Flavor change implemented. Stockholm Syndrome pulls the creepy unease of the whole setting together like an evil mix of darkslime and wood glue. Sacrifice your mom to power the giant cyborg, or live the life of spirit cattle. Decisions, decisions...FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1192113695[/unixtime]]From the stand point of including the horrible, I suggest toning down the apocalyptic elements of the villains. After all, if they are seriously annihilating the entire population there is little incentive to not sacrifice yourself in order to stop them. All consuming evil makes for simple moral calculus and turns extreme action into a no brainer.
I would suggest going for something more along the lines of a villain group who are making human concentration camps in order to create willing sacrifices to power their technology. They have powerful mind affecting powers as well as just really good psychology. They capture humans, put them in very nice seeming prisons and use the Stockholm Effect to coerce feelings of love out of their victims. Only then do they throw humans to the Moloch Machines. That gives people something to fight against, but also makes the enemy understandable and even in a way sympathetic. Also, you get to have traitor humans. You could even have the governments of Earth be already in cahoots with the enemy, which is good times.
"You oppose us because you are selfish and are not good at risk assessment. We devour pigs, and in order to do so we create worlds for them, we shelter them, we treat their illness. The swine under our sway never reach an acient age, but their lives are much nicer than those of their forest kin. Indeed, the average life expectency for the domesticated animals far exceeds what was possible for the wild boar. Truly, being a staple food of humanity is the best thing that has ever happened to the race of pigs.
You think that in the wild it is you who will be the lucky pig who becomes an ancient boar in the forest, whle the rest of us are slain one by one by wild beasts and the fickle scythe of disease. And so you fight for freedom from the masters - freedom to watch your fellow man scrabble for existence upon barren rock and die in any of a myriad ways while you struggle on to gloat over the fallen. But I know better. I know that no matter how good you think you are the laws of probability are harsh and unfair. Maybe you'd be the ancient boar, maybe I would. But most likely both of us would be amongst the culled; unmourned in the trees. I won't take my chances. The best path, the sure path, is to fight for the world the Masters have given us."
--snip--
-Username17
the_taken at [unixtime wrote:1192078748[/unixtime]]Step 1: Name the PCs
Command Force? Strike Force? Power Force? Meh. Just "Force". The PCs' Force vs. the Mindless Slaughtering Aliens' Forces.
The premise is as dark and sickening as you might expect from a spin-off of Evangelion. The futuristic, space travel capable humans run into a previously unkown alien race. Although the race appears to be sentient and have compatible communication abilities, it is wholly evil and just starts rampaging across the human colonies. They get a huge edge strait off, since they have some sort of bio-mech with an evil force field that melts humans in their ships and slices thru metal with radioactive tentacles of evilness. While incredibly more powerful than the humans, the alien weapons are not invincible, and a daring group capture key tech and develop a human compatible version of the bio-mechs and defences against the evil force fields.
Unfortunately, the bio-mechs require the infusion of a human soul that acts as the bridge between the pilot and psychic powers that move the gigantic cybernetic construct. And it has to be a willing soul, and the pilot must be known to and loved by the sacrificed. Also, the force fields on the more conventional space ships are powered by a group of psychics with cybernetic implants similar to the technology in the mechs.
Step 2: Write up a Six Person Party
Flag Ship Admiral - The character who controls the biggest ship. The ship is very tough, due to it's force fields and constant repair mechanisms. Has limited ability to repair others in combat, mostly mechs. The character mostly contributes to a fight by redirecting the cruisers and giving firing support.
Superiority Pilot - The character with the most balanced combat mech. Diversely powerful with melee and close-range combat. This guy leads assaults, but cannot retaliate to long-range attacks.
Front Cruiser Captain - The character that controls the ship ahead of the fight. Has strong sensors and counter-measures, as well as reliable weapons. Especially useful when an ambush is suspected.
Heavy Guns Pilot - The character with a larger mech loaded with big guns and special weapons. Best at long-range combat, and competent at close-range combat, but tough enough to handle a beating in melee.
Swarm Fighters Director - The character in the small mech that directs the tiny zeppelin sized war machines. Makes great annoyance attacks and has great stealth capabilities. Not a tough mech.
Star Side Repair Unit - The character piloting the mech that has gizmos and gear to repair the others. As tough as the superiority mech but only as effective in close-range and melee fighting as the heavy guns mech is at melee fighting, which is not too impressive.
Step 3: Write up a Three Person Party
Team 1 - The Fleet
Flag Ship Admiral - Tough piece in play. Supports with barrages of lasers and missiles.
Front Cruiser Captain - Sensors detects ambushes and hiding units, and the combined fire power of this one and the Flag Ship deal enough damage to cripple many enemy mechs.
Swarm Fighters Director - Uses guerrilla tactics to soften up enemies. The repair abilities of the flag ship are enough to keep this thing running almost non-stop, but the loss of fighters would hamper it's long term performance. Also, ships have very poor melee abilities, the director and his minions do very well against ships.
Team 2 - Strike Force
Superiority Pilot, Heavy Guns Pilot, Star Side Repair Unit
With two powerful engines of destruction and the band-aid machine, this group won't so much need to detect ambushes as much as they could just try to punch thru it, then patch up after wards. For seek and destroy missions, they can just blow up the whole asteroid field and hope to hit their target. Unless we equip the healing mech with a passable detection method.
Step 4: Outline an Adventure
Their are two areas within human controlled space. The Broadcast Zone, and everywhere else. The BCZ is where the first radio transmissions of Earth have reached so far. If the aliens reach this area, they will pick up the radio waves, trace them back Earth and blow it up. This would be very bad.
