I'm working on JAGS Mechs. This isn't a game mechanics issue (I mean it is--but it's all tactical balance stuff and I'm not delving into that here)--but more of a concept thing:
Mechs, for lack of a better word, are *goofy*: The renditions we've been given (and the baseline here is BattleTech) don't make much sense.
Here is what we're doing with mechs. I invite comments on how our logic is holding up, where it might could be improved, etc.
1. The world is a far-flung space empire. It's built on the remains of a greater empire that collapsed into war over a thousand years ago.
2. The most significant remains of the former empire are Fabircation Plants. These are small to massive installations built with Wonder Tech (TM) that create pre-defined artifacts.
You hit the button you get coffee makers. You turn dials, you get medicine packages. That switch gives you mecha and weapons.
They don't make (other than hand-held energy side-arms and light tanks and personal power-armor--and a few other things) any other weapons. No high-tech jet fighters (really).
3. The society can build (slight) post-modern jets, however, one of the weapons that the Fab Plants chrun out are super-effective ultra-high altitude Stinger Missiles (future Stingers)--so air-power is out of the question. (both mechs and infantry forces have loads of them).
4. The plants can also put together highly effective ground-to-space cannons--so that orbital bombardment is rough.
5. Nuclear dampers exists. Space Ships run on "Cool Fusion" so they can't be shut down by a massive damper field--but you can't fusion nuke a planet either (and no anti-matter tech exists). You also can't land right on the capital (defended by guns) or (very effectively) bombard from space. You have to land on a blind side (no one can protect a whole contintenent with anti-orbital batteries) and then march ... hence big mech battles.
Finally, although space-attack forces can *ruin* a planet pretty badly from space, they *don't* want to destroy the not-making-any-more Fab Plants that might be there (there's a whole cultural thing about preserving them--even if you're gonna lose).
6. The mech weapons you can get are all "short range" (meaning line of sight). If the FabPlants were operating at full capacity there would theoritcally be all kinds of OTH stuff--they're not.
7. Most mech weapons are indeterminante energy weapons (Heavy Thunderbolt)--they have fire-cycle times of 6 seconds (this makes maneuver more important and makles the Stand-and-Deliver tactical option less tasty). Weapons like machine guns fire every second but kinetic kill against mech armor is a lot less effective.
8. Sensors exists that will detect and (with microwave sweepers) destroy micro-drones. Anything from a high-altitude plane to overhead satelites can be shot down by ground forces--remember the intel-tech the armies would deploy is not created directly by the Fabrication Plants--it's either put together with modular components from them ... or created with barely post-modern infrastructre and doesn't hold up to the Fab-Plant created assault techniques).
Battlefield intel is either from Mech Style sensor sweeps or the "go and look" method.
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Now, we obviously did a lot of gyrations to try to make mechs prominent, give battles a tactical context, and still have the world make some kind of sense. I'm aware that we had to contort things pretty horiffically (why can't "stingers" insta-kill mechs?) but, given what we've got, where are the holes? Would you believe it?
-Marco
You missed something out - how big are the mechs? Are we talking Heavy Gear (3m+ tall) or 100ton battlemechs? If the former, you avoid a lot of the problems that mechs cause, since they're just powered infantry rather than walking tanks.
A solution to the "Why don't stinger toast mechs": the mechs they have electronic countermeasures suffiecient to throw them off most of the time - when the catastrophe happened, the balance was shifted slightly in favour of defense.
Since high-power weapons usually means long-range, I'd suggest using ECM as the justification for short-range mech combat. This means that mechs are vulnerable to other mechs, so they pretty much operate on their own plane. Rather like air-power nowadays, the guy who has mech superiority (wondertech superiority?) will probably win, making mechs central to all conflicts.
Sorry--Mech height is *real* important.
The smallest mech is 14 feet tall. The largest chassis is a bit over 30 feet.
-Marco
In regards to the "stingers" not being used against mechs: I would assume the mechs and other infantry would have anti-stinger batteries that, in conjunction with the mech's sensors, effectively target and eliminate these sorts of missiles before they become a threat.
Or perhaps something in the design of the stingers themselves make them ineffectual against mechs or ground troops, something that currently hasn't been reverse-engineered (either because the technology is not well understood, or the costs of doing so to every missile that comes out of a PreFab would be prohibitive).
