Mecha RPG Advice

[Rephath]

I'm wanting to develop a tabletop mecha RPG. There's plenty of wargame-type ones out there. I know. I want one that has more to it than combat, even though it may be combat heavy. My question is, how would I integrate roleplaying and things besides shooting and not getting shot, change things up? Forget the rules for a time being. I can figure out how to model whatever I want in rules. I have two questions:

What are essential parts of the mecha genre that people will want to see?
What are some things I can have my mecha pilots doing besides killing things?

In case you're wondering, I'm going with about Gundam-style mechs. Not too ridiculous, but not too practical either. I may make them 8-10 feet tall to make roleplaying easier. There's a lot more options of things you can do when you can go inside buildings or interact with individual people.

[ngilop]

so basically what you want is to redo heavy gear?

Ive never played the tabkle top RPGs but i loved the Computer games.

so it might be worht it to take a look at heavy gear and see if there is anything there youd like to glean for your game system.

[Durazno]

It really depends on 1) the place that these robots have in society and the military and 2) how much autonomy you want the pilots that the players are controlling to have.

For instance, if we have a kind of techno-feudal society where the robot pilots are like knights, then we could have more political intrigue and the characters' individual relationships would have a lot of bearing on the outcome and content of missions.

Or the players could be insurgents ala Gundam Wing, in which case there would probably be a lot of sneaking, dissembling and misdirection going on, along with ground missions and social encounters where they try to identify important objectives and learn about them.

Or the players could be simple grunts exercising normal discretion in the course of combat missions, in which case they would probably get other kinds of dangerous work that doesn't necessarily require their robots.

Or the players could be costumed superheroes who tried to lead ordinary lives when they're not piloting their war machines in defense of peace. There are a lot of ways to go.

[Rephath]

I was considering the knight route. But I'm open to any setting ideas that strike my fancy. How would you make any of those ideas work?

I can't figure out what I want my players to be doing most of the time. Once I get that, I can figure out how to model that with rules.

My thinking was in the future humanity runs into a crystalline life form that can let loose incredible amounts of power. For some reason it prefers to power mech suits, maybe because its soul is used to having a humanoid body before it got transferred to the crystal. Whatever the case, it's being used to power mechs. Human pilots are chosen based on their compatibility with these suits, and they're elite military units who are used for scouting, urban ops, and other stuff. But that's not completely working for me so if you have an idea that includes none of that I'd like to hear it.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I'd go with a relatively standard "cover all the bases" skill list for pilots, however you choose to model "skills" (skill points, ability checks, bidding, whatever). Unless you're writing something really specific, having at least rudimentary rules for humans sneaking around, talking to people, hacking computers and suchlike is probably a good idea. It gives DMs a lot more storytelling flexibility.

[Rephath]

so basically what you want is to redo heavy gear?

Ive never played the tabkle top RPGs but i loved the Computer games.

so it might be worht it to take a look at heavy gear and see if there is anything there youd like to glean for your game system.

From the little I've seen, it seems the Heavy Gear tabletop is combat-focused and crunchy.

[Rabidmuskrat]

There isnt much you are going to be doing inside your 10ft mech besides fighting, because why put it on if you arent going to be fighting? They are hot, exhausting machines to pilot and they require constant focus to not damage yourself by accident.

For skills, focus on out of mech stuff.

[Rephath]

Rabid, off the top of my head mechs could be exploring the surface of a new planet or scouting out a city that went quiet suddenly. They can help with fighting natural disasters or cleaning up after them. They could handle riot control.

But when you talk about things happening out of the suit, what sort of interesting things?