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kidnicky
2013-07-31, 11:21 AM
Seeing Pacific Rim got me thinking, what's the best mecha and or kaiju RPG out there.
I remember a LONG time ago Dungeon magazine had a mecha game for d20 Modern (I think) but I wasn't really impressed with it. I've dled the quickstart for Chris Perrin Mecha, and it looks like a great game, I just haven't had the time to get together and play.

On the kaiju side, I'm vaguely aware that there have been some RPGs, but I've never played or even flipped through one. I took a look at Monsterpocalpse, but that was a moneysink miniatures thing rather than an actual rpg.

So what do you guys play,if anything, when you're in the mood for Gundam or Godzilla?

Mando Knight
2013-07-31, 11:23 AM
Mekton Zeta was written for this kind of thing, though opinions on its playability vary (it does have some glaring balance issues, for one).

hiryuu
2013-07-31, 11:27 AM
Hmm. I have successfully used FATE, Mutants & Masterminds, and nWoD for mine, but I liked they way M&M worked the best - you could set a PL for the mecha and a PL for the pilots/humans.

I was actually thinking about getting some Monsterpocalypse singles and mixing that with the low PL M&M and seeing how that worked out if I ever run it again.

Grod_The_Giant
2013-07-31, 11:39 AM
I'd second M&M, especially for a Pacific Rim style game. You've got massive flexibility when designing different mechas and monsters. Stat mechas up like power armor-- the Removeable flaw and lots of ranks of Growth will get you what you need.

CarpeGuitarrem
2013-07-31, 12:01 PM
A game of Tenra Bansho Zero where everyone is the "mecha pilot" class could work; just pit them against massive ayakashi.

Mecha can work pretty well (a mecha vs. kaiju book is coming out soon), though you have to have players who are onboard with the game's very particular structure.

Fate Core handles scaling pretty well, so that you can juxtapose smashy robot action with character drama.

obryn
2013-07-31, 12:03 PM
The new definitive choice for a kaiju RPG is Last Stand by Funhaver Industries.

http://www.funhavergames.com/

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/109884/Last-Stand

kidnicky
2013-07-31, 01:58 PM
The new definitive choice for a kaiju RPG is Last Stand by Funhaver Industries.

http://www.funhavergames.com/

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/109884/Last-Stand
So if I'm reading this right, fluff aside, in combat you are for all intents and purposes a kaiju, but you can reason and plan like a human? And then I assume in non-combat scenarios you play as the "pilot" like you would in a mecha game?

kidnicky
2013-07-31, 02:01 PM
Hmm. I have successfully used FATE, Mutants & Masterminds, and nWoD for mine, but I liked they way M&M worked the best - you could set a PL for the mecha and a PL for the pilots/humans

I was actually thinking about getting some Monsterpocalypse singles and mixing that with the low PL M&M and seeing how that worked out if I ever run it again.

Judging from the boxes (never saw one open IRL) they are cool minis, it's just I'm not into the "beat your friend by spending more real-world money than your friend" style of gameplay. They'd be great to use as minis on a battlemap in an RPG,though.

Alejandro
2013-07-31, 02:06 PM
You could use a Mechwarrior system, with some different things for the giant monsters, and then battle it out on a city hex map :)

Sith_Happens
2013-07-31, 02:31 PM
There's a Mecha vs. Kaiju campaign setting for the True20 system.

kidnicky
2013-07-31, 02:53 PM
What about Big Eyes Small Mouths? Anyone here vouch for that?

Also, this hypothetical game wouldn't HAVE to involve kaiju AND mechs, Pacific Rim sparked my interest enough to start this topic, but I wouldn't be running a Pacific Rim campaign,just something anime/tokusatsu inspired.

The Rose Dragon
2013-07-31, 02:57 PM
I nth Mutants & Masterminds. Especially now that 3rd Edition has a mini-supplement for mecha. Mecha RPG and Remnants are also worth looking at.