Mechs are fundamentlly fantasy. Just as superheroes or any number of game concepts. I would suggest if you really want to do mechs to examine more than one game--Battletech (which is a boardgame NOT an RPG--although it has an RPG add on)
There are others
BESM has them and had a book Big Robots and Cool Starships to supplant 1E, most of it was absorbed into 2E
Mekton Zeta, which shows ways of doing Transformers, Serious Votoms and such on up to silly superpowered things
Heavy Gear/Jovian Chronicles--another way of handling them for RPG's
In addition the source material--mostly Manga and Anime--Gundam (but not G-Gundam or Gundam wing which are way into the "superhero mecha" stage, Votoms, Patlabor, Macross, Mospeada, Evangelion, and Voltron among many others.
Mechs can /be/ virtially anything too--old Science Ninja Team Gatchaman--aka G-Force had tons of animal/insect robotic mecha as enemies to fight in their vehicles.
Don't use one source. Frankly that's like using D&D as a source for your fantasy version of Jags.
Sid,
We're not just usin' one source at all--and I can throw down wit' ya with a buncha *free* on the web Mech RPG's if ya want! :))
Our present system is geared towards a military paradigm--that is, how do mechs fit into the world. Sure, we got anime conventions all over the place (including demon summonsing magic if you decide to play with it) but we want to make sure that:
a) The far-future mechs won't get their mechanical butts kicked by the modern day 3rd ID (so ranges, damage, armor, etc. has to be reasonable for ultra-tech weapons).
b) That you can have a cool tactical mech battle if you want (with multiple roles and design strategies for mecha). That one given design isn't "ultimate."
c) That obvious questions (what happened to air power?) get answered.
d) That the situations that arise from the game (invading mech force, lack of orbital "air-support," siege conditions, etc.) make sense from a material standpoint.
There will be flying and transforming rules (I happen not to like flying mechs for some adventures--specifically those with some travel across the terrain rather than flying from point a to point b). We're going to try not to omit anything major.
-Marco
Clipping double half post..
See below
Good! Just all you mentioned was Battletech. (Probably one of the most popular, but IMHO the worst designed..)
A) One of the things to do is to make sure the ECM/ECCM etc help add to the humanoid defense--small mechs are better for this, but larger ones may work--Missiles won't work, nor many targeting systems making mechs make sense "sorta" by making their Electonics so good as to counter all advantages of tech other than slight enhancements for human pilots.
B) I once used a reason for mecha in a nearing the Apocalypse set up--Demons came back were huge, and nigh unstoppable with all that jazz missiles, rockets, laser nada...nukes too--only a human going one on one worked---so they used primitive melee weapons slightly empowered. But that's a very narro setting and dealt a lot with symbolism, synergy of humanity. etc.
C) Air Power may not be useful because of Satellite defenses--the above ECCM or the fact that the mech have built in Anti-air craft guns there is a limit to aircrafts size to efficiency.
D) I understand the need to limit air-mecha as well, you might just make it rank based if your going for military--or making the piloting of such vehicles much harder requiring ore training, psyche adjustment to the cyberfeed what have you
E) You mentioned magic either here or elsewhere--could Mecha be magic empowered--giving them an edge that only works on human forms--that is sorta similar to the synergy of human shape from my Demon based mecha game, but it might be something to consider if you want to do something distinct.
Heya Sid,
We're considering Bio-Mechs and Mystical-Mechs (but we'd like them to play different and the math to balance the plain techno-mechs is pretty stiff ... and we're not sure we're doin all that good a job).
So the answer is, at this point, *maybe*.
We do have EW/ECM and ECCM and Stealth all of which are special gear for mechs. An Aegis mech can shield other mechs, a mech with a targeting laser can paint a target and loan it's telemetry to other mechs to guide incoming fire. Mechs can use ECM "flares" and jamming to evade incoming fire and shield their friends.
-Marco
I just had a thought (well, some thoughts) - Since you want the mechs to shrug off conventional (kinetic) weapons as well as being immune to the stingers, howabout this as a solution.
Mechs are armed with highly advanced energy weapons only (hence limiting conflict to line-of-sight since you can just say all energy weapons are LoS weapons and arcing energy weapons always seemed a bit silly to me).
Rather than super-armour (which raaises its own problems - mass, size etc) have the armour optimised against energy weapons (ceramics, refelctive surfaces etc) so the mechs can be resilient against other mechs without having to load down on bulky, heavy (and disbeleif-sispender-snapping) armour.
