Okay, so I’m not really sure I’ve even talked much about what Mecha is.  Well, it’s time to change all of that.

So, what is Mecha?

Mecha is the game of anime-style Mecha combat and character development.   That might not sound like much and it’s not very salesy, but to me that definition says a whole bunch.  Let me break it down what it means.

Mecha is the game of anime-style Mecha combat and character development.

There are really three important pieces: “anime-style”, “Mecha combat”, and “character development”

Mecha has Anime Style

I think it’s important to point out that Mecha is completely unapologetically rooted in anime.  In fact, the seeds of this game were planted years ago the first time I ever saw Robotech and knew it was unlike anything I had ever seen before.

If you have not seen mecha anime before, it’s covers a wide range of different stories, the likes of which will be explored in other posts.  However, what “anime style” means in Mecha is:

1. Mecha plays loose with physics.  Not only do character walk around in giant robots, but often times those robots teleport, do jump flips, and dodge incoming missiles.
2. Mecha pilots are better than average.  No matter how inexperienced, mecha pilots are always exceptional ly talented.  The stars of the show are always in the top 1% of all pilots ever in the history of mecha-dom.  Because of this, pilots in Mecha aren’t bad at anything.  They may not be as good as others, but they’re not bad.
3. Mecha have their place, but that place is usually window dressing.  The interesting part about mecha anime is that while a whole genre has built up around them, mecha anime is really about the men and women who pilot them and the world they try to affect.  To address this, Mecha has a tight scene structure which gives pilots the spotlight and then gives their mecha the spotlight.

Mecha has Mecha Combat

Mecha are machines of war.  Make no mistake about it.  Sure, some of them might mine or log or build, but they are tools of war and become dervishes of death with nothing more than a missile rack and an autocannon or two.

Because mecha anime has combat, Mecha has combat.  Combat that has been tested and reworked for over two years until it is as fast paced and action packed as mecha anime is. 

Over the course of those two years, everything that was not found in the mecha anime genre was summarily removed from the combat system.  What remained was a system that still allows for tactical flexibility without a lot of excess baggage (like say ammunition tracking).  Again, this is mecha anime.  Reality is optional!

Mecha has Character Development 

When I started designing Mecha, what I wanted more than anything else was a game that mirrored the story arcs found in mecha anime.  Anime characters of all types are complex and change and grow over the course of a season.  I wanted characters in Mecha to grow and change and I have accomplished this through pilot Goals and Traits, which define what the pilot wants and who the pilot is.

One of my favorite mechanics in the game involves Traits.  Mecha have these things called Configurations, which allow them to do cool things on the battlefield like attack twice, turn invisible, etc.  However, when the player chooses a Configuraiton for her mecha, she then has to pick one of two Traits for her pilot.  For instance, if you take the Configuration Boomer (attack every target in a sector), you have to choose between Loud and Quiet as Traits. 

In other words, you can pick a Trait the resembles the Configuation (Loud) or it’s antithesis (Quiet.)   In the end, mecha and pilot affect each other far more than in most mecha games.

More Mecha To Come

So, like I said, this has just been a primer.  Over the next several weeks until the game is published, I’ll be continuing to write about the game.  I’ll go into greater detail about everything here, go into some examples how play works, and talk about the three settings that are going to be published with Mecha as well as some ideas for upcoming games.

Hope to see you back.

Over on Wild Die, The Game Guy posted a really great article on how he went about creating his Mecha RPG.  Since I am currently creating a game called Mecha (formerly Neoborn Genesis Honor Blade), an RPG about mecha, I thought I could use this blog to create a dialogue.

This is in no way an attempt to convince you, my gentle reader, that The Game Guy is wrong or bad.  In fact, until The Game Guy acknowledges it’s okay to do so, I’m not even going to go point by point on what he said.

Instead, I am taking his post as an inspiration, especially because of one line:

Whether you are going for the Anime feel (something that I don’t, being that I dont care for Anime)

I found this interesting because with Mecha I totally am going for the anime feel.  Mecha is unapologethically, categorically, and completely a game about mecha anime.  And I believe that our two choices allow us to take the same genre (mecha games) and go in wildly different directions.

