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Herabec
2013-08-12, 05:44 PM
So, having apparently lived under a rock for the past decade, I've finally gotten around to watching Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and it was, of course, all sorts of crazy awesome.

And it's gotten me in the mood to try and run a giant mecha game with the same sort of high-octane crazy badassitude that ran through that show's veins, while being decently mechanically sound...maybe including some sort of system that actually rewards being an over-the-top and beyond the impossible badass.

D20 doesn't seem like it'd be a good fit. A heavily modified Storyteller system might work, but I was wondering if there was already a system like this out there that I should be checking out before I try making one from scratch?

Kane0
2013-08-12, 05:46 PM
You might be able to get away with using a modified Battletech. It has plenty of stompy mech action but is usually a strategy game. If you do some alterations you should be able to pull off some over-the-top gameplay pretty easy.

Tengu_temp
2013-08-12, 05:52 PM
Battletech is for real robots, and not even Gundam-like humanoid real robots but western ones that are pretty much tanks on legs. It doesn't work for TTGL.

I suggest Mutants and Masterminds, with the Mecha and Manga splat if you're going to play 3e. Over the top super robots like Gurren Lagann are pretty much giant superheroes, after all.

tensai_oni
2013-08-12, 05:55 PM
1. Watch at least a few mecha shows more, so you get a wider frame of reference. Gurren Lagann is really good, but not all mecha are like it. In fact, most aren't.

2. Stay away from systems that try to be "realistic", like Battletech or Mekton Zeta.

3. Dedicated mecha systems from my experience don't work as good for mecha as Mutants and Masterminds.

Get Mutants and Masterminds.

Herabec
2013-08-12, 06:05 PM
1. Watch at least a few mecha shows more, so you get a wider frame of reference. Gurren Lagann is really good, but not all mecha are like it. In fact, most aren't.

2. Stay away from systems that try to be "realistic", like Battletech or Mekton Zeta.

3. Dedicated mecha systems from my experience don't work as good for mecha as Mutants and Masterminds.

Get Mutants and Masterminds.

Hah. Don't worry, Gurren Lagann isn't my first mecha anime. XD

I just really enjoyed the themes and over the top action it had, even by mecha genre standards.

Guess I'll need to check out Mutants and Masterminds then. I keep hearing about it all over the forum, so I guess it's time I at least looked at it.

Grod_The_Giant
2013-08-12, 07:49 PM
Mutants and Masterminds is, indeed, a pretty fantastic game. It's pretty fast in play, works like a charm for any kind of cinematic action game, is easy to learn (to play, at least) if you've got any kind of experience with d20 systems, is obscenely flexible, and is actually remarkably well balanced. Best of all, 3e is available free online (www.d20herosrd.com).

The only issue is that the character creation system, while far and away the most flexible and fun I've ever seen in an RPG, does take some getting used to.


I suggest Mutants and Masterminds, with the Mecha and Manga splat if you're going to play 3e. Over the top super robots like Gurren Lagann are pretty much giant superheroes, after all.
Minor nitpick: Mecha and Manga is a 2e splat. For 3e, you'll want the Mecha Gadget Guide (http://greenroninstore.com/collections/mutants-masterminds-third-edition/products/mutants-masterminds-gadget-guide-mecha-pdf).

Herabec
2013-08-12, 08:05 PM
Mutants and Masterminds is, indeed, a pretty fantastic game. It's pretty fast in play, works like a charm for any kind of cinematic action game, is easy to learn (to play, at least) if you've got any kind of experience with d20 systems, is obscenely flexible, and is actually remarkably well balanced. Best of all, 3e is available free online (www.d20herosrd.com).

The only issue is that the character creation system, while far and away the most flexible and fun I've ever seen in an RPG, does take some getting used to.


Minor nitpick: Mecha and Manga is a 2e splat. For 3e, you'll want the Mecha Gadget Guide (http://greenroninstore.com/collections/mutants-masterminds-third-edition/products/mutants-masterminds-gadget-guide-mecha-pdf).

...It's free for 3E?

