So this is Spiral Power...

Epic

adjective, Also, epical

1. noting or pertaining to a long poetic composition, usually centered upon a hero, in which a series of great achievements or events is narrated in elevated style:

Homer's Iliad is an epic poem.

2. resembling or suggesting such poetry:

an epic novel on the founding of the country.

3. heroic; majestic; impressively great:

the epic events of the war.

4. of unusually great size or extent:

a crime wave of epic proportions.

5. Slang. spectacular; very impressive; awesome:

Their burgers and fries are epic!

Ah, Gurren Lagann, if I had to summarize you in only one word that would be "Epic". The Internet's tendency to run that word into the ground has almost made it lose all meaning for me, but I can make an exception just this once. It helps that the definition of the term actually fits this show.

Like I did for G Gundam, I will elaborate a little on what I would take from Gurren Lagann to use as inspiration for your own games then give some custom rules to help out with that. In case it wasn't obvious, here is your warning: Spoilers below.

Your Drill is the Drill that will Pierce the Heavens

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann takes place in a post-apocalyptic future where humanity is forced to live in isolated subterranean villages by Lordgenome, the ruler of the Earth. Lord Genome and his armies of genetically engineered Beastmen kill all humans that dare rise to the surface using giant robots called Ganmen Gunmen. Our plucky band of do-gooders is the Gurren Gang, led first by Kamina and then later by our protagonist Simon, who hijack Gunmen for their own use.

With the efforts of the Gurren Gang and Simon mastering the power of his Core Drill, they defeat Lord Genome only to realize that he was trying to protect the Earth from an even greater threat - that of the Anti-Spirals! The Anti-spirals are an alien race that will annihilate all life on Earth to stop their Spiral Power from evolving out of control and destroying the universe.

But what is it about? Well, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is about many things, but three themes stand out above others for our purposes: Rebellion, Mortality and Identity.

Rebellion. Every major antagonist (and plenty of minor ones) in Gurren Lagann is some kind of authority figure trying to tell the protagonists what they can and can't do. From the chief of Jeeha village who wanted to stop Kamina from breaking through to the surface to the Anti-Spiral who would suppress the free will of every other Spiral Race to keep the Spiral Nemesis from destroying the universe.

And how do our heroes defeat those authority figures? By doing the impossible and kicking reason to the curb, of course. They do the impossible, see the invisible, touch the untouchable and break the unbreakable row row fight the power. They break every rule, including the rules of physics, and beat the crap out of the antagonists stuck thinking inside the box. That's how the Gurren Gang rolls.

Mortality. Spiral Power technology is powered by hope, and hope in this series is at its strongest when the characters are reminded of their own mortality. Kamina activates the Gurren after coming face to face with his father's remains and unlocks the Giga Drill Break with his last ounce of strength. Kittan hits the peak of his power when he decides to sacrifice himself for everyone else and that sacrifice allows Simon to transform the Arc Gurren Lagann into the Super Galaxy Gurren Lagann.

But there is more to it than that. The Anti-Spiral has achieved functional immortality, but in doing so has given in to despair and wants to preserve life in the universe at the cost of growth and freedom. Likewise, Lord Genome and the beastmen were immortal but lacked the power to evolve into something greater. The heroes do not use their powers to escape mortality, Simon won't use his powers to bring Nia back and passes on his legacy to the next generation, embracing the blessing and curse of mortality.

Identity. Like every other Gainax show with giant robots, Gurren Lagann is a so-called "Coming of Age" story about growing from youth to adulthood, and that involves figuring out who you are. When hope does not grow from staring death in the face, it does from reaffirmation of the self through others. The thing that gets Simon to move Lagann at first are Kamina's words to "Believe in me who believes in you." and when that no longer works (because Kamina is dead) it takes Nia's naivete to make him understand that he does not need to be anyone but himself.

Identity is also visually represented by the series' Mecha, the Gunmen, who are basically giant walking faces. Each Gunmen is unique and visually distinctive from the rest. The Anti-Spiral, by contrast, is an entity born from a hive mind with little in the way of facial features. A strong sense of individuality is a source of Spiral Power.

