Mech, Please

I like where you're going with this. Make more. Please?

Dunno yet...but bears watching...

I love running massive Klik. Gargantuan Klik are hard to hurt to begin with, and stacking them with powers is just icing on the cake.

Tres cool, Benraven. We need to talk.

;)

Glad to see positive feedback from several of the battletech fans out there--these were meant as inspiration jumpstarts for you.

Since I realize my expertise goes down to watching countless hours of Gundam Wing, playing video games or watching them played, along with reading various fiction that involves enormous humanoid engines of destruction--et cetera---I am leaning heavily on you guys to be the real spawners of any Untold-related battle mech goodness. I just wanted to lend my support to the cause of gritty giant robot battles in the multiverse. That said, here are a few areas I feel are necessary for exploration into the great field of robotic engineering:

Range-what is touch, short, medium or long for a gargantuan or greater machine will be significantly more massive than the average scaling currently in the Primer (not to mention perception [anyone else notice the curvature of the earth?])

Damage-MAG on a blade the size of a skyscraper cannot be easily reconciled to the same relative damage of a strong human's swing. UP and MAG's will have be exponentially, if not astronomically, larger.

Vit--correlating to MAG, Vit would need to be greatly thickened, but the powers for doing so are limited for the time being.

Composition-Unlike regular Untold, I get the feel that those who are fans of battletech seek to look at the mech in components (head, shoulders, torso, arms, legs, etc)--is that what you want? If so, then a character deck could be relegated to that distinction, laying the cards out with Race being the 'frame' on which the other segments and augmentations are overlaid. Suggestions?

Overheating-happens in mech related games. Do you still want this, as opposed to the faster tendencies of Untold? That lends itself into discussions of energy sources and power...

Propulsion-many mech universes have a penchant use of flight, which would lead to a need for propulsion powers that relate to flight, levitation (hovering) and exoatmospheric abilities (heat deflectors, anti-gravity compensators, etc etc)

I will post other thoughts and concerns later, but as to the other intents I would like to see two threads emerge: 1)A Splintered Serenity expansion that includes mech-related goodness in the existing (or soon-to-be-existing) factions 2)A separate alternate setting for the 'pure' battlemech-style rpg to enjoy open play (with cross-overs being both welcome and sure to be fun)

Here's to hoping the old Roman saying works, "If you build it, they will come."

Because the game mechanics exist that affect removing cards, these could easily simulate the damage to weapon systems - but maybe there could be plating cards like "Right Arm" or "Upper Torso" that would add some VIT but require "Huge" or "Gargantuan" as prerequisite cards so that smaller characters couldn't use the cards.

Yeah, I agree, LK. Giving "Mech only" vit powers would be wise for balance (if not critical, but that is my opinion for now). Also, relegating powers to frame-based sections would offer a unique ability the "Ashy's school of GMing" usually deplores, but I think logical for a Mech related game: Concentrated Fire (i.e. "Called Shots"). Targeting Powers such as a shoulder cannon or arm laser, or leg, to destroy mobility and firepower seem very battletech in style, and prudent for a lesser mech when facing another with a BFG for a right arm.

I am hesitant to comment on this, but I love mecha and its because I love mecha that I'm hesitant. Anyways, I think that I agree with the fact that there needs to be 'mech only cards (btw, might want to find a new term since the word mech is property of CGL). But it would depend a lot on how MAG was dealt. For example, if it were BT style, would combat sessions be eaten up with sheering armor off of each other, or would combat be, for the most part, streamlined and a lot faster? Just curious...

You could concetrate fire by targeting certain cards in an attack. ("Take out the missile launcher NOW!") Ditto on taking out a "frame" card that would be a prerequisite for certain powers, letting the battle become more strategic than just pounding through layers of armor.

Maybe call them AXS (pronounced "axes") for Armored eXoSkeleton?

The only problem with called shots is that they should be notoriously difficult. From a realistic standpoint (ironic, I know), you are trying to hit a specific thing on a moving target. I would suggest this. No VIT. As soon as MAG is accumulated, and you begin to take damage, you begin to lose the various systems. Once you get to a certain UP percentage (say maybe 20% of your total), then you are forced to shut down.

Keep the discussion/brainstorming going gang. We're watching....and interested... :)

I'm a scatter-brain so these are in no particular order and of varying relevance.