I emphatically cannot vouch for Big Eyes, Small Mouth. It is not a terrible system, but it is certainly not as good as other generic systems out there, like Mutants & Masterminds and GURPS.

hiryuu
2013-07-31, 03:20 PM
What about Big Eyes Small Mouths? Anyone here vouch for that?

Also, this hypothetical game wouldn't HAVE to involve kaiju AND mechs, Pacific Rim sparked my interest enough to start this topic, but I wouldn't be running a Pacific Rim campaign,just something anime/tokusatsu inspired.

Mine sure did - most mecha were built by "tenrai," people who could build great machines but couldn't explain how they worked or even why they didn't crush themselves under the immense weight. It had your traditional alien weapon kaiju, mecha/kaiju from the center of the earth, mutants, and "guardians," humans with the ability to use a magatama-like device to do some extreme transformation into a kaiju themselves (so you could have your Ultraman or Rampage-style characters).

PCs worked for World Association for Research & Defense (though if I run it again, there might be independent operators), and known kaiju had names for when they first appeared and the city or region they first appeared in. The internet had all kinds of fun informal names for them. Like "Trollosaurus Rex," the San Diego reptilain kaiju that would do stuff like sneak into a train station at night and reverse all the trains by hand or stack up all the cars on Black Friday into a pyramid, or defecating on highways just before or during rush hour.

obryn
2013-07-31, 03:38 PM
So if I'm reading this right, fluff aside, in combat you are for all intents and purposes a kaiju, but you can reason and plan like a human? And then I assume in non-combat scenarios you play as the "pilot" like you would in a mecha game?
Nope, you are a character with bio-armor fighting against giant monsters. :smallsmile:

-O

Sir_Mopalot
2013-08-01, 03:12 AM
Mecha RPG by Chris Perrin is my new favorite mecha RPG. Clearly written by a huge fan of the genre, from the ground up as a mecha game (which is its advantage over M&M, for example), and it takes a more narrative approach, rather than requiring you to have a masters in mecha design before you can even put together NPC opposition (looking at you, Mekton Zeta). The abstracted battlemap is seriously wonky, but pretty good for what it is.

My favorite thing about it is the clearly modeled battle advantages garnered through the roleplaying scenes (and structures it well to force even reluctant players into being part of the storybuilding).

My least favorite thing is that the character progression mechanics are SERIOUSLY borked. Like, just about impossible to get any better at something you're half-way decent at, and there's no advantage to improving your character when you can just buy Overdrive (FATE point/Bennie equivalent) with your XP and do far better than you ever would by buying up your stats or skills.

Homebrew up some new point costs for skills and stats, get a group that won't try to break the game too bad, and it's a fantastic system.

The Rose Dragon
2013-08-01, 03:35 AM
Mecha RPG is good, but has two (massive, in my opinion) disadvantages compared to M&M. One is that it only does mechs. Trying to make it work with something other than mecha is an exercise in futility. M&M gets to do things Mecha RPG can't, so if you get bored of mecha, you can switch to something else. Two is that it only does the kind of narrative found in more Japanese mecha series, where what the details of what the mecha can do are glossed over and the most important thing is what the aces are like. It is good at what it does, but if you want to do anything else, you should probably get something more generic and can still handle mecha.

Hunter Noventa
2013-08-01, 07:39 AM
I haven't had a chance to play it yet, but Giant Guardian Generation (http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Giant_Guardian_Generation) is Super Robot Wars the RPG.

It does basically have rules for everything from Gundams to Evangelions to Mazingers.

CarpeGuitarrem
2013-08-01, 08:51 AM
What about Big Eyes Small Mouths? Anyone here vouch for that?

It's mainly a pretty generic system that doesn't actually key into anything rooted in the anime style/medium.

Larkas
2013-08-01, 08:54 AM
Uhhhh... How about d20 Mecha? It has some pretty nifty mechanics. It was made by Guardians of Order, the same people who made BESM, but it has some more focused mechanics. I'm pretty sure it had an SRD somewhere...