The premise of this game session, and a good portion of others, is that a task force of the aliens have come out of hyperspace really close to where the BCZ will expand to. Like, within the month. So the PCs have been ordered to stop guarding the Chicken Farm Planet, and hypaspace over and take out the observer ships, as well as cause as much havoc for the aliens in the area as possible.
There are three observers. One in open space, with the protection of a two cruisers and a compliment of fighters. One orbiting a gas giant, with a trio of enemy mechs. And the third was last detected going into an asteroid field in the fringes of the system, probably to prospect minerals.
The Asteroid Field Observer can be taken out quietly without the other two being made aware, but a large mech the equivalent to the PCs' Superiority mech will be it's protector. It will give the observer a chance to escape and send out a distress signal.
The other two observers grant different challenges. The open space observer is guarded by a larger force, and can harass the PCs by sending out guerrilla fighters if they choose to fight the orbiter first.
While the orbiter can dive into the gas giant and hide with it's close-combat oriented guardians if the PCs choose to attack the open space observer first.
Step 5: Write out a campaign
Session Two: Thew PCs are returning to Chicken Farm Planet just in time to witness a new alien weapon be unleashed. The chickens on the surface mutate into huge monsters and fly out into space.
A flock engages the PCs, a fight roughly equivalent to getting swarmed by several compliments of fighters.
Another flock mutates into titanic sized monstrosities and begin pecking away at the colony on the planet's surface. Rescue humans? Engage enemies? They've split into two groups, so a sound strategy would be useful.
A third flock of mixed sizes joins the weapon testers, who took advantage of the PC's absence from the system, and tries to hypaspace out. Will the PCs give chase? Or just fight off those they can nab before the portal opens?
Session Three: The PCs take the surviving colonists to a military base world for refugee processing (if any were rescued). Then they're given a new weapon to test out in actual combat conditions. A sizable force is on it's way to a nearby system. Seek and Destroy.
Session Four: The PCs are given a choice between attempting to capture an alien observer that's been docked for repairs at an alien supply depot, or convince some passing pirates that the survival of the entire human race is more important than a little space booty.
Session Five: The Pcs Have to hunt down a lost scout ship that reportedly discovered some vital information. Unfortunetly, the nebula they hid in had a small fleet of aliens dive in after them. The scout ship actually stumbled into the alien's BCZ and the info they had could be used to plan assault against the enemy home world. The next few sessions would be planned out according to the success or failure of the PCs in this session.
Step 6: Choose a Base System
Classic BattleTech
Step 7: Modding the Crunch
BattleTech is a decent system for giant robot fights. There's facing, hit locations, HP for each, and GIANT ROBOTS!!! Too bad I have to pay to learn more than that. Oh well. It's a start.
This is going to be a tactics heavy game, with roleplaying elements affecting only the plot. Rollplaying affects the plot in an objective oriented manner, the way wargamers have ladder and narrative campaigns, and stabbing BBEG affects the plot in D&D. But even as a tactics game, enough material will be developed so that random encounters independent of plot can be thrown in on whim.
Stuff that must be included
Basically an option where instead of firing a laser, the person controlling the mech can do something else like put up a barrier or redirect a meteorite/missile.sigma999 wrote:
~ Hand signs that become runes... but only as long as the sign is held
combined with~ Multiple wings that create defensive effects depending on shape and number such as cover, concealment... Hypnotism, Fear/Intimidate... constant damage at close range... long range slashing melee attack
for Tyrial (Diablo 2) style wings that mesh well with the Evangelion style wings that unit-01 had in the movies. Also, from a crunch stand point, they help with the hand signs things, or hold extra weapons, or grant extra speed, or deflect incoming attacks, etc....~ Flowing ribbon-like cloth manifestation, possible defense purposes or a constant spell effect.
A very special ability that is chosen at mech creation. It will scale with level.~ Halos
There will be multiple power levels. While every mech and ship will have the same minimum power level, as the game progresses, characters gain option like adding armor or improving their aim, or refining the power of their guns. Mechs will always gain more wings, and the number of levels the game handles will be based apon the maximum number of wings that can be achieved on a single mech. My research tells me the angel of death has 12 wings, so we'll base the number of levels off of that. Say, start with one par, and gain a pair every odd numbered level. So 11 levels. Ok 12, for kicks.
The crunch as of now.
Combat is divided into four phases. Energy, Move, Shoot and Recharge.
In the Energy phase, spaceships allocate power to systems, and mechs decide what their wings are going to do.
In the movement phase, everything moves, and some ships or mechs will have different speeds depending apon what they did in the energy phase.
The Shooting phase has all of the weapons and stuff work out their effects.
Then the Recharge phase figures out the effects of end of turn events, like recharging the batteries, or ejecting the cockpit.
Everyone goes thru each phase together, although entities with a higher initiative will act first in the phase.
Like BattlerTech, every mech and ship has 9 hit locations corresponding to a 2d6 roll, and each location has an important function.
Mechs:
2 Head - contains the mech's brain and primary sensors. Minor damage often turns off the halo.
3-4 Left Arm - often holds a weapon, but is sometimes used in combination with the left shoulder or other arm to hold a bigger weapon. Sometimes holds another kind of device.
5 Left Leg - Greatly facilitates movement on surfaces, like those of a planet, in combination with the other leg. Often just dead weight in space.
6 Left Torso - In addition to being able to mount a weapon, also has a maneuvering thruster for space flight.
7 Centre Torso - Houses the cockpit, pilot and a maneuvering thruster.
8 Right Torso - See Left Torso
9 Right Leg - See Left Leg.
10-11 Right Arm - See Left Arm
12 Centre Torso