08 October 2015

Some Pendragon, BRP Mecha, and general mecha related musings: A repository

This is going to be a repository of my late night musings that relate to mecha RPG stuff, primarily BRP Mecha.



Shared privately  -  Sep 9, 2015
It just hit me what I can use OVA for.

A reboot of my Pendragon/Mecha game. The mecha stats are secondary to the fact that the PKs are knights that use mecha instead of horses, and it was way more anime than Pendragon. I mean I had a magical girl as a PK.

Doesn't mean Ill reboot that game though.

OVA is a weird game, and suppose that is because it's a generic game. I don't think that making a game medium focused is really a good idea. The idea that one game could give you the tools to do a very diverse medium, anime and/or manga, will never not be silly. I've discarded this idea. I might save it for an attempt of Gurrenvangelion, although I think BRP Mecha will be suitable for it.

Shared privately  -  Sep 16, 2015
Having thus far only played two games of Battletech I am seeing some inspiration from it in BRP Mecha. I could easily see porting over the 'mech sheet, weapons and equipment, and basically doing BRP Battletech. It wouldn't be a good fit for something like Macross, but I could definitely see myself running a redux of my Mecha Pendragon game on such a manner. 

Sep 16, 2015

And I just had an idea about Pendragon 4th edition's magic system relating to said Mecha Pendragon campaign.
The more I think about redoing Pendragon and Mecha, the more I think that bolting Battletech on top of BRP or Pendragon might do the job better than BRP Mecha. Or a hybridizing of things.

My vague idea of using the 4e Pendragon magic system is generally making magic hard to use outside of the mecha, represented by a very low cap on how many d20s used to generate magic, but getting a sizable number of d20s or a flat bonus when within the mecha. And only within certain mecha at that. I'm not in general a fan of 4e's magic, but it might work for this kind of game.

Shared privately  -  Sep 29, 2015
Sometimes I really do feel like I should attempt a partial reboot of my Pendragon/Mecha campaign but with more stompy robot actions by bolting on 'mech creation and stats over BRP mecha.


Sep 29, 2015

Things I've been thinking about porting over from battletech to BRP mecha:

Ablative armor
Fixed weapon damage
An oddly repetitive post from me, but I do like the idea of ablative rather than reductive or deflective armor, and the fixed weapon damage does work in Battletech, even if it might feel a bit boardgamey.

Shared privately  -  Oct 4, 2015
I think Cross Ange would make a terrible table-top RPG, but it might make a good MMO or CRPG. That assumes that someone wants to emulate the "bishojo riding transforming mecha that earn a living slaying interdimensional DRAGONs," and not the plot of the series.
If one did want to directly emulate the show, BRP Mecha seems like an excellent fit. If one doesn't, BRP Mecha is still probably a very good fit.

Shared privately  -  Oct 6, 2015
A possible rules-addenum to BRP Mecha: Calucate armor off of SIZ not Size Class, make it ablative rather than reductive, critical/special successes by-pass it to disable/destroy components, and damage done to unarmored sections are treated like critical/special successes.
And this is me just spitballing. It seems like a good idea.

Shared privately  -  Yesterday 4:00 PM
Strongly considering doing MechaPendragon in/after November as my next face-to-face game instead of Macross: Megaroad-01.


Yesterday 5:06 PM


It will be post-apocalyptic Great Pendragon Campaign with ancient mecha.

Depending on how much of the Revolution D100 play-test documents I have, I might do it d20 pendragon-style or d100.

Yesterday 5:33 PM


One of the cons of this conglomeration is that there is a lack of granularity between mecha, or at least the way I converted them, that removes one of the conceits of Pendragon, that knights aren't always using their warhorse.

Of course there is nothing stopping me from only using my conversions as a starting point, which is what I would do.

I do prefer the conceit of the GM is the one that stats up the mecha, not the players, as it matches up with player knights being unable to customize their horses beyond vagaries fueled by money.
 Ideas to get this conceit to work:
  1. Some kind of time limit on mecha operation time. Leaning towards a heat based limit like in Valvrave, Break Blade, or Battletech.
  2. Some kind of limit based on the physical or mental strain piloting a combat mech.
  3. Pack mecha being super strong, but super slow; combat mecha being much faster, but lacking in endurance; and riding mecha being faster, but unsuited to being in combat too much. Related in a way to #1, and basically making pack meca trucks, combat mecha some manner of combat vehicle, and riding mecha sexy sportcars.
  4. Just do away with the multiple mount conceit like I did in my first Pendragon mecha game.
Shared privately  -  9:30 PM
Another way it appears that BRP Mecha is borrowing from Battletech is that movement of your mecha accumulate tokens, I know it sounds weird, which are used to count modifiers to the various pertinent skill roles, i. e. the modifiers a 'mech gets to hit based on how much it and its target(s) moved during movement.
This is one of things that almost makes me regret picking up BRP Mecha in the first place, and not having played Battletech until very recently.