#cavalierlion

[prokopetz]

Don’t know if you have answered this before, but what would be the best tabletop RPG for a mecha game? Specifically the anime Robotech. I realize there is an actual Robotech RPG but it is pretty terrible. Thanks!

Depends. Do you want good mechanical support for the crunchy hardware porn? The teenage relationship drama and saving the universe through the power of pop music? Both at the same time?

If your priority is the crunchy hardware porn - and if you don’t mind a vehicle creation system that wants you to derive the odd cube root - you might have a look at Silhouette CORE. It’s the system behind a number of popular mecha games like Jovian Chronicles and Heavy Gear, and while in terms of anime influences it generally leans more toward the grounded end of the Gundam franchise than anything else, it can do Robotech adequately if the hardware is where you want the rules to focus.

Teenage relationship drama and saving the universe with pop music? If being so indie it hurts isn’t a problem for you, you could have a look at Mobile Frame Zero: Firebrands, a GM-less, semi-diceless quasi-LARP whose tagline is, and I quote: “Fight with your friends. Ally with your rivals. Fall in love with your enemies.” Basically no crunch to speak of, though it notionally occupies the same setting as Mobile Frame Zero: Rapid Attack, a pick-up-and-play tabletop wargame where you build your own mecha minfigs out of Lego, so if you really want to have it both ways could run both games at once, switching back and forth as needed.

(MFZ: Firebrands would probably also be a decent system for a game inspired by @worstgirlsgames’ Heaven Will Be Mine, incidentally; I know some of this blog’s followers are keenly anticipating the latter, so consider this a drive-by recommendation for you!)

As for doing both the hardware porn and the relationship drama as a single all-in-one package, you might find Chris Perrin’s Mecha to your liking. It’s not one of my favourites because the goddamn header typeface is practically unreadable, and poor typography is unforgiveable in my books, but if you can look past that it strikes a nice balance between gearhead-friendly mecha crunch and goofy interpersonal drama, with just enough of a feedback loop between the two to give players an incentive to change it up from scene to scene without making it feel mandatory to spend exactly the right number of scenes on either.