Friday, June 26, 2009

Mecha Game Requirements

Introduction:

Off and on (mostly off) for the last year I've been working on a FATE based mecha (Macross) game. Each attempt mostly ended in frustration mostly because I didn't have a clear vision. Instead of continuing to flounder I decided to put together a formal requirements and evaluation document. This is a live Google Docs document so as it evolves the changes will be published to the Platonic Solid blog. Comments and suggestions are very much welcomed.


Requirements:
  1. Provide bonus for transforming/changing modes.
  2. Provide differentiation between mecha modes i.e. Jet, Battroid, Valkyrie.
  3. Support fluid combat in the game space. (freewheeling action)
  4. Support massive missile clouds with light keeping.
    1. Support evading/fighting way out of massive missile clouds.
  5. Provide support for mooks in combat.
  6. Support scaling between personal/mecha/ship levels.
  7. Explicitly support tactical dogfighting.
    1. None of the systems will support this. Instead of a nitty-gritty tactical system I am developing in parallel a "Gs System" where a player voluntarily takes on extra Gs for positioning/bonus. The defender will have the option to also pull more Gs in order to offset the opponent's advantage or to gain advantage for themself. A Gs system requirements doc has not yet been written.
    2. Initial positioning and distance must be determined by the game system's initiative system a la original Traveller. This way Fighter mode is not given short shrift.
  8. Support character development and growth.
    1. Sounds obvious but the system should support growing into a leadership position, etc.


Existing Game System Candidates
  1. PDQ
    • Requirements
      1. PASS
        1. Flat +2 bonus for narrating a mode change
      2. PASS
      3. PASS
        1. The system allows open narration and does not enforce quantizing time/action.
      4. PASS
        1. HOLD
      5. PASS
        • Has outstanding support for mooks
        • Will test damage "overflow" for mooks a la FATE 3.x.
      6. PASS
      7. FAIL
        • Out of the box PDQ does not provide a tactical framework for dogfighting.
      8. PASS
        1. HOLD
    • Pros
      1. Very light
      2. Very fun
      3. A lot of good system material to base the conversion on.
        1. Jaws of the Six Serpents
        2. Truth & Justice
          1. Scaling when limited to weapons, armor, speeds worked without a hitch.
    • Cons
      1. At this time (6/29/2009) explicit character growth seems to be the most difficult problem.
    • Test Notes
      • Tactical game play emerged through the damage system.
      • Mecha felt as if they were whittled away.
      • Game play was high speed.
      • Mecha creation was straight forward.
  2. PDQ#
    • Pros
      1. Very light
      2. Very fun
      3. The swashbuckling rules look like they could be very useful for dogfighting.
      4. The minion rules look like they could be useful for character growth into leadership.
    • Cons
      • Same as PDQ
    • Test Notes
      • Has not been tested.
  3. OVA
    • Requirements
      1. PASS
      2. PASS
      3. PASS
      4. HOLD
        1. HOLD
      5. PASS
      6. HOLD
      7. FAIL
        • Out of the box OVA does not provide a tactical framework for dogfighting.
      8. PASS
        1. HOLD
    • Pros
      • Creating mecha was straight forward.
      • The Ricochet system is fun in of itself.
      • The book provides a list of abilities that can be used for "building" mecha.
      • Handles power armor exceptionally well.
    • Cons
      • At this time explicit character growth seems to be the most difficult problem.
    • Test Notes
      • Played as usual, very well.
      • Resolution system "felt right".
      • Out of the box was not as engaging as PDQ.
  4. Cortex
    • Requirements
      1. PASS
        • Next action after transforming gets +1 die step.
      2. PASS
      3. PASS
      4. HOLD
        1. HOLD
      5. PASS
      6. PASS
        • Provides outstanding support for handling scale
      7. FAIL
        • Out of the box Cortex does not provide a tactical framework for dogfighting.
      8. PASS
        1. HOLD
    • Pros
      • Excellent support for scale.
      • Excellent support for ships.
    • Cons
      • It simply comes down to me not being sure that I like the feel of the game. May not feel evocative enough.
    • Test Notes
      • Combat was a bit bland out of the box but the experimental "Gs System" could easily be added.
      • Mecha creation was very straight forward
      • Character creation felt good.
  5. Starblazer Adventures
    • Requirements
      1. PASS
        • +2 to next action. Must be tagged with FATE point.
      2. HOLD
        • This has been a point of frustration regardless of the system.
      3. PASS
      4. HOLD
        1. HOLD
      5. PASS
        • Provides outstanding support for mooks
      6. PASS
        • Provides outstanding support for scaling
      7. FAIL
        • Does not provide a tactical framework for dogfighting.
        • Provides a framework for capitol ships.
      8. PASS
        1. HOLD
    • Pros
      • Strong support for scale
      • Strong Organizations support
      • Fun
      • Provides a vast amount of "generic" sci-fi material that can be adapted for the game.
    • Cons
      • Handling mecha modes has proven cumbersome.
  6. ORE
    • Requirements
      1. PASS
      2. HOLD
      3. PASS
      4. PASS
        1. PASS
      5. PASS
      6. HOLD
      7. FAIL
      8. PASS
        1. HOLD
  7. N-System
    1. Pros
      • Not yet fully prototyped and is open to fundamental change.
    2. Cons
      • Not yet fully prototyped and needs a lot of work.

2 comments:

  1. This is a really interesting post Nathan. Have you come to any conclusions yet or are you leaning in a particular direction? How about your Solar System Mecha work? Did you decide against that direction?

    For using ORE, I believe there is a mecha supplement (fan made, but I think a revised official one is coming out). Is that what you are using for this requirements doc? Also, how about some of the existing Mecha or super hero games? Too heavy for what you want?

    Just as a suggestion to throw onto the pile, how about Agon? Seriously, for some reason it seems like it could work out. Or maybe something with a similar combat system like the FATE game Diaspora?

    Keep up the good work!

    (Also, I don't know about anyone else, but it is really difficult to comment using Firefox 3. The verification and post button are out of the little pop-up frame and there isn't a scroll bar. Just a heads up as I don't want you to miss out on comments.)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks! Much appreciated.

    At this point I'm leaning toward PDQ and some variant of FATE probably Starblazer Adventures.

    I went ahead and made character/mecha sheets for those two systems because they really stood out after the first iteration of round robin testing.

    During the latest phase of testing I included the work done with Solar System/Shadow of Yesterday. Unfortunately it didn't mesh with the group's play style. I really wish it had.

    For ORE, I have Armored Soldier and it's a good reference but back in 2004 I started an "OREbotech" conversion that got waylaid when we started working the "Firefight!" ruleset. There's a revised and expanded Armored Soldier on the way from Arc Dream so I'm looking forward to its release. The reason why I included ORE is that I know it so well. We started playing Godlike back in 2003.

    To expand a bit on why I'm working on such a project, most of the mecha games that are out there don't fit my mental model of what Robotech/Macross looks like on screen.

    Agon is a neat idea. I've used it for dungeon crawling and its initiative system inspired my initiative hack for Swords & Wizardry White Box but I hadn't thought of it for mecha. I'm gonna let that idea simmer for a while.

    When Diaspora hits I'm definitely going to look at it for ideas. I'm a big fan of FATE 3.x systems.

    A few weeks ago I picked up Heroquest 2.0 and will probably add it to the mix just to see what I can do with it.

    Also, I'll check out the FF3 situation because feedback is important.

    ReplyDelete