Giant Guardian Generation
Giant Guardian Generation is a Roleplaying Game of japanese-styled giant robots a.k.a "Mecha", it may or may not be an obvious attempt to adapt the style of Super Robot Wars to a tabletop experience. The current version of the game is v1.21, older versions may be found at the author's blog providing the online hosting doesn't go bonkers.
The Quick Breakdown
What you will find in GGG:
- A streamlined Mecha system that is easily adapted to any kind of game.
- Mechanics that emphasize the narrative and incentivize both good sportsmanship and character immersion.
- Balanced Gameplay that can be as simple or as complex as the group wants it to be.
- Rules that allow any kind of PC to be just as good a pilot as everyone else, no matter how feeble or wimpy.
- A setting with three possible game modes, evocative of classic and modern Mecha with their own distinctive style.
What you will NOT find in GGG:
- Mecha customization extensive on the numbers akin to an engineering simulator.
- Gameplay that prioritizes narrative control over all other mechanics.
- Necessary referencing of tables and charts during gameplay.
- A system for standalone one-shot action adventures.
- A miniatures-based combat system.
The Fluff
It is the future and humanity raves all over a new power source called Gygravagnite, you've got your space colonies and your world governments being dicks to each other as usual over who controls it, and strange events surrounding Gygravagnite abound. That's when the obligatory weird-ass aliens called Outsiders came and pretty much wrecked the place showing an interest in Gygravagnite, with the United Earth Federation pledging servitude to them shortly afterwards. The Players can take the role of either one of two groups that form part of the resistance forces against both the Outsiders and the draconian United Earth Federation, or be part of a third faction investigating just what the deal is with the mineral that is too hard to pronounce.
In other words, it is Super Robot Wars, though it has also been described as 'Cthulhutech meets the SCP'. The author has neither confirmed nor denied either claim.
Gameplay
Both Characters and Robots are relatively simple, though there's a good deal of options to choose from for both. The Pilots have 'cinematic skillsets' by default and can do a wide variety of things with just a few skill points, while the Mecha may be lousy generic humanoids with a few guns and melee weapons or crazy Transformer-Combiner monstrosities with dozens of implements of death and destruction at the user's discretion. Pilots and Mecha both grow independently so there is no need to sacrifice roleplaying tools to be stronger during combat scenes.
Characters possess Dramatic Themes, running motifs for their characters that award Genre Points when roleplayed. Genre Points provide various benefits, but most importantly they fuel Spirits Genre Powers during Mecha combat. The all-important giant robot battles themselves move quick, and the tactical depth is focused on dramatic timing of skills and powers used, thanks to a mechanic called Tension that makes every passing turn of battle more dangerous than the previous.
Links
- Mediafire of the latest version.
- 4shared mirror of the above.
- The author's blog where he posts updates, advice and random meaningless crap.
- Online-use Pilot and Mecha sheets, just duplicate and modify the google documents.
- #GiantGuardianGeneration on Rizon is the most frequented channel to look for games and talk about it.