Steel Titans is not built on the Hardboiled engine, which was scrapped for being way too much of a finicky numbersfest. It's also been iceboxed while Sketch works on her preferred narrative-style games, being as it was largely a strategy game in the vein of Battletech and Mechwarrior. It too had a quest, which was quite fun and then unceremoniously died.
The revised draft of Steel Titans is, however, built on a variant of the new Hardboiled system, but for the personal level/character stuff rather than the combat.
Depends what you mean by "model". Plane positioning exists in the game fiction, describe where you want your plane to be and roll to see if that's where you end up. I believe there is a mastery move PCs can take to automatically get the effect of the Thach Weave i.e. to attack a plane attacking your wingman.
@open_sketchbook I would love your blessing to run my own Jaegerbroiled game, 'Mammoth Apostate vs the world' inspired by your ChernoQuest, and all the various spin offs it has produced. The titular Jaeger is built off the remains of Mammoth Apostle.
I understand you are very busy creatively and that your time is always at a premium, and your original intent with Cherno was as a testbed for Hardbroiled.
Being the creator, I would feel remiss if I used your intellectual property w/o your consent. It's not like I've actually -bought- a copy of the rules; they were laying about the various spinoffs (dust covered) everywhere but Fyrstorm's excellent variant for Tacit Ronin.
I currently am brainstorming the world I envision in a conversation; that if your interested in taking a peak behind the curtain I would happily invite you to participate in. Come by, if no more than to point and laugh lurk and see what worlds you have spawned...
Anyway thanks for allowing me steal these few moments, I appreciate your time is both limited and valuable...
---Edit
I see at the intro for Steel Titans you basically give open permission to all to run Jaegerbroiled as they like and even link to the resources to make it happen. You are always welcome if you choose not to join the brainstorm maybe come by when it goes live. Until our paths cross be well and much success to you...
As a heads up, I'm running a quest using the Trench Raiders ruleset.
Because I love tinkering with other peoples games, here's a set of errata/houserules I made to fix the equipment range/weight hinkiness.
Revised Gear List:
General-Purpose Machine Gun: The concept of a machine gun that can fire in both a tripod mounted "heavy" role or a bipod mounted "light" role was first developed by Germany in WW2, and since then it has been adopted by both Americans-with their M60 machine gun and the WW2 vintage M1919-and the Soviets-with their PK-giving the machine gunner extra versatility.
Type-Firearm-Belt. Weight-6. Cost-6 XP.
Extreme Range Firearm capable of suppressive fire at +6.
Inflicts 2 points of extra suppression.
Has room for one assistant.
Extra Parts: a 3 weight bipod(2 XP to replace if lost or discarded).
A GPMG can be fired without setting up the tripod, or leaving it behind altogether, in which case it counts as a normal LMG(except heavier) and uses the LMG skill. GPMGs can be fitted with a bipod. Only apply the bipod modifier when it's being fired as an LMG-you can't stack the bonuses, even though you can have both mounted on the weapon to use in different situations.
Pigmen can choose to take a GPMG or a Machine-Rifle(representing the Australian L2A2, WWII surplus BARs, Stoner 63s in Autorifle configuration, and various other attempts to use beefed up rifles as ersatz machine guns) instead of a standard LMG, at the GMs discretion.
Bolt-Action Rifles and derivatives are Long ranged, not Extreme range. Get an Anti-Tank Rifle or a scope and an ungodly proficiency if you want to snipe at extreme range.
Gyrojets, Binoculars, Scopes and Bipods are 1 weight each. A sniper rifle that weighs more than an LMG rubs me the wrong way, and a carbine/pistol, light as the gyrojets were, shouldn't weigh less than a whistle.
Rocket Launchers are just RPGs with +1 weight and -1 XP cost that can only shoot Anti-Tank rockets. Disposable Rocket Launchers are just a weight 3 AT grenade that can be thrown to medium range and have +1 AP and +1 injury
Although it's mostly cosmetics RPG-2s and LAWs being blast attacks and RPG-7s being Throw Grenade attacks is rather janky so I changed it.
Automatic Grenade Launchers modify launch Throw Grenade actions to work up to Extreme Range. Mk19s are serious pieces of kit.
Revolvers(3 XP), Sawn-Off Hunting Shotguns(3 XP), Machine-Rifles(5 XP) and Self-Loading Shotguns (5 XP) from the Trench Raiders book can be purchased as equipment. Hunting shotguns use Old Cartridges as ammo, otherwise they're an extremely weight-inefficient weapon.
For the Trench Raiders, Hawks can get a scope as an advance.
.
And a couple of new guns and a melee weapon/tool:
New weapons:
Tomahawk With an axe blade and a useful beak or hammerhead, a tomahawk is a versatile tool and close combat weapon, even if not quite as good as more specialized tools at a given task.
Melee weapon. Weight-2. XP-3.
+6 in lethal melee. Inflicts 1 ongoing damage on a lethal melee result.
