Author: Taejas Kudva

This question is mostly for +Richard Roger Richard Rogers and +Rory MacLeod (why isn’t G+ tagging his name…?) but also anybody else with experience to compare.

Once I’ve got my toes a bit wetter(?) playing with the Gauntlet, I’m interested in running a war saga a la Robotech, Mobile Suit Gundam, Starship Troopers, Armor or any of those stories where mecha/power suits are the basic front line of combat as opposed to godlike special forces like in Lion Voltron, Gundam Wing (is that the right one?), Evangelion, Rahxephone, etc.

I was a big fan of Heavy Gear and Jovian Chronicles, but while they do have cool anime-esque art and fun tactical robot combat, they’re pretty trad and don’t enforce the game I want. Coming from trad I want those epic space battles, but the big thing that I loved in those stories was the almost soap opera drama.

So, what are the pros and cons of Uncharted Worlds vs. other stuff I’m unfamiliar with (Impulse Drive, Infinite Galaxies, Adventures on Dungeon Planet, others)? Are there hacks or reskins that would work such as Rich reskinning The Few and 1%er, or maybe a less oppressive take on Night Witches? Although I haven’t read it, people talk about The Veil so highly because of its interpersonal play. Would it lend itself to a hack that adds something like Mecha World, or is that too much trouble – rather, are other full systems perfectly adequate?

Not married to PbtA, btw. Just seems like the rules base that most pushes spiraling fiction.

Long post, too many parentheses. I’m done. Thx in advance for any suggestions/insights.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?447407-Mecha-World-A-Mecha-RPG-Powered-by-the-Apocalypse-(PEACH)

I have been dying to play Masks ever since the KS. I’ve never had a chance. I’d love to run it as a 1-shot (or more) for one of my home groups, but while they tend to be into supers as much as the next gamer, they are pretty trad and I know they will be thrown off by the premise focusing on youths who are impressionable trying to find identity in a world trying to tell them what to be.

I can already hear them saying, “Being a teen/young adult sucked the first time around – why would I want to do it again!” or “Why not just play Mutants and Masterminds? It’s so much more flexible/simulates powers better/yadda yadda yadda.” Or, “Taej, are you embarrassed by how much teen tv trash you watch on The CW?” Well, maybe the last one is just my wife….

Anyway, while I do love that theme, I’m also really intrigued by the mechanics themselves. Does anyone have suggestions for a light – still supers, somehow justifying the label shifting mechanic – skin for the game that 40-something grognards who I love dearly might more readily embrace?

I was thinking something like The Incredibles/Watchmen (whoever thought of that as a pair?!), where society is kinda over supers and is trying to shoe horn them into other roles/hidey holes. But that seems a little weak.

So, I’m not super experienced with PbtA, but I am super experienced with laziness. I seat-of-my-pants, hand-wave created a custom move for setting up an ambush because I wasn’t sure how to give my players some mechanical benefit for the planning they were starting to do fictionally… and to tell the truth, I didn’t want to sit through them debating ambush minutia all night that might end up going out the window once $#!+ hit the fan when I could start the combat right away and back load the ambush.

I had them decide who was the lynch pin of the plan and had that person roll+INT. The others could roll to aid if they committed to a stratagem that they would implement in the ambush. It mimicked Defend, except I let them spend the hold to do something cool/useful in the combat.

So I feel like I should actually formalize it. I have this so far, but would love some help to improve it:

When you spend time setting up plans for an ambush, roll+INT: on a 10+, Hold 3; on a 7-9, Hold 1. During the ambush, spend Hold 1 for 1 to pick one

**interrupt the fiction to tell how your plan mitigates a tight spot

**set up a ploy to automatically Defy Danger that takes advantage of the current situation

**retcon the fiction to allow you to trigger a move

Those were essentially the three things they did in general.

For the first, the Ranger was faux-tied up to the back of the Druid shape-shifted into a donkey. The ruse went sideways, and the Ranger who had just been stabbed and was about to get thrown to the side as the Druid took bear form spent a Hold to avoid the damage and neatly roll to her feet armed with her bow because they had practiced the dismount.

For the second, a group of brigands was marching into the trading post the party had agreed to defend, so their concealed pit trap at the fort’s entrance automatically worked instead of them needing to roll Defy Danger.

For the third, the Ranger wanted to Call a Shot instead of just Volley but the brigands had already noticed their companions in trouble and were looking around warily as they advanced, so she spent Hold to say that she timed some rapid, precise shots to go off as the bandits’ horses and wagon collapsed into the pit so she would have had surprise.

Thoughts on wording? On if I let them get away with too much?