The unifying motif to all these is Hope, but Hope as a concept is so general that I wanted to divvy up what (I think) Hope specifically means within the Gurren Lagann universe. There is more to it than this, though. The central conflict of Gurren Lagann could be said to be a conflict of population control for instance, but we're ignoring things that don't apply as well to roleplaying.

Figuring out the symbolism behind drills is likewise left as an exercise for the reader.

How the Gurren Gang Rolls

Gurren Lagann sits in a unique position within the Battle Century G ruleset because the game already has in-built mechanics for all sorts of super robot shenanigans and thus for Spiral Power. We already have Tension, Genre Points and Powers to naturally make things more exciting with time, roleplaying and getting beat up. We also have Combinations, Synchro Attacks, Mid-Scene Upgrades... Yeah, we pretty much have all the bases covered.

But we do have a problem in that the most distinctive thing about Gurren Lagann is that it is not satisfied with covering the bases. No, Gurren Lagann escalates things to the extreme and breaks all the rules while doing so. Simon punches bad guys into another dimension, looks for the hidden Anti-Spiral home base in all existing times and places at once, then chucks whole galaxies like shurikens because why wouldn't he do that, who the hell do you think he is?

Battle Century G could be said to go with the rule of cool, but Gurren Lagann takes it a whole step further, and it breaks all the rules you thought had been firm a moment ago while doing so. Our problem with breaking all the rules is that a roleplaying game is a manual with rules (and guidelines) for roleplaying. Thankfully BCG's rules are robust yet flexible. The system won't collapse on itself if you decide to fluff a Radiant Fist as transforming into a giant drill that rams the enemy so hard it punches a a hole through time and sends the other guy literally into next week. You also aren't breaking any rules while doing so, though! So it is lacking a little of the "this is off the wall" feeling present in the source material.

The one other problem is that Gurren Lagann is all about escalation. Each threat that the Gurren Gang faces is bigger than the previous one and not just figuratively; There is a reason that Gurren Lagann holds the record for largest Mecha in anime We can handle enemies figuratively bigger through the Power Level rules, sure, and we have Colossus for enemies that are literally bigger. But those aren't planetary, let alone galactic,  scale enemies. There's no reasonable way to handle multiple units the size of the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann or Grand Zamboa other than to make them regular units and say that each Zone is a whole solar system or something. It works but it is a bit of a shame that you cannot truly do justice to one of Gurren Lagann's most iconic achievements.

When everybody is the biggest, no one is. Sorry friends but Syndrome wins this one.

To Hell with Gattai

We can give a game of BCG that extra Gurren Lagann flavor with a few rules touchups and, surprisingly enough, none of them involve combination shenanigans! No, instead of making everyone Simon, we'll turn all the Yokos and Kittans into proper Spiral Warriors on the level of Kamina and Lord Genome instead.

Spiral Warrior is a Megafeature with components to it. To play a Spiral Warrior, you apply all four of these modifications to your character. It is all or nothing, no in-betweens.

1) Gain a new Upgrade: Spiral Engine.

Spiral Engine
Internal Upgrade
Effect: For each Level of Threshold you are missing you increase your available Energy and treat Tension as if they were one point higher.

2) Replace Live Another Day with Who the Hell do you Think I am? as one of your Default Powers.

Who the Hell do you Think I am?
Setup Power
Effect: Treat Tension as if it were 2 points higher for one Round and restore an amount of Threshold equal to the current Tension. You can use this Power once per Round.

3) Select one of the following six Spiral Powers and add it to your list of known Genre Powers.

Pierce the Heavens
Setup Power
Effect: Your next Offensive Action this Turn gains an Advantage to its Might Test. If Tension is 5 or higher, it also ignores the effects of Active Defenses. You may use this Power once per Round.

Grit those Teeth
Setup Power
Effect: You and another Ally treat all Maimed Areas as normal for one Round. If Tension is 5 or higher, your Ally also gains a Genre Point. You may use this Power once per Round.

