[Power 19] [Nameless Mecha Game] Help me with bolded questions?

[BlissAuthority]

1.) What is your game about?
::This Game:: is about hot-blooded humongous mecha badassery in the face of an eeevil foe, with the careful (or not) forging of alliances on the way.  It is the Tengan Toppa G-Gundam to Bliss Stage's Neon RahXephon Bokurano.

2.) What do the characters do?
Kick the shiny metal asses of the robotic Von Neumans back to the Core, and hopefully into the singularity there, whilst trying to make friends that help you along the way (sometimes this involves kicking thier fleshy alien asses).

3.) What do the players (including the GM if there is one) do?**
The players mow through mooks, trying to outdo each other's Holy Shit Quotients before taking too many losses: impressive maneuvers fill up a collective "Flow" meter in order to power up impressive weaponry.

Then they spend their Flow on forming various Ultimate Weapons which can be used to complete true objectives. When you win an Objective, you gain points of Glory (or sommat) that can be spent on forging alliances in Interludes.

Strategically, you need to win a galaxy: the GM puts out a galactic map at the beginning of the game, and you need to take sectors.  Vonners are weak/few far from the Core, but build reinforcements if unopposed over a length of time.

4.) How does your setting (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?
I'd like to have a transhuman/posthuman diaspora vibe were aliens = former humans, but other than the fact that this gives the players an immediate excuse to help / demand the help of the "aliens..." Thoughts?

5.) How does the Character Creation of your game reinforce what your game is about?

I'm tempted to make a a Motivation -> Fear system, where you risk Fears to use Motivations?  Help me out with this one...

6.) What types of behaviors/styles of play does your game reward (and punish if necessary)?
Hot blood and badassery.  Plain and simple.  ...Possibly angst in tolerable levels?

7.) How are behaviors and styles of play rewarded or punished in your game?
You fill up the Flow meter by impressing the GM and other players: and the Flow meter is what wins you objectives.  You must literally entertain with over-the-top maneuvers or die.

8.) How are the responsibilities of narration and credibility divided in your game?
Player Intent, Initation, and Execution cannot be blocked: Effect can.  Players describe the actions of thier characters and of the personal Allies of other characters: the GM narrates the actions of enemies and "Potential Allies," biological foes as opposed to the robots.

9.) What does your game do to command the players' attention, engagement, and participation? (i.e. What does the game do to make them care?)
"Against cutting steel and icy if-then statements, our best weapon is smouldering lust and incandescent rage!" Each player creates and stats thier own Potential Ally race and the strength of the Potential Allies could wane, making it possible for the Vonners to decimate them.  Seeing your own personal race, the accomplished empaths known as the Ng'anda, die in droves, screaming at the pain of their brothers on the front would get your attention... Thoughts?

10.) What are the resolution mechanics of your game like?
Players have to get as much Flow as a group as quickly as possible, but this is done by rolling dice in Motivations and therefore risking Fears.  I think.  Unless you can help me develop a better system?  Also: Forming Blazing Sword and blowing the holy hell out of a bad guy requires an action but is otherwise automatic at foo Flow (and I need to solve for Foo). 

11.) How do the resolution mechanics reinforce what your game is about?
Making the PC's even more bad-ass because they're getting Chumbawumba-ed ("I get knocked down...")?

12.) Do characters in your game advance? If so, how?

Objectives completed in combat go into a pool shared by the party: they can be spent, by individuals, on (for lack of a better term) Interludes.  Interludes can snag you Allies, which give you additional abilities / limbs for your mecha, or improve ones you already have, or wear away at enemy Influence on Potential Allies.

13.) How does the character advancement (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?

It emulates the genre, that's for DAMN sure.  Again, suggestions on thematic advancement?

14.) What sort of product or effect do you want your game to produce in or for the players?

Unabashed, guilty-pleasure fun, people quoting TTGL (whether they realize it or not: "WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM!?") and dropped jaws.

15.) What areas of your game receive extra attention and color? Why?

The enemy, the better to hate them with.  The history and culture of Earth, both to ground the players in a culture and to emphasise the "They used to be human..." angle.  The mecha, by contrast, are deliberately left fairly undefined, as are the nature of the splinter races.

16.) Which part of your game are you most excited about or interested in? Why?

