Quote from: colwebbsfmc;974312So, I'm working on this game... We wanted to use Interlock / MZ as the engine.  Word from Pondsmith was "We're not licensing Interlock anymore, we've got a new Fuzion-based Mekton coming out, wait for that!"

This is news to me. I thought Interlock was R.Talsorian's system. Is there something I'm missing?
Or wait, do you mean you're working on a game that's going to use Interlock, and Pondsmith said the system isn't available anymore?

Quote from: Ratman_tf;974323This is news to me. I thought Interlock was R.Talsorian's system. Is there something I'm missing?
Or wait, do you mean you're working on a game that's going to use Interlock, and Pondsmith said the system isn't available anymore?

To my understanding - Mekton and all games going forward were going to use some new version of Fuzion. I'm not even sure you can have a system that requires licensing? Mechanics-wise that is. You can't use their terminology, I imagine, so you couldn't call it Interlock.

I've never been a big fan of Fuzion.

Got excited when I saw this thread, then found out its years old and then was glad since it seems folks got screwed over.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;974323This is news to me. I thought Interlock was R.Talsorian's system. Is there something I'm missing?
Or wait, do you mean you're working on a game that's going to use Interlock, and Pondsmith said the system isn't available anymore?

Sorry, yes, we wanted to license Interlock FROM R. Tal to use in a new game of our own.  The word came back that they will not do so, all products from here on are Fuzion.

I don't wanna write a Fuzion game.  I wanna write an Interlock game.

Now, it is true that you can't copyright game mechanics, only presentation - but so much work went into Mekton Zeta Plus that I'd not want to be that douchebag who carbon copied it.  I mean, OSR is a beautiful thing, but the simple mechanics of early D&D are one thing.  Copying the mecha creation math of Mekton Zeta Plus and filing off the serial numbers would just be...  I dunno.  Feels wrong.  So we're using it as a guiding star and writing our own stuff.

Quote from: colwebbsfmc;974409Sorry, yes, we wanted to license Interlock FROM R. Tal to use in a new game of our own.  The word came back that they will not do so, all products from here on are Fuzion.

I don't wanna write a Fuzion game.  I wanna write an Interlock game.

Now, it is true that you can't copyright game mechanics, only presentation - but so much work went into Mekton Zeta Plus that I'd not want to be that douchebag who carbon copied it.  I mean, OSR is a beautiful thing, but the simple mechanics of early D&D are one thing.  Copying the mecha creation math of Mekton Zeta Plus and filing off the serial numbers would just be...  I dunno.  Feels wrong.  So we're using it as a guiding star and writing our own stuff.

That's a shame. I like Interlock much more than Fuzion.
Good luck on your project. I did use Interlock as part of the inspiration for my own Transformers RPG system. It's a solid foundation to build on.
Who knows? Maybe your game will be the Pathfinder of Mekton. RTal seems to be dragging their feet in the market.

Quote from: tenbones;974319It's a really good system (the original Mekton) which used the Cyberpunk 2020 Interlock system. I believe that Pondsmith's son is/was supposed to be finishing up the new Mekton.

Cyberpunk 2077 happened. I surmise that Mekton development slowed because of the advent of CP2077. This is not a *fact*, just a guess based on how things run there (and based on my interactions because I might/might not be getting involved in the CP2077 game).

Thanks for the information. Unfortunately I don't know Interlock (sounds like an antitheft device) and have never played Cyberpunk. (The whole cyber thing was outside my area of interest even back in the 90s.) Any chance you could describe the mechanics or workings of Interlock? Or point me to somewhere that does that?

Quote from: Dumarest;974470Thanks for the information. Unfortunately I don't know Interlock (sounds like an antitheft device) and have never played Cyberpunk. (The whole cyber thing was outside my area of interest even back in the 90s.) Any chance you could describe the mechanics or workings of Interlock? Or point me to somewhere that does that?

Stat + Skill + modifiers + 1d10 roll. Beat a target number. Stats and skills range from 1-10.
Armor is staged penetration. Stops an amount of damage up to the rating of the armor. Every hit reduces that armor rating by 1. So eventually your armor is going to be full of holes.
Cyberpunk has a fairly fiddly wound state system. Mekton simplifies this to a number of hits per body location.
Mekton mecha use the same system, scaled up to either Roadstriker (Transformers type car robots) or the big mecha.
It's a really simple system, that flows well.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;974483Stat + Skill + modifiers + 1d10 roll. Beat a target number. Stats and skills range from 1-10.
Armor is staged penetration. Stops an amount of damage up to the rating of the armor. Every hit reduces that armor rating by 1. So eventually your armor is going to be full of holes.
Cyberpunk has a fairly fiddly wound state system. Mekton simplifies this to a number of hits per body location.
Mekton mecha use the same system, scaled up to either Roadstriker (Transformers type car robots) or the big mecha.
It's a really simple system, that flows well.

To add to Ratman's succinct explanation - your target numbers range from 10-30. Average target number is 15. Ranged combat are static based on range. Melee are contested rolls with Attackers rolling against Defenders, then vice versa.

Wound Track - Everyone has the same wound tracks (HP). Basically it's 4-Wounds per Stage. There are 10 Stages (so "40-hp"). Any damage that bypasses your armor is applied to your wound track. Each stage gives you progressively worse penalties. So the first 4 points is "Light", the next 4 is "Serious", the next 4 is "Critical" and so forth. You might be wondering how everyone has the same amount of wounds, your character's Body Stat gives you a modifier to all damage received. So bigger, tougher characters, take effectively less damage in each instance.

