Alephtar Games makes yet another strong showing under the banner of the Basic Roleplaying (BRP) system!BRP Mecha extends the Basic Roleplaying (BRP) rules published in 2008 by Chaosium, so you'll need that book to fully use BRP Mecha.
Until now, BRP supplement have been largely focused on fantasy (with notable exceptions in Chaosium's "monograph" line). Alephtar Games themselves have been responsible for much of the quality third-party material for BRP with notables such as Rome, Life and Death of the Republic, Crusaders of the Amber Coast, Merrie England, Celestial Empire, and Dragon Lines. Missing from the BRP line has been a strong set of scifi rules.
Now, BRP Mecha is firmly grounded in the anime mecha genre (i.e., guys piloting big robots to fight evil) and is not billed as generic scifi. Still, it offers several innovations to the BRP rules that would be useful to anyone venturing into scifi territory with BRP, particularly the new vehicle and air- and space-combat rules (it even has write-ups for WWII-era vehicles such as the M4 Sherman and the A6M Zero, modern vehicles like the F-15 Eagle, and, of course, spaceships).
Those looking for detailed Mecha construction sub-systems should look elsewhere. The cool thing about BRP Mecha is just that: it's BRP. The book leverages the strengths of the BRP system and works within it -- it doesn't try to reinvent it. For example, rather than create a point-based Mecha build sub-system, the book instead provides guidance on translating the plethora of "real-world" Mecha write-ups (say, from a model kit) into BRP stats. In other words, it continues the BRP tradition of seeking verisimilitude (if one can say that about giant robots) versus "game balance."
The book further extends BRP by introducing some innovations on the Fate point mechanic from the BGB which help simulate the heroic aspects of the Mecha source material. Fate points mitigate the famously deadly nature of BRP combat. As BRP Mecha points out, "Mecha pilots should be treated as always 'favoured by destiny,' and never allowed to die or fail in an anti-climactic way" (68). Accordingly, Fate points can be earned by players initiatiing subplots in which they explore the pursuit (or failure to achieve) their character Motivations. Subplots activate Motivations outside of combat. Spending Fate points in combat deactivates Motivations.
The book includes two sample campaigns, each in one of the two Mecha sub-genres the book deals with explicitly: Real Robot and Super Robot. The Real Robot campaign called EXODUS deals with a fleet of human survivors on the run from an inscrutable alien menace while the Super Robot campaign is of the Mecha vs. Kaiju variety.
BRP Mecha packs a lot useful material -- both rules and scenario inspiration -- into 120 or so pages. I can't recommend it enough, to BRP newcomers and grognards alike.
I was never a big Mecha fan (at least beyond Voltron and Gundam as a kid), but the quality of this book as both an extension of BRP AND as a excellent genre supplement has me invesitgating further.
|