And finally, the mechs are all but immune to ballistic weapons and missiles because they all have a very powerful laser defence system and excellent sensors so that small (missile sized or less) projectile heading towards the mech is vaporised or knocked off course. Naturally, this won't stop energy weapons.
This means that mech weapons and armour are not huge leaps in power beyond conventional, but it does mean that mechs have some very powerful advantages that can only be countered by the use of other mechs and allows artillery/infantry and mechs to operate on the same battlefield without stepping on each other's toes (No pun intended).
Is JAGS Mecha going to have art? I ask because on their own, mechs are an absurd concept, but a great deal of what makes them beleivable (imho) is how they're presented visually. Look at Votoms, Heavy gear, Gear Krieg, Five star stories, CAV (another miniatures game) and Gaseraaki (and arguably macross). The mechs look like they'd work. On The other hand, Gundam, Eva(not technically mechs I know), Voltron and other highly anthropomorphised mechs just look like giant men in armour. Battletech mechs cover the entire spectrum, with things like the Madcat or a Marauder looking far more fuctional than a battlemaster or atlas.
The other way to make mechs seem plausable from a visual point of view, is how they move and how they interact with the scenery, but that's not a very useful option for you is it? Still I thought I'd throw it in for completeness (ref: the anime Dual).
JAGS Mecha is going to have art--a lot of art. Otherwise we wouldn't release it for the exact reason you mention: Mechs are visual.
-Marco
Hey Marco,
I've been thinking about your original challenge, to poke holes in your schema of reasons justifying mecha. While I enjoy such a challenge, it occurs to me that by presenting such a schema in your game world, you'd be essentially issuing the same challenge to players. This is a problem, whether or not we or they succeed in poking holes. It's a distraction and it's largely beside the point in the genre.
To be fair, your schema is very well constructed. It has the right mix of solidity and flexibility to answer most objections. I could only think of a few possible weaknesses, and these can certainly be patched:
1. Why can't weapon systems be disassembled from mecha and mounted on more efficient or more suitable platforms? Or can mecha not be disassembled, which would also imply that they cannot be repaired?
2. So mecha are available "as is," with no choice of their general design. That's fine. But given those mecha to fight with, why fight standing up? It makes more sense to fire shoulder- and arm-mounted weaponry from a prone position behind as much cover as possible.
3. It seems very likely that your system will include rules for players designing custom mecha. But the ability to customize might be hard to reconcile with the in-game reality of "turn on the factory, mecha come out."
You might consider another way to justify mecha, one that's less based on the real world but more in line with the themes of mecha stories. This could be done with just one "alternate reality" fact, instead of eight: the idea that the degree of unity between pilot and vehicle necessary to survive on the battlefield can be achieved only if the vehicle mimics the human form. The fantasy-martial-arts-style total unity of mind and body (which is what mecha combat is all about, basically) allow the piloted mecha to have a degree of awareness, responsiveness, and effectiveness that no other type of weapon (and especially, no mere computer) can match. The piloted mecha can dodge laser-guided missiles the same way martial arts masters in other genres can dodge bullets. (Unless, that is, those missiles are fired with perfect predictive aim and timing by an attacker in an equal state of hyper-awareness, i.e. another mecha.) The mecha's anthropomorphic form is necessary to achieve that state.
This is blather (in reality humans are amazingly capable of becoming "one" with a wide variety of machines of all kinds of shapes, from bicycles to jet fighters), but it's comfortable familiar blather congruent with modern myths about martial arts capabilities that just slightly transcend ordinary physics. (Such capabilites were originally attributed to spiritual attainments in the early martial arts genres, externalized as the Force in Star Wars, and re-interpreted as the power of being truly human in a sham world in The Matrix.) I believe it fits the genre better than a lot of rationalizing about microwave satellites this and nuclear dampers that.
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From my misspent youth: the second verse of the lyrics I wrote for the "Imperial March" musical theme from The Empire Strikes Back:
When we blow rebel bases to hell,
We don't use bombs 'cause they work much too well.
Walking tanks are what we approve
For targets that cannot move
On ground that is flat, smooth, and clear.
Who cares if they get disarrayed
By one man with one grenade,
As long as we strike them with fear.
