What's the recommended system for running mech games?

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Real robot: Silhouette (Mekton, Jovian chronicles, Heavy Gear)
Post-apoc or organic: Remnants
Eva: Adeptus Evangelion
Super robot: Your super hero system of choice

>>52864185
Battletech: Battletech

>>52863440
there is also DragonMech, it's a little disorganized but it's pretty rad

>>52863440
What kind of mecha are we talking?
there's a pretty big difference in AC/Gundam and Battletech.

>>52863440
Depends on the setting.

I'M KIDDING! Kind of.

It seriously depends on how you want the mechs to be depicted and how you want the game to work. Even just saying "real robot" or "super robot" isn't enough as either one can also be gritty, heroic, crunchy, fast and loose, heavy simulation, abstracted, cinematic, "realistic" (note the scare quotes before any of you autismos start sperging out), or whatever.

I love mecha games, but pick any combination of the above and I can guarantee that my top recommended games for that style will be a different system every time. There is no "one system to rule them all" when it comes to mecha, and personally I like it that way.

>>52863440
Battle Century G or Strike!.

Some people will recommend Mekton Z.

Rifts is a good setting for robots and mechs if you want to take the trouble to learn its rule system which is a bit dated.

>>52863440
D&D 4e

>>52866805
Rifts is actually pretty ok for mecha if you ignore like 80% of its rules, which the Palladium Robotech games pretty much do. Still not my first choice of game. Or second choice. Or third. Probably not fourth either.

>>52866771
>Strike
>>52866828
>D&D 4e
I wish this meme would die already.

>>52866927
Sure, 4e takes a bit too much effort, but I don't see why Strike! wouldn't work.

The two types I'm most interested in are Battletech style, and Gundam style.
Is the actual Battletech/MechWarrior game the best way to represent big lumbering mechs blowing the crap out of each other?
And what's the best system for your gundam-style?

>>52867418
>Is the actual Battletech/MechWarrior game the best way to represent big lumbering mechs blowing the crap out of each other?
Technically yes, but you've got to keep in mind that the idea that battletech mechs are "big and lumbering" is by and large a product of the video games. The anime Dougram is a more accurate representation of battletech mechs.

>And what's the best system for your gundam-style?
Define "Gundam Style." Like UC Gundam? Wing? 00? IBO? Turn A? Build Fighters? G Gundam? All these things are completely fucking different.

>>52867461
> idea that battletech mechs are "big and lumbering" is by and large a product of the video games.
Fair enough. Was just trying to find a way to differentiate them from the stereotypical mecha.
>Define "Gundam Style"
Another good point; was thinking more along the lines of UC/Wing.

>>52867504
Alright, that gives a better picture of what you want of the mecha, a good number of systems come to mind that could do any of that easily enough.

So what do you want out of a system?

Fast, detailed, crunchy, light, heavy, cinematic, simulation, something in between?

Mekton Zeta can do both general styles you're thinking of, but can be fairly heavy rules-wise depending on if you delve into the highly detailed MZ+ construction system or not, and the play system I don't think has aged well honestly.

Battle Century G is much faster and looser, but doesn't go into a lot of crunchy detail and has a more cinematic slant. It's play rules are an absolute blast but the mecha mechanical side can leave someone with a tech fetish with blue balls. It works better for Gundam-y games than mechwarrior-y ones.

Silhouette Core (Heavy Gear/Jovian Chronicles) is another "all of the above" system and is more "rules medium" if you treat mecha combat like character combat, if you use the tactical rules for mecha combat (which are actually integrated tabletop wargame rules) it's going to get a lot crunchier. The mecha construction is somewhere in between MZ+ and BCG being more "effects based" but still allowing for a great amount of detail, but gets super mathy if you want to actually calculate TVs (which isn't really necessary for play). It's also notoriously deadly, with VERY swingy combat.

Heavy Gear D6 is based on West End Games' D6 System used in the old WEG Star Wars RPG. It sits on the very edge of light/medium crunch and is very easy to add or take away rules to push it one way or the other. It's one of my favorites but I'm also a little biased because I wrote the D6 Jovian Chronicles conversion (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-rs__06lBfEOuAQHXKjt69XHNkKYEYk0gstvzA3sV00/edit?usp=sharing). I won't deny d6 has some math issues though as the difference between a 3d6 dice pool and a 4d6 dice pool are a lot bigger than I think the original devs accounted for.

>>52867795
On the subject of Star Wars and homebrew I've been toying with the idea of mecha with FFG's newer Star Wars system. SW always seems to work well with mecha because it has walkers, space combat, combined arms combat, mixed scales, and all that stuff you want out of a mecha game anyway. But anyway some more recommendations:

If you want to get super crunchy you can actually build mecha in Traveler, I'm not well versed in it so I can't say much more than it's apparently super crunchy. I'm sure someone will come along and tell me how wrong I am so you can let them tell you more.

GURPS Space: Ships has a mecha supplement. It's ok, depending on how you feel about GURPS. If you're not looking for something super crunchy it can still actually work pretty well with just GURPS Lite level of rules.

If you want to get really light on rules there's Chris Perrin's Mecha, my only experience with it is listening to exactly one podcast where they played a one-shot Not-Gundam adventure. It has some neat concepts like having different phases for combat and downtime, and the interesting target board grid system. (Come to think of it I might have to try it out some day.)

And there's always Fate Core/Accelerated, depending on how you feel about narrative driven story games. I know a lot of people don't like Fate for various reasons but it can work, again, depending on what you're looking for out of your system.

>>52867795
>>52867874
I'm not OP, but I just wanted to say: thank you, Anon. I appreciate you taking the time to give such a thoughtful answer, and I'll probably be looking into some of these systems myself.