This Mech is Haunted is a role playing game for 2 to 5 players. It requires a text channel and a voice channel to play as designed. Players are welcome to adapt it to their needs and resources as necessary/desired.
One player plays as the Pilot. They communicate via speaking into the voice channel and reading the text channel. The other player(s) play as Ghosts and communicate through text in the text channel, listening to the voice channel.
In a 2 player game, one player is the Pilot, and the other player is the lone Ghost who haunts all of the systems.
In a 3 player game, one player is the Pilot, one Ghost haunts the Communications systems, and the other haunts Navigation and Sensors.
In a 4 player game, one player is the Pilot, one Ghost haunts Communications, one haunts Navigation, and one haunts Sensors.
In a 5 player game, one player is the Pilot, one Ghost haunts Communications, one haunts Navigation, one haunts Sensors, and one haunts Internal Systems.
The Pilot has been dropped into the field only to find out that the Mech is malfunctioning, so their Primary Objective is to bring it back to the Repair Bay. They can also accomplish Secondary Objectives along the way if they like. They accomplish these by directing the Mech to perform different actions. The Ghosts are the restless spirits of previous pilots who have died in this Mech and left unfinished business behind. They each have one thing they want to accomplish, and one thing they want to avoid. They accomplish this by providing information to the Pilot that the pilot may act on.
COMMUNICATIONS relays information to the pilot from communication channels, such as Mission Control, the Allied Forces Liaison, civilian or military radio traffic, anyone else who might want to talk to the pilot, and descriptions about those channels.
NAVIGATION relays information about the physical world around the Mech, what locations are nearby, how far they are from the Mech's current location, what environmental hazards exist along the way, and descriptions about all of those things.
SENSORS relays information about the entities around the Mech, including other Mech and non-Mech machines moving around, enemies and allies, and descriptions about them.
INTERNAL SYSTEMS relays information about the state of the Mech and its systems like reactor, life support, weapons, shields, armor, Communications, Navigation, and Sensors, and descriptions about those systems.
At the start of the game, the Pilot should initiate a full system scan to get the current available information from the Mech's systems. They do this by annoucing their intention to do so. The Ghost should announce the topics they are responsible for:
Players may declare as much more information as they like, and the Pilot may ask for information not initially declared.
Once the full system scan is complete, Ghosts determine their objectives. They do this by randomly picking one of the other Ghosts in the game and randomly picking one of the topics that Ghost declared. This is their Positive Contact Objective: they should get the pilot to reach that location; to trade with, help, or guide that entity; to befriend or assist that contact; or to find the necessary parts to repair that system, as applicable. Then they should repeat this process with the other Ghosts to get their Negative Contact Objective: they should make sure the Pilot avoids that location; to attack, trap, or evade that entity; to frustrate or confuse that contact; or to find a way to permanently disable that system, as applicable. Ghosts who get the Repair Bay as their Negative Contact Objective may wish to pick again, though they don't have to, they just need to know that it may be more difficult.
With objectives in hand, players play the game. The Pilot declares what they are trying to get the Mech to do by speaking into the voice channel. The Ghosts provide information available via the systems they haunt in the text channel. Topics will define what the talk about. The Pilot can ask for information about Topics the Ghosts have already provided, or they can ask for information about new Topics that have not been mentioned yet:
Ghosts are free to respond as they like, adding details to the world as they do so. Ghost can also offer new information about the world if they wish:
A Ghost may possess another system they do not currently control. To do this, they change their displayed name in the text channel to that system and provide information that system would provide. If this is a system currently haunted by another Ghost, the originally haunting Ghost is "suppressed" and should only provide true information coming from that system. Possession lasts for five minutes, after which time the Possessing Ghost should return to their original system. A Ghost must wait at least fifteen minutes after the end of their possession before they possess another system.
The Pilot may direct their Repair Bot to repair a malfunctioning system. Any Ghost haunting that system is "suppressed" and should only provide true information coming from that system for the next five minutes. The Pilot must wait for at least ten minutes after the Repair Bot completes their work before they can deploy the Repair Bot again. The Pilot may wish to type out the time stamp of the Repair Bot so everyone can keep track of when it is active.
The Ghosts provide all the information that the Pilot receives, so they decide what is true and what is not. Ghosts should keep track of what is going on with their system, and updating that information as the Pilot operates the Mech. A Ghost could very easily shut down a system completely, cutting off the Pilot from the outside world, but they might find themselves under the repeated supervision of a Repair Bot. One limitation of this is the Internal Systems Ghost in a 5 player game: while they could state that another system is not functioning, the Ghost controlling that system can still operate as normal, including providing true information; the system is haunted after all.
When the Pilot feels like the mission has been successful, they can announce that the Repair Bay is in sight. The Ghost now have five minutes left to try to finish up their work. After that, the Pilot announces that they are pulling into Docking Bay 1, and the mission is over.
If, at any point, the Pilot thinks they may not survive the mission, they can choose to Eject from the Mech and the mission is over.