Delayed Mekton Zero RPG

[The Faceless King]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1888572386/mekton-zero

 

 

Yup, that's what it is.

[MonkeySloth]

Holy crap they're bring back Mekton?!? That's the holy grail of 90s Space RPGs. I've still got my original Mekton Zeta, though it's quite worn.

[Jordan Peacock]

Wow! MEKTON! I think I've still got a couple of the books around here. I repainted a bunch of my Mekton minis and loaned them to a friend to use as alternative 'mechs for a Battletech campaign that never materialized. I like the idea of being able to fight Godzilla-sized monsters with the suits. :D (Ever since seeing the trailer for Pacific Rim, I suppose that idea might've crossed my mind once or twice for a giant-robot scenario....) What makes it really tempting is the "ancient" mekton. I need to check my books, but isn't that the same design as the giant robot suit that was billed as the "Excalibur"? (No relation to the "Excaliber" from Robotech/Macross.)

[The Inner Geek]

If this is the game I'm thinking of, we never got around to playing because we all had too much fun designing new mechs.

[MonkeySloth]

Yep, that's Mekton.

[Don Rodolfo Graziani]

Man, I miss Mekton. I played with my friends in college and had a blast designing my own stuff. Great games. Now my books hide upstairs in a box.

[scorpio616]

I'm interested in the game, but the rewards leave me cold. This back post puts it better than i could...

 

 

Pablo Bustos

When I knew of this Kickstarter my first tought was "A new Mekton RPG?! Shut up and take my money!", but seeing the tiers everything went to "What is this? A merchandising KS or a RPG KS?" With all these Stickers and Shirts before almost any RPG product I can be no less than annoyed.

Where is the solo PDF tier? I mean, this is to found a RPG, isn't? Why are we getting sticker, shirts and even minis before a GM's screen and dice? Something seems to be out of place.

 

 

And then the company seems to be underestimating the size of the fanbase...

 

Shirts will come in SM, MED, LG, XL and XXL. If there's enough demand, we will make a very small number of XXXL shirts.

WTF. So I'd likely be stuck with a shirt that won't fit me to get the book even in PDF?

Edited May 28, 2013 by scorpio616

[scorpio616]

Any one else not happy with the art? Looks like the obviously western drawn "How to Draw Manga" covers. This faux-anime 'stuff' might have been a necessary evil back in the 90's when the pacific was a barrier, but using it today just feels like the company didn't want to bother getting the real McCoy. Sometimes western artists get manga style right, but In the era of Pixiv & Paypal, the company could have had the pick of the litter of affordable mecha artists.

Edited May 28, 2013 by scorpio616

[MonkeySloth]

Or they're just using the same original artist to keep the feel. Doesn't really bother me as so far this has been presented more as a retro game. There are a lot of fantasy RPGs that have come out over the past few years, several kickstarted, that have all tried to mimic the feel of old school D&D--so you could say outdated art is trendy right now in RPGs.

 

As for the pricing, well not all KSers are about great deals and on the line of the merchandising I can say that it's way more common then not to have t-shirts and other dinky things before other rewards, like PDFs, then just stand alone cheap options without that stuff. Wyrd's RPG they kickstarters in January didn't have a PDF option and you had to drop $100 to get a pledge level with it and they raised about $200k.

 

At the end of the day people need to just decided if the amount being asked is worth it to them to see the final product, as that's why you have kickstarters to say "Yes, I'm willing to pay x to see that get made".

 

On the shirt thing they have to order a minimum amount, usually 50-100, so if they have enough people who want a XXXL for it to be affordable as XXXLs cost more to make.

Edited May 28, 2013 by MonkeySloth

[Jordan Peacock]

I've seen a lot worse on the "How to Draw Manga" covers and such. While this doesn't look comparable to MODERN anime/manga, it looks about par-for-the-course for something that evokes that "Saturday morning cartoon" or "Robotech/Macross redub" look.

 

More worrisome for me was seeing the same two robots recycled on the pledge-level banners, with repaints/color-wheel spins of dubious quality -- especially the Mekton Pilot and Militia Member ones, which end up looking like someone tried bucket-fill and then turned up the compression for maximum JPEG scatter. I've seen the Mekton books, and I know there's a lot of art in there, but the reuse of the same couple of images so many times would seem to give the impression of "We really don't have much art at all to work with here."

 

I'm wondering if they might do re-sculpts of the old minis or they're just going to recycle them. I remember the old Mekton minis (was it Rafm who put them out?) as being rather ponderous to assemble, with lots of TINY bits that were far too small to even consider the thought of pinning them. (The Mauler would be a good example, as the maneuvering wings/nacelles would keep falling off of my minis, but I think it was the "Comet" that was even worse, with MICRO maneuvering rocket-nozzles that were supposed to be glued into holes in the main body at several points. I did a quick Google search, and those painted Comets I found didn't even bother with attaching the nozzles.

 

Honestly, though, I've got so many robot minis of various types that I'd probably not worry overly much about getting "official" miniatures, and rather just find something I can work with, kitbashing is needed. The original Mekton designs weren't particularly compelling, design-wise; for me, it was more about the big difference in focus on how combat worked, as Battletech involved "mega-tanks on legs slowly wearing each other down with guns aplenty" whereas Mekton seemed to be going for more of the "Gundam" sort of giant-robot franchise with "lots of fast robots zipping around and getting blown up left and right" (making me wonder just what the point of all that ARMOR was if it only took a single hit to make them go KABOOM). Despite my parenthetical concern about the latter, it still seemed like a much more exciting setting.

[MonkeySloth]

I never saw any of the original minis for this but I'm curious too on if they're resculpts or not. I have a feeling they're not though.

 

I'm still feeling this one out as most of the high level rewards don't really seam worth it yet so I'm happy to coast on a lower level just for the book.

[scorpio616]

 

Honestly, though, I've got so many robot minis of various types that I'd probably not worry overly much about getting "official" miniatures, and rather just find something I can work with, kitbashing is needed.

Minis? I'd assume Model Kits would be a LOT more commonly used with this game.

Edited May 28, 2013 by scorpio616

[MonkeySloth]

Not at the scale of the original when it comes to combat--especially space where combat can happen while things are miles apart.

[ZephyrusMK]

I admit I'm kind of disappointed how merchandising focused it seems. At least you can trade the T-Shirt and Sticker for credit towards other things I think I saw somewhere. Its not as compelling but perhaps it is intended to pad the bill some for making the PDF $25. I'm just a bit irked that you have to go in $50 to get a physical book and like I think someone (here or in the KS backer comments) that things like the Reference screen and special dice don't start showing up till a much higher dollar mark.

[MonkeySloth]

$50 for a book is not a bad price now days, especially for something with such a low print order (probably only a few thousand at the most).