Best system to emulate Pacific Rim?

[Roxxy]

It could totally be made awesome, though each player should control a two pilot team, not an individual pilot. I could dig up D20 Future, but I'm not sure that's the best game. Any other ideas, with the caveat that, as a pbp GM, I need something easily accessible through the Internet, since I can't pass books around?

My first idea is that is that the system doesn't necessarily need to be a system that uses robots and kaiju, or high tech in general. A hand to hand martial arts game could be adapted for robots.

[The Glyphstone]

I have no idea, and in those situations, I suggest M&M. With the Mecha+Manga supplement if you choose 2E, to better build your Jaegers.

[Forrestfire]

A guy I know ran a mecha game using Legend for the mechs and Fate for the pilots when outside of mechs. Personally, I think the idea is genius, since the setting would help you avoid Legend's pitfalls (monsters are statted as characters, no bestiary or anything to help) and play to its strengths (customizability, balanced combat, emphasis on cool stuff rather than simulationism). Fate as a whole is a really awesome mostly rules-light narrative game, and I highly recommend it in general. In this case, it seems good because it nicely contrasts Legend's crunch-heaviness, letting you get a game with well-made, balanced combat for when you're fighting kaiju, and great out-of-combat rules for everything else.

[Roxxy]

Thanks! Legend looks pretty intriguing.

[TheCountAlucard]

The really dangerous part will be when the players start thinking. For instance, "Why don't we open every fight with the badass +5 Sword of Kaiju Slaying?" Or, "Why not have the guns charged and ready to go so we can kill the Kaiju right away?" Or, "Instead of letting Kaiju have free reign of the sea and waiting for them to attack, why not park our Jeagers right over the portal and play Hack-A-Kaiju whenever one shows up?" Or, "If we absolutely have to let the Kaiju come to us, why not put the Kaiju-killing weapons on automated platforms so we don't have to get twins or whatever for each Jaeger?"

There's only so long you can keep players distracted with shiny fight scenes.

[Silus]

The really dangerous part will be when the players start thinking. For instance, "Why don't we open every fight with the badass +5 Sword of Kaiju Slaying?" Or, "Why not have the guns charged and ready to go so we can kill the Kaiju right away?" Or, "Instead of letting Kaiju have free reign of the sea and waiting for them to attack, why not park our Jeagers right over the portal and play Hack-A-Kaiju whenever one shows up?" Or, "If we absolutely have to let the Kaiju come to us, why not put the Kaiju-killing weapons on automated platforms so we don't have to get twins or whatever for each Jaeger?"

There's only so long you can keep players distracted with shiny fight scenes.

That's when you as the DM start making the Kaiju clever. Or at least those controlling the Kaiju.

[The Glyphstone]

Or, at the very least, importing details from the tie-in comics and novels that explain those little details that become plot holes when left out of a 2-hour punchathon.

[Laughingmanlol]

For a more gritty, complex system, I imagine Adeptus Evangelion (itself an adaptation of Dark Heresy for NGE) could be adapted without too much difficulty to Pacific Rim. It already features a good Sync Ratio mechanic (though between the pilot and their organic mechs rather than between a pair of pilots) and plenty of mental trauma rules and grisly critical hits. The only issue I can imagine would be in the removal of the AT field mechanic and adaptation to integrated weapons.

[One Tin Soldier]

Or, at the very least, importing details from the tie-in comics and novels that explain those little details that become plot holes when left out of a 2-hour punchathon.

Have you read these comics and/or novels? If so, would you mind giving the TLDR for what those explanations are? I'm sure I'll be able to read them eventually, but that's the kind of thing that I'd really like to know.

[The Glyphstone]

Not directly - most of my knowledge comes from browsing the Pacific Rim wiki, which cites the tie-in material as sources but I can't confirm to be 100% reliable (being a wiki). But I do remember a few things that at least make sense, so this is a combination of learned things and educated guesses.

1) For why they don't open with the +5 sword of Kaijuslaying or start the fight with the biggest guns, it's supposedly because they are hoping to not need said weapons. Any time they use something new and special against a Kaiju, the follow-ups will be less susceptible to that form of attack - about the only thing their creators can't engineer immunity to is blunt force trauma. Also, the comics take Kaiju Blue dead seriously, while it's totally ignored in the movie - this is why they use punches to begin with. If the Hong Kong fight had been in the comics, they would have irradiated the entire city by cutting the flying thing in half. So they try to defeat the monsters with what they've already got/used, even if it's harder than before, rather than use their newest ace in the hole too early or spread too much toxic blood around.