Do the Impossible
Setup Power
Effect: You mimic any Power that an Ally or a Rival has already used. If Tension is 5 or higher, you can mimic a Boss Power as well. You don't need to spend additional Genre Points to use that Power and may use it in a different way than the original user did. If you mimic a Specialist Power this way, you must abide by the same choices, and if you would not be able to you may not mimic said Power. You may use this Power once per Round.

See how Easy they all Fall Down
Setup Power
Effect: You inflict a bonus Disadvantage when using the Suppress Action this Turn. If Tension is 5 or higher, you may push the target up to 5 Zones away from you in a direction of your choice. Should it be sent in the direction of another Enemy whose Defense you’ve also beat, they both crash and suffer 5 points of Damage then the movement halts. You may use this Power once per Round.

Into the Eye of the Storm
Setup Power
Effect: You createa Blast (2) sized area of Difficult Terrain around yourself that lasts one Round but only affects Enemies. If Tension is 5 or higher, it also counts as Extreme Terrain for Enemies. You may use this Power once per Round.

I Know I got what you Need
Setup Power
Effect: Use a single Support Upgrade with a Cost of 5 you own without having to spend an Action. If Tension is 5 or higher, you also restore said Upgrade after use. Once per Round. You may use this Power once per Round.

4) Lastly, the GM adds +2 to your Power Rating, effectively treating your PC as if it was a whole Power Level higher for the purpose of determining enemy Power Ratings.

Spiral Warriors are stronger than other PCs and these changes turn BCG's super robot flavor up to eleven. There is no Live Another Day so you have to go all in all the time, and if you want to run away, you'll need to do it using your legs. But real Spiral Warriors don't run away! No, they take advantage of all those Tension bonuses and their Genre Points to punch the other guy deader first!

This makes our PCs more persistent in the face of death and gives them something unique that no one else can do (unless two people pick the same Spiral Power) to cover two of our themes. What do we do about Rebellion? I'm glad you asked!

I may not know the names of half these guys but that does not mean they don't deserve to row row fight the power.

Kicking Reason to the Curb

How do you let your PCs kick reason to the curb and break the rules without ruining the point of having rules in the first place? By having your antagonists break the rules first. Here are two very simple ideas for making Bosses on the level of the Anti-Spiral memorable by giving them an extra twist.

Why won't you DIE?: Just when you think you have felled the enemy, they stand up again one last time. Not willing to let them have the last laugh, you and your allies gather their last ounces of strength pushing themselves to the limit. After the Boss is defeated for the first time, they immediately restore all of their Threshold but do not refresh any other spent resources like Genre Points or Upgrades that trigger only once. All PCs still standing gain a Genre Point and all defeated PCs are returned to function with 1 point of Threshold left.

The Spiral Labyrinth: You defeat the big bad and earn the most disgustingly saccharine happy ending imaginable. The dead are miraculously alive thanks to spiral energy, the whole of the world caters to the whims of their saviors. Do a timeskip to 10 years in the future and make everybody hook up and have the most beautiful and well behaved kids ever if you have to. This is obviously an illusion and anyone who realizes this and wants out of it can escape from it and help the others do the same. As soon as everyone has left the illusory world, they can narrate the (for realsies) final defeat of the big bad with a synchro attack or something like that.

If the group is really, really dense, you should ask for Intellect, Awareness and Willpower Tests from everyone at the end (they are bound to have at least increased one of those) and give hints of something being wrong to anyone who rolls over 10. People act in inconsistent ways, they don't remember the details of the past few years, and catch a glimpse of the big bad staring at them from a monitor before it goes back to the news.

Those are just two different ideas. Maybe the big bad's second form destroys your Mecha and you need to fight it on foot. Perhaps the boss locks down Tension or the PC's at 0 except for their own personal modifiers(Spiral Engine/Who the Hell do you Think I am?). Maybe it is invincible except for Diplomacy Tests that refute its logic. You get the idea; Take the rules in unexpected directions.

If all else fails, just be really creepy and unsettling. Seriously, this has got to be the anime equivalent of HEERE'S JOHNNY.