That makes things a HECK of a lot simpler. I was worried I was going to need to drop some serious cash getting it and the necessary splatbooks. But even the Mech pdf is only a buck. Very nice, you guys are awesome!

Hunter Noventa
2013-08-13, 07:15 AM
Also totally free is Giant Guardian Generation (http://tk31.blogspot.com/p/downloads.html) which is "We're totally not Super Robot Wars the Table Top RPG, honest!"

Tengu_temp
2013-08-13, 09:59 AM
Minor nitpick: Mecha and Manga is a 2e splat. For 3e, you'll want the Mecha Gadget Guide (http://greenroninstore.com/collections/mutants-masterminds-third-edition/products/mutants-masterminds-gadget-guide-mecha-pdf).

Derp. I meant 2e, but wrote 3e for some reason.

Doorhandle
2013-08-14, 05:19 PM
I was hoping dragon-mech was going to be mentioned...

Wolfer
2013-08-14, 06:23 PM
I'd recommend Savage Worlds. That can be configured to fit mostly any setting you wish.

CarpeGuitarrem
2013-08-14, 10:18 PM
Also give a thought to Tenra Bansho Zero. I still haven't found the perfect TTGL-esque system, but TBZ lets you do awesome "hyper-Asian fantasy" complete with a mechanic called "kiai", which is (more or less) effectively Spiral Power. You earn kiai by playing up your character's motivations and passions, then spend it to boost your character massively. (I am grossly oversimplifying how this works, but this is the gist.)

Then, kiai becomes "karma", which represents your attachment to the world. You have to "sublimate" some of those motivations and passions in order to keep karma low, lest you become an Asura*cough*LordGenome*cough*, a character so obsessed with protecting something of the world that they would even commit great evils against it in the name of keeping it safe.

And yes, it does mecha. You could run a game with only mecha pilots, or you could throw in cyborgs, shinobi, even hulk-out samurai alongside them.

golentan
2013-08-14, 10:29 PM
Maybe keep an eye on exalted. Crazy over the top powers from bona-fide badass heroes are a definite check, ranging from heroic speeches with SPIRAL POWER (Essence) backing them to crazy over the top action powers that go beyond the impossible and kick logic to the curb (It's a game where you can parry a nuclear blast with a butter knife or snipe a foe from the far side of the world). They have Warstriders, which are giant magical mechs which could be refluffed into Ganmen. 2nd edition isn't that mechanically sound (though it's a lot better post errata), but they're coming out with 3rd edition in a couple months. I would recommend keeping an eye on that, if you can wait for it.

Nerd-o-rama
2013-08-15, 10:50 AM
I was hoping dragon-mech was going to be mentioned...

That's a pretty D&D-specific campaign setting, but it can be kind of TTGL-ish (or at least Gainax-ish - the feel of the robots is on that line between realism and insanity most of their earlier works straddle) if you play up the "oppressed and scattered mortal races vs. insane space monsters" angle.

And yes, M&M 3e is effectively free thanks to almost everything in it being Open Gaming Content. M&M is my preferred system for super robots, although other generic systems like FATE or Savage Worlds would indeed work almost as well.

Also: why would anyone intentionally use Exalted's rules for something else? Sure it models SHOUNEN FIGHTAN just as well as it models Wuxia, but it's not actually a very good system outside the fluff.

tensai_oni
2013-08-15, 11:52 AM
Exalted:
Why would you use this system for anything? Mechanics are so broken, they barely work for Exalted already, what about a game in a different setting. Also, Essence is NOTHING like Spiral Power, it's just glorified mana points you spend on "spells" (charms).


(It's a game where you can parry a nuclear blast with a butter knife or snipe a foe from the far side of the world)

Yeah, shame this never actually happened in Gurren Lagann itself. For being a CRAZY AWESOME anime, what characters can actually do in it is pretty realistic. It's the mecha themselves that do all the physics breaking. At least until very, very late into the show.

Tenra Bansho Zero:
I really want to like this system because mechanics sound interesting. But the fluff just scares me off whenever I hear about it.