Seeing how absurdly, suicidally audacious people get in Actual Play.

17.) Where does your game take the players that other games can't, don't, or won't?

Into the cockpit of a super robot.

18.) What are your publishing goals for your game?

Small print run, sell and demo at Anime cons (as opposed to gamer cons), PDF for slow trickle of sales, word-of-mouth advertising and cheap viral advertising.

19.) Who is your target audience?

Anime fans, Super-Robot fans in particular, who probably haven't gamed before.  If reciting the "Shining FINGER!" speech makes someone grin uncontrollably, that person is in my audience.

Thoughts on my bolded questions?  Thanks.

[Abkajud]

Hi, Bliss!

It sounds like you're really passionate about your topic. I think that's going to be a great asset for you going forward - you made me more interested in the Giant Robot genre just by reading this. Nice job!

So. I'm going to give you some numbered questions/comments, and the numbers don't correspond directly to your Power 19 in any way, merely the order in which your bolded questions appear in your post.
1) Aliens = post-humans/transhumans? I like, I like. Besides, if homo sapiens sapiens spent enough time divided up on new planets, especially with genegineering and cyborg tech thrown in, I'd say they'd be at least as distinct from each other as Star Trek races, if not more so!

2) What kinds of fears and motivations do Giant Robot pilots have, exactly? Are you going off of the "They're really knights, you see..." route, or are they more like starship pilots? Or something else, entirely? Are Giant Robots extensions of the characters' personalities, are they their homes/safe havens, or what?

3) It sounds like you command players' attention by making them care very, very personally about the "alien" races and cultures. That could be a way to tie in motivations. Some out-of-robot time, even if it's all Drama- or Karma-based resolution only, could come in handy to flesh out this side of the Giant Robot pilots a little more. Besides, that moment of relief when the pilots hurriedly climb inside their Giant Robots is always pretty intense!

4) So, for the resolution mechanics, is it possible that players could do their Motivations/Fears biz while out-of-robot, or at least outside of combat, to build up Flow? I say this because there are only so many fears, I think, that could be explored during Voltron-style fighting. I like the Motive/Fear opposition, and if you do build them up outside of combat, it could be a good way to justify the fearlessness with which these guys crawl into giant, robotic armor and do battle with planet-smashing laser cannons. They sort out their personal baggage planet-side, and then go blow stuff up!
And what is Foo?

5) Advancement - it sounds like characters have a way of temporarily "growing" their powers into Super Ultimate Attacks. If this coincides with accomplishing story goals (which it seems to; kudos!), then I think you have advancement, right there, even if SUA's go away at the end of the story or battle or whatever.

6)  Dropped jaws - what's the question here, exactly? I think pulling out all the stops ("They killed off my ENTIRE RACE!" and "This bomb will destroy the continent, you know," could be ways to drop our jaws)

Hope this helps!
-- Zac

[dindenver]

Elliott,
  Well, the one thing that bothers me (and I think its more a preference than a mechanical weakness) is the "wow the other players at the table" aspect to you game. It reminds me of Stunting from Exalted and quite honestly I have had VERY mixed results with Stunting. My varied experiences has lead me to the following observations:
1) Stunting is a risky social behavior. What I mean is, the player has to actively ask for "approval" from their fellow players and some gamers are not comfortable with risking potential rejection from "disapproving" players. Plus, there is the whole, "if you have to ask if you are cool, then you are definitely not cool" factor, right?
2) Stunting sometimes made a character's chance of success lower, instead of higher. A player would narrate a cool stunt and then the GM would require that the player make an additional Athletics roll or whatever to pull off the stunty bit.
3) Some groups/GMs went too easy on stunts, so there was no incentive to go over the top, but it did result in more attempts at stunting
4) Stunting was hard to do and stay fresh (not re-using the same stunts over and over) and in character.

  So, my opinion is that the way Exalted does Stunts is mostly broken.

  One thing that is similar and quite brilliant is Toon (1 ed.). The only way you got XPs was by making players at the table laugh. It was a comedy game, you played a cartoon character and you got XPs by making people laugh. It didn't matter if it was a titter, chuckle or rolling on the floor crying and laughing, you got XPs for it. You might want to look at a model closer to this (replacing laughing with "whoa" or whatever).

