Steel Hearts (Ver. Zero)

It is the year 0099 of the New Century…

Civilization has been pushed to the brink, giant monsters known as Wyrms roam the Earth, the remnants of humanity teeter on the edge of war.

You are a Pilot, cursed with Resonance to a mysterious stone known as Betyl which has become Earth’s new power source. 

It is your resonance that powers mankind’s most horrific weapon. A titan of steel and fire built for unimaginable violence.

The Mobile Engagement Chassis.

WELCOME TO STEEL HEARTS [VER. ZERO]

Steel Hearts [Zero] is a feature complete version of Mobile Engagement Chassis: Steel Hearts, a Kinetic Mecha Tactics Tabletop RPG! In this game you'll take the role of fragile Pilots destined to control heinous war machines, all in the name of defending humanity. Taking inspiration from Mechas across time (be it Zone of the Enders, Pacific Rim, Gundam or Evangelion), Steel Hearts attempts to capture a sense of cinematic high-octane mecha action, while preserving a deep tactical rules system.

KEY FEATURES

• Fully d6 System that has you building huge pools of dice to land incredible blows!
• No roll to hit! Instead combat is all about positioning and resource management, your most important resource being...
• Synergy - A kinetic resource you generate for your allies for every even your roll. You can burn this Synergy to break turn order, acting on enemy turns, boosting away from incoming attacks or amplifying your own!
• Fast, simple rules, with plenty of reminder text! All the rules you need to play Steel Hearts are right on the Pilot Sheets, and most actions are incredibly intuitive coming down to simply "how much Synergy do you spend" or "how many dice are you adding" - It's a system that favors speed in its resolution and clarity in its rules, while not sacrificing tactical crunch or depth.
• Narrative systems that can enhance your Pilots' attacks when they're fighting for what's most important to them! Your Pilot's Affects and Gravity blur the line between fluff and crunch, making every combat truly unique to the Pilots on the field.
• Easy-to-customize MECs. Featuring an entire Upgrade Tree full of Perks and over 175 MEC Parts to choose from, Steel Hearts focuses on easy to conceptualize slots to build the MEC of your dreams. If you like deep build crafting, but don't want to have to calculate the weight of your MEC, this is hopefully the system for you!
• Easy to manage GM tools, and a Tension Bar to really ramp up the heat in combat! In Version Zero there's only ~14 Standard Enemy Units to field along with 3 Bosses, but you can bet more are on their way!
• And that's just what's in version zero! Who knows what the future may bring...

WHAT'S INCLUDED?

• Full rules for Tactical Mecha Combat. Including a 5 Page Intro comic, recommendations, lore, stack order breakdowns, and gorgeous art, all squeezed into 77 Pages!
• Full rules for generating Pilots trying to survive the New Century.
• Full Mechanics Shop including well over 175 Parts spread across 32 MEC Classes, which can be mixed and matched to create your perfect MEC!
• 2 Biomes and 3 Bosses to give you a feel for Steel Hearts' heart-pounding combat!

WHY VERSION ZERO?

While this version of Steel Hearts is feature complete, it's in sore need of an editing pass (sorry for all the typos) and I want to add a lot more content to the GM side of things. More Biomes, more Bosses and most importantly full campaigns... Eventually. 

You see Steel Hearts is a labor of love for me. All the art you see was funded out of pocket, and this whole thing was made during my time off from working full time. There's so much I'd love to add, but for now I wanted to get this heart of the game out there for GMs who are feeling up to the challenge of designing their own adventures!

WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE?

Check out this amazing review by DragonKid11:

License Info : Presently Steel Hearts' text is Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 - Which pretty much means you can do whatever with it plus you can make it Pay What You Want! If you want to sell these derivative works without some kind of full free option, please reach out to me first! I'm very new to licensing, so this may get more lax, but for right now I wanted to cover my butt while still letting people make their own stuff! ((Note: that this license does not include the art within the book - If I had full rights to that, this whole work would probably just be Public Domain to make things easy))

LOOKING FOR MORE STEEL HEARTS?

• Reel Robot Fishing - The official Steel Hearts fishing Mini-Game

> > > CHECK THE DEVLOG FOR UPDATES ON EACH VERSION < < <

!!! ATTENTION !!!

Steel Hearts is in Beta still and in desperate need of revision. As I work full-time with the public it's been difficult to keep plugging errors and explaining edge-cases when what's clearly needed is another 10 pages of explanation and a good long edit session. Between this and other things I've decided to make Steel Hearts completely free from here on in!! You'll also notice the game is PWYW, but feel no pressure to pay unless you want to ^^ This project has been a 4+ year, financially costly labor of love and I hope to have 0.14 available in your hands soon! (Though it may be a bit...)

If you supported Steel Hearts at any point Thank You So Much!! It wasn't easy deciding to let this out in the wild in a Beta state and I've learned a lot from all the varied feedback! If you enjoyed the game then I'm overjoyed and hope you'll be able to take this weird game to new heights at your gaming table!!