I mean rather modern soldiers, not further back in time than, let's say, the 60s. Might be set in the future, but not too distant future as well, unless that military feeling is preserved, with clear ranks, standarized weaponry and having clear orders or missions rather than being motivated by wanderlust or something similar.
I'm in for a sci-fi or horror theme. I'm thinking stuff like The Thing, Predator or even Star Wars: Republic Commando.
It'll be also great if the system allowed for easily managable GM-controlled squad members, so that even with only as few as 3 people could get the mood (I assume a standard small squad is about 5-10 soldiers).
Know any good and available systems?
Ok, I've had this weird urge lately to play an RPG which assumes the PCs are soldiers in a squad.
I mean rather modern soldiers, not further back in time than, let's say, the 60s. Might be set in the future, but not too distant future as well, unless that military feeling is preserved, with clear ranks, standarized weaponry and having clear orders or missions rather than being motivated by wanderlust or something similar.
I'm in for a sci-fi or horror theme. I'm thinking stuff like The Thing, Predator or even Star Wars: Republic Commando.
It'll be also great if the system allowed for easily managable GM-controlled squad members, so that even with only as few as 3 people could get the mood (I assume a standard small squad is about 5-10 soldiers).
Know any good and available systems?
Shadowrun deals with teams of mercenaries. Mechwarrior and BattleTech deal with futuristic robotic combat (I swear it's closer to what you're looking for than it sounds!). D20 Modern might work, even though there's no support for it anymore. And Heroes Unlimited can give you a SHIELD-type feel.
Mechwarrior and BattleTech deal with futuristic robotic combat (I swear it's closer to what you're looking for than it sounds!). (...)..."window.parent.tinyMCE.get('post_content').onLoad.dispatch();" class="mceContentBody " contenteditable="true" />
That's a "wait, what?" from me. Care to elaborate?
Mechwarrior and BattleTech deal with futuristic robotic combat (I swear it's closer to what you're looking for than it sounds!). (...)...
That's a "wait, what?" from me. Care to elaborate?
BattleTech is a strategy game, MechWarrior is the RPG that goes with it (they're the same system, same game, and can be played concurrently). It takes place ~1000 years in the future (which, admittedly, is NOT what you're looking for), and warfare has evolved to heavily armed robots called BattleMechs, and the pilots are MechWarriors. 'Mechs are described as, individually, having more firepower than a platton of 20th century tanks, and are also sometimes thought of as the MechWarrior's lance, mount, and armor (like a knight) all rolled into one. They're classed by weight, and tend to have roles defined by that (i.e. the lightest ones are usually scouts, and the heaviest are usually less mobile and more heavily armed). The weight classes are light (20-35 tons), medium (40-55 tons), heavy (60-75 tons), and assault (80-100 tons). Every 'Mech unit has a rigidly defined rank heirarchy, though some are military, some are National Guard/militia, and some are mercenary. The smallest unit is a lance (4 'Mechs), which tend to be within a weight class of each other. Three lances equals a company, three companies (plus a Command Lance) equals a battalion, three battalions (plus a Command Company) equals a regiment.
That's how it is for the Inner Sphere, at least. There's also the Clans, which operate with Stars (5 'Mechs), Binaries (two stars), Trinaries (3 stars), Clusters (3 Trinaries, IIRC), and Galaxies.
And the interesting thing about BattleTech is that it (usually) isn't just Clan vs. Inner Sphere. There's internecine warfare on both sides (Inner Sphere is divided into 5 Great Houses and innumerable merc units, there are 15 (IIRC) clans as well).
In short: MechWarrior is a RPG that can easily be dove-tailed into a turn-based strategy game (BattleTech) and back again.
EDIT: Oh and it supports various time periods as well. You could run anything from a western to a futuristic sci-fi campaign just by changing what tech the PCs have access to.
More about MechWarrior: so it'd basically be squad-based game, with 3 players usually being about enough, except each one controls a giant robot? OK, the first thing that came to my mind when envisioning this were the Landmates from Appleseed, though I understand BattleMechs pack way more firepower and are probably larger (I'm no mech expert, but I guess a Landmate would weight 3-7 tonnes).
Here's a pic for estimation:
More about MechWarrior: so it'd basically be squad-based game, with 3 players usually being about enough, except each one controls a giant robot?
Alternatively, you could even let each one control a lance, with one also being the company commander (usually Captain). But yeah, 3-5 players would be very easy to do.
OK, the first thing that came to my mind when envisioning this were the Landmates from Appleseed, though I understand BattleMechs pack way more firepower and are probably larger (I'm no mech expert, but I guess a Landmate would weight 3-7 tonnes).
Considering their build and size, mechs like that would be what I'm looking for as well, although with a spin. There was a cool sequence in the manga with a few rogue Landmate pilots and the main character chasing them in her own suit and they pretty much acted like soldiers (well, terrorists) chased by a commando; that's the kind of action I'd be looking for.
Uh-uh. If you know '80s manga, BattleTech is a rip-off of Robotech/Macross. Each 'Mech stands about 9-12 meters tall. And, when I said rip-off, I wasn't kidding. Compare
Do I see a smallish Knightmare Frame? Those extra arms look a bit weird, but still...
A what? No, that's Guges-D, a humanoid Landmate operated by Deunan Knute.
The small arms look a bit weird, but they make sense, considering the Landamte copies the pilot's movement. And the suit's apparently silent enough to sneak up into an apartment right behind a cyborg with heightened senses without him noticing.
Here's some more pics:
The second set of arms seems entirely unnecessary. It puts the pilot's arms at risk for no benefit. You could easily make either larger in the chest area, or just chop off the pilot's arms, give him some mechanical ones, and have some sort of plug-in. Mental controls on the arms would work just as well.
Or just make a SM Dreadnought. Dead people are good for that.
I don't think Appleseed had much in "mental control", even tough it had very robotic cyborgs. The pilots often worked out of suits as well (Guges was a police Landmate, not a military one; the other mentioned were farming tools; there was also one with wheels that could act as a bike for another one), and with the squeaky clean image the city the manga took place in, chopping off a human's arms so they could pilot a robot would be a bit too gruesome (not to mention it would interfere with the plot).
A larger chest area would probably make the suit less mobile, more like an AT-ST than an overgrown Iron Man.
I think Shirow is the kind of guy that pays close attention to technical details and tries to make his designs realistic to a certain degree.
I'm also pretty sure Tau from WH40K were inspired mainly by his works; the Crisis Battle suit in particular looks like a blockier Landmate.
Ultramodern4 sounds interesting, I'll have to look up some reviews; does anyone have first-hand experience to share? Or more systems?
I've been using it with some custom races to run a campaign in the MCWoD setting. The PCs all work for the government (1 detective, 1 CIA agent, the rest are deputies) and I have plans to move them into a military organization now that martial law is being declared.
I also ran a one-shot adventure where they were a military squad. I previously ran a future campaign that was pretty fun where the characters were mercs. I believe there were rules for mechs but we didn't end up using them as the campaign ended up getting cut short before we reached the point where they might have gotten used.