Front cover of the Robotech RPG core rulebook, illustrated by Kevin Long |
|
| Designer(s) | Kevin Siembieda |
|---|---|
| Publisher(s) | Palladium Books |
| Years active | November 1986 – July 1998 March 2008 – present |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction |
| Language(s) | English |
| System(s) | Megaversal |
| Website | www.palladiumbooks.com |
The Robotech Role-Playing Game, based on the Robotech and Robotech II: The Sentinels series, was originally published by Palladium Books from 1986 to 1998. A new series based on Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles was released starting in 2008.
Contents |
Books one through five covered the three segments of Robotech as aired. Book six and Lancer's Rockers took place after the series ended, and books seven, eight, and the rest of the adventure books took place during or shortly after the Macross segment.
The initial five volumes were written by Kevin Siembieda with other Palladium regulars and freelance authors contributing to the later sourcebooks and adventure books. Illustrations consisted of line art taken from original Japanese source material in addition to new black-and-white line art done by Palladium artists such as Kevin Long.
Palladium also published a separate RPG based on the Macross II anime, but this was entirely unrelated to the Robotech continuity.
The original Robotech RPG by and large followed the TV series storyline, attempting in its own way to fill in gaps just as the novelizations by Jack McKinney did. Several of the sourcebooks covered different parts of the world during or shortly after the Macross era, where there was the most room for expansion. However, the RPG diverged from the McKinney stories after the events covered in the Robotech series ended. Where McKinney followed Scott Bernard and the others in their search for Admiral Rick Hunter, leaving behind a peaceful planet earth, Palladium posited the Invid returning to earth a few months after they were driven away.
The books Return of the Masters and Lancer's Rockers were set during this second Invid invasion, and introduced concepts and events not suggested by the original material. Return of the Masters, set in Asia, features a system of gladiatorial mecha martial arts combat called Mecha Su-Dai. Lancer's Rockers concerns a network of travelling performers following in the footsteps of New Generation rock star Lancer/Yellow Dancer, carrying protoculture-powered musical instruments that double as powerful weapons (reminiscent of, but unrelated to, similar developments in the Macross sequel Macross 7).
The Sentinels RPG also diverged in some respects from the story covered in the Sentinels novels and comic books, having been developed independently based on the same incomplete source material provided by Harmony Gold. The two primary differences are the idea that the SDF-3 left with an entire fleet of REF ships accompanying them, and that the REF and the Sentinels joined in a protracted war against the Invid Regent. The game also suggested that members of the Sentinels' races would openly join the REF.
The Robotech RPG used a modified version of the rule system used in the Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game introduced several years earlier. Clearly patterned after Dungeons & Dragons, the Palladium Fantasy RPG used a very similar rule system based around physical and mental statistics generated by rolling 3D6 (three six-sided dice), and the use of a D20 (20-sided die) in combat. Percentile dice (two ten-sided dice, one read as a tens column and the other as a ones column) are used for skill resolution. The Robotech RPG introduced the concept of mega-damage—"super" hit-points that are equivalent to 100 ordinary-person hit points—to simulate the toughness of the heavily armored mecha. This concept would become widely used in Palladium's Rifts game.
Critics of the game charged that the attempt to bolt giant robots onto a D&D-like system, rather than design a new system that would scale better, was a poor decision. The Palladium rules' complexity, as well as the overall toughness of the mecha as rendered in the books, meant that combat and skill checks could often be confusing, lengthy, BattleTech-like affairs, interrupting the role-playing process and making the game poorly suited to simulating the rapid-fire combat action of the Robotech anime. The games also never saw revision into new editions (with the exception of one book, Return of the Masters); corrections or new rulings had to be covered in subsequent rule books or on-line FAQs, leading to further confusion. Another common criticism had to do with the percentage-based skill system, whereupon every skill in a character's repertoire improved by a set percentage with each level gained—even if it was a skill the character never actually used.
As with the McKinney books, the creators of the Robotech RPG originally lacked access to the complete source material that has since become available largely due to rediscovery and research. They were working to a deadline, from tapes of the show itself and translations of the limited original source material that was available (much of which was very imprecise on specific details).[1] As a result of incomplete availability of material, compounded by animation and dubbing errors, many of the mecha depictions in the Robotech RPG are not accurate to what is seen in the television show—they are given the wrong weapons and equipment and in some cases confused for other mecha altogether. This is particularly true for the Southern Cross book, where the many humanoid robots, battloids, and suits of armor are often confused for one another.[2] In one of the most notable examples, a 200-meter space destroyer is incorrectly identified in 'Book One' as the one-man "Lancer I" space fighter.
Contractual issues in the wake of Harmony Gold's aborted Robotech 3000 project, as well as a general refocusing of the company on production of its flagship Rifts line, caused Palladium to forgo renewing the Robotech license. The Robotech RPG line went out of print as of June 30, 2001.
On August 26, 2006, a post on the company forums [3] stated Palladium's intent to reacquire the license due to the new sequel, Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles. As of February 19, 2007, Siembieda stated that contract talks were still in progress between Palladium and Harmony Gold,[1] with a new RPG, based on Shadow Chronicles, projected for release in 3Q 2007. However, contract negotiations lasted longer than anticipated, and it was September 6, 2007 before Palladium was able to announce the deal had been finalized. The Shadow Chronicles role-playing game was published in a "manga-sized" form factor, rather than the 8.5 by 11 inch size of all its prior publications,[4] a move that has engendered some controversy among Palladium fans,[5] and prompted the announcement of a full-sized "deluxe" edition of the sourcebook.[6] The "deluxe" hardback edition includes errata for errors in the first printing of the manga-sized RPG book. The book also includes combat rules and stats for use of large spacecraft/starships in game. However, they exclude newer Shadow Chronicles era spacecraft's technology and variants.
The Macross Saga sourcebook was released in late October 2008, and a sourcebook covering The Masters Saga was released in April 2009, followed by "The Next Generation" sourcebook in December, 2011.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||