Modifier cards - I've suggested this one a few times for actual splintered serenity. They aren't you traditional power cards in that the only way they can be used it by directly attaching them to another power. The rule then modifies the affect of the card and its UP cost/level accordingly. Two examples I've suggested were 'Let's Make That A Gun' (attach to any damaging power and it becomes a two-handed weapon) and Well Made (increases the MAG cap on equipment). Modifiers would be doubly useful for mech combat. For instance 'Thermal Grooving' could increase heat resistance on one part, but lower VIT by a smidge.

MAG and VIT - I think in terms of giant robots MAG and VIT should scale accordingly. Giant robots would be doing as much damage to one another for their UP range as a 45 UP party should be able to perform. The main reason is that Giant Robots attack things other than giant robots. What if one attacks an unarmed person? It should be no contest. The damage they'd deal would be immense but it should scale to giant robots so as to make it seem like a normal fight session - just with giant robots.

Lock-Ons - Armored Core has taught me the fundamental virtue of having different lockon hardware. From maximum lock-on amount to the ability to multi-target to depth, width, and height of a lock-on. So why are lock-ons so important? 'Cause you're gargantuan. Your ability to hit is awful. Your gun is so big and the play area so huge that 1 or 2 degrees off means a miss. Lockons can help compensate for movement on both sides, obstacles, etc. and is therefore a CRUCIAL element in setting up your robot.

If you guys need clues to take the modularity of Untold and make giant robots with it, I highly suggest looking Up Armored Core. The ability to equip primary components, secondary components, optional parts, tuning parts, etc. it's as modular as Untold in many of the same ways. Obviously that system crunches a lot of numbers so we'll have to alter, simplify, and honestly make it cooler, but it's a good basis of understanding how to build a mech from the ground up. Or should I say from the ground UP?

I don't know much about this genre (not enough innate RP'ing for me personally, but anywho...)

Can you provide a link to Armored Core, pls?

The real problem this idea faces is originality. There are so many mecha rpgs out there (Battletech/Mechwarrior, Robotech, Armored Core, etc.) that the concept needs to be very original and different from the others out there to attract attention. Untold already has a number of very original concepts already, the bar is set pretty high. And also, I wonder how, exactly, it would fit into the current setting.

Just something to think about, I guess...

Yup, that is a big challenge that needs to be overcome; and honestly one of the reasons why it was eliminated from the setting initially (there are ways to work it in, but none of them had the originality that we were aiming for with the rest of the setting).

However, it does not necessarily have to be a part of Splintered Serenity. We could easily spin up a whole new CS that was just mecha and then folks could dovetail it to Splintered Serenity if they wanted to...

Again, however, Ben speaks wisdom in that it would still be hard to come up with an original way to "spin it" to make it different from everything else that's out there. :P

I love mecha, almost to an unhealthy level. However, these concerns are raised out of a desire to see an Untold mecha setting. I agree, it might not fit very well into SS, but it could be done. But the primary concern is uniqueness. Like mecha anime, mecha RPG are a dime a dozen, and with few exceptions, they are mostly the same thing. (On a personal note, I compare everything to Battletech and Gundam, and sometimes Robotech, since I consider them to be the first in the generation) I'm not saying it can't be done, but it would be difficult. BUT if anyone can do it, this community of players, this game can.

Ok, so who all wants to sign up for a giant robot Alternate Setting?

Give me a week or two to knock out another big Untold project, and I'd love to help out. I'm a big mecha fan!!

Just an FYI, gang (and please DO NOT read this as me putting water on this fire, 'cause I DO NOT want to do that AT ALL).

However, bear in mind that any project that requires lots of new CARD TYPES will more than likely remain mostly in the conceptual stage at the moment. We've got lots of irons in the fire right now for the New Year and once those are stewing along, we may be able to tackle something like this.

That being said, if we can get enough interest, I will personally move mountains to see it done. ;)

To clarify, I envisioned the "Frame" cards I suggested earlier as powers in how they affected play - they defined that the character, in this case the giant robot, was not just larger but had infrastructure to support other powers like "Missile Launcher" or "Napalm dispenser" that would wreck havok on a massive scale.

Another random thought - letting big robots have up to three aspect cards and the granted stats stack - Body Boost of 36 anyone?

I had honestly taken aspects for granted. It's easily explained. For humans, body is just that, how awesome your body is. Mechs though? You're going down the road of metal purity, production process, system memory to certain functions etc.