Happily Ever After

One of the (many) reasons that this post took so long to get here is that one of the first commissioned mechanics for the expansion was Gurren Lagann-themed. I wanted to include it in here as a sneak preview (hint: it is the first one) but also decided I would write the rules half of this post around it. I had to make sure its power level was right before presenting it here.

I'll talk more about our spiral-themed one and other upcoming stuff next week. Until then!

Battle Century G Gundam: Round 3.

Let's wrap up this three-part series about G Gundam by talking about Operations Gundam Fights in a tournament game. In theory tournament arcs present a series of matches in which both sides have a fair shot at victory and the best side will win. In practice one or more participants have an advantage over the others. A close combat Mecha is at a disadvantage against a flying sniper type and an aquatic Mecha will have an easier time in a battle at sea, though these are arguably still "fair" advantages for one side to have. But sometimes there are external factors interfering in the battle, someone's Mecha runs could be running out of parts for maintenance and thus start in worse condition, or perhaps someone is playing dirty and taking hostages demanding that victory be theirs.

Chapman's heinous plan: Bringing a gun to a Gundam fight. THE HONORLESS CUR.

Point is that there should always be something to make each battle both unique and challenging without making them gimmicky or frustrating. I'm going to write down some ideas below for inspiration, but first there's something else to address: Solo matches or Team matches?

I previously said that Team matches are easier to work with and I stand by that. As written, BCG gives you a lot more to work with if you work with if there are multiple robots on each side. But if you can handle having to homebrew in more upgrades and weapons to make up for the ones that no longer work properly, you also stand to win something from the shonen-esque gameplay.

During 1v1 matches whoever has the most tricks and counters up their sleeve has the better shot at victory. If I have I Cannot be Defeated and you don't have a Technique or a way to do more than one instance of damage per round, I can easily outlast you. If you have Electronic Cloaking System and I don't have a single area weapon (why would I do that in a 1v1 tournament?) then I'm boned unless I built around The Beast or a multitude of Signature Weapons. It is a big change in gameplay.

These changes are not unintentional, though, they are meant to evoke shonen-style battles where the antagonists have the upper hand until the protagonists figure out the trick to beating them. It is a more strategic kind of gameplay where the humble Knowledge is Power rings true to its name. It is also a lot easier for PCs to get totally chumped by accident because they didn't figure it out until it was too late and they had no Genre Points left to even Mid-Scene Upgrade a counter. If that sounds awesome to you, then by all means go for it.

The ideas below were written with both solo and team matches in mind. Some will work much better in a solo match tournament, others would be employed better in team matches. Remember that what matters when coming up with enemy teams is their combined Power Rating, because they can have individually different power levels.

And they Fight, and they Fight, and they Keep on Fighting!

Death from Above
This operation takes the idea of kiting to its most extreme form. It consists of enemies with Antigravity that run away upwards, thus making it impossible for anyone without Antigravity to pursue, while bombarding the PCs with Airstrikes, Surprise Minefields or long range weapons using Reversible Thrusters. Victory will ask for a combination of flight and very long range weapons. A well-timed Ensnaring Trap will also ruin their day, possibly causing one of them to die immediately from the fall damage. Works best as a solo match or at low power levels to ensure at least one or more PCs are caught off guard.

The Colossus and his Shadows
There is only one enemy who matters in this team: The Colossus superboss who carries the others to victory. Really, you can have them as L0 Grunts or just don't even stat them up and have them destroyed as a free action. What matters is that, in place of what would be a normal team match, you have a huge single target like a Mobile Armor. Bullet Hell and Tentacle Lash are a good combo to let it cover even more of the battlefield at once.

I mean, just look at that. Those things are huge. The Devil Gundam itself is just 23m!

The Dark Devil Rangers
Obvious, but still worth mentioning. You should have an enemy team that mimics the PCs, either as actual copies with a dark twist to them, or just as enemies with an uncanny likeness in their equipment and strategies. This is a good excuse to have either a mirror match or to have the PCs pretend to beat up each other.