In most anime, even the hard core military anime series like 08th MS Team, the main characters are devilishly hard to kill or oven to have their mecha taken out.  They rarely have trouble taking out enemies (unless they are aces) and they can perform a number of feats at super human level including making a big steel beast dance and dodge bullets, build mecha out of scrap, create new inventions, and generally be awesome.  In mecha anime, the pilots rarely fail, though the tend to be less successful than in other times.

In Mecha, there are only 4 Stats and 7 Skills. Your mecha has an additional 4 Stats and then they Link.  So technically there are 8 Stats and 4 Derived Stats.  Those 7 Skills govern pretty much anything you want to do in the game: Operate a mecha, fight outside a mecha, do social activities, repair your mecha, etc.

Mecha also features a turn-based structure we call “scenes” and “episodes”.  Play goes around the table with each player getting a scene.  During their Scene they can do something Social, acquire new gear, repair the mecha, etc.  One skill for one type of scene.  Once everyone has had their scene, the GM gets her turn and then there’s combat.  End of the episode.

Then the players get their turn.  Then the GM goes.  Then combat.

Anyway, I want to talk more about Mecha in the coming months.  This weekend I plan to finish the beta playtest doc.  Then I’m going to get feedback.

Then…maybe publish?

So I think I have a wacky idea for Passions in Neoborn Genesis Honor Blade.  A Passion reflects an aptitude or a skill or somethat that is derived from one’s desire to succeed at some particular task.  The idea being that in mecha anime, if I want to be best mecha pilot in the land, then chances are, I’m darn near the best mecha pilot in the land.

Passions will be fairly free form and each will come with a level.  So for instance:

• I want to be a recognized Game Designer 3
• I am the best Computer Programmer 1
• I will meet Yvonne Strzechowski (watch Chuck, then you’ll understand) 3
• I will keep my wife from reading my game design blog 8

So I have a mix of goals, desires, and aptitudes.  I am not sure I will subdivide them in the text as such, but basically I see passions breaking down into these categories, though I am trying to decide if there is a difference between a goal and desire.  I guess I see one (the goal) as more attainable.  In the above example, I want to be recognized Game Designer is a strong passion at 3, but I would classify it as a goal.  It is something that will likely come up in most scenes, throughout the course of play.

The passion to meet Yvonne Strzechowski and the subsequent need to keep my wife from reading this blog would then be desires.  They are flags I give to the GM that these are things that should happen in the arc, but I am fine if every episode is not centered around my quest to meet Yvonne.

How they’re used in play?  Well, that’s where things get interesting (let’s hope…)  Anytime I have an applicable passion, I can add one die to my pool.  And I think I mean anytime because anime characters tend to be passionate people.

Note that I said one die to my pool.  I didn’t say 3 in the case of Miss Strzechowski or 8 in the case of preventing the wife from knowing what I am up to.  You only get one.  Unless… you are ready to give up that passion and trade it in for something else.  In which case you get all your bonus dice for one roll, but then you have to scratch out the passion and write a new one.  So if I decide to burn not letting Tina find out, I get 8 dice.  But once I do, I no longer care about her finding out (in fact, this is a good helper for the GM who now has carte blanche to let her find out and make my life difficult.)  So I now have 8 points to invest in a new passion that needs to be in some way related to the old passion (either a new take or a complete opposite.  Either “I want to convince her I it’s just a design blog” or “I really want her to know.”)  Or something similiar.

I pulled this idea from my Sight and Sound game design contest entry and I think it works well here.

The idea behind Neoborn Genesis Honor Blade is to create a mecha anime game.  I know that there are several, so I am working to ensure I have my nitch.  Mecha games run the gamut from Robotech and BESM to games like Bliss Stage which are mecha anime, but with a decidedly different twist.

My interest lies in character-driven stories, which is one reason why I like longer running anime series.  The characters, who often start out as archtypes, wooden, caricatures and grow into fully realized people irrovacably changed by what they went through.  The crucible of combat, weirdness, and other anime activities has an effect on a character and that’s what I want to capture with the game.

I have other goals with the game as well:

• Sweet combat.  I mean it is a mecha game, so I think that there has to be some cool combat.
• I want to sell supplements.  I want the first book to be the core rules and then I want to sell supplements.
• I am hanging on to archetype-based chargen.  More on this later.
• I am thinking 4-5 attributes that change based on the archetype
• No skills just passions
• Passions can be swapped at anytime and perhaps compelled
• Advancement is adding or increasing passions

That’s my shorthand for what I am going to do.