xMachiner: Mecha Fantasy Skirmish Battles

RE: Core Rules v2.2 Update: LOTS of changes! Please check out the designer commentary to check out all the adjustments I made. There's plenty. Core gameplay remains the same, but stats, attack bonuses, and action limits have been reworked.

RE: Core Rules v1.2 Update: Quality of Life Improvements

Hello Traveler!

Don't panic! Core Rules v1.2 is just a quality-of-life update that will very be helpful to non-wargamers! None of this changes the gameplay from v1.1, but it makes a certain behavior more narratively and mechanically sound, as well as open up design space for the future!

Core Rules v1.2

• "Build Team" now also tells players to use any terrain they can find, and a handful of six-sided dice (d6). Without terrain, the game just becomes a simple shooting gallery. Also, not everybody knows what a d6 is, which is referenced throughout the document.
• "Shield X+" definition has been cleaned up, and more importantly, removed the 'front arc' part of the effect not only to simplify what it does, but also to add a core mechanic that was baked into the Shield keyword ability but should have been explicit from the start.
• "Rear Arc Damage" is a new core mechanic derived from the original Shield keyword ability to highlight the importance of outflanking the opponent and attacking their rear arc. Damage dealt by attacking the rear arc is now unsaveable. This does not change anything from v1.1, but it does make attacking the rear arc feel better narratively and will allow us to design traits or effects that can affect this rule.

Yeah, that's it, really! Haha. I was bothered last night thinking about how I could have just made the rear arc attack benefit an actual core rule than baking it into the Shield. A player should feel rewarded in the Core Rules for outmaneuvering an opponent, whether or not there's a Shield involved, but because Shields are so important in the game now, it matters in a way that doesn't fundamentally change the original design intention. I wanted to offload extra mechanics from the Core Rules, but I think the unsaveable damage to rear arc is not a heavy addition.

-Mykey