MechaStellar started over a year ago. I recall being bored with tinkering on a wealth of fantasy games and looking for something different. I started toying around with the idea of a quick and fast Mecha game. I had built a prototype in the past, around 2006 or so, but it was old clunky and the framework never quite worked as well as I liked.
So I started toying around with a system that would be sleek, fast and simple. Something quick and familiar, d20 for a base. Attack and defense, lasers flying everywhere. I used attack and counterattack from the fantasy game I was working on and was surprised with how well it took. I grabbed some old Mechwarrior figures and went out to the patio table to give it a try. A heavy red mech and his buzzsaw clunker mech friends against two squadrons of fighters and a missile mech chickenwalker.
It worked!!
It worked extraordinarily well. I was excited, it was quick and smooth; actions happened, fighters were shot down and mechs exploded. 3 turns later the battlefield was a smouldering ruin and a clear victor emerged.
It was fun with how simple it was back then. Then with any game there was scope creep. I’ll post the rules from 2016 in the next post. Here’s the bare bones operations of the initial day.
d20 Attack + LVL VS Defense
Mechs = Defense 10 + LEVEL. Mechs can use a melee weapon. d4 x100 DMG. Happens after shooting. HP = 200 x Level. One weapon slot / level.
Fighters = 15 + Level. Fighters get a free move every round. HP = 100 x Level. One weapon slot / level. 1 Boost / level. Boost to auto-dodge a Hit.
Fighter Phase, then a Mech phase. Simultaneous action in each phase for each player. Exception, melee happened after ranged combat.
That’s it, pretty simple right?
MechaStellar 