Wise Turtle Publishing

Hi all, I ran a pretty interesting post-apoc mecha game yesterday influenced a bit by Appleseed. I modeled mechs as templates to be overlaid onto the character pilots.

LANDMATE MECHA

Characteristics:

• Agile +1
  Armor 2
  Flight +1
  Life Support 2
  Sensors +1
  Strong +3
  Size -2 (12' tall)

Weapon System Options:

Infantry Assault

• Low Penetration 1
  Area Effect
  Ranged
  Rapid Strikes

Heavy Assault

• Ranged
  Armor Piercing 1
  Extra Knockback

Anti-Armor

• Ranged
  Accurate 1
  Armor Piercing 2
  Extra Knockback
  Slow (every other round)

All mechs were also equipped with Less Than Lethal options as well.

Less Than Lethal

1 Entangling Goo (left arm)

• Entangle 3

2 Flash-Bang Grenades (right arm)

• Blinding 2
  Stun

Interesting idea, having the mecha be a template "add-on" to the character.

It looks like a pretty good start to a mecha-frenzy!! lol...

Looking forward to seeing the other mecha you use!!

TBP

Thanks, TheBouncyFerret!

Game play was smoooooth, fast and furious. The mecha faded to the background and characters jumped to the fore.

Here's more!

Terrorist Faction Landmate
Characteristics:

• Agile 2
  Armor 1
  Flight 1
  Life support 2
  Perceptive (Sensors) 1
  Strong 2
  Size -2 (11' tall)

Weapons
Infantry Assault

• Low penetration 1
  Ranged
  Rapid Strikes
  Empty Hands

Suicide Self-Destruct

• Area Effect 2
  Armor Piercing 2
  Extra Damage (+2 damage)
  No attack gesture
  Activation (detonates on the next round)
  Extra knockback

Almost forgot, mecha had their own Health/Endurance. For the PCs it was 40 and 40.

Here's another mecha...

UAWV: Unmanned Assault Wheeled Vehicle
Characteristics:

• Armor 2
  Combat Skill 2
  Defense 1
  Perceptive 2
  Heightened Sense 1
  Pilot 1
  Weapon: Chain Gatling Gun 2
  Compulsion (Kill Target) -3
  Dumb: -1
  Emotionless: -3

Weapon: Chain Gatling Gun

• Accurate 1
  Armor Piercing 1
  Rapid Strikes
  Ranged

And one more though it's not quite a mech.

Slipsuit
An attribute enhancing suit for use in subterfuge and reconnoitering.
Characteristics:

• Armor 1
  Invisibility 4
  Super Speed 1

And two infantry weapons...

AK Assault Rifle

• Innacurate -1
  Area Effect
  Ranged

RPG-15

• Innacurate -1
  Armor Piercing 2
  Extra Knockback
  Slow 2 (2 rounds to reload)
  Short Range (subjective for GM)

Eisenmann wrote:Hi all, I ran a pretty interesting post-apoc mecha game yesterday influenced a bit by Appleseed.

Sweet! Love Appleseed and like what you did as far as the template builds. I am working on a game with magical helicopters (odd, I know), and they have several "kits" of weapons systems that base can authorize them to use for various types of missions.

Feels like I am playing with my Centurions: Power Xtreme! figures once more! (Bet that dates me a bit... "Skyvault, send me Thunder Ridge. POWER XTREME!")

The template idea lets the GM and players tailor the tone and stakes of a fight without having to upset the balance applecart (no pun intended, what with Appleseed and all).

Thanks, JuddG!

Power Xtreme-eeeem-eeeem!

I loved that show when I was a kid.

You're exactly right about how the templates worked out. I've never run a mecha game so easily before. Characters never got lost in the story. In fact, the facets of the characters lept to the fore while the mecha kind of faded to the background while they provided the basis for running up the sides of buildings and for the plink-plink-plink of small arms fire being deflected.

Thanks for all the templates. It's some fun stuff.

Actually, one of the sample settings for OVA mecha, a cyber-punkish world with heavy influences from shows like Bubblegum Crisis, uses this same method for "power armors." I use the Transformation Ability for this purpose, but there's no reason you can't leave them as interchangeable templates, as you have.

Clay wrote:Thanks for all the templates. It's some fun stuff.

Actually, one of the sample settings for OVA mecha, a cyber-punkish world with heavy influences from shows like Bubblegum Crisis, uses this same method for "power armors." I use the Transformation Ability for this purpose, but there's no reason you can't leave them as interchangeable templates, as you have.

I can't wait to get my grubby hands on the Mecha book. I'm REALLY looking forward to OVA: Fantasy.

Yeah, OVA fans are roughly evenly divided between the two. I was working on them simultaneously, but I realized I was getting nowhere that way. I really wanna have OVA mecha out for Christmas...but don't hold your breath. ;D

Eisenmann wrote:Hi all, I ran a pretty interesting post-apoc mecha game yesterday influenced a bit by Appleseed. I modeled mechs as templates to be overlaid onto the character pilots.

LANDMATE MECHA

Characteristics:

• Agile +1
  Armor 2
  Flight +1
  Life Support 2
  Sensors +1
  Strong +3
  Size -2 (12' tall)

Weapon System Options:

Infantry Assault

• Low Penetration 1
  Area Effect
  Ranged
  Rapid Strikes

Heavy Assault

• Ranged
  Armor Piercing 1
  Extra Knockback

Anti-Armor

• Ranged
  Accurate 1
  Armor Piercing 2
  Extra Knockback
  Slow (every other round)

All mechs were also equipped with Less Than Lethal options as well.

Less Than Lethal

1 Entangling Goo (left arm)

• Entangle 3

2 Flash-Bang Grenades (right arm)

• Blinding 2
  Stun

Hi, I'm very, very interested in all of this.

How does the point cost work?

Before Weapon System Options, that mecha would be an 8-point vehicle design. But how strong are the weapons? Is that to be tailored by the player? I would guess you had maybe Weapon Level 1 or Level 2 for any of the interchangeable options, bringing the vehicle up to 10 points, which is Vehicle Level 5.

Am I missing something?

Jandar wrote:
Hi, I'm very, very interested in all of this.

How does the point cost work?

Before Weapon System Options, that mecha would be an 8-point vehicle design. But how strong are the weapons? Is that to be tailored by the player? I would guess you had maybe Weapon Level 1 or Level 2 for any of the interchangeable options, bringing the vehicle up to 10 points, which is Vehicle Level 5.

Am I missing something?

Total weapon lethality is defined by the character skill with the various perks for those weappons.

I really didn't try to balance anything when writing up the stats. I just went with what fit what I envisioned.

To Eisenmann:

OK, I see. Thank you for explaining.

Maybe I should adopt this method for my own plans here.

With one of the giant mecha I recently wrote up for OVA (technically an implementation of "Vehicle, Lvl. 4"), I was faced with a tough decision:

Am I going to really put everything into this write-up in order to give the mech all the powers and functions I had seen in a particular anime, or am I going to compromise to make it conform to the official OVA rules as printed?

Low penetration 1? How does that work?

It's essentially the opposite of Armor Piercing. If your opponent has Armor, treat it as if he had that Ability at one level higher than he does. If he has no armor, then nothing special happens.

Where did you buy your copy of OVA? This should be in the PDF and all copies sold at brick & mortar stores. If the PDF being sold still isn't the updated version...well...I won't be happy!