ray, new nanite dissasembler bombs, or all sorts of super science shit you better believe the most satisfying thing to do is sit back, and watch the show of your glorious toys.

Of course during a fight, a scientist might analyze enemy data, noting weak points, making immediately useful observations, depending on the type of enemy, might even come up with an effective new tactic.

youtube.com/watch?v=F2-32q4AE-k&t=158s

Also since when are artillery officers and battleship captains considered pilots? Battleship captain =/= helmsman

Dont forget
>Designing new weapons for the mecha
>Observing how they do during a fight
>making improvements
>Repeat

Scientist is a great support player

>You can also consider having very large mecha will multiple pilots, like a 70s japanese show.
>it has its own bridge with each person having a position, like commander, driver, engineer, doctor, etc.

This is indeed a wholly viable option, but I dunno if it qualifies as "non-pilot PCs". If the PCs are all in a giant robot/s and operating it/them in battle, would this satisfy OPs' parameters?

>I just want to pilot a mech and hit shit.
>That's why I don't play mecha rpgs most of the time.

Huh?!?

>Not designing a super sentai setting where your players all control one big robot
>not making their position and interaction with the robot based on some of their stats
>being a fucking pleb
Get on my level nerd

...

Still sounds like the guy playing the scientist is stuck just watching during combat.

...

If you can't have fun watching shit blow up from a distance, you are either not using enough firepower or are doing it wrong.

There's a wonderful beauty in watching the alien menace or enemy mech get torn to shreds by a facility sized energy weapon at your command.

Oddly enough this is where I think a game like Fate shines. Because of the heavy narrative slant “attacks” don’t have to be using weapons to do damage, and the way the mechanics work you can have characters that can contribute to a conflict and have a major impact on the outcome of the scene without ever once making an “attack” as other systems would define it.

This is a building that contains several massive ordnance cannons. They are fed by a belt of 2 ton shells.

A. Fucking. Belt.

There could be dozens of these spread throughout the city.

Forget the piloting shit, I wanna be in charge of targeting for that!

Dude, have you ever actually PLAYED an rpg? Sitting around and just watching, while your fellow players get to DO things for the hours that combat usually takes, is not exactly satisfying.

I ran a game like that.
Mech pilot was also out skillmonkey, kind of a Han Solo, and we used the mech sparsely, most of the time in simultaneous encounters, like the mech distracting key enemy defenses while the rest of the party executed the main mission.
Or have him pull rescues on the party a la Pequod
It worked wonders

You seem to imply that because a character isn't piloting there isn't anything to do.

No And I've played an RPG in exactly this type of scenario.

I as a player wasn't just sitting around doing nothing as the game went on.

My character was a scientist in the base supporting the pilots. Shit was fun as hell.

We had to tactically plan shit out on a map each turn, mecha pilots would try to aim for the big targets, while my character guided artillery and air support onto the masses of bugs attempting to swarm the city. Simultaneous to that, I'd also rolled attempts to figure out a way to stop the damn bugs from just regenerating health all the time (since the pilots were too busy, you know, piloting to do organize a science team in the middle of battle)

It was a home brew done by a GM and was fun all around for pilots and non-pilots.

>mechas are super fucking huge, so huge they have a crew like a spaceship
>one is a pilot while others are specialized at repairing broken shit on the fly and are armed to defend the mecha from people getting inside it with jetpacks and shit
>some players play asmechas, while others play inside them as the or maybe just the boss of each crew tasked with protecting the mechas
Now you just need to balance out 2 encounters per encounter and somehow make two parallel fights go smoothly.

Maps really made the game a lot more fun too.

Also allows for some good tactical stuff like hiding behind skyscrapers or mountains or using them for cover, or hiding underwater before attacking an enemy.

Google Satellite maps really added to that. This one time, we lured an enemy onto an actual oil refinery. We pulled out the mechs and unleashed a furious barrage on it, igniting the oil and creating a tremendous explosion.

You sound like a boring, unimaginative person to play with.

>You sound like a boring, unimaginative person to play with.

Yer mom is a boring, unimaginative person to play with. She just lays there.

My next game is going to be along these lines, but there's plenty of inspiration for me in sentai. The fights could be two phase with one taking place out of mech and one in, two or more fights can occur/mirror simultaneously with one in mechs, there can always be situational objectives besides the mech fight that nonpilots or pilots not in their mechs need to solve, support between the two groups is possible, and so on.

>Your mom jokes
You have to be 18 or older to post here.

>This one time, we lured an enemy onto an actual oil refinery. We pulled out the mechs and unleashed a furious barrage on it, igniting the oil and creating a tremendous explosion.

That sounds fun indeed.

>You have to be 18 or older to post here.

I guess yer mom can't post here, then.

I've never played in a Super Robot type mecha game, I bet it would be really fun.

>we lured an enemy onto an actual oil refinery

How did you do that? I'm trying to imagine it in my mind. I'd love to know the story.

The gist of the setting was that we were part of a global initiative to defend against a plethora of threats, none the least including giant bugs, biotechnologically advanced deep ones, actual fucking greys from Mars, not!Angels and not!demons and terror groups/doomsday cults.

This time we were deployed against a bug swarm headed to devour a city designated as a refugee sanctuary. One of their titan units had been spotted along with masses of insects in support (this one was in the shape of a massive armored beetle). We'd known by then that its shell is particularly hard to penetrate (on the scale of battleship armor), but my character developed a theory that if these things were like actual beetles they'd have a softer underbelly. However due to time constraints we couldn't actually try to blow it up from under such as with a large mine, but we really absolutely had to have the city not be swarmed.

