Interviews: Celestial Bodies, plus 11dragonkid11

• A post-apocalyptic space setting
• with a light d6 system
• for 1-6 players
• gm-less or gm-ful, you choose
• featuring an innovative grid-based framework for constructing and equipping mechs.

• The Grid framework is innovative and intuitive
• Quick and easy character creation
• Unique combat system that doesn’t feel rote or mechanical
• Lots of content/lore, especially factions, to sink your teeth into in this ginormous (titan) book

I recommend this game! Read it for the lore. Read it for The Grid. The latter is not only a clever way of approaching mechas based off of inventory systems in ttrpgs like Mausritter or video games like Diablo. It's also integrated with other aspects of the game.

Otherwise, I recommend this game for someone looking for unique gameplay with lots of content to build out from. The book is great for players. It’s also great for lore readers.

Binary: Armored Core. The implications of eternal, ever-expanding growth encouraged by capitalism and what that means once we run out of frontier once again. FTL.

Charlotte: the feeling of being a part of a community. the fear of the unknown. the human need to consume. the grid system was inspired by a friend’s thoughts on kingdom death monster

Binary: The grid, a 6x6 canvas on which you place your Frame and then the parts on that Frame which then acts as a hit grid as well. The GMless design underpinning the campaign structure and all of its various gameplay loops. Also it's very magenta.

Charlotte: I made it, Binary made it, and there’s only one of each of us in the world

Binary: Building and tweaking and playing with the mechs is incredibly satisfying, and I think that'll get you into the mindset to try everything else we have on offer.

Charlotte: They should try it if they want to

Binary: You Will Die In This Place is a recent absolute banger, not just as a game itself (though it's good as that too) but as a metanarrative around the creative process. Charlotte's not going to mention it so I'm going to recommend you check out Daisy Chainsaw. And if you want another mech game but way lighter and faster, check out my own APOCALYPSE FRAME. 

Charlotte: .dungeon remastered by Snow

11dragonkid: My first contact with the mecha genre is, unsurprisingly, with anime. It was the '00s, and as a kid, there was barely any anime without a giant robot in it, the one you can see on a kids channel anyway. I can't exactly give any notable example, but I can tell you that my thought as a kid on mecha was that giant robots are cool. It's still the same to this day.

Fast forward a couple years, and I made first contact with Battletech, a mech themed simulationist tabletop wargame. I have always been obsessed with numbers, usually weights or number of rounds or stats of a machine, but in anime, it's generally meaningless fluff. But in Battletech, there's rules, and suddenly that changed everything, and thus began my obsession with ttrpgs. However, eventually, there's only so much you can do by smashing two miserable piles of numbers together, the primary weakness of simulationist tabletop games is that sometimes, reality catches up.

I needed something faster, smoother, less “this does this because that's totally what happens in reality.” That's when I found Lancer. At this point of the timeline, I'm a couple years into Gundam and have a more favourable outlook to its more maneuverable machines compared to Battlemechs in Battletech or Mechwarrior, or any western mech medias in general really, I'm also a couple years into Kill 6 Billion Demons, and Lancer has arts from the same artist, so unsurprisingly, I'm into it very hard very quickly.

I remember the day I went into the Pilot NET discord and immediately tried to figure out what I could do with it. The unfortunate thing as someone who loves a western ttrpg while living halfway across the world is that there is barely any chance for me to find a game to play.

This was also around the time when Lancer was still being developed, and I quickly took part in sending in feedback as I read through the book. My past experience in reading complicated ttrpgs came in handy. At some point I think, I just went “it would be nice if someone summarized the words in front of me here, and also made a lot of jokes about it.”

And then I downloaded a video editor that I wasn't sure my computer could run, wrote out a script in barely a day, ran it through an online TTS, and then pumped out my very first video on my channel in a few days because I know I cannot work on my projects that last longer than a week.

The rest is history.

11dragonkid: The greatest joy I felt, and the reason I kept working on my channel, is that everytime I have uploaded a video, I get to see people enjoy them, whether a random viewer, or the very person that developed the indie ttrpg I was reviewing. I very much enjoy suplexing people with an intro video to a ttrpg they have created out of nowhere if only to see their reaction to it. I also enjoy reading new ttrpgs, figuring out how they work, why it does this this way, and the math equation behind its interaction. I get a lot of joy poking at the inner workings of a ttrpg.

Anyway please do leave a comment on my videos instead of only talking about my stuff in some hidden discord server because you will really help my self-esteem this way.

The greatest challenges I have faced when working on this channel is the slow destruction of the reliable working of the internet caused by capitalists. That's all I'm gonna say.

11dragonkid: My 2 most popular videos are Armored core 6 meme videos but that's probably not the answer people reading this are looking for. My most popular ttrpg related video is still, my very first video, an Intro to Lancer. I'm proud of it, but also I made a second better intro video on Lancer and it's not anywhere nearly as popular as it even now, and that's kinda, painful to say the least.

My proudest video would be not the full Trashtalk on Lancer: Monarch episode, but the intro. I was honestly really proud of how much effort I put into animating it, despite how much pain I endured when making it due to my slow computer. It was absolutely worth it to see the result. Shame I don't have the energy to do something like that since then.

And again there's Armored Core and Front Mission as inspiration, plus some Warhammer 40k in there. I also like to bring in Geiger-inspired biomechanical shapes when it's fitting.

11dragonkid: If you ask me 3 years ago, I would say HBS Battletech, Mechwarior 3 or 4, because frankly, they are the only option available due to the complete lack of variety available. That is, of course, if you are limited to PC games like me. If you ask me these days, Armored Core 6 is here for those who actually want to test their skills, in both fighting and fashion. I also suggest watching many of the Gundam series, I started with Unicorn so many years ago, and Witch from Mercury has been my favourite these days. Now I'm looking forward to Gundam Gquuuuuux releasing in the next month [this interview occurred in March]. It's not just for the cool mecha action, but also for a less US-centric political view, which I'm sure people need less of these days.

If you are looking ttrpg recommendation however, I have plenty to share, like Maharlika, Apocalypse Frame, Armoured Astir: Advent, Celestial Bodies, Steel Hearts, Salvage Union, Project Metallurgent, Spectres of Brocken, Heavy Gear, and more. All of these I have talked about on my channel before.

11dragonkid: Well this might be the hardest question for me to answer because right now my job is basically sharing and promoting other people's work, I'm not exactly sure who else can I share at this point, but if there's one thing I should really share that started this whole thing off, read Kill 6 Billion Demons, folks.

I also want to recommend the Muvluv series and 13th Sentinel: Aegis Rim as examples of excellent mech themed visual novels that have amazing plot twists coming out of the left field that's sure to keep the viewer engaged.