Questions
Let me try to hit a few specific issues with the Robomeck
RPG rules.
Why did you . . . ?
. . . change the names of everything? I’m trying to avoid problems with Harmony
Gold. As much as they’ve mismanaged
their IP, they’re very protective of it.
They’re not Godzilla-level jealous of their property, but they’re right
up there. (As the old joke goes, the
only thing scarier than Godzilla is his lawyers.) Not to mention, somebody else, Strange Machine Games,
picked up the rights to the Robotech
RPG during the lengthy development cycle of my game. I’m trying not to step on any toes. Also, since I’ve changed the names,
technically this isn’t Robotech. Therefore, if you wish to call my material
non-canonical Robotech, I can agree
and say (in an Italian accent), “It’s a not-a my universe, monkey-boy.”
Why
is the Level limit set at 6?
The math breaks down at higher levels. That’s all there is to it. At least I’m honest enough to admit it,
unlike certain gaming companies. If you
want to go higher, you were warned. This
game really isn’t meant to be used for long-running campaigns anyway. It’s about a multi-generational conflict,
probably requiring new Characters for each separate era. Characters topping out in level should be
moved into command roles and not be involved in day-to-day combat.
What’s
up with the Rank system? Why doesn’t it
advance with Level?
I had no end of angst trying to write up this
section. You have no idea how much time I
wasted. Not only am I not ex-military or
a military expert, the people who made the series apparently weren’t
either. I had some real trepidation
about writing about rank and authority, but if your Characters are military,
then they will have a rank.
Promotion is also an issue. Tying rank to changes in Character level will
likely not produce a satisfying gaming experience, especially if your Players
are a bunch of goofball idiots and playing their Characters in the same fashion. Further, I’m not putting in mass combat rules
with this game, so there’s no point in advancing Characters beyond squadron
leader anyway. A game featuring the
politics and personality clashes of high command rank could make for a
fascinating game. You’re on your own
with that though.
Robotech showed
enlisted troops piloting mecha. While
various mecha were the backbone of the military in these conflicts, I find it
unlikely they’d give a private a multi-million dollar fighter plane for
anything other than a good washing.
Being a combat pilot today is a big deal in requirements and training,
and their jets don’t even transform.
Your Character is the elite of the elite (unless you’re a rebel pilot
who somehow picks up the piloting skill in the field, sigh).
Armor Class
includes ½ level?
There are other RPG’s that add level to AC, one of the Star Wars RPG’s for example. This came about when I figured out why mecha
combat doesn’t really work for an RPG.
While your DnD Character can increase in HP and attack modifier, but
your AC only goes up if you recover or buy better protection. With mecha, only your attack modifier goes up
with Character level. However, your
sixth-level Character is not much better than a first-level opponent if you’re
both in the same mecha (same HP, same AC).
The Palladium rules had combatants rolling for their
attacks and their defense, instead of using AC.
(The attacker had to at least roll at least a natural 12 to get a hit, I
think. It’s been a while. That did keep combat more honest, but still
totally random.) My own experience with
such systems is that it produced very unpredictable results. For a practical matter for an RPG, it’s hard
for Refs and Players to gauge encounters having no idea what’s going to
happen. The Characters’ mecha had to
have much superior MHP and firepower to ride out some poor rolls.
I went with an AC solution only after I’d come up with
the idea that it would increase in the level with Character. Only allowing ½ level came about after I’d done
the math, otherwise higher level combatants would be unhittable (which was how
that Star Wars game worked). Finally, I had to limit the levels themselves
to keep the math workable. The base AC
for mecha sometimes adds the dex bonus and ½ level. Bulkier more immobile mecha may only have ½
level added or just a base AC. This
represents a tradeoff for mecha that have more armor and perhaps HP versus more
agile mecha.
Why did you
introduce the possibility playing a Zentraedi Character and then just hand-wave
it?
I felt like I had to put it in because it was
canonical. I really didn’t want to
because the source material is more than vague.
Dana Sterling appeared to be a normal human, so being half-Zentraedi apparently
doesn’t do much for your Character stats.
But Bowman from Macross Plus (yes,
I know that’s not Robotech) was
clearly alien with definable features and attributes. I don’t know if he had two micronized
Zentraedi parents or one human one.
