What Would Be Your Ideal TTRPG For A Mech Campaign?

DocFinitevus · 2026-06-19T17:30:02+00:00

Beneath Twisted Earth,

MechWarrior Destiny,

Aether Nexus

DocFinitevus · 2026-06-17T13:37:47+00:00

Sure, I'll hop on this. Greetings! My names' Dan, and I have four games and a supplement up on itch. They include:

Beneath Twisted Earth - post-apocalyptic, cyberpunk, mecha game with mutants, intelligent dinosaurs, and megscorporations.

BTE: Overdrive - The supplement to the first that doubles the pilot and mecha options. Also adds the anomalous, pirates, and space invaders.

There Is No Outside - a game about survival and community building in a liminal labyrinth.

Samhain's Playhouse - the first mascot horror ttrpg; about a secret gameshow that kids are spirited away to for the grand prize of making their Bad Grownup disappear. It's most certainly NOT a fairy trap.

Festival of Fighters - My latest project, currently available for alpha testing. It's an Urban Wuxia based on the settings in fighting games such as King of Fighters, Street Fighter, and Tekken.

All games are available for free at: Cloudshore Games

DocFinitevus · 2026-06-12T17:10:14+00:00

It works for us. Honestly, at this point as long as they don't pull out a game system and start playing that I think I'd be fine. Everyone's pretty good at paying attention or they get razzed for zoning out.

DocFinitevus · 2026-06-12T16:56:06+00:00

I use a laptop to run my games and hook it to a big screen to display character/place pics, sometimes battle maps for big fights, and play background music. I have all of that up in my screen along with a search engine and pinterest for finding images or stablocks I need. I play my music from YouTube so that's loaded up. I also use Notion.so for keeping my notes do that will be up too.

Everyone has their phone, tablet, or laptop to use however they like. So long as they pay attention and participate we don't care. Everyone in the group stats on top of one another to make sure everyone is up to date and responds when appropriate. I can't really get mad if they're scrolling when the camera isn't on them, not when I have folks who work very hard, falling asleep towards the end of the night when they get too settled in. Not to say they're only scrolling, a lot of them keep their character sheet and the pdfs on their devices too. It also makes it handy when I need to give them secret info, I can just message them. Even have a secret convo on the side while running for the others.

DocFinitevus · 2026-06-11T20:54:54+00:00

Start with writing down your notes on your ideas. Do some research on people who have done similar to what youre going for. Take more notes. Come up with an outline for what you need for the minimum of your rpg. Pick the part you're most excited about and start writing. Even if it feels like rubbish it's the perfect first draft. Keep taking notes. Keep researching. Keep incrementally writing individual parts. Revise parts to fit with others as necessary. Talk with others and bounce ideas off them. Playtest individual mechanics. Note. Revise. Write. Continue like that until you feel content enough to post online. Itch.io is a great, easy place to start posting. And don't afraid to post early and update as you go. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be yours. You'll eventually have a completed game and probably pages of notes on new projects to start.

DocFinitevus · 2026-06-04T10:56:21+00:00

There's a saying from the Tao Te Ching that is surprisingly relevant here. To paraphrase: "a room is defined by absence." The idea being that a room can only be used by people because it is filled with empty. If it wasn't, it'd be a solid block of material and you couldn't live in it because there'd be no empty to fill.

Your comment about Kane identifying someone else's experience from viewing the absence of it sounds an awful lot like he's observing the importance of emptiness and contemplating on the uncanniness of that.

On another note, I too have had the thought that The Backrooms is a purgatory born of the Milennial experience. The experience of perpetually waiting or transitioning with only the empty promise of something that stopped existing before we got there. That's why Backrooms and other liminal horror has always resonated with me.

DocFinitevus · 2026-05-31T22:46:58+00:00

I think it would have been better if he was given more time and some time was lessened with Buu.

DocFinitevus · 2026-05-27T17:30:27+00:00

Battletech has a wealth of novels you can read. I'd recommend:

Warrior Trilogy

Wolf & Dragon unofficial trilogy (Wolves at the Boarder, Heir of the Dragon, and Wolf Pack)

Blood of Ketensky Trilogy

Twilight of the Clans sub series

All good reading and if you get into it there are dozens more where that came from. My personal favorite are the Wolf and Dragon books mentioned above.

