Leyline Press Blog — salvage union

Our core design goal with Salvage Union was to create a simple-to-learn mech tabletop role-playing game, which retained the essence of the genre while vastly simplifying its mechanics and learning curve. One key aspect that makes mech games appealing is the ability to customise your own unique mech, fine-tuning its various options to your tastes. In Salvage Union, we wanted to intertwine this customisation with the role of salvagers scouring the wasteland for scrap. This blog explores the challenges myself, Panayiotis Lines  @panny_lines, and Aled Lawlor,@aledlawlor, encountered in developing a salvaging and crafting system for Salvage Union that met these design goals....

For the last 30 week we've been revealing one of the 30 Mechs that's going to be in the Salvage Union Core book. We've come to the end of that reveal and today we're collating every Mech in the core book for handy reference in this post. If you're interested in Salvage Union you can download the free Quickstart here. You can pre-order Salvage Union here.  The game is currently scheduled for a digital launch at the end of March and a physical launch in Q3 of 2023. Tell us what you think of all these Mechs!  You can discuss...

One of the key mechanics that makes Salvage Union works is the numerous Systems, Modules and Abilities that allow players to directly ask The Mediator (GM) questions and get true answers from them. For example the Spectrum Mech, which can be piloted at Tech 1, the starting level of play, has the following Mech Chassis Ability.  Data Scanner: The Spectrum is a mobile data repository that has all manner of information stored within it. It is able to scan objects to both gain information about them and store that data to access at a later time.  Range: Close // Short...

One of the core design goals of Salvage Union was to create a simple, narrative focussed Mech game that was easy and fun to play.  Many Mech games people are familiar with such as Lancer or BattleTech are usually quite complicated, crunchy games. A few notable rules lite exceptions such as the Mecha Hack exist but the focus tends to be on crunch and tactical combat within the genre. We wanted to create something different, a Mech roleplaying game that was pick up and play and encouraged players to explore and engage with the game world and roleplay without worrying...

In our last article we explored why skill systems and modifiers didn’t work for Salvage Union.  One of the main reasons people want to have skill systems and modifiers in a tabletop roleplaying game is because of niche protection.  Players within a tabletop roleplaying game want to feel that their character is good within their defined role. The player who picks a melee combat focussed class wants to feel like their character is more apt in melee combat compared to the character who has picked a stealth based class. That stealth based player wants to feel like their character excels...