Can a mecha rpg be done well?

I’m looking for a system to run a mecha mercenary game in. I’d rather have “low” power mechs like those in Battletech but I’d be okay with using something more like Gundams too.
I’ve seen threads like this before but haven’t really soon a widely liked system for this type of game.

Other urls found in this thread:

blazbaros.deviantart.com/art/PAYLOAD-Build-A-Mech-Special-Commission-705740022
1d4chan.org/wiki/ChromeStrike
giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?507925-Hot-Mech-on-Mech-Action-A-Campaign-Journal
docs.google.com/document/d/1wf8gCtlhKZBrwG_C0sgoNBAtTvAhubCEWB49r9w8hMQ/edit
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19lGYtPRTOtmZOgegylIAReiYXctVJK5D2VHuj7eJFzs/edit?usp=sharing
oocities.org/tokyo/towers/4625/MS.html
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HrqFYexa2QrbEBJi0EeCmK5Fa8B1nD63aLHygAnLVvM/edit?usp=sharing
gimmicklabs.blogspot.com/p/downloads.html
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

I've read Lancer, which is free, but it can become quite cumbersome.

Jovian Chronicles 1st edition, Heavy Gear 2nd edition or the D6 adaptions of both are pretty good.

Thought about using Pokethulhu to do mechs but haven't really tried yet.

Seconding heavy gear, its frankly a great time.

Silcore and Heavy Gear are the same basic system, right? I've never seen it made clear what the major differences are but I know all their games are supposed to run with Silcore as a base.

Yes, but i prefer the Silhouette system which was for Heavy Gear 2nd Edition and Jovian Chronicles 1st. There's not much difference but I don't like Complexity or having to buy three books.

Its mostly buying the books for me, complexity has some uses, for example in my homebrew game it helps define the amount of spells players might know and how hard certain fantasy mecha are to pilot.

I have often wished to run a fantasy mecha game with an adapted Heavy Gear/Tribe 8 ruleset. Any pointers or design choices you made?

>having to buy three books.
I have the Deluxe Edition .pdf and it seems feature complete. Is there something I'm missing that I'll need to run the system or was this a problem they fixed after initial release?

The Deluxe edition for Silcore rules, then the two setting books for HG/JC.

With Silhouette I bought the two setting rulebooks, each which had the basic information on the system.

But if I'm planning to run a generic game not in the JC or HG settings I'll be OK?

Mostly its up to power level. In setting Gigantes(the mecha) fill a role like an MBT or LATV as the setting is very magitech heavy so though they are powerful there are things that can and will take them down. But it boils down to setting consistency end being willing to bend the rules slightly. For example Elf weaponry tends to be complexity 2 as it requires the know how to get the damn things to work and can be a nightmare to maintain but most weapons sit firmly at complexity one. As for magic, I'm more or less using the system rules to build preset spells and then figuring in how hard they would be to cast.

Battle Century G maybe?

I keep hearing about this but is it any good actually?

What would be best for gritty humanoid mecha like 08th MS Team?

Shameless plug for something I found that I liked, but this game in development always gets tossed around like Lancer when these threads come up.

blazbaros.deviantart.com/art/PAYLOAD-Build-A-Mech-Special-Commission-705740022

So I did check it out and... promising, I'd say. The art work is often fun enough.

What do you mean by cumbersome?
We usually play Shadowrun if that’s any indication but our group isn’t afraid of crunchy systems.

GURPS does it pretty well

It can overwhelm new players, it happened in my group. But since you play shadowrun you shouldn't have any problem.
Lot of mech customisation and viable options. The only thing lacking is more Pilot customisation.

Mekton Zeta.

Jovian chronicles dude.

I'm running a Lancer campaign at the moment, and it's pretty good. It's an in development game though, so things change quite a lot. We're currently awaiting the 1.6 update to drop, which is meant to be the last big set of changes before initial release.

What’s the motivation for players if they can 3D print new mechs for free?
Just getting levels for new liscensces?
Is money useless to a player?

Their motivation is that they're Lancers, elite agents sent on missions by Union. By the very nature of Lancers, being selected precisely from amongst a vast population, it kind of obliges the players to make characters who are on board with the premise of being a government operative sent out to kick ass and get the job done. It's inherently not a mercenary, self-serving sort of game.