EDIT: Just search for "Mecha" here (http://www.goofansite.com/index.php/downloads). I only ever looked at the d20 rules, but you might want to check the Tri-Stat ones too.

kidnicky
2013-08-02, 11:46 AM
It's mainly a pretty generic system that doesn't actually key into anything rooted in the anime style/medium.


Yeah, after I posted that I flipped ghrough it a little and it's just anime style art illustrating the most bog standard RPG. I didn't really see anything that was inherent to anime tropes. Funny, because I remember it being a semi -popular game, maybe that was just the circles I traveled in.

kidnicky
2013-08-02, 11:48 AM
Mecha RPG is good, but has two (massive, in my opinion) disadvantages compared to M&M. One is that it only does mechs. Trying to make it work with something other than mecha is an exercise in futility. M&M gets to do things Mecha RPG can't, so if you get bored of mecha, you can switch to something else. Two is that it only does the kind of narrative found in more Japanese mecha series, where what the details of what the mecha can do are glossed over and the most important thing is what the aces are like. It is good at what it does, but if you want to do anything else, you should probably get something more generic and can still handle mecha.

Not to sound snarky, but the reasons you give for NOT liking the system are exactly what I find interesting about it.

kidnicky
2013-08-02, 01:08 PM
Well,it looks like it's coming down to Mopalot's choice of Mecha,or Noventia's choice of GGG.
On one hand,Mecha seems simpler,and I don't have to come up with a world,it has premade settings.
On the other hand,GGG looks more customizable,and perhaps most importantly of all it's a free download. I'm about to dl it right now and check it out.

I have to say this is one of the best boards I've ever asked something on. A couple days later and there's a bunch of well thought out answers and no "x sucks cuz y rules" nonsense you see elsewhere.

EDIT: My PC can't seem to open GGG,so it looks like I'm going with mecha for now. can anyone point me to a .zip of GGG rather than a .rar?

The Rose Dragon
2013-08-02, 01:10 PM
Not to sound snarky, but the reasons you give for NOT liking the system are exactly what I find interesting about it.

I actually like Mecha, but considering my players' unwillingness to learn new systems, and considering how often I run mecha games, I prefer my systems to be as flexible as possible if I actually intend to run them often.

IronFist
2013-08-03, 12:29 AM
Have you heard about Last Stand?

kidnicky
2013-08-03, 12:41 AM
Have you heard about Last Stand?

We talked about it earlier in the thread. I'm not totally sold.

IronFist
2013-08-03, 01:23 AM
We talked about it earlier in the thread. I'm not totally sold.

Just wanted to point this out, seeing what you mentioned before: don't think of the player characters as kaijuu. Think of them as Kamen Rider.

Eric Tolle
2013-08-03, 01:52 PM
Apotheosis Drive X (http:// http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/117506/Apotheosis-Drive-X---Fate-Powered-Mecha-RPG---SD-MIX) is out it in e-publishing now, I'm waiting for my hard copy, and it sounds really good for people who like Gundam style anime. Vimanakatha is a game based more on Beast King GoLion, in an Indian styled setting. It looks really fantastic.

tensai_oni
2013-08-03, 02:11 PM
Usually I recommend Mutants and Masterminds, with Mecha and Manga expansion. It does mecha better than dedicated mecha games.

But if you want mecha vs kaiju? I will recommend Bliss Stage. I hope you enjoy mind screw, characters being powered by their relationships, and aliens that exist in the dream world as much as they do in the physical realm.

The Rose Dragon
2013-08-03, 02:13 PM
Bliss Stage isn't mecha versus kaiju, it is Relationship Dodecahedron: the Game.

Tengu_temp
2013-08-03, 02:23 PM
Bliss Stage is excellent for playing Bliss Stage, and absolutely doesn't work for anything else.