  The other way I am doing in my design is what I call reverse stunting. Meaning you spend a resource (in my case, Grit) and you get license, even encouragement, to narrate something off the wall based on the current situation. I am close to my first playtest session, so I'll let you know if that works or not, but if you think it will work for your game, please steal it, lol

  The point is that player approval as a in-game currency may not go well for many groups...

  Either way good luck!

[BlissAuthority]

First off, bear with me: I switched stations, as the old computer et the old responses.

The game now has a name.  I shall love it and hug it and call it Each Star Could Be Our Ally!

Abkajud: Thanks for the advice, and for the newfound interest in the genre (Gurren Lagaan and Megas XLR are excellent).  I'll go through your response point-by-point.

1 - I'm proud of this decision, actually: It gives the Allies instant sympathy points with the presumably human audience, and prevents the invented cultures from being totally bizarre.

2 - Now that you mention the knightly angle... XD
Yes, they are knightly figures, or at least Officers and Gentlefolk.  In genre examples of Motives and Fears - from in-genre works:

"I beleive in my brother's faith in me! But why am I so bothered by Yoko giving him so much attention?"

"We will break free of the tyranny of the Tournament Government, but the Devil Society will do anything and hurt anyone to stop the Shuffle Alliance's rebellion..."

"I will rescue Nia, if she still exists."

"I love Tarragon with all my heart, but if he dies on me, I..."

The mecha are one part armor, one part magic sword (and wound-sheilding scabbard), one part safe haven, and one part sorcerous advisor, as they have sophisticated strong AI systems that guide the pilot in an... interesting... way:

"If you lend me your will, I will show you the way - If I can feel with your heart, I will let you think with my mind.  Your passion.  My logic.  Together - we are unstoppable."

3, 4 - Yes, a heavily Drama based "Interlude-like" system is probably what I'll use for this.  Empathy with your Potential Allies in tension with winning the war is what the game is about, in a Points At The Fruitful Void way (if I understand the term...).  The problem is that the Allies are sheilding each other with other Allies, and with Earth.  I hadn't thought about Flow gain as a possibility, but I'll consider it.

5 - Yes, the various super weapons should come with a button labeled "Form Blazing Denounment" - this is by design and in-genre.  I hadn't thought of that in and of it'self being a method of advancement, but sure.  Also, so would gaining Allies, and new Motives, and new Fears.

"Foo" is British slang for "A quantity or thing we cannot identify."  Usage: "So, Dr. S and Tarragon are at 'foo' Intimacy after that humanization action?" "I think 'foo' is 3, what with the screaming and all."  ...blame http://www.toothycat.net and the Cambridge Bliss Stage players.

6 - Er, bolded for emphasis.  I'm surprised that you didn't answer "I THINK YOU'RE BlissAuthority!" to my bolding (for emphasis) the battle cry of the Gurren Lagaan crew...

Dindenver: I agree with you about making any instance of "whoa!" (or laughing at the cheese level) grant Flow: making it a more Fanmail-like system or something?  I'm... skeptical about making the expenditure of a resource needful to get badass, but Motivations could certianly work this way.

Thanks all!

Sincerely,

-Elliott Belser

[BlissAuthority]

Blarg.  Screwed up my tags.  Could Ron Edwards or another mod please fix it?

[dindenver]

Elliott,
  OK, that makes more sense.

  The other question I have is:
How are you treating the mechs?

  The way I dee it, you have three basic approaches:
1) The "Traditional" way, with Mechs having stats for armor, weapons, etc. There is some merit to these as a lot of mecha fans are crazy ab out  stats and numbers.
2) Mech is an extension of the character. The character has huge hydraulics because the character is buff, or it has lots of verniers because the character is naturally evasive, etc. To me this approach closely mirrors Gundam Wing and others like it.
3) Mecha power is just traits on the character sheet. Think of the Gear Traits in DITV or even the Magic Traits in HQ. They have real mechanical values and still the values can be customized.

  I like the 3rd option better, but was curious what you had in mind...

[BlissAuthority]

The mech is an extension of the character:  Each component is linked to a Pilot's Drive and associated Fear.  The Drive makes the weapon more powerful:  Fear makes it more unreliable.

I may couple this with special abilities as well.

Good question: Thank you.

- Elliott Belser.