It’s a good year for fans of tragic mech pilots. While the mecha genre (especially the Real Robot sub-genre) has always leaned heavily into tragedy, this year has seen many different creators dive into the idea of the mech pilot as the tragic figure in both the literal and metaphorical senses. Dragon Reactor is a fantastic example of this, as the demo lays the foundations of an epic world packed with TTRPG gameplay potential.
Dragon Reactor is designed by Nevyn Holmes and Quinn Morris. It is set in a world that has been destroyed by war, leaving various factions to grapple and battle for control of the ashes using massive robots dubbed Wyvern. Something that has only caused the world to spiral further into despair.
The Mechanics Of Mecha Despair
The game has two roles: Pilot (who controls one specific character) and the Poet (who controls the rest of the world, effectively serving as Dragon Reactor’s version of a Game Master).
When the demo starts, each player will select what faction they belong to and which of the included character archetypes best fits their pilot. In a nice touch, each archetype has a unique character sheet featuring different stats, focuses, refrains, and prompts. These prompts will guide the player through designing their character’s backstory and laying the foundation for their personal rival.
An important thing to keep in mind is your mecha’s focuses, as these explain what styles of combat your mecha and pilot excel at. For example, points in Fang mean the suit does well in suit-to-suit combat situations, Breath means your mech has immense destructive potential, and Lattice means the mech excels as a support. Finally, Wing means the mech is tuned for speed and maneuverability.
Naturally, conflict is the key part of any mecha narrative, and Dragon Reactor handles the setup well. Every conflict has a goal that the pilots are aiming to complete, like defending an outpost or capturing an enemy mecha. To track progress towards this objective, each side involved in the conflict gets a ten-sided clock. A side’s clock increases by one every time the side does something that moves them closer to their objective, with the first side to fill their clock winning the conflict and realizing their goal.
This openness is complemented by the moment-to-moment gameplay’s intuitive nature. At the start of their turn, a pilot declares what they wish to do and then makes a check to see how it turns out.
When making a check, the pilot and the poet decide what focus is the most relevant to the action being attempted. They also pick the check’s Magnitude. This represents how hard the action is to pull off, with Magnitude 1 actions being ones that use basic Pilot skills and Magnitude 4 actions being ones with near-impossible odds.
The player then rolls a D6 plus a bonus dice for each point they have in the decided focus, as well as an extra D6 per relevant advantage they have. After this pool of dice is rolled, the player checks how many fours, fives, and sixes they’ve rolled. This number of successes is then compared against a chart to see if the action is successful and what type of success it is, with higher Magnitude checks requiring more successes to get better outcomes.
Mechanics That Encourage Making The Best Of Things
Like many modern TTRPGs, Dragon Reactor is built around a graduated success system where the player and poet have a hand in describing how things play out. For example, if the player narrowly misses the target number of successful rolls, they get an outcome dubbed Pyrrhic, where their action plays out as described. However, the poet gets to give the player banes (disadvantages) equal to the number of failed rolls. This is an excellent mechanical choice, as in every mecha series, be it Gundam or Evangelion, success is rarely clean, and even the most triumphant moments come with a sting in the tail.
The good mechanical choices carry through to the game’s health system, dubbed “Conditions.” During a game of Dragon Reactor, players have to manage three separate tracks of conditions: Injuries (harm dealt to your pilot), Damage (harm dealt to your mecha), and Woes (emotional scars left by the horrors of war). If one of these tracks gets four points added to it, the player has to roll on the Disaster table to find out what happens.
In an especially nice touch, the Disaster table isn’t just different flavors of “die”. A roll on the Disaster table can lead to numerous things, from story complications (like the enemy bringing out a new superweapon) to unexpected power-ups (the pilot getting a new refrain) or a rival appearing on the battlefield.
Dragon Reactor is an excellent game that I had a lot of fun with. Its well-chosen mechanics do a great job of capturing the feel of shows like Gundam Wing, where every mecha pilot is a morally grey soldier trapped in a conflict that is much bigger than them and not of their own creation. As a result, the pilots are constantly thrust into harrowing situations where they must make difficult decisions. Plus, even if they can complete the mission with their lives intact, they will still end up scarred by the horrors they encounter along the way, meaning no one leaves battle unharmed.
I also adore how the conflict and action systems work. The action system has enough swing to make no action a guaranteed success, forcing players to think outside of the box and make the best of bad situations. However, its swing isn’t so immense that the game lacks strategy, meaning players who think their actions through can turn the tide of battle when the situation calls for it. Plus, having the winner of conflicts decided by which side can fill their clock first adds delightfully frantic energy to scenes while also forcing players to act decisively and take risks even when the odds are not in their favor. Mechanically encouraging players to get themselves entangled in messy and dramatic scenes.
Finally, the rival system is fantastic. Having the prompts to create the rival change depending on the player’s chosen character archetype means that every player always gets a rival that compliments them, and having each rival archetype have different abilities helps give each rival a unique aura, making their arrival on the battlefield a big deal while also forcing players to tackle them differently.
Honestly, the ultimate tribute I can give to Dragon Reactor is that if the book didn’t start by declaring itself a demo, I would totally believe that this was the finished product. The mechanics feel fantastic, and the small amount of worldbuilding included is wonderfully written, effortlessly evoking a whole world in the reader’s mind. However, I am excited to see what is added in the final version, as the promised character creation system, post-conflict mechanics, and ominously named Doom Clock feel like they could take the game to the next level, allowing GMs and players to create massive, sprawling mecha pilot dramas that put the Universal Century to shame.
You can pick up the Dragon Reactor demo here:
