Sorcerer and Mecha

[Steve Dustin]

My play group is become interested in the gonzo setting of Cthulhutech, where you play mecha pilots vs Lovecraftian horrors (and, um, their mecha). One aspect of the setting involves living mechas called Engels. Pilots cybernetically "commune" with them, and bond, at the risk of frying their mind. This sounds like a Sorcerer game to me, which I'd much prefer using then the generic system Cthulhutech has.

The question is, how to get Sorcerer to emulate the sci-fi giant robot genre. Has anyone tried this before?

Frankly, when I think of mecha shows (the limited number I've seen), I often think that the main conflicts are usually between the main characters in a soap-opera-ey way. Every so often, it's interspersed with a harrowing mecha fight. Kinda like Battlestar Galatica. So it's those two things I want to nail down: soap-opera drama mixed with mecha fights with lots of technical jargon and seat of your pants dogfights.

For mecha stuff, I'd give bonus dice to people who reinforce genre conventions during conflicts. So the more technical jargon you spew out, the better you roll. Also, I'm thinking of splitting scales in the game. I'd make a mecha scale and a normal scale. If everyone is on one scale or the other, you're fine. If you pit a mecha scale opponent against a normal scale opponent, then mecha victories would translate into 2x or 3x the penalties to the normal scale opponent.

As for the soap opera - I'm hoping a good solid relationship map will foster that.

Anyway, thoughts?

[John Adams]

Disclaimer: I haven't played Sorcerer yet. Getting a group together with enough time to play has been difficult, but I'm dying to play. So this is just my take after several reads through the book. So basically, this is a yeah, me too post. I'm just as interested in what everyone thinks because I hope to run a similar game soon. Sorcerer just begs to run a game like this, doesn't it?

It seems to me Sorcerer is all about dancing on the edge of Humanity = Zero. So the big questions "what are Demons?" and "what is Humanity?" should tie into the focus of the game, mecha in this case. I was shooting for something like this:

Lore = your understanding of Robotech/protoculture and human/machine interface
Humanity = (not) becoming an inhuman cyborg, losing yourself in the machine
Demons = mecha (duh!)
Binding = attuning the pilot to a particular mecha, without which it just sits there.