It's like if you took a 90s non-Japanese anime fan and told them "go wild, put everything you like into a game and we'll make a setting out of that". And they did just that. Mecha, transforming heroes, fighting shonen anime like DBZ or Hokuto no Ken, ultraviolent 80s OVAs, Ghost in the Shell, samurai dramas, etc: all goes into one pot. It's a clusterf*** of everything anime-related and it feels really schizophrenic. All it's missing is catgirl maids.


Sorry. I really did not mean for this post to be so negative.

Amaril
2013-08-15, 12:09 PM
Also totally free is Giant Guardian Generation (http://tk31.blogspot.com/p/downloads.html) which is "We're totally not Super Robot Wars the Table Top RPG, honest!"

I just discovered this recently, and while I haven't had a chance to try it out yet (I'm recruiting for PbP here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=297777) if anybody doesn't mind a very derivative setting), it looks pretty awesome to me, and more than versatile enough to accommodate pretty much any kind of style with some easy reskinning.

Hunter Noventa
2013-08-15, 01:08 PM
I just discovered this recently, and while I haven't had a chance to try it out yet (I'm recruiting for PbP here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=297777) if anybody doesn't mind a very derivative setting), it looks pretty awesome to me, and more than versatile enough to accommodate pretty much any kind of style with some easy reskinning.

I haven't had a chance to try it (and have a bad time with PbP games, but good luck to you), but I have found it absurdly easy to model some of the mecha from Super Robot Wars.

Though I haven't updated them to 1.8 yet, so who knows how that may have changed.

Grod_The_Giant
2013-08-15, 01:46 PM
Exalted:
Why would you use this system for anything? Mechanics are so broken, they barely work for Exalted already, what about a game in a different setting. Also, Essence is NOTHING like Spiral Power, it's just glorified mana points you spend on "spells" (charms).
I kind of have to agree with this. I love the setting and the flavor, but I never had fun actually playing Exalted until my group switched over to using an M&M hack. Still, I am excited for 3e-- it sounds like the designers understand everything that was wrong with 2e and are working to fix it.

Tengu_temp
2013-08-15, 01:59 PM
I kind of have to agree with this. I love the setting and the flavor, but I never had fun actually playing Exalted until my group switched over to using an M&M hack. Still, I am excited for 3e-- it sounds like the designers understand everything that was wrong with 2e and are working to fix it.

Though they apparently make up for the mechanical fixes by turning the setting into some ridiculous grimderp-fest.

CarpeGuitarrem
2013-08-15, 04:12 PM
Tenra Bansho Zero:
I really want to like this system because mechanics sound interesting. But the fluff just scares me off whenever I hear about it.

It's like if you took a 90s non-Japanese anime fan and told them "go wild, put everything you like into a game and we'll make a setting out of that". And they did just that. Mecha, transforming heroes, fighting shonen anime like DBZ or Hokuto no Ken, ultraviolent 80s OVAs, Ghost in the Shell, samurai dramas, etc: all goes into one pot. It's a clusterf*** of everything anime-related and it feels really schizophrenic. All it's missing is catgirl maids.


Sorry. I really did not mean for this post to be so negative.
Since it's made by someone who was a fan of the media and was also from Japan, it's not as bad as you might think. (Actually, it was first released in the late 90s...)

It's certainly a grand mashup of tropes (and you don't have to use any of them in particular, the setting is built so that you can say "hey, that looks cool!" and yank stuff out of the timeline willy-nilly), but it isn't gratuitously silly about it. Heck, some of the stuff gets strongly rooted and tragic. The tropes all get tweaks and twists for a specific model of fantasy. Cases in point...

Mech pilots--they interface with the mech via a soul mirror, so the nobility uses their adolescent heirs (or third/fourth-in-line) to pilot them, because they still have innocent(ish) souls; the mechs will reject anyone who has accrued too much karma from their time in the world. (Plus, well, the mechs are flavored closer to giant mobile suits of armor; there's a strong magitech vibe to the whole setting.)

Mushi-tsukai--traveling doctors who have parasitic worms/bugs/creatures that give them powers. Think Ginko from Mushi-shi as an organic borgish creature.

