Mice in Mech Suits update

Thanks to everyone who has downloaded the 1st beta version of the Mice in Mech Suits rules.  Over 40 of you have done so already!  Download them now if you have not done so yet.  If you have downloaded the rules and looked them over, please give me feedback even if it is telling me how much the rules suck.  If you can be specific about what particular part of the rules suck, negative feedback is probably even more helpful than positive feedback so don't hold back to spare my feelings!  I am completely reworking them, but your feedback can help me refine what areas of the rules I focus the most on in this rewrite.

I am working on a revised set of rules with its own unique mechanic revolving around d30's.  Recently, you see, I have acquired a bunch of d30's.  While it is pretty cool being able to give each player in my games their own d30 to use for their once a session d30 roll, I have been itching to come up with more ways to use the dice.
I should have a new d30 version of the Mice in Mech Suit rules ready in a week or two, then I will upload another Beta Playtest.  I will also post a simple conversion to use these rules with d20's instead of d30's.  The new rules are pretty different, featuring an attack resolution system that combines attack and damage rolls into one d30 roll opposed by a defenders roll.  The number of d30 that can be rolled per round for attack and defense are determined in mech creation.  One interesting thing about the new system is that the amount of defense dice remaining = remaining movement, so unused defense dice can be converted into movement and a mech that rolls all of its defense dice cannot move at all unless it received a bonus to movement in mech creation.  Actions occur more or less simultaneously in a round, so the initiative rules have been changed dramatically.  These rules will no longer create mechs that are directly portable into a D&D setting, although I will provide conversion rules.

More on this later!  Now I am going to finish packing for a business trip that will take me away from my blogging duties for a week.  See you on the flip side!

Carl

Designing a Game - Mice in Mech Suits

I just finished up the beta playtest version of my Mice in Mech Suits mech combat rules - here is the link to download them in .PDF format.  If you download them and use them, or even just read them, please give me feedback.  It was a lot of fun for me to make this game; this was the first time I have made my own game rules since I was probably 12 years old!  I learned a lot, and one of the things was about the importance of playtesting.  I cranked the first version of the rules out in one night and ran some two on two combats with my girlfriend the next day, with each of us controlling two mechs.  It went well, but pointed out some bugs that I patched over in time for the group playtest.

The group playtest showed me a lot more things to fix.  The Bandit Mechs were in general overpowered, as their ability to use ranged weapons that had a several square blast radius was much more useful than the Noble Knight Mech's ability to dish out damage in melee combat - especially considering that many of the ranged weapons are mounted on the chest while the Knight's weapons are mounted on the arm - once you lose that arm, you are screwed!  I made the Noble Knights more effective in combat and increased their unarmed damage so they can still cause some pain with their off arm if their weapon arm gets blown away.  One of the players in the group playtest was running a Worker Mech with the Dig Dug special ability, and he pretty much spent the whole time underground - so I made this ability more limited.  I also tweaked the movement rules a little.  All in all, I think it is pretty solid but I am sure that more playtesting will reveal more flaws.  So go to town, all you mech-heads out there on the internets!

I did include a (pretty weak) random mech generation system, but I want to rework that and also include a super-short pilot generation system to create even more variance on the battlefield.  I will post that as soon as I finish it up.  While thinking about character generation in Mutant Future vs. D&D 4e, I realized that random rolls on a list is a lot more fun for me than picking out the kewlest powers.  I will be taking that lesson to heart when I rework the mech generation rules and make up some pilot generation rules.

Mech Creation in my Mice in Mech Suit rules

My last post about balance in character creation and the joys of randomness and thrills of the rolling dice has gotten me thinking about my latest project.  As it stands, mech creation in my Mice in Mech Suit game is a matter of choosing the basic type of mech (which grants some statistical differences from the base mech stats), choosing a base movement rate (which determines base AC and HP), and then choosing a basic weapon package, optional weapons, optional defenses, and one special maneuver.  The optional weapons and defenses have trade offs (usually a penalty to movement and associated penalty to AC, but some have penalties to attacks or damage, some require the use of two hands thus limiting other choices, etc.) that more or less balance them out - you can pick as many or as few of them as you like, but if you pick every cool looking one that exists you would find yourself hardly able to move and extremely easy to hit (even if you did have three kinds of forcefields and rockets and grenades and repulsor beams...).

I think I am going to have to introduce an optional random char gen option.  I will probably start by numbering each option in each step of the character creation process, then require some random rolls to see how many options you roll for at each step.  If nothing else it will be a random mech generator that a DM could use to create a horde of unique adversaries without having to expend any brainpower!

I have also been toying around with a the option of a few rolls to determine the prowess and special abilities of the pilot of the mech; in my stand-alone rules, the pilot is more or less totally ignored.  The basic rules are  ready to post in a public beta playtest sort of way, but I will have to think a little bit more about random character generation before I put them out there on the interwebs.