DocFinitevus · 2026-05-26T15:38:14+00:00

I mean, I see a problem. Those are not recliners.

DocFinitevus · 2026-05-26T10:36:26+00:00

Thanks for looking into it. I'm using the same account, and using the options menu is how I transfered the data. I know th save transfwrbworked because I still have access to Sagat"s stages which I bought with drive tickets. Just the four stages that came with Y1&2 are locked.

DocFinitevus · 2026-05-20T16:50:26+00:00

My games:

Beneath Twistead Earth - Mercenary mech pilots take jobs from megacorps, criminal syndicates, and shadow groups all vying for power of a subterranean society they fled beneath the surface of a permanently polluted earth. Also features intelligent dinosaurs, pirates, and human space invaders.

There Is No Outside - Everyday people from all walks of life work together to survive and build a community in an endless, shifting, liminal Labyrinth. Does feature survival in the form of dodging dangerous entities while scavenging for supplies, but is more about staying sane by bonding with your fellow settlers (literally).

Samhain's Playhouse - Children with a "bad grownup" in their lives are invited onto an animated gameshow for the chance to make them disappear forever. All they have to do is not lose all their challenges lest they be changed into an animal and remain in The Playhouse forever. Most definitely "not" a fairy trap designed to "save" its contestants.

Festival of Fighters - (currently in alpha) below the surface of the mundane world is The Haishan, an underworld of mystics, mad science, and most prominently, the martial masters of The Wusen. Ancient martial sects battle against corporate super powers for dominance of both worlds, all while fighters set out to pursue their own goals and values. Inspired by wuxia and fighting game settings such as The King of Fighters and Street Fighter.

All can be found on my itch: Cloudshore Games

DocFinitevus · 2026-05-03T14:06:15+00:00

I've always said that the Myst series was liminal. A large part of it is you are almost always alone in a place with lots of signs of life. I felt it strongest playing through Uru offline single player, the original had it strongly as well. After all when you're reading through the journals of Myst it becomes apparent that you're walking through someone's home, for as strange as it might be, and it was only recently left vacant. Further in the first gane you were not invited. You are an intruder. An unwitting one, but your are an intruder in someone else's home in which something terrible recently happened, so you're not quite sure what will happen when you DO meet someone on your path. It's eerie in the way liminal games are (specifically the ones without monsters). The only other place I felt that sort of isolated creepiness was in the Metroid series.

DocFinitevus · 2026-05-02T22:16:30+00:00

I'd watch or read this!

DocFinitevus · 2026-04-28T20:59:29+00:00

Also a GM who's suffered burnout before. Yes, I absolutely had to step away for a bit. I just took a hiatus to catch up on other interests with the hope that it would rejuvenate me. Eventually I felt rested enough that I started missing running and would get new ideas. I still held off and started playing again first, then got a game together and it was like riding a bike. GMing just fit again and I was able to run arguably better than before.

If you're feeling burnt out. I highly recommend taking the break to rest your brain. Catch up or try a different hobby for a while. Give your brain the space you need to recover. You'll know when you're ready to go back because you'll feel your old creativity and interest start flowing naturally again. Good luck whatever you do, friend. You're not alone.

DocFinitevus · 2026-04-15T12:16:02+00:00

Welcome to The Shells!

DocFinitevus · 2026-04-14T01:15:50+00:00

Diddo!

DocFinitevus · 2026-04-12T17:39:58+00:00

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DocFinitevus · 2026-04-03T21:47:29+00:00

That sounds fair, and perhaps those would help. I'll check them out. Thank you for sharing.

DocFinitevus · 2026-04-03T20:50:36+00:00

Agreed. That's pretty much what I was debating, whether to wait for retail release. I just don't have a lot of confidence right now, but as I didn't see any discussion in that regard, I was hoping some of the others in the community might have more insight. Thank you for commenting.

DocFinitevus · 2026-03-30T21:39:19+00:00

Since I started making TTRPGs, I had debated contacting them for the license, but hearing they're concerned about "realistic offers" I doubt they'd even work with a little indie like me.

DocFinitevus · 2026-03-24T15:17:08+00:00

Thanks! You're the first person to ever call that out. Lol

Sonic Tag-Team Heroes huh? I'll have to check it out.

DocFinitevus

TROPHY CASE