2) For why they don't just park the Jaegers over the Rift directly, it's a bit fuzzier. But it's obvious that a Jaeger cannot swim - they have to fight on the ocean floor. So even if Jaegers could endure extended periods at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, and if their pilots had the air supply, they would have a very small window to engage a new Kajiu before it just swam up, over, and past them. Then your giant monster-killing robots are plodding back to defend the smoking wreckage of the city they left unguarded.

3) The problem with automated weapons is that you can't attach giant fists to them, and as mentioned in #1, any other weapon has an extremely short deployment span once it's used for the first time. So sure, you could take the missile launchers in the Australian mech and build a dozen mega-missile turrets. But you would be spending 12x as much money/time, and all you'd get would be overkill for the next two or three kaiju before you got missileproof monsters or something like the organic EMP they used (grumble grumble analog). But punches always work, because reasons. I never said it solved all the plot holes.

[Roxxy]

Thanks, Glyphstone. That's extremely helpful.

After the events of the movie, I bet Jaegers have gone back into production, and I bet humans are getting ready, assuming that another breach isn't just possible, but highly likely. No idea where a new breach could be, though, so everyone needs to be ready. That means European and African and Southern Asian countries all need to build up Jaeger forces. Given the now known stakes, I'd think that, even in the event that the new breach was also in the Pacific, it would be a much more global battle, with Germany, Egypt, and Brazil fighting as hard as America, Australia, and Japan.

[cobaltstarfire]

Have you read these comics and/or novels? If so, would you mind giving the TLDR for what those explanations are? I'm sure I'll be able to read them eventually, but that's the kind of thing that I'd really like to know.

The prequel comic is mostly about how drifting works, and some backstory for Pacific Rims main character and the commander dude.

The TLDR of it is that love is what makes drifting work. And that's why most Jaeger pilots are siblings, married, or parent+child.

Things that get in the way of that bond can end in the pilots getting grounded. (This almost happened with the main character and his brother, when they both had eyes for the same girl).

I'd have to read the comic again but I think the implication is that it works because there isn't as much resistance between the pilots when they are completely and openly trusting of each other. That's why the commander could drift with that Australian guy, because as he stated he's completely empty/open, so there wouldn't be any infighting between his brain and the other guys.

I had thought that the movie covered that blood was super toxic...but maybe that was information that was imparted in conversation on this forum or something prior to the movie coming out.

[The Glyphstone]

The problem is that the movie flip-flops. At the very beginning, the voice-over talks about how Kaiju blood is horribly toxic and deadly, poisoning the ground it falls on and killing people. But then from the second big fight onward, the monsters are being sworded, blasted, and punched in the face with massive sprays of blood everywhere to no effect. Multiple Kaiju are killed in downtown Hong Kong, and rather than evacuate the city, a swarm of people in bare-minimum protective gear start butchering the carcass for valuable loot. So what we are told directly contradicts what we are shown.

[Milo v3]

The problem is that the movie flip-flops. At the very beginning, the voice-over talks about how Kaiju blood is horribly toxic and deadly, poisoning the ground it falls on and killing people. But then from the second big fight onward, the monsters are being sworded, blasted, and punched in the face with massive sprays of blood everywhere to no effect. Multiple Kaiju are killed in downtown Hong Kong, and rather than evacuate the city, a swarm of people in bare-minimum protective gear start butchering the carcass for valuable loot. So what we are told directly contradicts what we are shown.

I thought the reason why they were wearing the protective gear was fine as a remembering the stuff is toxic considering how much opportunity there is too sell the stuff.... the stinger on the other hand.... less sensible....

[The Glyphstone]

I thought the reason why they were wearing the protective gear was fine as a remembering the stuff is toxic considering how much opportunity there is too sell the stuff.... the stinger on the other hand.... less sensible....

The stinger is just icing on the ridiculous cake. But there's a big jump between the voiceover scenes of people in hazmat suits, and the salvage scene where you can see people with gloves and boots as their full protection. The only people in that scene with any sense were the ones going after the brain.

That, and the existence of a town in a Kaiju skeleton to begin with. That is supposedly like building a city on the site of an atomic bomb testing site.

[ImperiousLeader]

If you like Fate, there are two worlds with giant mecha that you could use as a basis for Pacific Rim: Camelot Trigger, from "Worlds of Shadow", or Apotheosis Drive X, which references Pacific Rim in its writeup.

[Sith_Happens]

The stinger is just icing on the ridiculous cake. But there's a big jump between the voiceover scenes of people in hazmat suits, and the salvage scene where you can see people with gloves and boots as their full protection. The only people in that scene with any sense were the ones going after the brain.

That, and the existence of a town in a Kaiju skeleton to begin with. That is supposedly like building a city on the site of an atomic bomb testing site.

This is China we're talking about, they aren't exactly big on worker safety.