(In Macross Plus,
Robotech forces were still fighting the Zentraedi in deep space, protecting
human colony worlds and fleets. The UN
Spacy in the show was looking to replace their current fighter craft, which
were already a significant upgrade over Macross-era fighters. Perhaps the Zentraedi automated factories have
been accumulating battle data and upgrading their forces.)
Also, the Zentraedi basically disappeared from Robotech without much explanation after
the Macross episodes. Dana appeared to be an absolute unicorn. It was almost implied that she was the only
one of her kind on earth, but she seemed fully human. Between that and her heroic parentage, it
sort of explains how she became an officer in xenophobic Leonard’s army.
All of the full-blood Zentraedi may have gone off with
the Expeditionary Force, perhaps along with any other human/Zentradedi
offspring. Earth human society might not
have been ultimately accepting of a race that razed their planet to the ground
and so encouraged them to leave. I think
in the original Macross material,
Breetai did take the Zentraedi off into space, which kind of explains his
absence during Khyron’s last attack.
I view the Zentraedi as being a bunch of clones with a
very limited lifespan. That would seem
like the way the Masters would have created them to keep control over them. They would have also taken steps to ensure
that even their high-ranking officers, who were much longer lived, could not
have survived long without some sort regular treatment controlled by the
Masters.
My take is that the full-size Zentraedi have all passed
away by the time of the Southern Cross’ war with the Masters. (Zentraedi in suspended animation elsewhere
in fully Protoculture-fueled facilities could still be around.) Micronized Zentraedi would probably last
longer, but still not a usual human lifespan.
For this reason and others, I didn’t bother stating out the REF
Zentraedi mecha. It didn’t seem worth
the effort.
I think any human/Zentraedi offspring would not actually
be half-Zentraedi, but would instead be fully human with some minor common
traits, like odd natural hair colors.
(Dana was a bleach blonde to more fit in with human society.) Perhaps there were actually several
“half-breed” offspring on earth, but only Dana stood out because she was
famous. Full Zentraedi offspring, assuming
they’re micronized, might be closer to human than Zentraedi. Alternately, their genetic code might too
inbred to viably reproduce. It depends
on how many different clone series there were and how different they were from
each other. This whole issue is a giant
“I don’t know.”
There are other alien race possibilities. After the war with the Masters, it seemed
imply that there were large numbers of Tirolian citizen refugees. Even their warriors would have no reason to
fight without the Masters guiding them.
While they were clones, they were of a much more advanced sort than the
Zentraedi. Careful mixing in arranged
pairings kept their race from becoming inbred and degenerative. Of course, most of these people may have been
wiped out after the Invid Invasion which came shortly after, but I could see
survivors. How these Tirolians would
differ from regular humans would be up to you.
As for the Sentinels races, I suppose that could be
interesting, but I don’t care and have no interest in adapting them. Who knew the Haydonites were actually
villains all along (as per the Shadow
Chronicles movie)? Actually, I think
I remember that they weren’t a playable race in the Palladium Sentinels source book, so that may well
have been a possibility from the beginning.
If you liked the
Shadow Chronicles movie so much, why isn’t it part of this game? You also mostly ignored The Sentinels.
I didn’t think much of the Sentinels, either the video of what was produced, or the novels, or
even the comic books. I didn’t think
Invid Inorganics, REF Destroids, or REF Zentraedi mecha were worth trying to
stat out. I didn’t find their designs or
functions interesting. The Shadow Chronicles movie, on the other
hand, I loved. I may be in the minority
on this, but I thought it was ripping cool, fun adventure. I was thrilled to see some new Robotech animation, especially with all
the jaw-dropping mega-scale scenes (specifically the Expeditionary Fleet
heading for earth, the Invid response, and the arsenal of Neutron-S
missiles).
However, the mecha and the Haydonite craft were so
overpowered, I didn’t think I could safely insert them into the game. Yeah, an Alpha/Beta with a Syncro-Cannon is
cool, but I’m not comfortable trying to stat it out. I wasn’t even comfortable with stating out a
Syncro-Cannon, which I never adapted from the Palladium rules to begin with (at
least I think it was in those rules, maybe not). It’s more of a plot device anyway. You couldn’t let the Players have one to
keep. I couldn’t resist putting in the
Cyclone rail gun from the movie though. Also,
trying to account for the Haydonites being able to shutdown and overload Shadow
tech was going to be a problem. I’d
either have to ignore it or figure out some way to roll against it (which
wouldn’t have worked either).
