Help get us started (Zoid/Pacific Rim style RPG)

[HereBeMonsters]

So one of my players has fallen in love with PR and of course Him and me were huge fans of Zoids.

How would one do the mecha style RPG system?

I mean like Weapons damage when zoids/mechs have guns that measure like 108 mm or 200 mm guns for small/medium weapons? (Liger Zero's chest mounted shock cannons where 108 mm and considered small)

I just need building blocks for this set up as we are gonna run this on a homebrew idea for a system but I need help with the set up.

Any help is welcome. The system will have guns, armor, defense, CAS if needed, Weapon and Armor Upgrades, and have to take into account favored battle styles (For Zoids it would be Air, Ground, and Water.. if you favor water and your fighting in the air he would gain no bonuses maybe penalties to it but in water he gains a lot more bonuses.)

[Friv]

Hmm.

Well, there are three questions you need to decide on first!

Question #1 - Is the mech combat the main focus, or does much happen out of mechs?

If the former, character sheets should be heavily stripped down, and mech abilities that characters have should be purchased in a seperate pool from non-mech abilities. If the latter, you can have more developed characters, and they can buy their abilities from the same pool. Generally, I would recommend seperate pools (so no Abilities or Skills affect mech piloting, but you get a set of Mech Feats or something that can only affect mech piloting) regardless of how complex you want the players.

Question #2 - Are Mechs Equipment, or Characters.

If mechs are equipment, then individual parts probably have a cost, and players are often going to be climbing into other mechs, and damage or destruction is going to be fairly common. In addition, mechs will be heavily customizable, most likely, since you can just kind of buy parts. You'll want to have rules for upkeep and maintenance, and players will have to worry about splitting money between their mechs and their lives.

If mechs are characters, you're going to be balancing them not just with cash, but narratively. XP can go towards Traits that modify the mech without being literally bought, and you can handwave money as "players get Mech XP instead of money" and not worry about actual cash or upkeep costs.


Question #3 - What resolution mechanic are you thinking of basing the game on? D20? Storyteller? Cortex-derived? Percentile? Something totally weird, like drawing cards out of a deck?

[Vadskye]

CthluhuTech has very good mecha rules, from what I've heard. It's absolutely worth reading for inspiration.

[HereBeMonsters]

1. Currently the idea is basically to use the Pacific Rim narrative or a spin off of it. So giant monsters are attacking and the characters are pilots fighting them off.

I believe we justified the Inclusion of Zoids by saying that after PR Humans have made their own bridge to another planet/dimension which is Z which has the zoids. Or maybe an alternate timeline where the Kaiju did win and the mechs evolved or whatever.

2. While 'Mechs' are gonna equipment we may make the Zoids have some personality as they are kinda living machines but we have determined for now that is fluff not mechanics so they would be considered equipment.

3. well we do have some D20 games running so maybe d20 but if it might run smoother as just a storyteller and we use maybe some basic mechanic to determine if your 108 mm cannon takes down the baddie or just scratches the hide.

[Rephath]

Made an RPG inspired by the videogame series Rampage. My rules are here. After playtesting, I realized I needed to combine the smart and clever attributes.

You can steal anything you want from that.