This is not a Game, it is War
The enemies for this operation play dirty. Individually, each member is weak, but before a match they hide various remote-controlled drones around the battlefield. This is represented by having tactically placed Level 0 Grunts around the edges of the combat area equipped with long range weapons like the Sniper and Powered Rifles. For flavor reasons, the Grunts should be disabled once the real baddies are all defeated, but you can compensate for that by building them defensively - just remember that every 2 Grunts is one less Power Level for them. If you've seen Build Fighters, the Bloodhounds episode is a great example of how to pull off something like this without having to tip off your hand (thus ruining the surprise of the encounter) first.

Seriously. Bloodhounds is a study on how to write rival-of-the-week episodes.

The Flesh is Weak
This one is even nastier than the above. The enemies use modified weaponry to attack pilots directly, possibly through some kind of psychic assault. An Invasive enemy with very high offensive power (8 Might and Duelist Model/Sniper Model/Experimental Reactor is fine) and Invincible Alloy plus I Cannot be Defeated and every other defensive Genre Power they can get. The idea is simple: Deal as much damage as possible ASAP to defeat the pilot through a failed Systems Tests before the activations of I Cannot be Defeated run out. Multiple enemies using area weapons this way will defeat anyone who dumped Systems.

By our Powers Combined
The enemies are technically five but they their hearts beat as one! Truly they are the ultimate manifestation of love and courage. Except that they are on the wrong side of the battlefield, and will thus get their butts thoroughly kicked. The lead focuses on Energy and Threshold, keeping all other Attributes at 0, while each of the other Elements Components takes one of the other stats and also some Upgrades/Weapons. The lead attacks, one subpilot Maneuvers, another uses Jury-Rig or Resupply, the fourth uses Supports, and the final member can help keep positioning superiority them with Boosts, Disengages, and the like.  

 It may be a joke boss but it is still the best scene in the game. 

Flying in the Sky is the Limit

These are just using the rules of the game, some in more creative interpretations than others, to throw PCs for a loop during a tournament series. You can do more than this of course, like in the aforementioned scenario where the protagonists must fight with damaged Mecha, you could have them start the battle with one or more Threshold levels down instead of throwing supernasty baddies at them. Those things are just harder to eyeball and might end up being too strong or too weak as far as difficulty adjustments go.

And that's the end of this G Gundam series. Coming up next... We finally we get to Gurren Lagann.

Its Loud Roar Tells me to Grasp Victory

Continuing from where we left off last week, we are drawing inspiration from G Gundam to run a BCG game. Today is about ~=|+New Rules+|=~. What kind of rules? Nothing all too fancy, but just different enough to sustain some of the themes brought up last week. And when I say themes I also mean to say Themes.

Our Spirits are Aflame.

Whenever I run a game or help someone set up a game, I like to tweak the Genre Theme rules a little to give them more flavor. They are the most malleable part of the game and are the first thing I change when I want to encourage a specific style of Roleplaying. In our case, we want Themes that make our Player Characters do the following:

• Have feelings so intense that they can power up giant swords, tornadoes with human faces, or giant monarchs riding a ki blast. 
• Forge deep friendships in the battlefield by sharing said intense feelings through their fists. This could happen between allies or enemies.
• Conquer and control the intensity of their own passions instead of letting themselves be controlled by them. As a long term goal they should become the masters of the emotions that power their attacks.

You could also include a bunch of this stuff too I guess.

Here is what I came up with:

Genre Themes - Serene Mind, Burning Palm Edition

Genre Themes work as normal but with a few differences.

All three Themes should be centered about an emotion the character feels very strongly. For example, Love, Anger, and all of their Sorrow. You can also replace common feelings with more abstract concepts such as Honor, Faith and Greed if you can justify them as being so intense that they make you glow and become even stronger. You can make as many of them positive or negative as you wish, and you may or may not tie them to other PCs or NPCs if you want. So a Genre Theme trio of Fame, Family and Blindness would be perfectly fine in an usual game but they don't work as catalysts for hyper mode.