What’s up with the
so-called “Support Characters?” They’re
sort of like actual Characters, but not.
Why aren’t they full Character Classes?
I had no end of trouble with the non-combat Support
Characters. There had to be Support
Characters in the game. The Characters
really need to be able to interact with people outside of their squadron or
rebel cell. However, the non-mecha pilot
Player Character classes from the Palladium rules never made any sense to
me. It’s like having a Barkeep class in
DnD. (Characters are always
interacting with them, but they’re not adventurers.) So, if the NPC classes aren’t going to be a
Player Character options, there was no point in making out a full classes for
them.
This set up the conundrum of making up NPC Character
classes for Characters that shouldn’t be involved in combat because they’re
really only narrative tools. I went through
a few possibilities. I settled on giving
them static stats and FP. So, they are
functional and will have some survivability.
You can change the stats or upgrade them as you will, but really the
only things that matter are their main skill bonus and their relationship with
the Characters.
The stats are necessary.
You might not try as hard to save Minmei, if you didn’t think she could
actually be killed in play, only by GM fiat.
But, these NPC’s are very fragile. The compromise was giving them FP, which
gives them some survivability, but still leaves them mortal. Play them carefully.
Mecka Damage? Mecka Hit Points? Mecka Armor Class? Really?
As if the concept of hit points and armor class is
somehow credible by comparison. You do
need to differentiate between personal combat and mecha combat damage. This wasn’t my first choice (or second, or
third). It was cop-out to fall back on
the Palladium Mega-Damage system. I
apologize.
Ultimately, it’s an RPG.
It has to be playable and give the Characters a decent chance of
survival. Any system more realistic is
going to impinge on one or both. Could
you make a more realistic mecha combat game?
Yes. It would involve hit
location charts for each mecha and each mode of that mecha. The irony would be that the game would be
unplayable. You’d have to destroy your
“realism” with Fudge points or some other meta-gaming to avoid having only
unhappy players.
Damage should cause lessened mecha capabilities like
slower speeds, stuck in current mecha transforming mode, loss of detection, and
loss of some weapons. Unfortunately,
this game got so complex even at a basic level, it was going to cripple it
adding those kind of details. Keep in
mind also how varied the mecha are. It’s
hard to apply even the most general rules, much less mecha-specific ones.
It would seem to be more fun in a narrative sense to have
the mecha suffer crippling, but not destructive damage, but ask the Players in
the middle of a dogfight if they want to keep track of what still works on
their craft. (Never mind the Ref having
to keep track of all the enemy combatants.)
This is probably the reason why RPG’s that feature hit location charts
never catch on. It is so hard for the
Players and the Ref to run combat with a bunch of gimped combatants.
Really this kind of game should be more narrative-based
than stat-based. Dogfights should be
creatively described by the combatants and reflect their Characters’
personalities and emotional states, rather than just rolling a d20 plus some
mods. I don’t have enough experience in
those types of games to try and make up one.
The Strange Machines game, from what I’ve skimmed from a playtest doc, does
seem to work with that idea. Go play
their game.
Missile Volley damage
seems kind of weak.
I stripped away four layers of different and conflicting
rules for mecha combat while writing out the final version. I finally made the decision that I had to
reduce the amount of MHP and M-Level damage to avoid the ridiculous and
era-incompatible MHP bloat that plagued the Palladium rules. Weakening volley damage was crucial to
that. Missile volleys threw everything
out of whack. This was the only solution
that didn’t involve essentially rewriting the Palladium rules, exactly as they
were. At that point, I would have quit,
since I despised those rules.
The problem here is really the mecha themselves. You would never design an RPG combat robot
with 60 missiles. Missiles were supposed
to give the human mecha a chance against waves of enemy troops, but some enemy
mecha also have clusters of missiles too.
You could allow for missiles to be used as anti-missiles. Unfortunately, this creates a mess for the
Ref and the Players, who will be meta-gaming each other in their missile usage.
If you have to have a logical-sounding
explanation to the diminished damage, say the initial missile explosion
prematurely detonates the following the missiles and lessens their damage.
Did you at least
consider using the Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic?
I like it, but it’s not OGL. Theoretically, you can’t copyright rules,
only their presentation and certain trademarked terms. Theoretically. I decided to steer clear of using 5e-type
rules, which I’m not that familiar with anyway.
