Metal Slug System

Fio. Armed with ballistics.

Metal Slug System is an RPG system created for /tg/ by Squash Monster.

While created 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. It is recommended that anything setting specific is created as a separate expansion to this base system.

Basic Mechanic

All weapons come in two parts: delivery and payload. These are both measured in dice: one die, 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 7, I roll 7d4. 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.

Weapons have ammunition. No matter how crazy the weapon, it uses up one shot of ammunition each round you fire it. However, weapons have differing amounts of ammunition. When you kill an enemy, it drops enough ammunition to fill up one of your weapons, chosen at randomly, but never the weapon you killed it with. If you don't have any other weapons, they just explode satisfyingly instead.

Special mechanisms

Special delivery mechanisms:

• Laser (L): Lasers are fast. Don't add this stage to the speed rating.
• Homing (H): When you roll your homing 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 (S): 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 (E): 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 (A): See "homing" but apply to armor instead.
• Slow (S): 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.
• Big Blast (B): This weapon is for collateral damage. For every non-1 you roll in this stage, the radius of effect increases by a quarter meter (or yard, whatever). You cannot turn this property off, before you ask. If the weapon is also exploding, the explosive push radius decreases by one meter for every meter from the center.
• Fire (F): It just keeps burning. Write down how many dice you rolled for damage this stage, then continue as normal. Next turn, roll half that number of dice for this stage, write that number down and continue the attack. Round down each time: the fire is put out when it hits 0 dice.

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 and Payload stages cost 0.5 * the dice size. All stages cost at least 1. Special properties add to the costs of their stage.

• Lasers cost +1
• Homing costs +5
• Exploding costs +2
• Armor piercing costs +5
• Big blast costs +4
• Fire costs +6
• Slow costs +1 for either version

Your weapon's max ammunition is equal to 10000 / (its point cost).

Each character also gets a free weapon with a point value of 700 points. This weapon never runs out of ammunition, and ammunition is never dropped for it.

Stat costs:

• HP: costs 1 for 5 points of HP
• Dodge: costs 20 per point of Dodge
• Armor: costs 5 per point of Armor

If you like, you can choose the ability to run for cover. This costs 4 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 1 point: 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.

You have 5000 points to spend on your character in a regular game.

Vehicles

A vehicle is created using the same rules as a character, including weapons and free weapons. A character may spend a turn to climb into a nearby unoccupied vehicle, or to climb out of the one they're in. When in a vehicle, use the vehicle's stats instead of the character's. When a vehicle is reduced to 0 HP, it explodes use 20/*/20EB centered on the driver. If the vehicle cost more than 5000 points, the explosion is instead 10/20/*/20EB. If the vehicle cost more than 10000 points, the explosion is instead 10/20/*/10/20EB. If the vehicle is more than 15000 points, use 20/20/*/20/20EB. If the vehicle is more than 20000 points, use the 15000 point explosion and fire each weapon once at the rider: the weapons gain the explosion and big blast qualities for this shot. The size of the vehicle itself is at least a 1 meter (or yard) diameter, or for vehicles worth 5000 points or more, 1 meter radius per 5000 points.

If the characters are meant to have a vehicle of their own, it is recommended that they are given one and a half times as many points to make the vehicle as for their character.

Point Level

While a 5000 point game is standard, the system can be applied to much larger or smaller scales. If you want to try a different number of points, these are the numbers you should adjust:

• Character point cost: use this number as a baseline to determine how many points the rest of the options should be.
• Free weapon point cap: this is the maximum point value for a free weapon. It should be between 1/10 and 1/20 of the character point cost.
• Ammo point max: this is the number you divide a weapon's point total by to determine your ammunition. It should be twice the character point cost.

Sample Characters

Example character, for 5000 points.

• Free weapon: single-shot high-impact sniper laser. 100HL/*/20E (616 points)
• Primary weapon: rapid-fire acid grenade launcher. 100/4/*/1FA (1200 points)
• Secondary weapon: Jericho missile launcher. 20/20/4/*/1BE (1400 points)

• HP: 5000 (1000 points)
• Dodge: 45 (900 points)
• Armor: 100 (500 points)

Links

• Metal Slug Setting A setting using the Metal Slug System as a base. Has alternate character creation and combat rules.