The Heaviest Metal

A couple weeks back, I challenged myself to write a TTRPG that would involve a rubik's cube. I know there's a TTRPG out there that uses it to randomly generate dungeons, which is perfectly fine, but I wanted something more. See, TTRPGs love rolling dice. Some even feature custom-made dice. What if... I made a game that's all about rolling an ever-shifting die? But what kind of game could make use of an ever-shifting die, I hear you say. Well, hear me out: scrappy mechas made out of junk.

Hope you'll enjoy reading this, and have a wonderful day!

Please ignore the wrecking balls.
Originally I hoped to make it themed around heavy metal in the style of League of Legends' Pentakill or Brütal Legend, hence the title. Sadly, I ran out of words for doing proper English grammar, so that would be a hard squeeze. At least it's more broadly applicable this way, so I think it's a win.
Metal god, by glooh.

The Heaviest Metal

Every player (rider) needs a standard solved rubik's cube and a soft surface to roll it on. GM optional.

Twist – 90° rotation of a cube's side, done to your cube usually.
Match – tile that matches the color of that side's central tile.

Riders construct their mechs for a tournament. Twist every side once. Take turns clockwise starting with the oldest player. On your turn, roll your cube and count the matches. Consult table below, roleplay the bold part, and twist the cube as instructed.

Roll

1	Another Man's Treasure. Make three twists.
2	Breakdown. Twist two sides twice each.
3–5	Secret. Make two twists.
6–8	Explosion. Twist another player's cube twice.
9	Revelation. Twist one side once/twice. The tournament begins!

Tournament is a battle royale. Go counterclockwise, starting with the youngest player. On turn, either:

• Fix: make two twists.
• Strike: pick one opponent. Roll your cubes. Player whose side has more matches does two twists to the other's cube. Mech without 3 matches on any side is eliminated.

Winner chooses one side of their final cube to roleplay (see table) and gets +1 twist on every future roll.

Variant: Construct your cubes alone. No 9 matches allowed.

My headcanon is still that each mech is built with a music genre in mind. Mostly the subgenres of metal, punk, or rock.
St. Elmo's fire, by Alexey Egorov.

As always, this section is for my design thoughts and similar stuff. I started this one with rubik's cube, imagining where it would fit, and I arrived at mechs made out of junk and scraps found in a junkyard. Curiously, my first thoughts right after were of a sort of "deck-builder" but with the cube: everyone comes to the table with a pre-built cube. That idea was scrapped though (pun intended) when I realized that that would make it a tabletop game, but not a roleplaying one. So, I've added a construction phase, where some roleplaying prompts are handed to the players for inspiration. I think that's called a "draft" in the TCG terms, probably?

While playing, I found out that the role of a GM in this game is mostly optional. If you can deal with roleplaying NPCs to each other, and developing the world together, the GM is largely unnecessary. That being said, it might be useful to define your characters and the world you're in before the game together if you don't have a GM.

Originally the game was so much more complicated: matching tiles being attacks, amounts of colors on a side being defenses, each side representing one body part of the mech, ... but adding the construction part took up most of my allowed words, so I had to trash it (pun intended) and simplify it a ton. It's hacked together, and there isn't much to distinguish characters from each other, but it works as a proof of concept.

Small clarification: The +1 twist on every future roll was intended to reset on losing the tournament since that would likely cost you your cool mech, but I'm afraid I ran out of words to include that in the game. My bad!

Let me know what you think though! Do you like it? Thank you for reading, and have a nice day!