While I am a mecha afficionado (I love Macross, Code Geass and all the different variants of Gundam I have seen so far) I have trouble seeing how a mecha setting can be run as an RPG appropriately.

True, my experience with mecha RPG is limited to scanning the pages of Palladium's Macross RPG but it looks to me the toy you are piloting is much more important than the character and his human abilities.

Also, how can you play anything other than a mecha pilot? If you don't then when the fur starts flying all you can do is look at the pretty light show and mega-destruction from a safe (and very far) distance.


Am I missing something here?

What do you like about the anime stuff?

I've found part of that is to (when I gm), make sure the social interactions are highlighted. Romances, personal vendettas, conflict etc, all played out outside the mecha.
Sure the mecha action stuff is cool; but that isn't all there is to mecha games.

Edsan, you can play something else... you can be a co-pilot... or a scientist. Sometimes you need a balanced away team when you are exploring abandoned Robotech Master stations or whatever.

Instead of thinking of the robot as a tool, think of it as a part of the character.

In Robotech this tends to be solved by having a number of different classes, virtually all of which can potentially use either mecha or vehicles. Veritech and Battloid Pilots are just way BETTER at it. But military specialists and infantry use cyclones, techies have training in either veritechs or cyclones or silverbacks, etc.

So if the whole "theme" of your game is being a squad of mecha pilots, you can specify that at the character creation phase of the game, and people can be sure to take some piloting skills to compensate for that.  But there are plenty of other kinds of games you can run that don't necessarily require that there be Mecha combat all the time.

RPGPundit

There are tons of posibilities but yes, you need a good setting and stuff.
Couple of examples:
Military, Soldier of Fortune, Madmax (GundamX style), etc.
Heck, when you add space into it, you can get a cool space exploration game but with mechas to handle conflicts

Regarding class distinction, what the others said regarding different support roles and the fact that not all the adventure is mecha combat.
And even if you push that, there is a way to make everyone a pilot and still have cool distinctions. One example would be the robotech classes, another one would be the last Gundam incantation, Gundam 00. It is a good example of what could be a good party: the melee specialist, the artillery one, the sniper, etc. Not only the pilots but also the mechas themselves enforce the specialization.

Quote from: Edsan;291456While I am a mecha afficionado (I love Macross, Code Geass and all the different variants of Gundam I have seen so far) I have trouble seeing how a mecha setting can be run as an RPG appropriately.

True, my experience with mecha RPG is limited to scanning the pages of Palladium's Macross RPG but it looks to me the toy you are piloting is much more important than the character and his human abilities.

Also, how can you play anything other than a mecha pilot? If you don't then when the fur starts flying all you can do is look at the pretty light show and mega-destruction from a safe (and very far) distance.


Am I missing something here?

You mention Code Geass and I am a huge fan of that series, and have always wanted to adapt something like it to RPG form.

Remember early in the first season when mechs in general were more throwaway and less unique from one another? Like something you'd find in the gear section rather than under character creation? And how their whole design hinged on having ejector seats and such? And how tanks and RPG-armed infantry were still used?

I've always wanted to run a mecha RPG like that.

Your concern about variety in character archetypes is partially covered here too. Mechs are hugely important in combat and the military, but enough of the episodes rely on espionage, intrigue, etc. that a socially adept character like Lelouch has a significant advantage.

There are mad scientists like Rakshata, ace pilots like Kallen and Suzaku, nobles and military minded folks all over the place, and a few characters with geasses... all playing very different roles in the series.

The way you have to work a Mecha RPG is not to treat it like D&D. Not everyone gets in the fight.

But if you have a Fighter (pilot), Healer (Medic), Mechanic (Mech-Healer), Support (Infantry), or whatever, things work pretty well.

Also, there's nothing wrong with everybody being a mech pilot...that can be fun too.

My main inspiration is Robotech. Where the Mecha are really part of the backdrop to the stories rather than the focus.

For my part, all the games I've run, everyone's wanted to be a pilot.  Often a pilot with a secondary skill like mechanic, resident crazy psychic, medic, etc, but we've never ended up with a group of PCs that fit the tradtional "ship" model, so our games were biased accordingly.  One time, there was a ship full of NPCs who served as background support, relationship interests of various kinds, etc, and supplied the party with mission fodder.  As regards mecha role specialisation, our current game has two people who've chosen long and medium-range support roles, while we have two hack-n-slash melee lovers.  

I'd like to try the kind of game where the PCs aren't all pilots, but have other, important roles onboard the ship the various mecha are based on, in the traditional Gundam/Macross style.  You'd need probably two pilots max in this case, or mecha combat could and up dominating things too much when it happened, rather than part of something bigger that everyone was involved with.  Mekton Zeta actually seems to assume this is your "default" group setup, the way the various NPCs and sample bits and bobs are presented, but provides very little by way of advice on how to successfully run this.  

