Not!Transformers system

>>49869974
>But how do you balance a system around all of the vehicles that players could choose from?
I'd break them up into general categories, for one.
>And how do you balance someone who chooses a tank for his vehicle form and someone that chooses a racecar?
Low speed, high power vs high speed, low power.

>>49870079
>>49869974
Just go with the latest Transformers game (the Platinum one) and have them be able to do vehicular kung-fu, making the added weaponry nice, but non-essential.

>>49870118
So would they have abilities/spells?
I've never played with a skilless system.

>>49870079
I could do that.
I'd have to work around a support class and somekind of flying class as well.
But heavy can be both a tank or a semi truck, how can I avoid the different vehicle forms being just reskins?

>>49870292
Each vehicle class has a small list of features that the player can pick from?

Like a tank could have Build In Weaponry and Heavy Armor, while a semi could have Carry Capacity (like it can haul around other bots) and Modular (can swap the trailer for a turret platform or something, back at base.)

So the player picks two features and the DM can look it over to make sure they aren't trying to put Built In Weaponry on a mini-van or something.

Personally, I like middle of the road systems like that. Where they aren't super rules light, but they aren't GURPS or Mekton heavy, either.

>>49869974

> Transform and Fallout

>>49870279
Abilities spice up gameplay, which is a pretty good thing if you care about that stuff.

The alternative would be to give a very broad range of possible actions, but that has its own pitfalls.

>>49870279
>>49870483
I'd suggest looking at War for Cybertron for a few ideas. Having a variety of weapons, each with alt-fire modes and different active abilities would be good.

Though it would need some expanding and alterations for the transition from videogame to tabletop. I'm just suggesting it as a good place for inspiration.

Though don't marry class and vehicle form. They should be separate options. Multiplayer characters are stuck with a single type of alt mode, like all scientists are jets. It would be better to model it after the campaign mode, where you've got a scientist jet, a scout jet and a warrior jet in Starscream's mission.

File: image.jpg (49KB, 400x339px) Image search: [Google]

49KB, 400x339px

Thanks for the suggestions.

What kind of dice mechanic should it be?
I'm leaning toward DH style d100.

>>49870472
Well, more like Mad Max.
80's Robots with an 80's apocalypse.

>>49870686
I usually don't like % systems. Literally 90% of the time the value of the second dice doesn't matter.

>>49870726
What would you suggest?

>>49870737
Well, replacing a d100% with a d20/d10 alone would mean 5/10 times smaller numbers and one less dice to roll.

That said, you should have an idea about what you want your system to do, how you want successes to work out (how often, binary/non-binary, what bonuses will the players have, etc.) then look for dice mechanics that fit the curve you want.

>>49870880
>That said, you should have an idea about what you want your system to do, how you want successes to work out (how often, binary/non-binary, what bonuses will the players have, etc.) then look for dice mechanics that fit the curve you want.
Seconding this.

>>49869974

I have a similar setting under development. I talked about it in this thread:

Discussion starts at http://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/47280503/#q47282974

I'm using GURPS as the core system, stripping out all the options that I'm not using. Modded the Spaceships system for the vehicles.

As for how I balance different vehicles against one another, I'm not doing that via the system at all. If you'd like, you could stat out each of the vehicles as an Ally (nonsapient, minion, etc), and then make them pay more points for a higher tier of mecha. If you want.

In my setting, the world is in deep shit and is kind of teetering on the brink of a mecha-created apocalypse. But it's still holding together.

So if someone has a SM4 F-16 Viper as their vehicle form, then they have to figure out how a 10 ton robot that's thirty feet high can move around in normal daily life where it's hard to find safe places to walk and awkward to takeoff and land. OTOH, someone whose mecha is only a little more than human sized and can turn into a motorcycle can go nearly anywhere and can even be in robot mode inside buildings and other normally-humans-only places... but also is comparatively weak compared to other mecha.

So there's a trade-off between availability on one hand and raw power level on the other. Less concealable, more overtly militaristic vehicles like fighter jets and tanks give you more combat power but are also much more obviously what they are.

Obviously, in your setting this doesn't work because the war's over and civilization has fallen and basically even an innocuous vehicle is clearly a mecha if it isn't trashed by now. Tires aren't rotted? Still works? Clearly a transformed mecha.

So I don't have a really good answer for you. Balancing a game like this is hard.

>>49872796

One possibility is to give smaller or non-military vehicles a third form.

So that SM-1 motorcycle transforms into the robot form, but also into a cat form that gives the rider the benefits of armor and superior terrain maneuver, but also some of the speed/agility of the vehicle mode and some ability in melee.

The car is a car, but also can be a submarine (for example). In addition to being a robot.

Whereas the tank is just a tank or a robot.

This is pretty easy to do with the GURPS Spaceships design system.

The problem is that if your campaign is combat-focused, some vehicles will just be flat out better than others, and vehicle combat is its own domain so trying to balance that with other abilities in other modes won't change that spotlight-stealing lack of balance.

>>49870686

I'd strongly suggest starting with GURPS and stripping away anything you don't need. The core system is rock-solid. There's a construction system if you want it (do NOT use Vehicles that's a nightmare, but do try GURPS Spaceships because that's clean and simple but gets you everything you want). And yes it can handle transforming mecha.

Mainly, the reason I go all meme-y on you for GURPS is that it's designed to handle big differences in scale appearing side by side. A giant robot, a fighter jet decepticon, and a human with a rifle all use the same rules. It's one system for all of them and the game doesn't notice that you're flipping freely from one mode to the other. (It's also tied to real physics so your players won't spot major glaring science hole.)

You can create and customize whatever you want. That lets you give players a catalog of different mecha to choose from, and you can easily use the design system to offer them customization options later.

I don't want to over-sell it. You'll need to make a lot of game rules decisions up front. GURPS isn't magic and takes a lot of work by the DM to set up, but you'd have to do that anyway with a homebrew.