Oh I thought it was set up for mercenaries. My mistake

Never think players won't be self serving assholes though.

Get better players

That depends on how gritty you're talking about.

Jovian Chronicles is basically "Hey kids, remember Zeta Gundam?!". Similarly, Heavy Gear is basically "Hey kids, remember VOTOMS?" Either of those should work for your purposes.

I mean jovian can be fairly over the top or gritty depending how you roll it. It also makes for a great generic near future sci fi game.

Why not the battletech rpg?

oh hey, a topic I can finally contribute t-
>posted 17 hours and 39 minutes ago
fuck

OP, if you're reading this tomorrow try Chromestrike
1d4chan.org/wiki/ChromeStrike
giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?507925-Hot-Mech-on-Mech-Action-A-Campaign-Journal

the second link is another DM telling about his campaign so far, pretty entertaining and it gives a view of what could be improved in a mech campaign- like I'd personally have each pilot have a few mechs they'd rotate through rather than constantly repairing the one, for example.

I like it. IT's low complexity but okay depth. Pretty simple but varied mech creation. Probably my top choice for mecha games along with Strike!, but I'm unabashedly disgusted by simulationist stuff these days so...

I ran a Traveller game set in the Innersphere. Characters used traveller while vehicles used Battletech rules. Worked quite well, just had to make a mechwarrior career.

Jovian Chronicles, or possibly Mekton Zeta (it's literally based on oldschool mecha anime like Gundam and Macross.)

If you wait another five years Talsorian might release Mekton Zero, which will probably just be a watered down version of Mekton Zeta with all the unnecessary depth of the system traded for "accessibility."

It's also up for free, legally, if you want to check it out.

Older editions tend to be more streamlined, but the most recent one is a pretty clunky mess, due to two things:
one is that the character creation system is slow and convoluted, and then you have 75 pages worth of inventory that you need to comb through only to find out that less than 10% can be accessed by most characters, but they don't sort it in that order. Each individual equipment piece needs to be cross referenced with it's availability, legality, and tech level, plus if it's specific to a faction. Like I said, Chargen, cumbersome and slow. Not good for a high-lethality game.

The other issue is that while it brought back 2D6 mechanics to streamline it with the core game, which is good, they somehow got this shitty idea stuck in their head that while in the wargame, a lower target number means a higher chance of success to meet or roll over, in the RPG, they flip the whole thing on it's head, making you add modifiers from two or three places on the sheet to the die roll, and then cross referencing the target number for success, which varies based on one of four skill types, by the way.

...all this reinventing the wheel as some sort of trapezoid instead of acknowledging that the people who are going to play Battletech RPG probably just want a bit of filler mechanics between their giant robot fights, and probably have a tenuous grasp on the core rules of the main game, anyhow.

freeblade campaign in Only War

Did they ever manage to stat out knights for it though?

I've played a bit of Jovian Chronicles 1E and it is pretty good. The GM was making a blatantly Not-Gundam setting and it works well with that sort of thing. The vehicle combat rules can be a bit unforgiving since it is designed over a miniature wargame. The rules are a bit dated too being from the early 1990s if you care about that sort of thing.

The homebrew has it done completely, with house options, destroyers weapons and other shit.

The Discord group I'm a part of is currently working on a mecha hack of Monsters and Other Childish Things. It's being used right now to run both a successful Evangelion campaign (using a more modified set of rules) and we're gearing up to run a more standard military mecha game:

>docs.google.com/document/d/1wf8gCtlhKZBrwG_C0sgoNBAtTvAhubCEWB49r9w8hMQ/edit

It's not really that the players can 3d print mechs for free, it's that their employers have the tech to print them and won't charge their soldiers to do it because that would be retarded.
The printers capable of making mechs are military and obscenely rich corporate tech only. The best an individual can do is a small version of the printer that can make little parts and handheld objects. Still a really nice piece of tech, but not completely economy destroying.

You could go Chromestrike, it's simple and as some custom option. It's also free and 70 pages long.

Its a very fun little game but the wording can be obtuse as fuck as well. Just finished up a campaign Of it actually.

May as well ask here but does anyone know where I can find a mecha autocalculator for Mekton Zeta? Trying to keep track of literally 100 little fiddly numbers is starting to get on my nerves...

