QuoteWhen it comes down to it, errata and FAQs can be a pain in the arse when the person writing them isn't 100% up on the RPG.

Nuff said.

Quote from: Basara549BTW, that other Basara wasn't me (thank God). Sorry for the cheap shot, but I'm sick of the Same old BS getting regurgitated by people against Kevin, that has gotten to the level of Urban Legend after originating from people with a known reason to be biased (Coffin, for example). I still even hear the "FASA lawsuit" and "WotC lawsuit" BS occasionally treated as FACT (when persons I know who worked for Wizards, FASA and Ral Partha in that period have confirmed KS's statements that the net stories are total fabrications).

And, I must be confusing you with another Gabriel elsewhere, on your D20 stance (there's probably only a dozen Basaras out there, most outside Macross fandom taking their name from the unrelated manga - but Gabriel is a LOT more common - A Gabriel even ran the Palladium ML for a period)

I wasn't accusing you of being that person.  (For one thing, the person in question would never even imply anything positive about anything related to Robotech.)  I was mostly like, "I have a history of being ANTI-ROBOTECH?  WTF??"  After I made a quick check to make sure my doppleganger from the mirror universe hadn't been using my computer (he would have installed a FPS on my computer if he had), I simply remembered my old run in with the hardcore Macross purist crowd.

And the apology is accepted.  It's hard to keep track of everyone online if they aren't your close, personal buddy.  Messageboards tend to blend everyone's opinion together.  The more you view them, the more they sometimes seem a homogenous mass.

Quote from: Basara549Every time I've played or seen Mekton Zeta played (I even owned the books, and helped someone attempt to make the Macross Plus mecha in Mekton Rules), where players had any input on design & modification, they went out of their way to try to "break the system".

Mekton Zeta is easily my favorite game.  I easily think it's the best RPG out there (and currently unavailable).  But, I don't think it's flawless.  For one thing, sometimes keeping track of armor ablation and all those different hit locations can be a real drag, and slow down a game to a crawl.

The problem you list is a problem with every point juggling system there is, some more than others.  I haven't really seen any kind of horrible abuse.  I have seen people get a little twinky sometimes.

Robotech on Mekton Z (it's nice to dream) could avoid all that by having purely pre-statted mechs and introducing some fairly rigid rules on modifications.

Quote from: Basara549Ironically, the REALLY outspoken critics of the Palladium Robotech INSIST the PC (and people like Bernard's) mecha HAVE to be reduced down to redshirt levels.

I think the attitude comes from the days of Gygaxian D&D where "if you let players have critical hits, you have to let monsters have them too."  The idea is that the mech is a piece of static technology and cannot have variable stats depending on the owner.  After all, the idea of a Veritech getting tougher just because a different character hops in it is silly.

Yet, that's exactly what the animation portrays.  How many times does Ben Dixon get pwned by shots which would have killed a no-name character?  In Invid Invasion, a shot which would have destroyed a "redshirt" in Dark Finale only causes minor damage to Rook's Alpha in an earlier episode.  The same kind of hit merely causes Scott inconvenience in The Big Apple.  For that matter, Rick Hunter's VF-1D in the opening episodes takes tons of damage.

One really strange attitude I've seen is that you can't have single hit enemies and still have an enjoyable and thoughtful game.  BS!  You can make all kinds of interesting tactical situations even when the PCs greatly outperform the enemy.  Plus, just because the rules are there to support mooks doesn't mean there can't be an enemy Ace out there who is following the PC/important character rules for how tough he is.  And that's very supported by the series too.
 

Quote from: Basara549There has to be a balance between extremes. One interesting "out" for this is a recent tidbit from Japanese Macross OSM (Kawamori is about as bad for retcons as HG - shame they don't get along), that the reason for the VF-1 toughness in relation to the Destroids might be an expensive armor that is relatively weak, but strengthened by an electrical charge passing through it aligning the molecules into a more rigid structure (which isn't all that far-fetched - look how an electrical charge causes iron to align in an electromagnet - and research has been done on this).

Well, thats one way to explain it.  And it could work well enough for Robotech.  As the character gains in levels, they simply get modifications to their Veritech to keep their integrity field tuned up.

The problem I have is that it flies in the face of a theme of both Robotech and Macross.  The technobabble explanation puts the power of the machine first.  While the power of the machine is important and has it's place, the power of humanity is stronger and is the deciding force.  

Plus, in a game context, players like to feel their characters are the driving powers, not their equipment.  That's one of the reasons why the mecha genre of gaming is derided by other gamers.  "You just play a guy who sits in a big metal robot."  They see the robot as the driving force.

Sorry, got all philosophical there....  

Quote from: Basara549Someone was running a prototype game they plan to submit to HG for licensing. It was an Invid War Miniatures game, with prototype figures (players got to keep them, after paying over $10 to play), using a streamlined version of the old Mecha! game mini rules.

I could theoretically really get behind a miniatures game as well.

I wish Harmony Gold had licensed the video game rights to someone who had wanted to do a tactical RPG.

You accuse me of mindlessly bashing on Kevin Siembieda, but I will sing his praises on one thing: when he licensed Rifts to a video game company, he didn't take the cheap out and give it to someone who wanted to make a lame FPS.  He gave it to a company who made a high-quality, kickass, tactical RPG (better than the actual P&P RPG, but I digress).  Even when you take into account it was for the N-Gage, that's still something to enter into the PLUS column.

Quote from: Basara549Who does a new RPG pales in comparison to the damage the current HG is doing to the franchise.

