Mekton – anime-mecha action
Monday 22 July 2019

In July 2019 we presented the
Mekton Bundle, featuring the 1994
Zeta edition of
Mekton, the high-action mecha-anime giant-robot RPG by
Mike Pondsmith (
Cyberpunk, Castle Falkenstein) from
R. Talsorian Games.
Mekton conjures worlds of
Macross-style high adventure and
Gundam-like mechanized combat in a far future where science fiction meets Japanese anime. At stake: the survival of entire civilizations, entrusted to the skilled few who can master the giant robotic war machines of this future age.
Mekton, Mike Pondsmith’s debut design, was also the first American RPG inspired by Japanese giant-robot manga such as
Mobile Suit Gundam. The primordial
Mekton “white box” (1984, with Mike Jones), a tactical wargame with minor character elements, was quickly succeeded by the full
Mekton RPG (1985); then the 1987 Interlock-based second edition,
Mekton II; and finally (so far) the 1994
Mekton Zeta. (Or, according to the katakana characters on the cover, “Super Dimension Mobile Warrior Mekton Z.”)

More than some other giant-robot RPGs,
Mekton goes all-in on epic anime melodrama. Its Mek design rules are robust and versatile (especially when you add
Mekton Zeta Plus), and its 1d10-based “Interlock” task resolution system (adapted from
Cyberpunk 2020) is effective; but flavorful
Mekton experiences happen when the pilots get out of their Meks. The Lifepath character generation system, a Pondsmith specialty, sketches a backstory full of hard knocks, tragic romances, and vendettas. “Lifepath is a way of recreating the complex mental landscape of a typical anime character,” Pondsmith writes in
Mekton Zeta. “It doesn’t take much imagination to expand a result of ‘enemy pilot who hates you’ into a full-blown tale of the old friend who betrayed you, jealously murdered the lover you both wanted, and changed sides, the start of a bitter grudge match that isn’t going to end until one of you lies dead.” And as the campaign progresses, your character’s actions generate a wide range of Reputation scores you’ll have to live up to — or live down.
In several published campaign settings, the universe of
Mekton widened to cover entire galaxies and many anime styles:
Mekton Empire (inspired by
Captain Harlock and
Voltron),
Invasion Terra (inspired by
Macross),
Starblade Battalion (a
Gundam-like extrapolation of the
Cyberpunk 2020 future), and
Operation Rimfire (all of the above). This offer presented all four settings, plus the
Zeta rulebook and several key supplements, for a bargain price. And this
Mekton Bundle marked the
debut in .PDF of the two
Mecha Manuals (1994-95). R. Talsorian also rescanned several of the older titles and added bookmarks to every .PDF. These are top-quality image scans of the original hardcopies with OCR (optical character recognition) applied.

There were
four titles in our
Starter Collection (retail value
$42.50) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete
Mekton Zeta core rulebook, the
Mekton Zeta Plus rules expansion, the
Mekton Techbook, and the
Mekton Tactical Display referee’s screen.

Those who paid more than the threshold (average) price
also got our entire
Bonus Collection with
six more titles worth an additional $44.50, including no less than
four complete campaign settings —
Operation Rimfire,
Mekton Empire,
Invasion Terra, and
Starblade Battalion — plus, debuting in .PDF in this offer, both
Mecha Manual 1 and
Mecha Manual 2, big books of robot designs.
Ten percent of each payment (after gateway fees) went to this offer’s designated charity, the
Electronic Frontier Foundation.