Then we noticed the industrial area on the Google Maps the GM was using. They looked like oil storage tanks, tanker trains, and industrial buildings. When the world got fucked, a lot of shit was just simply left behind during evacuations, so we banked on there being oil still in them.

We had the Mecha's line up just behind what we hoped was a refinery, and had them fire on its shell (not doing much damage) to try and lure it.

The plan worked. We focused all our artillery on the area (specifically loading up napalm shells and white phosphorous rounds), causing all the oil there to ignite. The titan bug was blown up from the inside out, its innards burned and you could hear the crackling and see the smoke for days. As a bonus the oil spread outward and made an area the bugs themselves couldn't cross, buying just enough time for reinforcements.

include plenty of urban combat and room to room fighting. Create situations where the mechs are wolly either overkill or out of their depths. Need to save some hostages or POWS who are held by some jerkwads hold up in a bunker? What is a mech gonna do? Better send in the spec ops. Trying to capture the enemy HQ? Send in the infantry to clear it out room by room. Have a cityfight where causing too much collateral damage is frowned upon? Better not use the giant walking tanks. Stuff like that. Mind you OP, you did not specify what system you want to run, or what you consider as a mech, so the ideas I give you could be entirely dismissed by powered armor or mini mech styled settings, but using battletech as a frame of reference, urban combat is where mechs suffer the most from restricted space and line of sight. In such a situation, much like tanks of real life, infantry can take advantage of that and ambush or flank the mechs and take them out.

If you want both non mechs and mechs together at the same time though, combined arms operation is the way to go. For example, have urban warfare, where both sides have mechs and infantry. Where infantry can ambush and take advantage of the restricted mobility and line of sight to fuck up mechs. In such a situation, the infantry would be needed to basically screen the mechs against the infantry while the big stompes do their thing and fuck each other up. Or you could have mechs that are geared up for urban warfare and anti infantry be a cover for a group of infantry that needs to get in and accomplish some goal. An example of this might be a siege on an urban centre where the mechs take out the big stuff, while the infantry go in and weed out the little stuff.

>Game is themed and based around mech pilots
>None of the players wanna be the mech pilots

You could always have an actual reason for the mecha engagement.
Perhaps the mecha is drawing fire while the ground squad organizes a retreat, steals important data, obtains McGuffin, etc.

Cool. Excellent story, sounds like a blast. (heh!)

Did the game master have your plan in mind beforehand, or did you guys take him by surprise with it?

He wasn't expecting it, but he certainly rolled with it.

i don't know man

info combat could be cool

>stealing intel from the reds to give to your blues
>feeding fake location to the reds to set up an ambush
>being a literal eye in the sky
>trying to salvage a FUBAR mission and get your guys out of there

could be fun

Well, LANCER gives AIs to your mechs, and has rules for "boarding action", but your characters outside of a mech are really, really frail. Also, it's still in development. Look around the archives, there's bound to be a thread somewhere.

Right? I think it's doable. I should actively try to run a few sessions that way.

I feel like this'd be a bit too much like shadowrun's spotlight balance. Which is I guess okay if you like that sort of thing, but I massively prefer sharing the spotlight to cycling it.

If not actually playing a game but just imagining explosions is fun why don't you just do that all day like some kind of 13 year old who still calls shit "epic" and uses "tehpenguinofdooooom" as their aol screen name.

>he wouldn't want to play as a infantry anti-mech team and run around city looking for perfect place to ambush enemy mechs
>he wouldn't want to sneak towards enemy mech, looking for a perfect opportunity to strike, blow up one of its weapons or joints to smithereens with a shoulder launched anti-mech missile and then make a hasty escape as the mech and its supporting forces try to wipe you out
>he wouldn't want to work in tandem with friendly mech and non-mech units to take out (hopefully mostly intact so that your eggheads can reverse engineer it) a hostile prototype supermech

Piloting is trivial, almost anyone can do it. Owning a mech is not because it's rare as hell. Ammunition is hard to acquire and costly, but regular ammunition for a gun or something isn't so expensive it hurts to shoot some dudes fucking up a town.

Make everybody a pilot.
Anyone can pilot those things like "everyone" can drive a car.
There.
Some people are better at it, of course, but you take this ptoblem out of the picture.

>During a mech battle

Engineer Player: Ok, things are getting pretty rough out there for mech. So I'm going to use my *move/skill/whatever* to have installed this new gadget on the mech before it left.

>rolls, fails

GM: Your hastily installed device malfunctions and sets a fire onboard the mech. Take *sanity loss/a condition/etc.*

----------

Replace all non-mech health stats with sanity, so those not directly in the fray can still be damaged (and thus so the bridge crew players will still feel invested in their characters, who can be hurt and taken out of the game by losing too much sanity).

In fact, to up the collective drama you can make mech damage and stuff merely the depletion of a collective pool of resources that represents the materiel of the war effort, that way the entire party is invested in conserving it and using it wisely.

Why the fuck do you imagine you aren't actually playing?

When a mecha blows shit up with its cannon, is that considered not playing? How different is it if it's being fluffed as an artillery commander instead of a mech pilot. You still roll and are part of the game anyway.

This logic is as stupid as saying that if you play a mecha pilot you don't actually have to play and just "watch" the mecha do all the work.

in order to pilot a mech well, you have to become more robotic yourself.
as a result any high level mech pilot would be too autistic to function in anything out of combat.
now just make a campaign around something other than combat and there you go