Mekton!

I picked up a copy of the old "Mekton Empires" at MillenniumCon last weekend. As some of you know, I'm a nut for Mechs, though I've had very little (as in no) luck engaging in Mech or Anime related RPGs. (Played a lot of Battletech though - that counts for something, right? :))

ME is a supplement for the Mekton RPG. In specific, it's for Mekton II. The only Mekton rules I have are "Mekton Z" (which is basically tweaked M2 with a way more sophisticated mech building system). I picked up MZ a few years ago when I was looking for a new Mech wargame that wasn't BTech or Heavy Gear, and had MZ suggested. I tried a few test games of MZ just as a miniatures wargame, and while it worked well enough, as with most games, I suspect it would have worked better had I not had to play solo. Besides, Mekton is actually an RPG, and a big part of the fun of a Mekton battle is no doubt the crazy interaction between angsty teenage pilots. :)

A relevant aside: I've been watching some classic Anime SF with my kids lately - Robotech, Starblazers, Patlabor.... So they get the robots, space fighters, pop stars and "spinal mount weapons" thing.

After a brief conversation with a friend, I decided to go ahead and grab a copy of M2 (it was only 5 bucks) so that I can run Operation: Rimfire and use Mekton Empires without having to try to convert to MZ. It seems that M2 has sort of the same relationship to MZ as D&D 2nd Ed has to D&D 3.0 - very similar in broad strokes, but quite different in the details.

Plus, the Mekton II cover art owns the Mekton Zeta art. At least in my opinion. :)

Now the real question is, am I going to be able to get my at-home RPG group (ie, wife & kids) to sign on for a campaign? We're playing Pathfinder right now, which is much more complex mechanically, but simpler conceptually, and even though we're winding down one campaign, they're already excited about starting up a Pathfinder Pirates game.

So my Mekton dreams may have to wait a little longer still.