- Walt
Hi Marco,
As a big fan of the mecha genre, I can only chime in with Walt and say, "Yeah, man, what he said!". But really, the point is that providing a "realistic enough/plausible" excuse for giant robots pretty much comes almost to the same point as arguing whether tall and aetherial or short and waify elves are more "real". I mean, if you're going to include bio mecha and magical/psi powered mechs, it just seems that you're already past the point of "plausibility" anyhow.
People use mecha cause they do, because its cool.
Chris
Chris,
I don't argue elfs--but whichever elfs ya choose, I expect them not to be big mecha-sized logic holes in the story. I'm not shooting for scientific explanations--I'm looking for viable tactical/strategic frameworks. I'm not asking for plausibility (I said Mecha were goofy right at the start)--I'm looking to give the participants some foundation for addressing the world.
While some people seem to find that counter-productive, I don't--and I doubt most people do.
-Marco
Hey Walt,
I like your blather. The idea of martial-arts master style dodging is quite cool. Some of the characters will use the Fast Company rules (which include dodging bullets) so that's actually fairly in-line with what we were doing.
Currently the Mechs do have a "dodge" option (which is not especially realistic). Your explanation is pretty interesting along those lines.
Our explanation is certainly not going to be presented as "all those other mecha games suck because they didn't explain the world--" more like "here's what spaceships are like." Here's a picture of an anti-orbital battery. Here's a description of a tactical war. Here's a note on air-power. Stuff like that.
I honestly doubt people will pay a lot of attention to the specifics--most of them will simply work inside the genre box and not (I expect) worry too much about it. However, if we can come up with a framework that happens to channel tactics into cool mech battles, I don't think it'll detract.
-Marco
[ Walt, for what it's worth:
a. Great lyrics! I love it.
b. I *assumed* they were trying to *capture* the base ... but y'know, I kinda doubt it was that well thought out.
c. The giant gaping logic holes in Return of the JEdi *did* ruin the movie for me. Lucas can say it was in genre all he wants, I was young at the time--I shoulda been impressed--I wasn't. Genre's not a defense for glaring holes in the internal logic of a story. ]
Hi Marco,
Well, if tactical reasons are what you're looking for, just take a bit from real life about the hows/whys tanks or airplanes aren't effective. Tanks are great except in mountains, deep swamps, and dense vegetation. Planes are likewise great unless there is heavy cover, really bad weather, or antiaircraft weaponry is just too strong.
So, if you wanted to keep things to one planet, you can bite off Orguss and have a crazy everlasting storm(natural, accident of science, or magical) that gives a very low atmospheric ceiling. If not, just declare that anti-aircraft weaponry is too good to bother sending up fighters/bombers. As far as tanks, either make the terrain too nasty, otherwise go with convention and give mecha "super armor" or "super forcefields" that can only be used by mecha, rendering tanks and fighters useless.
Chris
Quote from: Marcoc. The giant gaping logic holes in Return of the JEdi *did* ruin the movie for me. Lucas can say it was in genre all he wants, I was young at the time--I shoulda been impressed--I wasn't. Genre's not a defense for glaring holes in the internal logic of a story.
Marco, take this into consideration in your design for this game: what you call "giant gaping logic holes" may not even remotely exist in someone else's perception. Frex, I haven't the slightest clue what you're referring to with the above in RotJ (and please, let's not discuss it here, what those might be are irrelevant while the point is not).
You may be trying to "patch" things that others do not consider broken in any way, and patching can actually make things worse unless you're careful about it, by opening up the whole "well, see, his defense here is this, but on page 15 it says this, so..." can-of-worms.
Grey,
Frankly I'm perplexed with y'all. Logic holes exist whether you see them or not. Internal consistency is necessary across all GNS modes (IMO--and from what I've seen others post). If you're not *looking* for logic holes you can still run smack into one--it's like drivin' with yer eyes closed.
Look at it this way: Mechs are prima facie absurd. Either physically (weight distribution!), technically (where's the advanced targeting!?), or tactically (What about orbital bombing!? Man, that's what I'd do!). This framework is designed to address a core absurdity that exists *Internnally* to the concept.
Magic or elves are not *internally* inconsistent. And you and Chris know that. Mechs, mostly, are (without some kind of explanation). Their internal context involves hyper-modern battlefields. There are points of reference galore. There's a long deep history of military fiction that a player might or might not draw from.