Body can be viewed as the culmination of effect like hydraulics, pressure redistribution, alloy purity/integrity. Mind would be the program protection and sophistication. Sophisticated sytems could hack and defend against that hacks of other machines. Also, if you say it's the system data, it's still open to maoru powers, but as the mind evade would also likely be ridiculously high, it implies that you'd be working with a foreign system, which the programming of the robot is. As for soul? Well, honestly, I don't know how you'd translate soul. Perhaps it could be written off as an enigma drive? I mean, soul in SS allows you to cast Oaze powers, so if your mech has soul and oaze, what explains that? An enigma drive! No one is quite sure how it works but they know how to make it do stuff!

If the enigma drive is what provides power, the system programming what allows it to be manipulated, and body to actually have it take a blow, then technically all three are vital.

As for new card types, modifier cards could still be under the traditional blue 'power card' type. The only reason you'd change that is for clarity's sake, but since they only modify powers of character cards, I don't see how it would be bad to have them just be power cards.

Ok, sounds groovy then. Please proceede. ;)

Also, there's no reason we could not produce a "Body 36" card. There are already plans for a "Greater Aspects" deck and others will follow. "Heroic Aspects", etc.

Regarding Soul, it is also your integral, internal strength (I.e. willpower, fortitude, etc.) Not just spiritual essence and ability. ;)

Keep it comin', gang! Shall I set up a sub forum in the WIP area for this?

I dunno. Do we need it?

Anyhoo, the big thing is to remember that the robot and the pilot are separate entities. To pilot mechs, players may need a card like, well, 'mech pilot'. There could be 4 Beginner, Advanced, Veteran, and Ace. Beginner would have something like -5 to all rolls related to your mech while advanced would be 0, veteran would be 2 and ace would be 5. If you don't have the mech pilot card, you don't know the first thing about piloting a mech. Either you can't pilot one or it's a -20 to all rolls mech-related.

So, if the person and the mech are distinctly separate, then their aspects have to mean different things and there should be ways to affect them separately as well. For instance it could be noted with some models of cockpit that if struck in a certain way, it's very jarring to the pilot. There could be other weapons that can induce heat or radiation to directly affect the pilot. There could even be a kind of 'bunker buster' gun that's designed to pierce the hull of the cockpit. In things like Gundam there's not just a whole ton between the chest-plate and the cockpit. Probably the safest cockpits I've seen are the ones from Evangelion. Submerged in fluid to reduce shock and inserted through the neck so the pilot is near the dead-middle of the chest. The cockpit at that point is also entirely ejectable so another awesome safety feature there. Code Geass also has ejectable cockpits.

Armored Core mechs have, on the other hand, ridiculous armor plating separating the cockpit from the mech so even if the machine breaks down, the pilot can still be salvaged.

For me, the definition of a mecha in Untold is this: it is a vehicle that can also possess character Powers. So instead of Body/Mind/Soul they will use whatever vehicles will use in their place, but also take Powers for special effects. Also, there will need to be a cockpit card for the mecha, but that plays such a key piece in so many mecha stories.

Does this help anyone any?

That's a cool way to look at it, Bob... ;)

Re: sub-forum - it would make it easier to develop the rules and setting and so forth, but whatever. Just let me know! :D

Okay, this thread made me sign up. I'm a big mecha rpg fan and like to tinker with systems to run games like Macross.

What decks would be necessary to build the type of mechs mentioned above? Now c'mon pay day!

I love the mech sub-genre too. I suppose you could design a mech from the cards we currently offer. I actually have a secret experiment to run in that regard... Hee hee! But as for cards designed specifically for mech combat, I'm not sure we have any.... Ashy?

Stick around and if my experiment runs smoothly I'll give you the details.

Wasn't Nathan "finishing up" on some Vehicles rules sometime last year? I really would like to see those coming up.

Sorry for the delay, Eisenmann, and welcome to the boards! It's been a nusto week - let me see if I can give you a quick response to your question. Any of the Klik stuff will suffice for mecha - merely describe it as high tech instead of Steampunk and that's easy. If you want larger mecha, then pick up Size Matters - there are some really cool cards in there Chassis Compression and Modular Chassis, esp. that will make you very happy.

Hope this helps!

http://untoldthegame.com/store/starter-core-klik-starter-deck
http://untoldthegame.com/store/powers-size-matters

No problem, Ashy. I completely understand how that goes.

Looks good. So to get started I'd pick up the klik starter deck, size matters, and the Core starter deck?

And thanks for the welcome!