Samurai--they have soulgems embedded in their flesh (very painfully) so that they can hulk out and transform; this renders them sterile and they are considered at least partially inhuman by most folk.

Oni--the displaced inhabitants of Tenra, with TK and/or telepathy. Quite unfortunately, their hearts provide a convenient power source for those mech-armours. That's something I didn't expect from TBZ.

There's actually a lot of thought and cultural texture put into it; it's the most legitimately Japanese game out there. And again, you can pull whatever character archetypes you want into the game (it's totally cool to say "this is a game with armour-pilots and shinobi"...and focusing in like that can be helpful) and leave the others out. The setting's loose like that.

Eric Tolle
2013-08-16, 02:46 AM
I'm looking forward to Apotheosis Drive X (http://www.rpgnow.com/product/117506/Apotheosis-Drive-X---Fate-Powered-Mecha-RPG---SD-MIX), which looks like it will do over the top anime very well. It's powered by Fate, which is perfect for cinematic anime style game, where a bitter hatred or overwhelming live can make the difference in combat. The supplements, like Princess Drive and Vimanakatha look pretty sweet for handling other ge nras of mecha shows as well. A sci-fi Bollywood mecha epic just appeals to me.

ShadowFighter15
2013-08-16, 07:52 AM
Though they apparently make up for the mechanical fixes by turning the setting into some ridiculous grimderp-fest.

Doesn't sound any more grimdark than it used to be. Not that I've seen, at least.

Jaycemonde
2013-08-23, 09:31 PM
I'm always going to be a diehard MechWarrior, so I'm just going to go against popular opinion here and suggest the BattleTech games. If you don't like that ruleset, you can adapt the BattleTech setting and equipment to the Palladium Robotech RPG system instead--it's similar in many ways, but a lot less tactical and overly specific in nature.

Chrisros
2013-08-25, 09:49 AM
The obvious answer is Mekton Zeta, the Anime Mecha Roleplaying Game, R. Talsorian Games, Inc, ISBN# 0-937279-54-4, and its various supplements.

I figured this would be out of print by now, but it is available (at least .pdfs) at:
http://www.mektonzeta.com/productguide.php

Has a very genre appropriate character archetype system, and the crunch behind the Mechs themselves (see the Advanced Technical Manual) allows you to run pretty much exactly what you want. I'd suggest the GM build all Mecha, or provide some stock base chasis and specify very carefully what can and can't be added. But, if you want crazy/cinemtic (like the thread title) it is all there for you.

CombatOwl
2013-08-25, 10:05 AM
I second Fate, though question why you would even need Apotheosis Drive X, as opposed to just fate core for the ridiculous over-the-top dramatic style of Gurren Lagann. It's not like you need anything but the power of badass ideas.

Seriously, that would work best with a very crunch-light system.

Tengu_temp
2013-08-25, 12:02 PM
BattleTech

Mekton Zeta

No. Mekton Zeta is firmly in the realm of Gundam and other real robot mecha, which are equipped with fairly standard weaponry like rifles or beam sabers and don't do any extraordinary stuff. This is very far away from super robots, especially TTGL-like ones where your spirit lets you pull off amazing stunts and break the laws of physics as you wish. Besides, its mechanics are awful and too focused on tiny details.

Battletech is even less fitting, being a simulator of western-type mecha that are pretty much just artillery platforms on legs.

Agrippa
2013-08-25, 12:45 PM
Though they apparently make up for the mechanical fixes by turning the setting into some ridiculous grimderp-fest.

Could you explain to me what you mean by this? It sounds worrying.

Tengu_temp
2013-08-25, 03:52 PM
Could you explain to me what you mean by this? It sounds worrying.

Turning the Scarlet Empire into a more blatantly evil totalitarian dystopia, making all Lunars cannibalistic berserkers, and other similar things. At least that's what I heard during the discussion of the new edition, and it's likely a lot of it is just demands from WW fanboys who can't accept that any Exalted characters can be in the slightest bit heroic, but which won't actually make it into the game.