It's like this: in the fuzzyest form of gaming I can think of--No Myth, where nothing is set in stone, the description I'm giving ya is a way of setting genre expectations. So you won't have a character calling for orbital bombardment against an advancing mech-line when it's out of scope. You won't have a player trying desparately to build an air-base because he feels that if his unit can't get air-support he's gonna lose on open terrain--which would be bloody logical if he wasn't in-touch with the genre.
None of this is meant to (nor do I think will) set up hostile play. Hostile play has nothing to do with the game book--it's all about the people.
-Marco
First off, I'm with Marco in that either you ought to simply ignore any explanation at all other than "that's just the way it is" (which actually works), or you need to find some internal consistency. When playing Mechwarrior (and wow, that was waaay back in high school in the eighties), we often ran into inconsistencies that just made play nonsensical. Like the fact that given the speed of mechs (really slow), you could maintian an artillery bombardment long enough to destroy any amount of mechs before they got into range.
So why weren't these weapons on the mechs?
Basically if you're doing any sort of Sim that's going to give any level of detail, you're going to need BS explanations. Fortunately they can be done.
Unfortunately, Marco hasn't answered Walt's questions, or his own. Most importantly, what is it that makes Mechs less susceptible to the stingers. That is, if something can be put on a Mech that makes it invulnerable, then why can't that thing be put on a plane?
The simplest answer is weight. I'm not sure why the armor idea was jettisoned. Make the vehicles need to weigh too much to be able to fly given available propulsion, and they'll need a suspension. Given a high enough level of technology, one can argue that legs can be made as efficient as other suspensions. So, require the vehicles to have some special high-tech armor (made from my favorite substance, Unobtanium; which then limits the availability of mechs to nobles or kids with attitudes) that weighs a lot, but can stop all sorts of damage.
Thing is, we have weapons right now that are approaching atomic weapons in their magnitude of power. Basically I'm saying that in order to withstand today's weapons (which they need to in order to be "futuristic") then we're talking about being able to resist weapons that have destructive power on the order of nuclear weapons. This one's hard to get around. Now, assuming the Traveller crock of Nuclear Dampers as above, that means some other weapons have to be devised. Voila, this explains the energy weapons. Everything else bounces. This does mean that mech carried energy weapons can probably reduce a mountain to a level plain in short order, but I'm OK with that. :-)
Quote
The mech weapons you can get are all "short range" (meaning line of sight). If the FabPlants were operating at full capacity there would theoritcally be all kinds of OTH stuff--they're not.
Now this is a real problem. If this is true, then where are all the deterrent "Stingers" coming from? They sound pretty long range.
Anyhow, with the super-armor, the stingers just bounce off. And Energy weapons are line of sight anyhow. So problem solved. In fact we don't need the "Stingers" at all. Since a mech can just shoot a plane out of the air, the mechs provide all the "anti-aircraft" potency you need.
In fact if we make the energy weapons themselves heavy enough, then the planes can't even cary them, and can't hurt the mechs.
Now, one problem with all this weight talk in a sci-fi universe is that on a planet with little gravity, all bets are off. So there's a whole new issue. The usual excuse is that the light planets don't have the Unobtanium used to make the armor. And since this is what everyone's obviously fighting for, they're the only planets where battles occur.
How's that? Unobtanium: making sci-fi possible since 1889.
Mike
One of the great joys in my life is seeing people trying to make mechs practical.
In Evangelion they are just big cyborg divine clones, which is the best expanation I've heard.
In Mechwarrior my friend explains that they're used as troops.
In Gundam they're supposed to be used because they look like people or something.
In Escaflowne they're supposed to work because it's a mythic fantasy setting and they're driven by magic.
In my dead setting I felt that good justification is the fact that they were based off of human evolution, which is the product of billions of years. But yeah.
I'm sure that there are thousands of ways to make it work. Just make sure you tell me what it is when you're done.
The first thing that struck me was that there are 8 facts to swallow, to get to where you want to be. That's quite a few - the fewer number, the better. Of course, some may also serve other purposes, and many players will not care - but I think both of those lie outside the scope of what your looking for here.