Can be counted as a machete for determining if everyone has one, but cannot be used as a machete on its own.
Gives +3 to set trap actions.
Can open locked doors.
Sawn-Off Shotgun GIs like to keep these handy. For close encounters.
Firearm. Weight-1. XP-3.
Used like an ordinary shotgun, but with a maximum range of Close.
Consume one ammunition in order to instantly kill an opponent with a lethal melee result(this ability also applies to sawn-off hunting shotguns).
Tunnel Weapon These very rare-only ten were ever made- guns were revolvers chambered to shoot small shotgun shells with a piston system that made them extremely quiet to avoid deafening their users. Their users found them very useful for raids, tunnel fighting and ambushes, but they were extremely rare.
Firearm. Weight-1. XP-5
Close Range Firearm capable of Suppressive Fire.
Consume one ammo and inflict 1D3 random injury to melee opponents.
Maximum range of Close.
Counts as having an integral suppressor.
Never jams, no attack penalty for running out of ammo.
Requires a clear action to reload.
Five Across the Heart is a game about how being Meguca is Awesome.
After it's genesis in Must be Tuesday, I wrote a simple first draft (which has entirely been subsumed in rewrite) with two ideas in mind. The first was this essay, and the second was my interest in Riot Grrrl music and punk feminism. I figured it would be pretty natural to bring those hands together and write a small game about magical rebels. It would be small and simple, probably less than a dozen pages and using a modified version of an existing ruleset.
At around this time I decided, hey, you know what, this would be a good excuse to finally rewatch Sailor Moon, which was 8-year-old me's favourite cartoon. It'll be good fun while I write this! I figured maybe I'd skip around a bit, it's monster of the week, right? I knew there was a bit more to the original version with the dub, but I had diligently avoided spoilers knowing I would be rewatching it eventually. So I loaded up and started watching.
I ended up marathoning like a dozen episodes in a row. For several days straight.
I am in no way exaggerating or employing my usual hyperbole when I say that Sailor Moon is once again my favourite show. It's in the running for my favourite piece of media, period. I had to slow the pace at which I watch it because I can't have it in on in the background; I stare at it dumbstruck. I've wanted to rewatch it before I even finished it. I started watching the live action and the musicals. I may or may not be assembling a Tuxedo Mask cosplay.
(I totally am.)
So, basically, it was no longer acceptable for this game (which got the name Five Across the Heart thanks to @Salty) to be so minimalist. It needs to be awesome. It needs to be a glorious shrine to my love of this dumb cartoon for little girls.
The other aspect was I came across a few other Magical Girl games on the internet, most notably Magical Burst, which I was not a fan of. I liked Madoka Magica (It's a known fact I haven't been able to bring myself to watch it a second time because I was basically inconsolable after marathoning that show) but I found it disappointing that every game seemed to be derivative of it's tone. Stuff like PPMM and Sailor Nothing are effective in contrast, so I decided to write something original flavour.
So here we are.
The core idea of 5 Across the Heart is that it's a game about revolution, folded into the classic Magical Girl narrative. Inside it, Magical Girls are sort of like supernatural anarcho-feminists opposed to a totalitarian, yet invisible social order that holds the world in thrall. I've been explaining it to people as Sailor Moon if the Dark Kingdom had already won thousands of years before the start of the series, or in other words, Pretty Anarchist Sailor Moon.
The system has undergone a lot of rewrites. Originally it was kind of weird and more tactical, but I've almost completely rewritten it with heavy influence from Monsterhearts and Fantasy Flight Star Wars. You set yourself short-term goals, turn those goals into narrative-manipulating points, and roll checks for your actions based on your character's personality. You can adjust your character's outlook (and thus, stats) on the fly to react to situations; a character can mechanically get mad, for example, and use that to influence their actions. Usagi might not have a Cold bone in her body in normal circumstances, but you can invoke Chibiusa pissing you off to change your statline around to suit those circumstances.
Every time dice are rolled, the scene changes through an advantage system, and the dice pool builds quickly and resolves things dramatically. The game turns on staying true to yourself; what you are good at matters less than acting in line with your ideals and personality. When you take a stand, the cosmos shifts to support you.
The combat system is fast, narrative focused and designed to imitate the beats of the more dramatic Sailor Moon fight; you're trying to create openings to attack, people get taken out of the fight temporarily by the powers of the enemy and need to be rescued, there's a heavy emphasis on protecting your friends, and taunting and social moves can be as important as actually fighting. Instead of dealing damage, you break down the enemy defenses and then wager those opportunities you've created to put effects on them, and that means that fights can end in things like kidnappings, driving the enemy to retreat, or converting somebody to the other side. There's also some influence from character action games, with combo systems and movesets that wouldn't be out of place in a Bayonetta or similar.
Finally, you decide your character's abilities by building their costume!
When it's finished, I imagine it will be made available to you, but that project is on hold while Erika works on Flying Circus. She's only one person after all.
I would totally have thrown in support for blimpleggers.
