My Life As A Gamer: Tabletop Games About Mechs

When mots folks talk about mechs in tabletop gaming, you hear one of five names: BattleTech, Robotech, Heavy Gear, Jovian Chronicles, or Mekton. This is, in large part, because these are the only tabletop games you can readily find, even if Mekton is all but out of print. (It's not, but its invisibility in retail means it might as well be.) and Robotech is in a licensee changeover from Palladium Books to Strange Machine Games. But there are more, and here's a few you might want to keep an eye out for when hunting at book and game stores or scouring online storefronts.

• Macross II. This is a long out-of-print licensed RPG done by Palladium Books. While the rulebook and the first sourcebook are standard Palladium faire, what makes this remarkable is that an early Dream Pod 9 did the art for the rest of the line that focused on the warships of the Zentran fleet as appearing therein- stuff that you can use in any Macross game regardless of rules. As one expects, this is a Real Robot style of setting.
• The Mecha Hack. "Suit up with The Mecha Hack! If you're a fan of Gundam, Robotech, Pacific Rim, BattleTech, or Transformers, this is the rules-lite robot RPG you've been waiting for. The Mecha Hack is a tabletop roleplaying game of titanic warmachines and their intrepid pilots, made with The Black Hack. The Mecha Hack is fast, fluid, and fun, with a focus on cinematic, narrative gameplay inspired by anime and other mecha properties. Inside this A5-sized, 40-page book, you'll find the complete Mecha Hack ruleset; four mecha chassis and four pilot archetypes; over a dozen add-on modules for your unique mecha; GM tools and mission generators; more than 30 enemy statblocks; printable monsters, mechs, and objects; and so much more! Build your mecha. Form a fireteam. Drop into the combat zone. It's time to suit up, pilots."
• GunFrame: Anime Mecha Battle Game. "GunFrame is a fast-playing, exciting and tactically challenging miniature wargame. It has been built from the ground-up to let you play out the spectacle of mecha-on-mecha combat as portrayed in your favourite anime. Use any mecha miniatures to engage in small clashes between a handful of robots, or all-out battles with mecha supported by conventional units including infantry, tanks and aircraft. This complete game also includes rules for building your own units, transforming and combining mecha, unusual environments including underwater and space, and more than seventy upgrade abilities to customize your mecha and pilots."

Far more common, however, is that mecha are a supplementary element of a broader game. RIFTS, After The Bomb/TMNT, every omni-superhero game ever, 40K (Dreadnaughts, Imperial Knights, Titans), and even some takes on the above titles take this approach. Mecha gamers have long become accustomed to this, much like superhero gamers who want to focus on particular takes on that thing do, so don't be dismayed if that's how you have to go about it.

This may not seem like a #BrandZero post, but within this specific context it applies; there are very few tabletop brands for mecha fans, and most of those are almost invisible in the retail space unless you do DriveThruRPG on the regular, hit up Kickstarter/Indiegogo, or scour the used bookstore/gamestore on the regular. One of those is derived from a long-standing goat-screwing of a Japanese property that's still on-going, and continues to skirmish with the big dog in this small space. Therefore, it's not out of line to throw in a forgotten licensed RPG in this mix; Palladium certainly forgot.

And that's before talking about the problems that adapting various sorts of mecha tropes to gaming, a medium that greatly favors Real Robot style approaches over Super Robots for several reasons. It's why you don't see them as the main feature of tabletop gaming very often, but flourish in other media, such as novels like my own Reavers of the Void which you can find in the sidebar for Kindle and below in paperback.