ShadowFighter15
2013-08-25, 06:23 PM
Turning the Scarlet Empire into a more blatantly evil totalitarian dystopia, making all Lunars cannibalistic berserkers, and other similar things. At least that's what I heard during the discussion of the new edition, and it's likely a lot of it is just demands from WW fanboys who can't accept that any Exalted characters can be in the slightest bit heroic, but which won't actually make it into the game.

I... haven't heard anything like that for 3e. All I've heard that's close to that is that they're fleshing out the Isle a bit more (showing what parts are held by which house and why) and the same for Lunars (better describing their holdings in Creation).

IronFist
2013-08-25, 07:12 PM
I... haven't heard anything like that for 3e. All I've heard that's close to that is that they're fleshing out the Isle a bit more (showing what parts are held by which house and why) and the same for Lunars (better describing their holdings in Creation).

The worst thing I heard was that they were going more for Conan's sword and sorcery than asian influences. I just don't see the point, it makes Exalted more generic.

Friv
2013-08-26, 12:26 AM
Turning the Scarlet Empire into a more blatantly evil totalitarian dystopia, making all Lunars cannibalistic berserkers, and other similar things. At least that's what I heard during the discussion of the new edition, and it's likely a lot of it is just demands from WW fanboys who can't accept that any Exalted characters can be in the slightest bit heroic, but which won't actually make it into the game.

The worst thing I heard was that they were going more for Conan's sword and sorcery than asian influences. I just don't see the point, it makes Exalted more generic.

Yeah, that's... very, very biased reporting. It's not demands, but it's also not accurate.

1) They are reminding people that the Scarlet Empire is not nice, by having it do things that empires throughout human history have done. They aren't making it TurboNazis: The Dooming. (This is being done in part to help re-affirm the SE's place as the primary antagonist for Solar and Lunar characters, which it was for most of 1e before getting gradually overshadowing by increasingly apocalyptic threats).
2) Lunars are becoming more active in their opposition to the Realm, which will involve violence. Details have been deliberately sparse, so the echo chamber is going wild on what this actually means.
3) The game is going "more Conan, less Tolkein" and not "more Conan, less Asian" - they're trying to dial back the "Grand Battle for the Fate of the World" and "Demons Are Killing Everyone" storylines in favor of "hero conquers kingdom" and "hero conquers monsters" and "hero wrestles with what comes after victory" storylines.

Anyway, we're drifting. More on-topic!


I think that Marvel Superheroic Roleplaying would work wonders, except that it is highly out of print. So that's sort of a "if you can possibly find it" option. Failing that, Mutants & Masterminds is always a strong choice.

IronFist
2013-08-26, 02:20 AM
I think that Marvel Superheroic Roleplaying would work wonders, except that it is highly out of print. So that's sort of a "if you can possibly find it" option. Failing that, Mutants & Masterminds is always a strong choice.
I think you can still get the pdfs from DriveThruRPG. I'll be sad if I can't get it, since I forgot to get a copy of Annihilation when it was on print.
I read somewhere that it "was bad because it didn't last much" and had to restrain myself from launching a heated response. The system is beautiful.

kidnicky
2013-08-26, 05:24 PM
Last night I was looking through the "going japanese" supplement for Cartoon Action Hour Season 2 and I was thinking that might be the game you want. It deals in not -absolutes. Like your mech will have a trait called "gargantuan". What's that mean? It's big. It's not X feet high or X pounds, it's really big. The attacks you make up yourself, and just assign the modifier you feel appropriate. The modifers and abilities are a point-buy thing but the GM sets the points, so just set'em high. There aren't hit points, there's setbacks and defeat. The GM decides what exactly those mean, so your punches can like throw guys to the moon or whatever. You could have all the drills, whatever.
Your mech is basically just another character sheet you switch to when your guy gets aboard. There isn't any piloting check or whatever, you're just playing as a really big guy w ith rockets. Like for example you could refluff it as Godzilla or Paul Bunyon and it would make sense.

Anyway, the core book pdf is like 8 bucks, and you could probably get away with just using that, but I reccommend just spending the 2 bucks more or whatever it is and buy "Going Japanese". Don't get put off by the dorky looking cover, the book is awesome.