(Indeed, this entire exercise has been predicated on disguising the
actual source material.) The Called Shot
rule was as close as I got to it.
Let’s talk about Grapple!
This rule deserves its own special section. Quick, how did Grapple work in ADnD? Yeah, that’s right, you don’t know, even if
you owned and read the books. You took
one look at that section and you skipped over it because it looked
unnecessarily complex and had nothing to do with how you played the game. Go back and look at the retro-clones; they
just hand-wave it.
It gets worse.
There’s ADnD Grapple complexity and then there’s DnD 3.0
Grapple. The rule for this one
non-essential combat situation runs for an entire page. If you weren’t grappling in the previous two
versions because you didn’t understand it, no doubt you house-ruled “No
grappling,” in this one. I can see the game
table now. Player: “I grapple.” DM: “You die instantly.”
Grapple is almost a microcosm of trying to make up this
Robotech game. The intent of 3.0 (I
assume 3.5 worked the same as I can’t imagine the game designers ever wanting
to work on that section again) was to precisely define in the rules a combat
situation that had any number of variables.
It’s a lot like figuring combat between robots that can completely
change their configuration. The entire raison
d’etre of the Pathfinder rewrite was to “fix” the Grapple rule. I’m not kidding. The game designers always mentioned it first
as a deficiency in the rules. (The
purpose of the upcoming second edition of Pathfinder is to “make money.”)
Okay, so why all this attention to a rule that isn’t
used? Is it not used because it’s too
complex or too vague and could lead to arguments? No, combat in DnD and DnD derived
RPG’s (which is just about all of them) is really only designed for lethal
combat. This is because the original
rules were based on tabletop wargaming rules.
However, all of the inspiration for DnD was based in heroic fiction
where capturing combatants and non-lethal fighting were common situations. This tension has always undercut the game a
bit.
You end up with two schools of thought in RPG’s. In one, it’s a brutal combat slog that
doesn’t produce a satisfying narrative for adventuring (in other words, WOW).
In the other, you’re weaving a tapestry of interactive storytelling that
isn’t really supported by the rules you’re playing by (in other words, Vampire: The Masquerade). If you think this is just my opinion, even
Gary Gygax said it was a flaw in the original game that it didn’t entirely
support the tropes of heroic fiction.
(I’m sorry I can’t footnote a quote here. I do not remember where I read that.)
Yeah, you thought Grappling was just some minor optional
rule here didn’t you? You didn’t think
it was worth a whole essay. This brings
us back to this game. I spent a bunch of
time thinking about grappling and unarmed combat in an attempt to add these
forms of combat because capturing people and getting into non-lethal fights
should be part of it. If you think back
to the series (and just about any other sci-fi genre shows), these situations
come up all the time. If you’re coming
up with adventures for this setting, these minor rules can hopefully give you
more options for play. You will need
Player buy-in for this mind-set change.
They’re not going to be used to not fighting to the death. I think it will be worth the effort.
Your mecha commentary
isn’t canonical at all.
Once, I had taken offense to someone on the Internet
calling for Rick to be tried as a war criminal over authorizing the use of
Neutron-S missiles. (As if a group of
Players wouldn’t be using those things first and asking, “How much XP for
killing all of the Invid on earth?”) I
wrote a couple pages about it and posted it on the message boards at the
official Robotech website. Needless to say, I was flamed in a
line-by-line manner. (Little wonder I
don’t hang out there. Have you noticed
that you need a login just to get on to the website?) Were those posters correct in flaming me? Probably, maybe, meh.
I’ve come to the ultimate conclusion on Robotech that (and hear me good): There
is NO true canon! The novels, the comic
books, the art books, and any other outside source is just an opinion, even the
ones written by the people working on the show.
The series itself, by virtue of being three unrelated series stitched
together, is not internally consistent.
The original source series themselves were created to be dramatic and
entertaining. Carefully presenting their
established settings with consistency was of secondary importance, if that. Heck, Macross
was originally conceived as a parody.
You can still clearly see it there in certain aspects of the show.
[Robotech is
like trying to make a “new” show out of combining episodes of Andromeda, Farscape, and Stargate: SG-1. Hey, they’re all science fiction shows and
even share some of the same actors. It
could work. No matter how good a job you
do on it though, things are never going to match up cleanly. Even on the individual shows themselves,
while they kept their continuities fairly tight, they changed their minds about
some concepts as the shows went along (or openly wished they could).]