Any Theme can be Mastered once for a burst of three Genre Points, then it is no longer a Theme. These Themes work as normal until you are done developing them, then you are granted with three Genre Points for roleplaying that instead of one. A Theme that has been Mastered no longer grants points for roleplaying during future Episodes and cannot be replaced with a new Theme either. Basically you want to Master them before or during a big battle, possibly saving one of them until the very final Episode.

And no, "Hilariously Racist" is not an acceptable Theme.

It is not a big change in rules terms but it should be much more effective at conveying a tone like that of G Gundam. Not only do the Themes encourage PCs to act in extreme ways, but it also gives the Themes a direction - Mastering them. As a nice bonus, PCs can engage some Emergency Character Development in the middle of a battle to steal a victory from the jaws of defeat. I will say that I think I like these rules more than the standard Theme rules, but I am a self-admitted G Gundam fanboy so take it with a grain of salt.

That's not all though. I also wrote a little add-on to the Power Level rules.

The School of the Undefeated of the Genre

Every Power Level, a PC gains one of the following five bonuses. These are on top of the usual benefits of entering a new Power Level (Another Genre Point and another Genre Power). With this, everyone will be about as strong as Domon or Master Asia.

Power Level 1 - Mecha and Fighter are One: You gain the Giant Slayer Boss Trait. After using the Live Another Day Genre Power during an Intermission, may summon your Mecha to your current Zone and board it as an Action.

Power Level 2 - Ultimate Mode: You gain the Secret Equipment Upgrade. Choose two Attributes of Might, Guard, Systems or Speed, and once Tension is of 5 or higher you gain a +2 bonus to both Attributes.

Power Level 3 - Serenity at the Brink of Death: Whenever you lose a Level of Threshold you gain 2 Genre Points instead of 1.

Power Level 4 - Fists of Friendship: When you lead a Synchro Attack, you gain three Advantages instead of two per teammate involved. When you participate in a Synchro Attack, it does not use one of your Actions, just your Genre Points, but you may spend the Action anyway to grant yet another Advantage for a potential total of 4 Advantages per PC.

Power Level 5 - Bond of Winners: Choose three Reinforcement Powers. You gain those Powers and may activate them as if they were Genre Powers, spending Genre Points in place of Reinforcement Points. Each Reinforcement Power may be used once per Operation, and only on other Allies, not yourself.

Mecha and Fighter are One is arguably the most interesting, even if it likely has the least effectiveness in combat. Giant Slayer was written with Master Asia as the primary inspiration in mind, and as an added bonus you also have RIIIIIIIIIIIIIISE SHIIIIINIIIIING GUNDAAAAAAAM. Neither effect is all that strong in your average Operation but it sure does make the PCs stronger during Intermissions. Now you too can hide your Mecha within the statue of liberty and destroy a world wonder at the beginning of combat!

The name "Mecha and Fighter are One" is more literal than you think.

Ultimate Mode is, in case the name wasn't obvious, meant to represent Super Mode and Hyper Mode. You get new Weapons and Upgrades, then a deceptively powerful boost to two Attributes. A +4, even if it is distributed between two stats, is likely going to be worth around 30 MP. Do not underestimate it.

Serenity at the Brink of Death is my take on Meikyo Shisui. If you're going all the way from Power Level 1 to 5, this is your signal to Master at least one of your Themes around now. Level 3 is the game's sweet spot in terms of PC strength, making a good transition point between pre-Meikyo Shisui and post-Meikyo Shisui character development.

Fists of Friendship at Level 4 is when things start to go crazy in terms of mechanics. Depending on what the group needs, your friends can follow up the damage burst from Synchro Attack with their own actions or  everyone can evaporate the big bad boss in a single super hit. Fists of Friendship enables everything from Double God Finger to Shuffle Doumei Ken. There is very little else to say other than it is awesome.

Bond of Winners is just plain bananas, Reinforcement Powers are extremely powerful and basically turn the PCs into forces of nature - perfect for someone on the league of the Shuffle Alliance, who purified their successors and saved their lives with basically magic. Considering this is Level 5 and everybody already can take giant robots down with their fists, this is about one of the few remaining powerups that could feel meaningful.

Just don't be like this chump and make sure you get Live!