Mr.Bookworm
2013-08-03, 04:24 PM
Bliss Stage is excellent for playing Bliss Stage, and absolutely doesn't work for anything else.

And if you do you find yourself playing Bliss Stage, do not panic. Calmly get up from your seat, proceed to the exit, leave the premises, and set them on fire.

I cannot anti-recommend Bliss Stage enough. It is a terrible morass of bad design decisions, skin-crawlingly weird ideas of intimacy, and the worst, fetishized parts of the anime fandom.

If you want Evangelion: the RPG, I would recommend Adeptus Evangelion (http://www.mediafire.com/download/ue47q05u115e97i/2.5+Release+Version.rar), which plugs into Dark Heresy. It's pretty good, if very narrowly focused for obvious reasons.

Beyond that, yeah, I can definitely second Mecha. Even if you don't like it, you can not like it for a very cheap price.

The M&M supplement isn't bad either. It's not too hard on the "choose your shoulder joint" stuff that some mecha games get bogged down in and it's fairly easy to make stuff in.

Sir_Mopalot
2013-08-03, 07:37 PM
Bliss Stage is a great example of an interesting high concept absolutely destroyed by the execution. It could have been an interesting game, but it was made into basically a game about underage sex, and that's just a little too far over my comfort zone.

IronFist
2013-08-03, 09:20 PM
While I don't recommend Bliss Stage as a generic mecha/kaiju RPG, I really don't understand all the hate. The game is not about teenagers having sex, it's about relationships. Sex is just one side of those relationships. Also, the book explicitly tells you to keep them above the age of consent. I mean, I can understand not liking a game, but from all I can see the criticism is "it's bad because it contains sex". :smallconfused:

Sir_Mopalot
2013-08-03, 10:16 PM
If I remember correctly (it's been a good long time, so it's possible I'm just wrong), you can't hit the highest levels of connection without sexual contact. So platonic relationships are kinda like playing a full 20 levels of Fighter.

Plus there's something weird about naming NPCs after middle/high school crushes. I get what the designer is doing, but it's still weird.

CarpeGuitarrem
2013-08-03, 10:42 PM
Hmm, isn't that more or less "if you want to take it all the way, you have to take it all the way"?

Anyhow, I'm also intrigued by the idea of maybe using Anima Prime for this. I mean, it's more or less designed for a high-action-with-powers game. I should read it more in detail before I give the recommendation, though.

Mr.Bookworm
2013-08-03, 10:53 PM
While I don't recommend Bliss Stage as a generic mecha/kaiju RPG, I really don't understand all the hate. The game is not about teenagers having sex, it's about relationships.

Ever watched Evangelion? You know the battle with the Fifth Angel and everything leading up to that? The whole thing is mostly about Shinji and Rei's relationship. There's a lot of stuff going on there.

Now, what would you say the most important moment of those series of events is? You might say it's their talk on top of the gantry right before they get Angel-killin'. You might say it's when Shinji retreads his father's footsteps and rips open the plug to make sure she's okay. You might say it's when she smiles for him. You might say it's when she slaps him for bad-mouthing his father, in direct contrast to her immensely subdued behavior back at her apartment.

But according to the Intimacy chart? It's when he touched her tits.


Sex is just one side of those relationships.

No. According to Bliss Stage, it's the most important thing. You cannot reach Intimacy 5 without having sex unless they're a family member.

You cannot have a soul-searchingly deep, platonic relationship. You can't have been through so much **** together that you're bonded for life, no matter what. You can't have a best friend who would die for you and you for them. You can't have a true soulmate who's decided to wait for the actual sex until you're older.

You gotta have sex.

And, not to belabor the point, but it screws up what normal ideas of intimacy it has.

There's no allowance for abusive or nonreciprocal relationships, everyone is equally invested in it. There's no discussion of what the hell the fact of what you're doing with the ANIMa would do to relationships, which is a subject that deserves it's own chapter in a better game.