With that in mind, to reduce the number of facts, drop the Stingers. Go with the fact that most damage will seriously reduce the combat effetivness of an aircraft, whilst the mechs can take a hit, and still keep going. Give the mechs an anti aircraft system (I'm thinking small missles here). By the time you allow for the fact the the mechs are cheap, and the aircraft expensive, that's why you don't see air cover much - in any real battle, they'd get toasted too quick. Each mech may have limited ammo, but if it's 7 aircraft to take out one mech, it's just not effective. These are semi-automated systems - the mech detects, and locks on to an aircraft, and the user just needs to push the button.
That ends up a softer constraint, but still gets you to the same place, and side steps the stinger vs mech questions. (Besides, if air power wasn't used, why do infantry carry anti air missles - there's a bit of a chicken-egg problem in the logic there. If mechs have them - well, there's not way to change those designes, right?).
Also, I don't see the need for nuclear dampners, and all the attendant physics breaks there in. Effective anti-air and antimissle deal with the big ones, and the small one's arn't going to be that disruptive. The whole wanting to capture not destroy the Fab plants also, I think, reduces the need to remove nuclear devices.
Quote from: Marco
Frankly I'm perplexed with y'all. Logic holes exist whether you see them or not. Internal consistency is necessary across all GNS modes (IMO--and from what I've seen others post). If you're not *looking* for logic holes you can still run smack into one--it's like drivin' with yer eyes closed.
-Marco
Interesting - I'm actually perplexed by you, Marco. Isn't the whole point of suspension of disbelief to allow us to ignore logic holes? For instance, when I see something in a work of fiction that wouldn't normally happen or exist in real life, I tend to assume that it was the most logical thing to happen at that time and place. When I was first introduced to Battletech, I just figured that, since they exist, they must be needed - that they are the most feasable choice under the circumstances.
As to what those circumstances may be, I didn't really worry about it - the point of the game was to ride around in gigantic walking tanks, blowing stuff up - not worry about whether an air attack might be a more tactically sound option. I always thought that, at least in the Battletech universe, each of the different field options (air, infantry, vehicle, mech) had its own place, or niche, that it was used for - the air was for fast pinpoint raids; the infantry for vehicle and mech support; the vehicles for transportation, long range artillery, and anti-air/infantry/mech support; and the mechs were where the real battles took place - when you needed the very best. They had the best firepower/maneuverability combination.
For me the question is quite simple: If you had a mech, why
wouldn't you use it? (Although, a counterargument to that may be "Why would you have a mech in the first place?" - I would point out that when the television was first invented, it was thought that it would never be a financially viable entity. Perhaps some crazy inventor thought it up. Perhaps they were first used for some purpose other than warfare. However they came into being, once they were fitted with armor and weaponry, mechs quickly found their place at the forefront of modern warfare. Because that's where they belong.)
MJK
Anybody with a brain can see this whole thread is silly.
Mecha work because mecha universes work on the physic of Daniel Pond's 'Wushu' game.
In Wushu the more embellished (the 'cooler') your action the more dice you get and the greater your chance of success.
Obviously mecha work because something as embelished (cool) as a mecha is almost a statistical certainty to work in a Wushuverse.
Why do mecha work? Because they're too cool NOT to work, isn't that obvious?
Quote from: b_bankhead
Why do mecha work? Because they're too cool NOT to work, isn't that obvious?
Sure, for that game.
But not for Marco's. People keep missing the point that he's interested in a BS explanation. If you don't have one for him, then he's really not going to get anything from what you say. He's fully aware of his options.
Mike
Quote from: Mike Holmes
... People keep missing the point that he's interested in a BS explanation. If you don't have one for him, then he's really not going to get anything from what you say. He's fully aware of his options.
Mike
Apologies, then. I'll try to be a bit more constructive, then. First of all, I think that you, Marco, have complicated your premises a bit. It sounds like you're trying to present too much information, then drawing too many complex conclusions from that information. I think that, as Purdie pointed out, the fewer pieces of information people have to absorb in order to "pull off" mechs, the better. Although, as I pointed out, I don't think one really has to work to pull off mechs - if people want to play a mech game, then they'll play a mech game, despite whatever logic holes it's filled with. As it is, you just come across as if you're trying to hard too convince people that mechs are a viable option in warfare, "despite" all evidence otherwise.