So all in all this is fairly powerful stuff that makes things much easier for the PCs to win. Does it mess with the balance of the game? Yes. Is it really cool? Also yes. I'm calling that a win. Still, a consideration for GMs: Because PCs with these bonuses are considerably stronger than those without, their Power Rating should be treated as of 3 + (3 * Power Level). After PL 3 everyone is so strong that you'll have to get very imaginative to challenge them anyway.

Holding the Wounded Dream

There is one thing that I did not touch on, and it is how enemies often bond through fighting. This is G Gundam's equivalent to Newtype Magic(tm) but with more Kung Fu. While it is a very important part of G Gundam, writing rules for this would require a much, much bigger framework that handles social combat rules. It is beyond the scope of what I want to do with these weekly writeups.

The one other important thing left is GM advice for actually running a game like this. Particularly if you're going to include these changes, which (true to the tone of the source material) tip the odds from 50/50 to around 75/25 in favor of the PCs. That's what I will be doing next week.

Until then, may you look at the East burning red.

This Game of Mine Glows with an Awesome Power

I love G Gundam to bits. The concept is fun, the characters are memorable, the music is fantastic, and even the English dub is glorious - some would say the dub is bad, but the overacting only makes it better in my view. You know you are dealing with a fan when they argue that something bad is actually good with a straight face. Point is, I really like G Gundam and it has influenced pretty much everything I've ever done related to giant robots.

This is because G Gundam is a very well thought out show. Conceptually it might just be a goofy show about a giant robot tournament with a bunch of really racist mecha designs, but the execution makes it so much more than that. I'm going to delve a little into what G Gundam means to me and what you can take from it for the purposes of BCG.

There will be spoilers for G Gundam below.

G Gundam recap set, reaaadyyyyy go!

Mobile Fighter G Gundam is about a giant robot world tournament. Every four years the space colonies hold a tournament where the winner will rule over the Earth and the other colonies for the next four years. Gundam Fighters are the representatives of each nation, and they all fight each other using the Earth as the ring, until only one remains.

But that's just the window dressing. G Gundam's plot follows Domon Kasshu, pilot of the Shining Gundam and representative of Neo Japan, in his search for the Ultimate Dark Devil Gundam. The Devil Gundam is made out of nanomachines capable of self-repair, self-multiplication and self-evolution. Obviously, it falls into the wrong hands and our protagonist must stop it.

To no one's surprise, the antagonists are participants of the tournament and had something to do with the disappearance of the Devil Gundam.

Enough retreading of what any Wiki article could tell you! Let's talk about G Gundam in the context of BCG.

Gundam Fighter IV: Tournament Edition

As is, G Gundam is fit in both tone and rules for a game using the unmodified BCG rules. This is a setting where people can punch beams from their fists and their Gundams let them channel their anger into giant swords. It is pretty much perfect, really... Except for one little thing: The tournament structure.

Most of the fights are 1v1, which is convenient if the group consists of exactly two people, but a lot less enticing if there's four or more Players. You could run a game where everyone takes turns having fights, but it probably works out for the best if everyone is part of the same team and the matches are 3v3 or 5v5 or what have you. Like in Build Fighters Try.

Get it? Build Fighters Try because they're a TRIo!

This works out much better because BCG is designed with teamwork in mind. Absolute Barrier is a lot better when you are the only target and enemies cannot ignore you, while Reversible Thrusters can outright make you invincible against some enemies. At the same time, Finger Net does very little without any allies to take advantage of it and Steel Guardian is essentially useless.

My Love, my Anger, and all of my Sorrow

From a character standpoint, G Gundam is fundamentally about warriors that express their emotions with their fists. Domon starts as this an angry young adult who doesn't speak much. At the very end of the last episode he admits that he is a guy who only knows how to fight, and that is why he had so much difficulty expressing his feelings to Rain. Domon Kasshu is basically a tsundere. And most of the show is about how a bunch of dudes punch each other until their feelings come out and they get over their various hangups.