There's pretty much no discussion about what the various ratings mean, for that matter, although it doesn't matter that much because the book tells you to ignore them if they're getting in the way of your roleplaying, you special snowflake.


Also, the book explicitly tells you to keep them above the age of consent.

...what, like all of the example characters that are under the age of consent? Including the fifteen year old with a Int 5 relationship?

I also don't find "16 is totally legal" to be a defense in the slightest.

I mean, look, if everything else about Bliss Stage was good, I could probably forgive it of everything I've mentioned above. It wouldn't be too hard to hack all of that stuff out, once I've cut out the part telling me that hacking the game is not allowed under any circumstances.

But it's not. Crappy rules and crappy editing, all married to something that suggests sex is necessary for a truly deep relationship. Something that you should always use the names of your former crushes for the names of the characters you'll be boinking (but not people you still know, because that would be creepy). Something that presents the names of the author's crushes as the example anchors. Something that suggests that the Gendo Ikari figure is gonna be doing the nasty with one his charges.

So, yeah, don't play Bliss Stage.

kidnicky
2013-08-04, 01:13 AM
I feel like this may be the last time I ask what the best mecha game is. :(

Sith_Happens
2013-08-04, 01:57 AM
I feel like this may be the last time I ask what the best mecha game is. :(

WELCOME TO THE INTERNET.

Sir_Mopalot
2013-08-04, 02:11 AM
I think you're lighting a fuse whenever you ask what the "best" anything is.

The Rose Dragon
2013-08-04, 05:29 AM
Incidentally, Sir_Mopalot, I just realized your avatar is Ysengrin. He is a cool dude.

Sir_Mopalot
2013-08-04, 10:13 PM
Incidentally, Sir_Mopalot, I just realized your avatar is Ysengrin. He is a cool dude.

He is in fact, one of the coolest of dudes. :smallbiggrin:

ImperiousLeader
2013-08-04, 10:35 PM
Also on the Fate side of RPGs, when the "Worlds of Fate" books come out, one of them is "Camelot Trigger", which is best described as King Arthur with Mecha. I'm already salivating.

kidnicky
2013-08-05, 07:02 PM
Mecha RPG is good, but has two (massive, in my opinion) disadvantages compared to M&M. One is that it only does mechs. Trying to make it work with something other than mecha is an exercise in futility. M&M gets to do things Mecha RPG can't, so if you get bored of mecha, you can switch to something else. Two is that it only does the kind of narrative found in more Japanese mecha series, where what the details of what the mecha can do are glossed over and the most important thing is what the aces are like. It is good at what it does, but if you want to do anything else, you should probably get something more generic and can still handle mecha.

I assume you have the Mecha book. Does it "out of the box" have enough mecha/npcs/pcs to get a decent campaign going? This hypothetical game would be in addition to the D&D campaign I already run,and it would be more of an every couple weeks beer and pretzels thing for one or two people. I'd really rather not have to come up with a ton of worldbuilding stuff right out of the gate.

The Rose Dragon
2013-08-05, 08:11 PM
I think it does, but only if you work in the given setting frames. But one of them is basically a generic space opera with mecha, so I guess that should work.

CarpeGuitarrem
2013-08-05, 09:48 PM
Some of the settings are pretty slim on worldbuilding detail, though, I'll warn you. They're more of a setting toolkit, really. I mainly note this because one of them is a nifty, weird-trippy dystopia setting that poses a lot of questions...and then says "you decide what's really going on!"

To me, that was a bit disappointing. Fortunately, the space opera setting is honestly the best of the three...well, in my opinion. Not only does it explain what's going on behind the scenes, but it also outlines how you might introduce that as a metaplot over the course of a game.

Though, the "high school with mecha" setting is very casual, and you don't really need any metaplot to run that.

kidnicky
2013-08-06, 12:22 AM
Some of the settings are pretty slim on worldbuilding detail, though, I'll warn you. They're more of a setting toolkit, really. I mainly note this because one of them is a nifty, weird-trippy dystopia setting that poses a lot of questions...and then says "you decide what's really going on!"

