"It is a truth universally acknolwedged that...

[subplotkudzu]

a single woman in possession of a good mecha must be in want of a husband."

I'm starting to noodle around game ideas for the next prospectus and the idea of a regency era/giant robot crossover keeps popping into my head. I know it makes no sense - the cloistered nature of women in the Regency era is what makes those romances work, and that would be kind of undone if the women also had battle suits with chain guns. But maybe not - cultural mores are wierd things, and the idea of a family mecha being as important as a knight's sword and horse (i.e. the thing that makes them valuable to their lord in their ability to fight), and the mecha all only being disigned for small people to operate might lead to... OK, it really wouldn't. But I can dream.

Mostly I want both the idea of mecha based combat, royalty and formal codes of behavior, while coming up with a solid reason for both genders to be playable as mecha-pilots. The idea of Marianne obliterating Willoughby with a plasma canon (leaving behind just a smoking boot and a pocket copy of Shakespeare's sonnets) has considerable appeal.

Comments

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

That's kind of what I'm thinking. I had been leaning the same was as Ladegard with the idea of only women (and perhaps small men) being able to fit inside the mecha. But I do like the idea that the mecha training is so intensive (or perceived to be) that the women aren't allowed to do any other 'useful' activity. They can read, sew, dance and so on, but can't earn a living or be taught consequential things outside of mecha piloting, making them dependent on their family and their family's caste-based wealth.

I'm not as such about the innate heredetary component, but I suppose it could be there. It depends on the origins of the mecha, that I haven't yet pursued.

I will freely admit that one key aspect of this is playing up the societal constraints of the Regency era as a means to keep the players from, well, being player characters as romping off to fly in the face of all societal convention just because they know that the GM won't hose them and end the campaign. The campaign would have some semi-rigid rules for behavior that, if the players repeatedly violate (or violate once in a bad enough way) they will be cut off from their family - and subsequently their mecha - and removed from play. Societal honor matters as much as hit points do to the life of the character.

(Oh sure, such women might be able to go to the continent/colonies and find a job piloting a run down, half-functional mecha for some mercenary company, but that would still remove them from play.)