One of the most clear expressions of this is in the abundance of combination techniques, as a manifestation of the bonds that the Gundam Fighters have with each other. For roughly the first half of the series Domon fights alone, but in the second half he (and his friends) develop an affinity for Synchro Attacks, with or without Domon. If I had to come up with unique rules for a G Gundam game, they'd be about stronger or more varied types of Synchro Attacks.

There is also a theme of enlightenment and mastery of one's own emotions. Domon starts with the Super Mode that channels his rage into a powerup for the Shining Gundam, but he later replaces it with the Meikyou Shisui ("To have your heart clear like a mirror and still like water") which, in essence, means Serene Mind. The Super Mode renders him vulnerable, like a berserker who does not think his actions through. Thus, Domon needs to master his emotions entirely and have his heart in the perfect balance between passionate intensity and stoic detachment - that's Serene Mind. Also the Shining Gundam upgrades to the Burning God Gundam, because subtlety is for chumps.

And enlightenment turns you into a super saiyan I guess. Sure why not.

Add this to the previous the theme of Fist Friendship and emotions are a pretty big deal in G Gundam. It sounds to me like we could similar thematic notes via tweaking Genre Themes (to focus more on intensity of emotion) along with Synchro Attacks.

But before writing any of those, there is one more thing that needs to be addressed.

Sympathy for the Devil Gundam

Most tournament arcs have a plot twist written into them to make things more exciting, ending in the reveal of a bigger bad that pretty much everyone in the tournament will rally together to defeat. In G Gundam that ultimate antagonist were the people involved in the Devil Gundam conspiracy.

The Devil Gundam was originally called the Ultimate Gundam, and its nanomachines were going to be put to use to nurse the Earth's environment back to health. It is not evil per se, it is just... out of control and fulfilling its primary directive: To self-reproduce, healing itself and evolving continuously.

Truly this is the face of a Gundam who just wants to make friends.

And of course, the human antagonists of the series are trying to control the Devil Gundam to use its power for their own ends. Arguably, if the conspirators had never tried to hijack the Ultimate Gundam, it would not have malfunctioned at all. It is a common genre convention of Mecha that technology gives its user the power to be a God or Devil, depending on whether you use it for good or evil. G Gundam does not mince words and pretty much spells it out.

The Devil Gundam will wipe out humankind then do whatever it wants to the Earth, possibly eating it in the process. Its instinctual drive is the opposite of the Serene Mind that Domon must master to defeat it, like a more cunning version of Domon when his Super Mode made him a frenzied berserker. The Devil Gundam needs to have a human core, a sort of pilot as a biological heart, and can infect humans with "Devil Gundam Cells" to brainwash and give them superpowers. This implies that the Devil Gundam is not just a rogue artificial intelligence, it is more like the dark side of the human heart - controlling, uncaring, and always hungry for more.

The Devil Gundam is an instinctual monster and a corrupting influence, it is a thing that needs to be stopped and most free-willed participants in the tournament will agree. If you're going to run a tournament-themed, I strongly suggest to also have a Big Bad Evil Guy Thing at the end separate from the tournament structure.

The big draw of having a secret ultimate antagonist in a tournament arc or series is that it gives you a good excuse to let all the important characters team up at the end. Even old rivals that were previously defeated can show up to assist! In the context of an RPG it is even more important because having encounters with the bigger bad through the course of the tournament raises the stakes and adds more tension to the plot. Even if the PCs actually lose the tournament, they can still end things on a high note by saving the world from whoever was plotting sinister things in the shadows.

It also helps to spice things up and have some variance in encounters. If your tournament is about 4v4 matches, having an antagonist outside the tournament itself gives the GM a chance to throw as many Grunts and Bosses at the PCs as they wish instead of having to juggle numbers to keep it at 4. Creative uses of elite Grunts or Minibosses can keep parties of 4 enemies fresh, and you can pull shenanigans like a team of three terrible Level 0 Grunts carried by a big Level 5 Boss, but it is still quite predictable.

Breaking away from the tournament structure a little for a more ambitious plot is a good idea.

Look, the East is Burning Red!

That is enough for today. This was all theory, so next time I'm going to put this to practice and write some mechanics with all of this in mind.