You’ll get your Hit Die which determines your hit points, your Damage Die which will be what you roll when you land an attack, and your Reactor Die. You’ll receive two abilities unique to the chassis, some of which will be passive and some of which will require an action. Then you choose your Chassis type, which is your actual mecha. Aside from a brief description your Pilot type increases some of your stats (which by default are determined by rolling 3d6 in a row) and grants a single ability – some are passive, most require an action. However, if you have any experience with Powered by the Apocalypse games or the like, this will be a pretty easy transition? I’m sure some would call it heretical, but while the action resolution is more binary the vibes are very much the same: you set up the initial situation but are largely dependent on player decisions and rolls to tell you how things go from there, you’re not rolling dice yourself to see if antagonists succeed, and if you don’t go with the setting of Lodestar Alpha detailed in the books you (and your players) will be doing all the worldbuilding yourself.īehind the scenes, the reason I’ve moved from staring longingly at my Mecha Hack books to actually doing something with them is that I’m going to be offering the game with Games on Demand at the upcoming PAX East ‘23 alongside Transit, and what got me thinking along these lines is that my prep level and mentality for both games is pretty much equal.Īlright, so how do you go about making your characters?įirst, you choose your Pilot Type. ![]() Looking back at when Aaron did a cross section of the OSR, I find that his summary of The Black Hack fits The Mecha Hack very well: “a great starting point for players, given how little they need to read and how clear it is.” When it comes to the GM side of things, I agree with Aaron that it could be a little more demanding for first-timers insofar as it’s a very improv heavy affair. There are more situational rules like how distance and cover and being disabled work, but that’s pretty much how to play the game – the basic rules that everyone is going to be running off of cover pages 3-9 of the 43 page book. You might have advantage and get to keep the more favorable of two dice, or have disadvantage and have to keep the less favorable of two dice. On a given turn you’ve got two actions and four options: Attack an opponent, Move around, Test against a stat in order to accomplish a task, or Use an ability or piece of equipment. A result of 1 is a critical success, a result of 20 is a critical failure. If you matched it or rolled over it, you failed. If you get under your number for that Stat, you succeed. ![]() Each character has four Stats – Power, Mobility, System, and Presence – and any sort of activity that has a chance to fail involves testing against one of those stats by rolling a d20. As such it is decidedly an OSR style game, following the design philosophy that a limited number of rules can make for a stronger game. The Mecha Hack is based on The Black Hack from Gold Piece Publications, although it is a completely standalone game – no other purchase required. It’s been a while since we did one of these, huh? So of course it’s going to be a Meet-the-Party-as-delivery-system-for-a-review. ![]() Let’s do a quick little review of, and then Meet the Party for, The Mecha Hack from Absolute Tabletop! All pilots, get in your giant robots and get ready to launch. Wing Crusader, Onyx Edge, Jester Epoch, Dagger Alpha, Iron Glory, and Chimera Sunset are the weapons of war that will see their pilots make their fortune and maybe decide the fate of the system altogether. A mercenary band of mecha pilots stands prepared to fight another day in the Lodestar Alpha system, all for the credits its various factions are willing to provide for their services.
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