Like others have said, the main thing is to ensure that the characters are the focus of what goes on.  Their personalities influence the shape of the game, their wants and desires are what drives the plot.  The mecha, no matter what they are or how "cool" their powers may be, are just tools to an end and occasionally plot devices.  For example, I ran a short game (maybe 5 sessions?) to get used to Mekton Zeta's system, and when presented with an opportunity to pilot giant mecha, the party first tried to find someone more suitable to pilot them, then went and used them to pursue their own ends;  One character, who'd seen their mother accidentally killed as collateral damage, basically hid inside her mech as the giant suit of armour it was.  One other character ended up driving the whole plot we had by seeking revenge on a corrupt public official who'd done him wrong.  The mecha, despite being deliberately made in the "mysterious and powerful" manner lots of anime go for, were very much secondary to what the characters wanted to /do/ with them.  The same definitely applies to older games I ran; one player in particular is flat out not a mecha fan, but after agreeing to give the game a try, enjoyed himself since the focus was nowhere near what he thought it would be, and gave him plenty of room to expand his character.    

I'm half-seriously tempted to offer anyone in the UK who's not sure about mecha gaming to come down to London and have a game with me.  But I don't think that would help anyone here. >_>;

Thanks for your replies guys, you've really provided some insight into this type of game. I wouldn't mind playing one but only if I could run a pilot. Period.

Even in a campaign that is not battle-driven sooner or latter you'll have some mecha action and it just feels silly to be left out.

In  my current mech game everyone has a mecha.

We have: Sniper/Doctor, School Teacher, Tomahawk fighter, Explosives Expert, Mechanic, Preacher/Pistoleer.

They all once served in the Sovereignty War, and essentially lost. Everyone believes them to be dead, so right now they are nomadic "mercenaries", yet the fact is they do good and help sort out criminals, rustlers, robot armies, and claimjumpers all while hiding from the massive corporations who control most of the resources and who consider them war-criminals. The old West themes give me a lot of play with conflict, as the mecha are essentially the "gun" of the setting, so you can pick one up and use it, but won't be good at it.

Conflicts have included: Investigation into a rotten claimjumper who was killing of people so he could steal their claims (turned out to be the corporate clerk who filed the claims in the first place.) They spent most of their time on foot figuring out what was going on and talking to people. The mecha were used to fight off some of his hired thugs, to quell a near riot, and then finally to fight the clerk and more of his thugs at the end.

In the second "adventure", shorter than the first one. They're dealing with raids by robots, the slave and native analog in the setting. They fought FOR the robots during the war (sort of--allies in the same situation), and now have to convince them to be at peace with the locals before the corporations send Regulators out and wipe out this "myth" of robots surviving after the war. Their own ally robot has helped (their "Tonto.") They've suited up to fight the robots the first time, to face down a single robot who was after the local preacher woman. (That robot was talked down before any mecha arrived.) Then they've used their mecha to attack shuttles that had ambushed them. (Their shuttle isn't armed, so they went outside with their slingers to take some shots, and did well enough to end the shuttle threat.)

The thing is, mecha are common, and useful. Yet they aren't the center part of the story. They simply are window dressing for the violence. If you watch Robotech, or Full Metal Panic, or similar shows you'll note that the mecha are secondary to the rest of the stories going on around them.

In Heavy Gear, there's a well-made world outside the mecha aspect, so there's tons of things PCs can do that don't involve piloting gears. It's very easy, in fact, to run a game with no gears in it at all except as background fluff & local colour. You could all be spies, or cops, or infantry or somesuch.

As well, the gears themselves are small enough that tanks and infantry with anti-armour weapons can do serious damage to them. The main advantage gears have on Terra Nova is the lack of easily traversable terrain for conventional wheeled or tracked vehicles, especially in the major combat zones (urban environments, deserts with deep sand, jungles, swamps). Otherwise, they're just basically lightly armoured tanks.

Finally, until TN 1936 (the HG setting begins in TN1932), there is no war on Terra Nova for all these awesome mechs to line up and fight. So your mech pilots are almost never actually in a straight "Blow Up the Bad Guys" scenario. They're performing covert ops, they're searching for bandits, they're posturing  against the other side, gathering intel, or racing to occupy some key position or recover some key item. This provides a lot more room for mission specialists of one sort or another who aren't gear pilots but are critical to mission success.

Quote from: Edsan;291519Thanks for your replies guys, you've really provided some insight into this type of game. I wouldn't mind playing one but only if I could run a pilot. Period.

Well, what kind of mecha game setting would interest you to be a pilot in?

Quote from: Edsan;291519Even in a campaign that is not battle-driven sooner or latter you'll have some mecha action and it just feels silly to be left out.

Something I stumbled upon while playing Mekton was that not every campaign had to be battle-driven. Sure, The Great War is a staple of mecha games and anime, but ultimately the mecha is a tool to be used by the characters.

With systems like Mekton II, Mekton Zeta, or Jovian Chronicles I see no reason why you couldn't run a mecha game where all the players are mecha pilot atheletes on a sports team where they run mechs engaged in games of football, basketball, soccer, racing, or ultimate fighting. I think that Battletech did that a bit with Solaris and the Iron Kingdoms has a sport within the game setting played using steamjacks (presented in their No Quarter magazine). If the mecha combat rules for a game are well-written enough, then they can be used for atheletics within the game.

well i already mentioned it on the other mecharpg thread but imho even if you end up with a whole party that wants to play pilots, you can still have fun as long as the setting allows some differentiation. AKA the setting allows for specialized mechas to exist (artillery, sniper, melee, etc).

Now if everyone still goes for the same then you have the same problem as any other game might have. Enrich the setting for other attractive options to appear, etc. However its hard to propose alternative pilot roles players can choose without talking about a specific setting.