Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[insomniac009]

Hi, I just recently got a copy of the Japanese RPG Wares Blade D20 and was wondering how to put adventures together that would incorporate a fairly standard fantasy setting with magically powered armor. Looking at the Wares Blade book it looks like the Machine Soldiers in there are roughly 200 hp+ so the balance of the game seems to be off.

Also reading through the rules the only people who can pilot a machine soldier are the Vagabond/thief and the Warrior classes. The Renpo Scholar's (mage) and cleric's pretty much stick with their spells and chi abilities. So everyone is pretty well balanced until the mech shows up then the the group mech stands up and everyone else provides cover and support.

I can imagine most games being a dungeon crawl to find ancient artifacts or lost machine soldiers (kind of hard to lug a machine soldier down narrow dungeon corridors). Another thing everyone is after is "wares" stone which is a huge component in machine soldier construction and renpo spell casting.

Guess other adventure ideas might include caravan security, military style raides, site security, etc.

Any other ideas? I'm trying to put together a mission generator/plot point filled campaign and would welcome any help I can get. Thanks.

[Inferno!]

I'm not familiar with Wares Blade. Have you looked at Dragonmech by Goodman Games? All their d20 pdfs are on sale for $2.00 until the end of the year http://enworld.rpgnow.com/index.php?cPath=137
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[insomniac009]

Yeah, I've run across it a couple of times but haven't picked it up yet. Not sure if it would suit my needs or not. They only have one adventure module that gets you introduced to the setting and I guess by the end of it you actually get a mech. I guess I could shell out the bucks and check it out but can anybody here recommend it?

[Capnsmitty19]

While not a setting in any book that I know of, I always thought Escaflowne (anime, not that joke of a fox cartoon) meshed a fantasy feel with mecha...

might be worth checking out for at least some ideas...
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[Emiricol]

Have you checked out the Sci Fi Gear Toolkit? It has rules for mecha that might fit your needs mechanically, which you could port over with fantasy overtones. It would then be a matter of fleshing out the setting fluff and secondary rules, to get the feel you want. But the Mecha part would be mostly taken care of.
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[Sitting Duck]

[Control]

I'm not familiar with the setting so this may not work for you. But when looking at the Dragonmech link Cancel Bear posted I thought of having a plot point campaign about the rise of fantasy mecha.

Consider this...
The heroes learn of an invincible Juggernaut fielded by their enemy. They help the army defeat it at great cost. Royal intelligence learns that the enemy is building more. Now the heroes are asked to sabotage the construction. While they are doing so they have an opportunity to steal the secret of macha construction. Now the embattled nations begin an arms race as both struggle to build more powerful mecha and control the fantastic materials needed to produce them.

You can have a story arc revolve around winning a battle and needing to repair your damaged mecha before enemy reinforcements arrive. You mentioned not using machine soldiers in a dungeon, but what if the dungeon was the factory where they were made? Don't forget to have a few social 'missions'. Perhaps the party is sent to trade for supplies and finds that they are in a bidding 'war' with agents of the enemy. They may need to attend a ball and socialize with the rich and powerful to get funding for additional mecha or approval to build a new model.

Hope this gives you food for though.
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[insomniac009]

Sorry for taking so long to reply to this. Thanks for the ideas, they are a definite help. This Wares Blade RPG was created in Japan and I think it inspired Escaflowne and probably had some inspiration from Aura Battler Dunbine and I hear allot from Mechwarrior of of all places.

I was talking it over with one of my players and his concern is that it's great to adventure and look for a way to get the 20 ft. tall mech but once you have one it changes the dynamic of the game.

First, if you only have one mech then what is the rest of the party going to do when a fight breaks out between mechs?

Second, considering a mech is something that only a nation might be able to afford, what are you going to do to get the thing repaired once it gets damaged? I guess from that point on it turns into a mercenary/military campaign in which you make alliances with kingdoms and people of power and hope they just don't up and take what you have. Or you set out and start your own kingdom. Guess that's something else to consider.

As for a meta plot to tie all the adventures together I was thinking of having them start out as explorers and eventually finding 4 of the Divine Machine Soldiers. Of course these ancient machine soldiers would be lacking their old divine power and behave as regular machine soldiers but eventually they would find out about their mechs origins, figure out how to sanctify them and make them divine in time to face off against a bigger threat to the continent of Ahan, the return of the God Dragons!

How's that for a campaign?

[zeth]

Sharkbytes has 'Golem Knights' that fits the whole fantasy mecha idea pretty nicely. You should check them out.

[zeth]

So you don't have to go hunting.