Editing User:Almafeta/Mech A RPG contest reviews

I am in the middle of ranking the various other entries in the Mech A RPG.

For the sake of curtosey, I automatically place myself at 0 in every category, but to be honest, I didn't enter this contest seriously thinking I'd win it...  it was mostly to see whether or not I could design a RPG without a trace of 'furriness' in it.  That it's unfinished isn't that important, it's a success in my eyes.

:<i>This page is still being written...  [[User:Almafeta|Almafeta]] 02:52, 4 Aug 2005 (PDT)</i>

==Chargen==

<b>Dreadful Tide:</b>  Dreadful Tide is pointgen, on a reasonable budget of 100 points.  The 'attributes' are Shadowrun-style dice pools that refresh every round:  Combat, Social, Technical, Movement.  (Shades of Instant Fuzion!)  Skills are the Target Numbers you must roll equal to or less on from dice you spend from those pools.  Pools range from 1 to 10, while Skills range from 1 to 9.  A nice full list of special abilities follows, including Unkillable (15 points).  A number of templates are included.

<b>Extinction:</b>  Chargen is point-build attributes (20 points among Prowess, Agility, Endurance, IQ, and Charm) and Palladium-style limited skill selection, as well as selecting a Code, Loyalty, and Quest.  Curiously, you also build a 'stronghold'.

<b>Guerilla Earth:</b>  Chargen is point-buy, spending 200 points among four percentile attributes (the classic Body/Grace/Mind/Spirit split).  Derived attributes include Anima (basically CoC-style sanity), Health (which, curiously, is based on Anima+Health/2), and Power (for espers).  Skills are (Mind+Dexterity/10) skill points, with each skill point (up to 5) adding 10% to a base to get your level of skill.  (Why not just have Mind+Dexterity skill points, up to +50%?)  Specializations are worth 15% per skill point, not 10%.  Cybernetics and psi are bought with points.  A decent number of templates are included.

<b>Mecha Wars:</b>  Odd combination of triangle-number and percentile system (all stats start at 10, cost to improve by 1 is equal to new attribute's tens digit).  With 800 (!) points to divide among 9 attributes, that's an average attribute of 47...  but you can just roll d% instead, which I strongly suggest.  You get INT*10 skill points, and 1 skill point buys +1 in a skill.

*4 points:  Guerilla Earth
*3 points:  Mecha Wars
*2 points:  Dreadful Tide
*1 point:  Extinction

==Combat==

==Completeness==
Completeness counts double.

<b>Dreadful Tide:</b>  Holy cow.  Far and away the victor in this category, it's 95 dense pages of stuff -- they made a commercial RPG without telling anyone.

<b>Extinction:</b>  Extinction hits the 32-page goal exactly.  However, it seems a little light on the content.

<b>Guerilla Earth:</b>  60 pages of content.  Includes psi, sample mecha...

<b>Mecha Wars:</b>  It's very heavy on the fiction and the background (14/37 pages), and it loses for it.

*8 points:  Dreadful Tide
*6 points:  Guerilla Earth
*4 points:  Extinction
*2 points:  Mecha Wars

==Layout and Formatting==

<b>Dreadful Tide:</b>  Near-professional layout; some problems with table formatting, and some problems with tables or art going too close to the edge.

<b>Extinction:</b>  Professional layout -- shouldn't this guy be working for White Wolf?

<b>Guerilla Earth:</b>  Page numbers in the table of contents have nothing to do with the page numbers the information is on.  It's formatted in landscape format.

<b>Mecha Wars:</b>  Okay layout in the beginning, but the layout becomes more and more unwieldly towards the end.

*4 points:  Extinction
*3 points:  Dreadful Tide
*2 points:  Mecha Wars
*1 point:  Guerilla Earth

=="Mechgen"==

==Setting==
Setting counts double.

==System Design==

==Totals==
#Dreadful Tide:  13 points.
#Guerilla Earth:  11 points.
#Extinction:  9 points.
#Mecha Wars:  7 points.
@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 For the sake of curtosey, I automatically place myself at 0 in every category, but to be honest, I didn't enter this contest seriously thinking I'd win it...  it was mostly to see whether or not I could design a RPG without a trace of 'furriness' in it.  That it's unfinished isn't that important, it's a success in my eyes.
-:<i>This page is still being written...  [[User:Almafeta|Almafeta]] 14:20, 4 Aug 2005 (PDT)</i>
+:<i>This page is still being written...  [[User:Almafeta|Almafeta]] 02:52, 4 Aug 2005 (PDT)</i>
 ==Chargen==
@@ Line 21: / Line 21: @@
 ==Combat==
-<b>Dreadful Tide:</b>  Combat assumes a dot matrix over a map -- creative, I've never seen anything like this before.  Humans and mecha take damage in a universal penalty chart; 10 hits destroys anything.  Damage is in three scales:  'human' (x1), 'mecha' (x10), and 'starship' (x100).
-<b>Extinction:</b>  Initiative is creative, with skill checks being used to change your order in battle.  Energy points are spent, then it's hit-me-hit-you.  Shields subtract damage, then it comes off of Armor, and then stats (lowering Juice makes is less speedy, lowering Payload destroys items on it).  Human combat isn't fleshed out.
-<b>Guerilla Earth:</b>  Standard I-hit-you, you-hit-me combat, with one notable exception:  Critical hit rules.  10% of all rolls are criticals; critical successes take the target out of the fight; critical failures take the attacker out of the fight.  Defense is rare, with dodges only being allowed if you haven't moved so far in a turn.  Interestingly, while in a mecha, <i>Will</i> is used to dodge or defend -- a nice way to keep Dexterity from becoming too powerful.
-<b>Mecha Wars:</b>  Interestingly, Movement is done in <i>reverse</i> initiative, and attacks are done in normal initiative -- a nice way of showing how important Initiative is.  Mecha power up with EP; attacks are 'Weapon Effectiveness Rating' + 1d10 versus 'Armor Factor' + 1d10; essentially, a random armor effectiveness system, adding another roll between the attack roll and damage dealing.
-*4 points:  Dreadful Tide
-*3 points:  Mecha Wars
-*2 points:  Extinction
-*1 point:  Guerilla Earth
 ==Completeness==
@@ Line 40: / Line 27: @@
 <b>Dreadful Tide:</b>  Holy cow.  Far and away the victor in this category, it's 95 dense pages of stuff -- they made a commercial RPG without telling anyone.
-<b>Extinction:</b>  Extinction hits the 32-page goal exactly, which is worth a mention.  However, it seems a little light on the content.
+<b>Extinction:</b>  Extinction hits the 32-page goal exactly.  However, it seems a little light on the content.
 <b>Guerilla Earth:</b>  60 pages of content.  Includes psi, sample mecha...
@@ Line 74: / Line 61: @@
 ==Totals==
-st:  Dreadful Tide (17 points)
+#Dreadful Tide:  13 points.
-nd:  Guerilla Earth (15 points)
+#Guerilla Earth:  11 points.
-rd (tie):  Extinction (10 points)
+#Extinction:  9 points.
-rd (tie):  Mecha Wars (10 points)
+#Mecha Wars:  7 points.