I would go with as simple a reason as possible - if you want to keep your PreFab idea, that's fine, and I would simply present that as the solution to all your problems. For instance, you could say that the PreFab centers are all that's left after some intergalactic holocaust, or some such. And they don't make airfighters, or ICBMs, or nuclear weaponry, or whatever. They could thus be arcane technology which people can use, but don't know how to fix, or whatever. That would be a pretty gritty universe, and I'm sure you could think up something better when it's not a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing. But I think you get my point, no? The simpler the solution, the less logic holes there can be - it's when you get so complicated that things begin to interact in unexpected ways - Occam's Razor and Chaos Theory kind of combine here, you see?
MJK
Quote from: SwordofLux
Interesting - I'm actually perplexed by you, Marco. Isn't the whole point of suspension of disbelief to allow us to ignore logic holes?
MJK
No--suspension of disbelief is specifically broken by logic holes (I shall cite quotes if I need to). Whatever you think of SOD--if you even believe it exists--it isn't there to let you ignore logic holes.
Logic holes are out-of-context problems (and if an out of context problem can destroy
The Culture then they can certainly destroy your RPG*).
You can make the (convincing) argument that everything in a Sci-Fi world exists out of context or at very least on shaky ground (there are people I know who find Science Fiction--all of it--preposterous) but I'm not really interested in the "moral-relativism" debate.
In short, Mike's right. I want a structure that lets players and GM's extrapolate without breaking it. In other words, I want a player to no do things "the way it's done" or disagree with me about what's "kewl" and still have it work.
-Marco
* an Ian Banks joke.
Let me give you my opinion. If the players like the Mecha genre (Yes it's a genre. No, it shouldn't be.) they probably won't care too much about why Mechas are used. The form a premise for the setting.
Here's your setting: What if (most good games start with a what if) the galaxy expaned and colapsed creating another culture that used Mechas to fight eachother?
If the players are playing for that reason, they aren't going to care if they're practical or not. Now, whethere you care or not is a whole other story. However, if that's the issue, just create a reasonably good example and get on with it. I felt that your initial post explained why Mechas would be used to a point where it's good enough, myself. Stressing over this issue isn't going to make or break your setting.
About the suspention of belief: Suspention of belief is what is used to make logic holes less relavant to the point. In Bradbury's short strory about a lost lonelly dinasour that finds a lighthouse you have this setup: The point of the story isn't to dispute the potential of hundred ton sea creatures existing. It's about the lonelly creature. So, really both of you have a point.
IMHO
Quote from: Eric J.Let me give you my opinion. If the players like the Mecha genre (Yes it's a genre. No, it shouldn't be.) they probably won't care too much about why Mechas are used.
Um, I like to play Mecha, and I like to know why they're used. And Marco does, too. His design decision has been made. I don't see why people keep posting that it's not neccessary when he's made it clear that this is what the thread is for.
On Suspension of Disbelief: who cares. We've got whole threads on the subject. Go look those up before trying to define it here. The point is that Marco is trying to make it so that the setting is so coherent that any player except for the most disbelieving can accept the setting.
What's wrong with that? MJK got the message, Eric, why can't you? How is this a dysfunctional choice? If it creates a game that's not for you, well, then not all games are for everyone. Marco's gotta make the game that's good for him. So, I implore y'all, let him do it.
Mike
I would second the idea of heavy armor, It makes the most sense. There is a limit to the mass that a tracked or wheeled vehicle can carry and it is just around 100 tons. I think that's the biggest mistake battletech made as far as technical justifications was to put so low an upper limit on Mechs.
What if the armor is something like advanced depleted uranium/chobam and is completely infeasible for aircraft.
I also liked the idea of a biological mech. Maybe they don't show up on Stinger Radar/IR. In addition, it also gives a whole host of interesting story features. (What if they needed to drink a lot of water? Maybe they can heal themselves if given several days?) It also makes the issue of reversing engineering technology and why different forms are not available less of a topic.
Perhaps different groups have different technologies and they balance somehow (i.e. biomechs and heavymechs.
Another thought is if energy weapons have a significant range but they're power curve is high up close but drops off significantly at a distance. Maybe they're powerful enough to pick off aircraft/missiles, but the aircraft using the same technology are completely ineffective against ground Mechs because of their armor. Mechs have to charge up close and duke it out to be effective against each other.
Also maybe the energy weapons can fire low energy blasts rapidly and take out a large number of light targets, but have to charge up to fire a powerful blast. This makes air power and missiles even less effective.
Those are just my two cents.