OK.  Of your points as to the reasoning behind this, I can definitely get behind your attitude about the blue haired commander of the SDF-4.  Then again, I present to you the idea that this was a man who is implied to have seen many horrors caused by the Invid.

Remember, Musica?  She was in utter horror of the Invid, and acted like she had seen them in action.  The implication was that the Invid had done much worse than what they did to Earth.

Remember again that the Regis was teetering on the decision of whether to wipe out all human life.  From the Expeditionary Fleet's point of view, it was a foregone conclusion that the Regis was hellbent on destroying humanity.  The REF was afraid the Invid would "gas up" and go on to wipe out humans elsewhere.

It's a mistake to make that character a hero, definitely.  But, it may be a mistake to portray him as a monster too.  In terms of plot, he's very obviously meant to show a human who has chosen the wrong path.  He is meant to show what Scott was at the start of the series, and how much Scott has changed.

As for Harmony Gold otherwise "ruining" Robotech, there are certainly things there which I disagree with.  But, for the most part, they have successfully revived the property.  They're obviously milking it, but it's not going to last forever.

Quote from: Basara549ALL mecha pilot OCCs in Rifts have to have the piloting skill.

Look again.  Some have it.  Some don't.  I'm fairly certain the Glitter Boy pilot listed in RUE is still missing the pilot skill.  The FAQ used to be contradictory on whether you needed the Pilot skill or not.  One entry said you needed it, the other said that Mecha Combat assumed all the functions of the skill.

IIRC, Triax & the NGR is pretty good about the pilots actually having the pilot skill, but the rest of the books are not good about it at all.  It is frequenly left off the OCC skills and NPC write ups.

You state the problem with the tilt dodge.  It's a separate set of mechanics.  It's ill explained how it integrates with the rest of the combat system, and is only available to aircraft pilots.  It's a relic of the pre-Robotech vehicle combat system which worked in an entirely different way.  What's the ultimate difference between a 50% Pilot Veritech and a 70% Pilot Veritech?  Nothing, because it has no bearing on your actual combat abilities.  Ultimately, that is what we're driving the mechs for, so it should make more of a difference.  Poor design.


AND...  I'm going to end it there.  I had a whole two other pages where I'm going on about something, but I could no longer identify what exactly it was.

Yeah, I just noticed that about the GB when you pointed out.

I'd checked ALL the OTHER O.C.C.s, but not that one. It's still something that needs to be fixed, apparently.

The Skill Descriptions is where the difficulty lies. In the skill section defining Robot (or Power Armor) Combat Elite, it actually says that piloting is included for the type chosen, but otherwise is not defined all that well. One of the features of the Robot Piloting skill is the ability to pilot multiple types (now with penalties for unfamiliar designs). The absence of the skill from the Glitter Boy O.C.C. description might be meant to reflect the fact that most GB pilots are trained by a family member/mentor on a hand-me-down unit (like the Free Quebec O.C.C.), and don't actually GET the multiple platform training that persons formally trained in Pilot Robot Vehicles would get. The GB is somewhat unique as well, being similar only to other Glitter Boy Variants, not true PA or the large Robot Vehicles. The problem is it doesn't actually say it straight out (having worked on my 200+ page Robotech RPG revamp for over 5 years, I can only imagine the difficulties in redoing a 375 page book in 10% of the time).

At least the new version of the GB O.C.C. has a pilot skill in the O.C.C. that can be spent for the piloting skill (I think I consider it an I.Q. test - if an experienced player isn't smart enough to spend it on Pilot Robot(Glitter Boy) or at least ask about the missing skill, they aren't intelligent enough to actually play the O.C.C. properly). :ponder:

Quote from: GabrielSo, it looks like Palladiumbooks will be reacquring the Robotech RPG license.  I'm actually very saddened by this news.

From what I've seen with Rifts "Ultimate" edition, I guess we can expect Palladium to reprint the same old stuff and slap a new cover on it.  Only this time, additional and extremely non-Robotech emulating rules like -10 to dodge will be added in.

So, the same broken mecha stats, the same lack of any real advancement in the game, the same lack of any genre emulation by the mechanics.  New, non-cinematic crap added in because Kevin S is always right.  Same old stuff.

Of course, it assumes the thing will actually see the light of day.  I can easily see it getting postponed for some hot Rifts supplement.  Or, if you're feeling charitable, suffering the same limbolike fate as Beyond the Supernatural 2nd edition where it will exist solely as a corebook sorely in need of planned but abandoned supplements to be remotely playable.

To tell the truth, I honestly can't think of a worse game company to acquire the license.

Mecha gaming really gets the shaft, doesn't it?

I agree totally.   I wrote an Mecha RPG (Well, it's still going through playtesting and updates) and I used Robotech as a clear guide on what NOT to do.

Had the Palladium Robotech RPG and felt it did NOTHING to feel like the series.   Mechs that below up have an explosive ring of 50 feet?  Common, that's not realistic.  So if the Mech blows up and the pieces fly in every direction do they magically drop exactly at 50 feet?

I, too wish a better company had gotten the license.   And Palladium doing reprints is "Same old, Same Old".

I kind of liked robotech, still do I guess. It could make a damn good rpg with the right setting.

Gurps 3e could do it with the vehicles rules. Maybe if sjg ever gets it's thumbs out and does a new universal vehicle/mecha construction system for 4e it can too.

As to 300 MDC vehicles blowing up from a 120 MDC hit, those could be critical hits inflicted by a master gunner, Scott's ship survives because he has a great dodge roll.