Fanboys trying to “fix” issues in the continuity or
explain the logic on the show have engaged in a HOPELESS task. Virtually any argument you make referencing
the series as a source, can be refuted by someone also using the series as a
source. (Hey, tell me what happened to
Dana’s little brother. He’s
canonical.) This is why the Shadow Chronicles movie was not entirely
well-received by the fans and why the Sentinels
would have gotten the same treatment had it been made. Anything and everything following the
original series will be non-canonical in some fashion.
The Robotech
series was not logically consistent, so anybody following it up will have to
pick and choose what details to work with and what to ignore. This will irritate fans who disagree their
choices. Anyone who thinks the show has
a sacred canon is only using parts of the series supplemented by
extra-canonical sources and their own pet theories. There is no true Robotech canon.
So, no, this game isn’t totally accurate. It’s not trying to be. My commentary is just for fun and trying to
explain the unexplainable in this show.
Given that this game is an unauthorized knockoff, who cares? Use what you like, disregard the rest. Feel free to make up your own “canonical”
game. Good luck reconciling everything
and detailing the lifecycle of a Flower of Life Pollinator. After you finish and post your game, be aware
that I and a bunch of other fans will be trolling you as well.
Why was this game
so hard to write?
I’m just asking myself this question. Writing game rules is hard, mostly because
those sneaky Players are always trying to figure out a way around them. No matter how much hand-waving and fiat the
Ref allows himself, the Players will always
be more clever. (Regrettably, this
doesn’t usually apply to figuring out traps or puzzles or difficult situations
with obvious solutions.) This is because
the Players, through their Characters, have more invested in the game. The Ref can lose NPC’s left and right and
keep playing non-stop. The Player loses
their Character and they’re out until the Ref lets them introduce a new
one. Possible Character death is a good
motivator for brilliance.
In writing rules, you have think like a Player. How do I get around this? How can I use this to my advantage? Can I twist the wording of the rule to my
advantage? A rule too specific ends up
being useless, because it only applies in narrow situations, or constricts
free-form play (which defeats playing a table top RPG altogether), or won’t be
used at all (grapple). Rules too vague
will be broken by clever Players every
time forcing a rewrite or a house rule.
So in your opinion,
was Rick Hunter a war criminal for ordering the use of Neutron-S missiles on
earth?
Look, I know where this argument came from. You’re trying to equate this to the end of
WWII in Japan. That’s a whole another
issue, where the argument still doesn’t make any sense. But if you need a rationale over the use
giant missiles in Robotech, read
on. (This is just the executive summary
of what I originally posted on the forum, by the way.)
Since the REF wasn’t being governed by any earth
authority by that point, they had to make the decision themselves about what to
do about the Invid occupying earth. The
possible human cost of an REF invasion of earth against a rejuvenated Invid
after several failed attempts was probably unacceptable, but so was the thought
of losing earth permanently with its people enslaved. Remember, their experience with the Regent
showed the Invid to be world-conquerors.
They had no reason to trust that the Regis would limit herself to just
taking earth. Any Invid were a
threat.
The development of Shadow technology, however gave the
REF some chance of conventional victory.
The co-development creation of the Neutron-S missiles gave them an
ability to end to Invid threat altogether, but they’d have to write-off earth
and its population to do so. It was like
two different camps were working on a solution (with Haydonite “help”). The compromise was a full-scale invasion
supported by Shadow technology with the Neutron-S missiles held in
reserve. (If there was no “compromise,”
they would have used the missiles first.)
If this invasion failed, the REF and other human colony worlds would have
been left wide open to Invid retaliation.
The Neutron-S missiles would then have to be used.
So to answer the question, no, Rick isn’t a war
criminal. If for no other reason, who
would try him? There was no authority on
earth to do so and they would be the aggrieved party. Presumably Rick did not make the decision
alone for the REF. Rick was not some
kind of dictator of the human dispora. There
had to be a governing council with the REF after the loss of earth to the Invid
(if not before, given the distance between earth and Tirol). They would have to approve of the war
plan. Rick surely must have advocated
for a liberation plan, but whatever form of the final decision, he’d follow it
through because he’s a soldier. This
council would not be indicting itself to go after Rick as a war criminal. Perhaps the Invid could sue him. The Regis would have devolve some Invid to create lawyers.
