Skill Lists And Limits For Teenage Characters

[Pursuivant]

It sounds like The Last Starfighter, a somewhat obscure SF movie from the 1980s, should be required watching for potential players. (Same premise: video game turns out to be a training simulator for advanced alien weaponry.)

[scc]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

I assume you mean the Mekton Zeta Weapon Accuracy stat, and I can't see why you couldn't use it as a basis for Acc or why you would require that all beginning weapons start with WA -2. Most of the canonical Mekton designs for early mecha have weapons with WA 0 or higher.

Starting mecha might choose their weapons from among Acc 12+6, Dmg 6dx3 (2) lasers at RoF 20; or Acc 9+6, Dmg 6dx5 (3) blasters at RoF 3; or Acc 6+6, Dmg 6dx6 (2) autocannon at RoF 50; or Acc 8+6, Dmg 6dx8 (5) missiles at RoF 10 that are vulnerable to point defense. The different weapons perform in different roles.

MZ WA stat ranges from -2 to 3 and apply to melee weapons, that means it can't sub in for GURPS Acc, because GURPS Acc is functionally optional and doesn't apply to melee weapons.

As for damage stats, I'm not thinking of converting, why bother?

Originally Posted by Rolando

For the combat I think you may use the mekton ranges and combat straight from the book, modifiers and all.

You are simulating a game inside the game so ranges don't have to be in virtual reality meters or anything but hexes (50 meters to a hex for description purposes).

I think mekton skill rolls are close enough to GURPS that it may work, and most combat rolls are quick contests, so the skill scale between attacker and defender is the same, you may want to watch some of the modifiers and make a few test battles and see if the modifiers need compressing (each +-2 in mekton equals +-1 in GURPS).

Beyond even my use case, what I'm working on is good for cinematic games, because cinema doesn't believe in beyond visual range engagements (There a potential space opera follow up game to this one) and for tactical play the assumed short ranges of Mekton's hexes actually work out OK compared to the 100+ of what SpaceShips gives.

Skill roles, Mekton uses opposed without target numbers, so whoever gets the higher dice roll wins, where as GURPS is more complicated.

[Gef]

Originally Posted by scc

For martial arts skills it's fine, I was thinking more like Guns and Gunner should be banned. But for the kids taking those classes, how much skill would you rate the non-Olympic-hopefuls as having?

Fred beat me to it, but for hard numbers, I assume skill 9 is amateur, 12 is entry-level professional, 15 expert (experienced pro or doctoral degree), for those things you could make money doing. In those things kids have access to learn, I've known plenty that seemed to have the proficiency necessary to earn a living at it if they were allowed to get jobs, or in some cases did have such jobs at least in summer. For instance, I saw kids at the dojo who could probably get jobs as Hollywood stuntmen as soon as they were old enough to insure. Of course there's more to thriving in a work environment, like conscientiousness, just saying that skill isn't the limiting factor - definitely 12 is reasonable for those with dedication and enthusiasm, 13 to 14 plausible, and the way I normally interpret skill levels, 15 would be in the realm of the theoretically possible but the problem here is a matter of what kids have access to. For Gunner in particular, I'd say nobody would let a kid use the real thing, and I don't think you could get to that level on simulator only; the best you could do is ace the simulation. So I could see Gunner Sport 15 yielding default Gunner 12, and that'd be the level you'd hope enlisted graduates of weapon school would have, and if such a kid enlisted and actually pulled an MOS consistent with his interest and ability, he'd leave weapon school at the top of his class.

[scc]

OK, so about guns. One leg of the mystery side of things is why is there such a push for a world government? The answer is genuine fear/belief in an impending alien invasion, fueled by the discovery/capture of a transport that got off at the wrong stop in the outer reaches of the solar system.

Now just the world government thing is going to put the kibosh on US gun rights, no country is going to accept open borders with the US without at least some limit on gun sales. Additionally, while I haven't given any thought to where it is before, the city this is taking place in is the emergent capital, which would have greater restrictions on guns, but is probably in a now small city in France, if not a new one.

Now my version of the Virtual Mekton doesn't just feature head to head duels, it also has story-line, or single-player/co-op multiplayer content, which results in it having several settings, which enable or disable certain options. These are (not a full list):

War Between The Worlds: A setting that asks what if humanity had steampunk mecha and armored combat when the Martians invaded in War of the Worlds, story features both human on human and human on Martian content.

Defenders of Earth: Forces quite similar to in-universe military fight of attacks by alien invaders and B movie monsters. Human on other.

