Not the rock/paper/scissors kind of RPS. More like Rocket/Plasmagun/Swarmers.
Ah, hell with it.
I'll try to do my best to run this smoothly - luckily, other than the hordes of PMs this will not require much processing on my part. Then again, I think I said the same about that Astroid game...
This is a kind of double-RPS game taken from Space Rangers, if anyone has played those. 16 players start the game, duelling each other until only 1 winner remains, and the rest lose.
Each player pilots a battlemech. This battlemech is tricky, in that its controls only allow attacking with one weapon and employing one defensive measure at the same time.
The weapons are:
Revenger Missiles - agile, low-damage, laser-guided.
Pulverizer Torpedo - dumbfire, proximity-triggered, large blast.
Scorcher Laser - medium-damage, capacitor-fed energy weapon.
The defences are:
Reflector shield - dissipates heat from energy weapons.
Point defences - shoot down incoming projectiles.
Speed booster - allows quick dodge manuevers.
The devices interact in an evident manner, with some inevident quirks.
Revengers are disposed of with the point defence and can be partially scrambled by the reflector shield. They're too agile to be dodged.
The Pulverizer is best avoided by dodging. Its armor allows it to survive for some time under point defence fire and you will be hit by shrapnel, so take caution.
Scorcher Lasers can't overcome the reflector shield. Moving quickly can throw off the attacker's aim, however, and reduce damage.
Each battlemech has 10 hit points. They are restored between duels.
Revengers deal 1d6 damage, or 1d3 if scrambled.
The Pulverizer deals 1d3+5 damage on a direct hit, or 1d3+2 if shot down.
Scorcher can hit you for 1d3+3 damage, but dodging can bring it to 1d3.
In addition, you can only outfit your mechs for 6 tons of ammo! Each ton packs 6 Revenger racks, or 1 Pulverizer, or 3 Scorcher shots. These must last you for the entire tournament! That is, four duels! If you run out of ammo, that's an automatic loss.
In the event that both mechs are disabled at the same time, the winner is determined by, in order:
Having received less damage.
Having scored more hits.
Having spent less ammo weight in the duel.
Having more total ammo weight remaining.
Failing all of the above a normal RPS match determines the winner.
The game would likely be PM-heavy. The 16 players PM the game starter their loadouts. Then the 8 pairs are announced. Players then PM the game starter their actions, which are 1 attack and 1 defence. The results for each of the duels are posted here, and are determined with a D6, as per the weapon stats.
Until the first 8 duels resolve, no new duels start. 8 winners and 8 losers split into 8 more duels. Then, 8 more, and 8 more. 32 duels in total, producing a ranking of all players.
OPTIONS:
Mafia mode: before each bout starts, players will attempt to investigate their opponent. A roll of D6 will determine how much of the opponent's loadout you get a sneak peek on.
RPG mode: Players start with 100 credits. After each bout, players will distribute 10 minutes between different things. One minute of repair time will repair 1 point of your armor and cost you 2c (auto-repair is disabled for this mode). 6 minutes spent upgrading a weapon will add 1 point of damage to it and cost you 20c. 6 minutes spent upgrading the armor will add 1 point of maximum HP and repair 1 HP, costing 15c. 2 minutes in the bar will cost you 5c and reveal a random weapon loadout of a random player in your group (not necessarily your next opponent). If you have money to burn and space to spare, 4 minutes can be spent loading 1 ton of ammo onto your mech. Revengers cost 25, Pulverizer costs 40, Scorcher costs 30.
Insta-kill mode: Pure RPS. All mechs reduced to 1 HP, and matching blocks (i.e. Revengers vs Reflector) deal zero damage (still counting as hits for dual-KO resolving though).
Melee mode: At any time, a player can choose to go melee and punch the opponent in the face for 1d6+1 damage. The move can't be defended against, but also prevents any defences from being activated (specifically, boosters are used to rapidly close in). The attack doesn't use ammo, and the auto-lose condition if you run out of ammo is removed.
Mass Brawl mode: All players fight all players. In the PM, mention which player you attack. No pauses and no repairs, last man standing wins (resolving rules are the same in a double- or multi-KO between last players).
This idea is a more or less direct rip-off from one of the Space Rangers text-adventures. The large amount of PM exchange required means the game will be rather slow, even not taking the sheer amount of players into account. Different modes listed at the bottom of the spoiler might spice it up. The original game used a combination of the first two options.