Is it good though or is it some dudes fanwank about how knights are the best thing ever?

It's good. But you have to take into account that you would have to use powerful super-heavies and greater demons against them (obviously), because Knights aren't supposed to be a low power level heroes.

Sadly I don't but is it as much a pain in the ass as its rumored to be?

I get like 99% of the way done and then realize I forgot a multiplier or something and have to strip everything back down so I can try and do it again.

All I want to do is make a modified UC Gundam timeline for my players to faff about in and beat up some fucking GMs and Zakus. I love the system and once you get past a few hiccups it runs fairly well but the mek creation process can be draining for some.

If that's what you're looking for check out the homebrew posted up here:

>58371261
I've been using it to create OYW mobile suits as test-runs for it: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19lGYtPRTOtmZOgegylIAReiYXctVJK5D2VHuj7eJFzs/edit?usp=sharing

Because I like Mekton, I just don't really like making the meks apparently.

Fair enough!

This thread is a godsend. Thank you all.

Not OP but you're welcome

Not a calculator, but have this
oocities.org/tokyo/towers/4625/MS.html

I'm surprised you didn't just rip the stats for the Jovian chronicles mekton edition.

This might seem like a weird question but do any of these systems allow both humanoid gundam mechs and the bipedal weapons platform mechs like the one in the OP pic or are they one or the other?

Lancer technically does, but only because your mechs appearance is left basically up to the player.

Thank you. That's exactly what I wanted.

Same is true for Battle Century G

Mekton can do it but it's a bit time consuming to make the mechs.

Thanks again lads. Would you mind telling me what the scale of these games are? In Lancer the mechs tend to be from 8 to 20 feet tall and I was looking for something bigger.

Mekton can run almost any size except maybe galactic. BCG (plus Z, it's expansion) can run literally any size you want though.

Is there any game that's made for Robot v Kaiju?

BCG definitely can. You stat out the kaiju just like a mech but you just describe them as, well, kaiju. The whole game is basically effects based so you can refluff as you want.

Silcore can as well.

Sillouhete can, there's rules for having living and pilotless mecha which can be used to make things kaiju they even give am,example of how itd work by statting a dragon.

What's a good system for Zone of the Enders? Orbital Frames are kinda CUHRAZEY in terms of power level, and a lot of the mech systems I've seen are designed for more Gundam or Battletech level stuff.

Battle century g might have that covered. Alternately genesys

Genesys is a good all-rounder for different types of games but I'm not sure how well it would handle mechs, even ZotE stuff.

I do cast my vote for BCG though

Which book are these rules in?

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HrqFYexa2QrbEBJi0EeCmK5Fa8B1nD63aLHygAnLVvM/edit?usp=sharing

There you go. This is the most complete version among Mekton Zeta sheets I've seen to date, and it has passed through at least four different hands, including mine, to get to the state it seems to be in today.

Last I toyed with it, it worked fine. About as solid as it gets for a system as complex as Mekton Zeta's mech system is.

You are awesome! Thank you!

The Silcore 2e deluxe edition.

Does your mecha setting have superheros? Real or otherwise.

Is the mechwarrior rpg any good?

It can be. The book layout is kind of a hot mess and the system doesn't explain it's self well but if you and you're group like the setting all of the above can be overcome and at its core the system is pretty good. The GM and I spent some time condensing everything down into a couple of pdf pages that had everything we needed to run the game and things worked out well.

Hmm I'll take a crack at it. I'm a big fan of the type of mech you get in that setting and it seems like all the other systems are more the gundam variety.

If it doesn't pan out for you, seriously give BCG a look. Sure a lot of it's art is more Gundam/Robotech/Evangelion based but it's a highly modular system and can run a Mechwarrior style game no problem.

BCG?

>BCG
Battle Century G?

Battle Century G. It's SRD is free without images at the main website, as well as it's expansion, Z

gimmicklabs.blogspot.com/p/downloads.html

Oh, another good thing is that the creator of BCG, GimmickMan, continues to do fairly regular updates and is on his Discord all the time to answer questions and help people.

Strike! with mecha fluff or BCG.

Mecha Vs Kaiju is literally this.

So any got any mecha stories?

is it any good though?