It SOUNDS complicated - it's not at all. Lemme give you an example...

So let's say your opponent has a high-caliber pistol (Colt 12MM which does 4d6+1) and someone shoots you. And you're wearing a lightly armored coat or whatever which gives you an SP (Stopping Power - or armor) of 6. He rolls 13 damage. Your a big dude, and your body is 9 (out of 10) your stat gives you a -3 modifier to damage. So you take 7 damage, but your body-type modifier drops that to 4.

So you'd be lightly wounded with 4 boxes on your wound-track filled in.

Simple... but what makes CP2020 crazy, is that one bullet. Someone firing a fully automatic weapon might hit you MANY times and each bullet does full damage. So down the deathspiral you go. Each bodypart has it's own value (if you take 8-points to any bodypart in one hit that limb is destroyed. Ironically this can be a boon because a 7.62 round does 6d6+2 and obviously it's much nicer to take 8-points and lose an arm than take the full potential 38 and die like a pig in the street. heh).

I like Mike Pondsmith, but it seems Mike Pondsmith doesn't like money... sad.

Actually, I know he's been busy with other projects outside of tabletop RPGs for many many years... given which it does seem odd that he wouldn't bother just licensing a system he no longer wants to use.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;974483Stat + Skill + modifiers + 1d10 roll. Beat a target number. Stats and skills range from 1-10.
Armor is staged penetration. Stops an amount of damage up to the rating of the armor. Every hit reduces that armor rating by 1. So eventually your armor is going to be full of holes.
Cyberpunk has a fairly fiddly wound state system. Mekton simplifies this to a number of hits per body location.
Mekton mecha use the same system, scaled up to either Roadstriker (Transformers type car robots) or the big mecha.
It's a really simple system, that flows well.

Vielen Dank.

Quote from: tenbones;974551To add to Ratman's succinct explanation - your target numbers range from 10-30. Average target number is 15. Ranged combat are static based on range. Melee are contested rolls with Attackers rolling against Defenders, then vice versa.

Wound Track - Everyone has the same wound tracks (HP). Basically it's 4-Wounds per Stage. There are 10 Stages (so "40-hp"). Any damage that bypasses your armor is applied to your wound track. Each stage gives you progressively worse penalties. So the first 4 points is "Light", the next 4 is "Serious", the next 4 is "Critical" and so forth. You might be wondering how everyone has the same amount of wounds, your character's Body Stat gives you a modifier to all damage received. So bigger, tougher characters, take effectively less damage in each instance.

It SOUNDS complicated - it's not at all. Lemme give you an example...

So let's say your opponent has a high-caliber pistol (Colt 12MM which does 4d6+1) and someone shoots you. And you're wearing a lightly armored coat or whatever which gives you an SP (Stopping Power - or armor) of 6. He rolls 13 damage. Your a big dude, and your body is 9 (out of 10) your stat gives you a -3 modifier to damage. So you take 7 damage, but your body-type modifier drops that to 4.

So you'd be lightly wounded with 4 boxes on your wound-track filled in.

Simple... but what makes CP2020 crazy, is that one bullet. Someone firing a fully automatic weapon might hit you MANY times and each bullet does full damage. So down the deathspiral you go. Each bodypart has it's own value (if you take 8-points to any bodypart in one hit that limb is destroyed. Ironically this can be a boon because a 7.62 round does 6d6+2 and obviously it's much nicer to take 8-points and lose an arm than take the full potential 38 and die like a pig in the street. heh).

Also thanks to you.

Quote from: Spike;974567given which it does seem odd that he wouldn't bother just licensing a system he no longer wants to use.

This, It would seem to me like easy money and easy promotion.

Quote from: Ronin;974671This, It would seem to me like easy money and easy promotion.

Well, remember, the guy who owns The Fantasy Trip has let it sit in a vault for 35 years. People do weird stuff that does not benefit them in any way.

I'm just surprised they went with Fuzion. I actually preferred it to the Hero system. Easy to plug and play without the complexity of the system. That being said a sizeable amount of both Interlock and Hero System fans hated Fuzion. So Mike Pondsmith using Fuzion ito me is a big mistake imo.

I'm not sure if I've ever posted it, but I did at one time make a fairly comprehensive essay/post about the problem with Fuzion.  I'll see if I can't tl;dr it for ya.

See: Fuzion is functionally Interlock (Stat+Skill+d10 roll), only whereas Interlock defaults everything to a base 10, matching both basic human instictive prejudices and, not coincidentally the numbers on teh d10, Fuzion... doesn't really default any of its numbers.  For 'human level' games Stats can go to six, while for supers they may go to 10, or maybe even higher, while skills are benchmarked more or less to 10 (as with interlock) the way they are gained/used actually means you'll almost never see them use their full range, so you'll rarely see a skill over, maybe, 5 at best.

This means that on a fundamental level Fuzion is less intuitive, despite using the same basic system and range. That lack of intuitiveness makes it actually irritating to Interlock users, and somewhat harder to learn/teach for newcomers.

There is a lot more where that came from, but I'd have to dredge memories to really get into the heart of it.  Its plug-in mentality is actually more of a hindrance due to poor implementation, etc...