Along with Not-Gundam and Not-Star Wars settings, and maybe some others. Each setting has it's own list of what is and isn't allowed, and the monthly tournament, which just as the game starts is moving to wards being focused on team play, is set in one of these, possibly with tweaked rules.

The first challenge I'll set before my players is going to be a King of the Hill situation set in War Between The Worlds.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by scc

OK, so about guns. One leg of the mystery side of things is why is there such a push for a world government? The answer is genuine fear/belief in an impending alien invasion, fueled by the discovery/capture of a transport that got off at the wrong stop in the outer reaches of the solar system.

Now just the world government thing is going to put the kibosh on US gun rights, no country is going to accept open borders with the US without at least some limit on gun sales..

Some would say that you had abandoned all realism when you went for the giant mecha so what's a little bit more?

However you should know that this is totally unrealistic to some US eyes. We don't seem to be getting anything out of the deal.

[cptbutton]

I did my take on Ordinary High School students here.

[RGTraynor]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

However you should know that this is totally unrealistic to some US eyes. We don't seem to be getting anything out of the deal.

Nationalism isn't merely an American trait. If we took the worldwide political climate as of 2022, there'd be -- realistically -- dozens of countries that'd say Hell No, even if there were Martian war machines blowing cities to hell and gone. I wouldn't expect China or France to be any less militant or more accommodating.

Naturally, this would have to be a basic suspension of disbelief item in any such milieu: the Americans are either playing ball, or the irreconcilables are being/have been rounded up and dealt with.

[scc]

Originally Posted by RGTraynor

Nationalism isn't merely an American trait. If we took the worldwide political climate as of 2022, there'd be -- realistically -- dozens of countries that'd say Hell No, even if there were Martian war machines blowing cities to hell and gone. I wouldn't expect China or France to be any less militant or more accommodating.

Yep. I mean I'm Australian, the literal reason, as I understand, that we don't have a Bill of Rights is because the people who founded my country looked at the US one and pronounced it too open reinterpretation and so decided it was a bad idea.

Originally Posted by RGTraynor

Naturally, this would have to be a basic suspension of disbelief item in any such milieu: the Americans are either playing ball, or the irreconcilables are being/have been rounded up and dealt with.

So I figured that it would be more a of a Nato Plus government, and one still forming at that. Basically 20 years prior, when the alien spaceship was discovered deep in the outer system, enough people high enough up in government were both in the know enough and smart enough to realize that when dealing with an interstallar empire they would need something that spoke for all people on Earth, or at least enough of them, to have any bargaining power. With that kind of imputeus behind things, well people used to the slow expansion of the EU are rather shocked at how smoothly and quickly things are going now.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Some would say that you had abandoned all realism when you went for the giant mecha so what's a little bit more?

However you should know that this is totally unrealistic to some US eyes. We don't seem to be getting anything out of the deal.

It's less about what they gain and more about what they lose. It means becoming the junior partner as all their allies merge into a super state around them. It means not having a seat at the table when deals are made and standards set. And most importantly it means ******* off every defense contractor as they won't be able to take part in planetary defense projects, or at least must do so as minor player.

That last on it's own is probably enough outweigh the lobbying power of the NRA and all small arms manufacturers in the country by a country mile.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by scc

Yep. I mean I'm Australian, the literal reason, as I understand, that we don't have a Bill of Rights is because the people who founded my country looked at the US one and pronounced it too open reinterpretation and so decided it was a bad idea.

However. The thing is that by no means does cooperating on defense and interstellar diplomacy require a single government, harmonizing laws or even opening borders. You'll note that neither Australia nor the US have fully harmonized their state laws yet. Louisiana doesn't even use the same basic framework as the rest of the US. On the other hand the European "Union" is even further from having done so, or even fully coordinating its foreign policies, and yet has the open borders and most of the common economy. For that matter this is a substantial part of the Communist [ideal] and it largely didn't happen even between fairly culturally close Communist governed neighbors over half a century of facing off against a West that clearly hated them.

This is something we know comes in a lot of shades, and thinking you are going to get a world government that doesn't stop short of full union without at least centuries at an intermediate stage is a utopian fantasy no matter what you think the impetus is.

[Rolando]

Originally Posted by scc

...

Skill roles, Mekton uses opposed without target numbers, so whoever gets the higher dice roll wins, where as GURPS is more complicated.

What I mean is that you may use GURPS skills for everything, you don't have to simulate Mekton with GURPS, you just play GURPS and use Mekton for the mechs.

Any modifier in mekton may be used as is to modify GURPS rolls in most cases.
And for attacks and defenses use quick contests, it doesn't matter if Mekton system is different, the feel of one character against another is what matter, and GURPS skills system already do that.