Metal Slug System

Metal Slug System is an RPG system created for /tg/ by Squash Monster. Except where noted, all is rules are copy pasta'd directly from Squash Monster's posts. All additions or variant rules will (hopefully) be listed as such, with the creator cited.

While created for with Metal Slug in mind, any setting focused on over the top gunplay with lots of dice involved can be adapted to it with work.

Basic Mechanic

All weapons come in two parts: delivery and payload. These are both measured in dice: one dice, of whatever size is needed for the job: 1, 1d2, 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12, 1d20, 1d100, whatever. If you have other sizes, cool, those are good too.

When you fire a weapon, first roll your delivery dice. Then subtract your target's dodging ability from what you rolled. If you're over 0, awesome: roll your payload dice that many times. For example, my rocket-launching sniper rifle is 20/*/4 (worry about the * later). I roll a 12, he has dodge 6, I roll 6d4. He subtracts his armor value from the result, and takes that much damage.

But that's a boring weapon. My new weapon is a shotgun that fires that last weapon. The shotgun is an additional delivery mechanism. Now my weapon is 10/20/*/4. I roll a d10, then roll that many d20s, then the poor sap gets to subtract his dodge, then I roll the remainder in d4s.

Almost, but not quite. Needs more boom. The rockets don't only explode, but the explosions themselves explode. No, I don't know how or why. But now it's 10/20/*/4/4. I roll d10, then that many d20s, then subtract dodge, then roll that many d4s, then roll that many d4s, then the poor son of a bitch better hope he has lots of armor.

Great, but now this thing is really complicated, so you're going to have to start worrying about fuckups. See, when you roll a 1 you don't get to add that dice to the total. If it's the final dice in the weapon chain, you're safe. But if there's another dice after that, you have to roll the next dice and whatever comes after it against yourself. Don't roll a 1 on your initial roll.

Total the number of stages in your weapon to get its speed rating. More stages = slower. During a turn, everybody says what they'll do simultaneously, but if two people fire weapons with different speeds the guy with the lower number goes first. If it incapacitates the other guy, he doesn't get to fire.

Special mechanisms

Special delivery mechanisms: - Laser Lasers are fast. Don't add this stage to the speed rating.

- Homing When you roll your homing of laser dice, find the highest roll out of that and subtract that from the guy's dodge value. If you have homing things that shoot homing things, go ahead and subtract once per stage: who the hell can dodge that anyway?

- Slow After you roll this stage, write that number down and let it sit. Nothing happens until next turn. Next turn you get to keep rolling from where you left off.

Special payloads: - Explosions When a target is hit with an explosion he's sent flying in a random direction. How far? How many max rolls did you get on explosion dice? That's how far, in meters. Or yards.

- Armor piercing See "homing" but apply to armor instead.

Character and Weapon creation

Points: Weapons: The cost of a weapon is determined by multiplying the costs of all of its stages together. Once you have the total, round down to the nearest whole number.

Delivery stages cost 0.5 * the dice size. Size 1 and 2 cost 0. Laser adds +1 to the cost, homing adds +5, and slow adds +1. Payload stages cost 0.25 * the dice size. Size 1 and 2 cost 0. Explosions add +2 to the cost, armor piercing adds +5, and slow adds +1.

HP: costs 1 per point Dodge: costs 50 per point Armor: costs 25 per point

If you like, you can choose the ability to run for cover. This costs 20 per point. If you skip firing, you can add this value to your dodge value for the round.

For futuristic campaigns, you may want to be able to project shields. You can buy a point of shields for 10 points: you can skip firing to add it to your armor value for the round. You can't use shields and run for cover in the same round.

I'd recommend 5000 points for relatively tame games.