To me, that was a bit disappointing. Fortunately, the space opera setting is honestly the best of the three...well, in my opinion. Not only does it explain what's going on behind the scenes, but it also outlines how you might introduce that as a metaplot over the course of a game.

Though, the "high school with mecha" setting is very casual, and you don't really need any metaplot to run that.

I know enough of the tropes of the genre that I think I could get a pretty good Gundamesque saga out of that space opera outline. Maybe check out the other two after that's concluded and I know the system better.

Sir_Mopalot
2013-08-06, 01:44 AM
I'd say yes, you can run it out of the box in terms of having world-building done for you, worst case just use the Mecha High School setting, it's easy enough.

But I'd also say no, you can't run it out of the box, because there are MAJOR flaws in the experience system for the game. In that there is no real incentive to ever try to save up to improve your character, because it's hideously expensive and just plain old worse than buying Overdrive (analogue of action points/fate points/bennies) with that XP. I have the original "printing" of the pdf, so the layout and editing is pretty bad, there's a "second printing" that is supposed to have fixed a lot of that though.

obryn
2013-08-06, 08:02 AM
We talked about it earlier in the thread. I'm not totally sold.
Well, I can try and get you a more detailed review. Because it's really, really good and well worth the look. The only potential issue is that it leverages a special deck of cards. It's apparently optional, but also looks pretty awesome.

EDIT:
Here's one: http://www.critical-hits.com/blog/2013/01/18/review-last-stand-rpg/

-O

Hunter Noventa
2013-08-06, 08:45 AM
EDIT: My PC can't seem to open GGG,so it looks like I'm going with mecha for now. can anyone point me to a .zip of GGG rather than a .rar?

You just need the right software to open it. 7zip (http://www.7-zip.org/) is free, safe and can open just about any kind of compression.

Alternately, I zipped it up for you here. (https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8E9FU4ZeRd_MGc5WDh4Y29LOUE/edit?usp=sharing)

kidnicky
2013-08-06, 10:10 PM
You just need the right software to open it. 7zip (http://www.7-zip.org/) is free, safe and can open just about any kind of compression.

Alternately, I zipped it up for you here. (https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8E9FU4ZeRd_MGc5WDh4Y29LOUE/edit?usp=sharing)

Thanks! I'm either going with GGG or Mecha,I think it's going to come down to what the other player(s) wants in terms of simplicity.

EDIT: I just read/skimmed the book,and it's seriously cool. Coming up with villians may end up being a pain,but I love the random episode theme chart. I'm definitely going to try to play this. Thanks again.

The Rose Dragon
2013-08-06, 10:13 PM
In that there is no real incentive to ever try to save up to improve your character, because it's hideously expensive and just plain old worse than buying Overdrive (analogue of action points/fate points/bennies) with that XP.

Considering what mecha series protagonists are usually like, mission accomplished, I'd say.

Though I do have one question that I have never been able to answer: what does the Engineering stat do? I have looked over the book like a dozen times, even with the search function, and I can't find anything.

CarpeGuitarrem
2013-08-07, 12:19 AM
Considering what mecha series protagonists are usually like, mission accomplished, I'd say.

Though I do have one question that I have never been able to answer: what does the Engineering stat do? I have looked over the book like a dozen times, even with the search function, and I can't find anything.
As I recall, it's part of initiative. ("Engineering" may also be the older name for another stat...it's been a long time since I read the book but I do remember that there was an old stat name that popped up in a couple of the statblocks that was no longer used in the text.)

Sir_Mopalot
2013-08-07, 12:34 AM
Yeah, it's primarily for initiative. I think there's something with the one Configuration that lets you repair other mechs that might have something to do with it, but don't quote me.

Gamgee
2013-08-07, 02:56 AM
Kaiju Combat is a super ultra fun and fast paced (30 mins tops) boardgame. I can recommend that. :smallcool: