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I suspect as I said before that this is a nod to the game being the tabletop "version" of the RPG (as indicated by the clunky name... ROBOTECH Tactics would have been 100% better IMO). That kind of stuff would have been better in an RPG supplement to the tabletop game or a separate optional chapter rather than clogging up the datacard instead with almost never used close combat options. I can see a battlepod have 1-2 close combat attacks (kick and body block) and a veritech adding one more since it has arms but that would be my limit. Stuff like gladiators or Male power armor that are known for close combat deserve one to two max more but this will primarily be a ranged game. Other stuff like inability to dodge 4+ missiles (3.. no problem! 4... no chance!) taken straight over from the rpg (and from the ORIGINAL 1980's rpg text) is another one I noticed. Most other game companies with more modern rulesets/mindsets would have an increasing difficulty instead of just a random sheer cliff. Easily abusable yet needlessly complicated LOS rules are another head scratcher. No VF-1Js ever in the skirmish version of the army building rules... those are just a few that I hope are addressed.

Honestly, I was very pleasantly surprised that they didn't go with the frankenstein mess of d20 and percentile mechanics that the rpg uses and instead opted for d6's.

I think that the originator of the rules is the one that created a D6 based system and once it was presented to Palladium, luckily it stuck. The game stats appear to be directly related to the RPG, that being said keep in mind that that is based off of the stats of only 3 unique units in a game that has many variants.

The stated idea is to be able to take RPG players and play out a game with them in tactics. How that will work out will be interesting but from what I can extrapolate from the RPG stats to what we know of Tactics we will still avoid UBER pilots for the most part. There are a few but they will hopefully be limited in use and number.

When it comes to the d6 staying I thought it also had to do with Allessio C subtle influence.

MB mentioned using the x wing rules for space combat. That's not a bad idea. Imagine flying over the surface of a zent ship.
http://www.beastsofwar.com/sci-fi-wargaming/gale-force-9-takes-depths-space/


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Hey Forar here's some more smoke an mirrors

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Tw2UFnyKaM

OK, I've put up all the Destroid Stat cards for Core, Support, and Specials on the attached link. I also have put there most of the Veritech Core and Support cards. I don't have cards for the Jotun, VF-1D or VF-1R done and none of the Veritech Special stat cards. I need to go back and proof read a bit, but here they are for all of you who have played a game or two at home or who are just plain interested.

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B0VSNzmthd1vSlYtU04xVTlYdWc&usp=sharing

Once I finish all the stat cards the only thing preventing us all from playing is getting some minis.

With HG having to approve the models and artwork, how do they have the time to sue hasbro for an F14 gi joe toy with a rocket booster?

It's easy to have time when everything is done half-aXX

I noticed on ND's FB page they give an update for some gaming tables, but no word on RRT. If they can talk about that why not RRT? I hope the silence means there working thier axes off.

I hope so... but it feels like the priorities have shifted to "internal" projects instead on both the ND and PB fronts. I certainly hope I'm wrong though but that's the gut feeling I'm getting from the almost complete silence.

edit: Looks like a weekly press release just went up. I'd post the contents but the Robotech part is pretty much a copy paste of last week's. They're still really excited and doing some last minute changes BEFORE sending it off for final approval to Harmony Gold.

Update 114 is up.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rrpgt/robotech-rpg-tacticstm/posts

All stat cards for units that I believe I know the stats for are up online.
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B0VSNzmthd1vSUhEWklpejNwb2s&usp=sharing

As well as the rules, force organization charts, and a tactical review of all units.
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B0VSNzmthd1vSUhEWklpejNwb2s&usp=sharing

Anyone got new info?

that's why i'm shooting for March.

I think Kevin's mistake is that he keeps referencing PB as an RPG books only company. Truth of the matter is since PB instigated the ks they went from a book company to a game company that creates miniatures and books. Albeit with a partner.

Mike thanks for the link earlier. I finished my first building. I glued some foam board to make it a little sturdier.

Kevin's mindset isn't always in tune with the reality of the rest of the world, though.

Aside from that sort of thing, what scale is Robotech Tactics supposed to be? 1/100?

1:285 / 6mm.

As forar said, 6mm which happens to be the same scale as battletech. I don't think that's a coincidence as some of the minis can cross over.

FYI to all, I realized I only had half the Malcontent Force Orgs done so I remedied that this weekend and uploaded the file. All of the stat cards less some units that I do not know what the stats will be are up with the exception of the Malcontents which I hope to finish this week. I've attached the rules, tactical briefings, force Orgs, and some cheat sheets all on one file.

Enjoy!


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I will make a smaller, no picture file if you guys want one. I just liked my copy to look pretty.


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All stat cards are now up
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B0VSNzmthd1vSlYtU04xVTlYdWc&usp=sharing

I've uploaded all the stat cards as a single PDF file for convenience. It's still 2MB in size.

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B0VSNzmthd1vSlYtU04xVTlYdWc&usp=sharing


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You can easily print several sheets on a single page and it still comes out nice and clear. Each faction and group is color coded. So Valkyrie Squads have a grey background and destroids a brown one. Zentraedi are green and orange while the Malcontents are purple and yellow.

In case anyone is planning on going to the Detroit Fanfare this weekend (25th-27th), apparently they're going to have 100 of each Max and Miriya in metal (Miriya at Gencon was resin).

Just an FYI for those who don't peruse Palladium's weekly updates.

After reading this "glowing" review about the RPG, I'm now concerned about the RRT rules. I may end up playing with mikes rules instead.

http://rosswatson.blogspot.com/2012/06/look-back-original-robotech-rpg-line.html

 Cypher-xv wrote:
After reading this "glowing" review about the RPG, I'm now concerned about the RRT rules. I may end up playing with mikes rules instead.

http://rosswatson.blogspot.com/2012/06/look-back-original-robotech-rpg-line.html

For context, keep in mind that the review you link to is for the 1s edition. I've got a bunch of books for that edition, none for the second edition that came out in the last decade. For the time, they were very cool as they had a lot of 'mecha porn' cutaway drawings, sketches of how the tech bits worked, etc. Interestingly, they avoided the tendency for a licensed product to use media from the license: the Palladium Books staff drew new images for almost everything. A game where the hardware is important could do worse than publishing books with the mechanical-style drawings and sketches of things like how magazines fit into weapons, the scale of vehicles, etc. like these books.

For context, the early RPG works were also from an earlier era of RPGs than the modern day. This was an era when D&D was still very much the model (but not the only model) for a game, and it shows. The Robotech RPG's core definitely looks liek it's a variant on the D&D core. Similar-ish attributes with a 'normal' range of around 3-18. D20 rolls used for a lot of combat rolls. "Added-on" systems like skills (percentiles), more involved combat styles (Note that for power-gamers, some styles are definitely 'better' than others) and an overall feel of trying to simulate reality in a detailed, if not particularly accurate, way.

Tons of vehicles were statted out. All the mecha of the show, as well as trunks, conventional military vehicles, and a range of stuff that was pretty much created by Palladium.

I'll post more later about why it worked at the time, and why I probably wouldn't want to run or even play it now.

While I agree that it's not fair to judge either rules or minis from the 1980's by today's standards, the old RPG is around 90% from my reading the same as the current version. I picked up the macross and shadow chronicles books as they came out and was relatively disappointed. While they have streamlined character generation somewhat with some quick roll tables IIRC, "updating" the classes apparently meant bringing back the even older palladium MOS system for skills. Skills, combat, attributes, etc all play the same and the only real discernable difference that I noticed was simply stat creep. MDC went up and weapon damage went up to keep pace with the power creep that Rifts has gone through in the intervening 10+ years the game was OOP. I know if I posted this on the Palladium forums, some crazed fanboi would argue that there are significant differences but the telling thing for me was that I could literally take my 1990 character sheet (lol, an askew photocopied sheet written in #2 pencil with mecha stats written on a second sheet of loose leaf) and play the character almost exactly as written with the new rules (with the exception of a few skills that changed names). Because of scale creep, the character and his mech would be underpowered but simply doubling the weapon damage and MDC and adding 2 attacks to the base combat statline brought him up to par. Feel free to judge the current Robotech RPG by modern standards as it was released recently, despite rehashing almost all of the old rules with only minor tweaks.

If you follow or play rifts, the game mechanics changes are pretty much on par with original rifts to the "ultimate edition" or a bit less than D&D 3rd edition to 3.5. If you were expecting a "new" RPG, you'll be disappointed by what you find (except for doubled to tripled stats like damage/MDC).

I made detailed, full-page mecha sheets for nearly every Robotech mecha design in a long-obsolete all-in-in-one 'Works' package. I don't want to think how many hours I spent on those.

Anyway, back in the late 80s, early 90s, it was certainly a playable game... I was used to games like D&D that were often played as pretty basic hack & slash, and I don't think I was ready for games that could be very crunchy like Shadowrun or games requiring a lot more storytelling skills like Call of Cthulhu. The Robotech RPG had enough in common with D&D that it made sense to us in that era. It was a great way to get into more story-focused games, as we had the show (which I didn't see much of, to be honest) and the setting in the books as a guide.

(I remember one of my favorite was running a single-player and GM game for a friend where some dimension hopping happened, including a very dark, depressing version of the Robotech setting where Max was some sort of supreme-commander type sitting in a still-functional but crappy SDF-1 keeping Earth safe at a high cost to himself. Weird stuff, Don't remember details.)

I'm not really a big fan of the system anymore, though. Palladium's rules often make some odd choices and combine a lot of firm mechanical details (Very specific combat maneuvers, very granular bonuses, etc.) with some stuff that needs to be run in a looser 'story' mode to make sense. (I believe from the original Robotech RPG book you could end up with a Veritech Pilot, a Destroid Pilot, a Micronized Zentraedi, and a Repair Tech. There was nothing in the rules to make these all 'make sense' or even compete on the same field mechanically, or even mark some (the repair tech) as 'Best for NPCs' but they had to exist because they existed int he show. Your repair tech had no real combat skills (maybe basic weapon training) and I believe was explicitly called out as being disallowed from taking mecha combat training , so was basically useful baggage in a fight with the iconic mecha of the show. Even getting rid of that outlier, the Destroid Pilot tended to be in a slow, clunky, ground-based walker that was much more limited than the Veritech pilot.

Anyway, if I was designing a new Robotech RPG I think I'd want to focus (at least for a core book) on Veritech pilots. Think how the 40k RPGs center around one aspect of a huge setting).

One flaw with Palladium's system was there was one Class for VT Pilot, so all the pilots could be a bit too similar. Ideally, I'd want several 'pilot' archetypes to build classes around. From the canon:

Rick Hunter is more of a 'fighter' pilot (stunt planes, technically). Maybe a 'Fighter Jock' class that gets bonuses in aircraft mode?

Max Sterling is more an all-arounder. He's also got an OMG! HAX! ridiculous high dexterity. Maybe give him 'VT Ace' that is balanced.

This leaves some design space for a 'Walker Specialist' (Best in Battloid form, and is probably the pilot who you want driving if the group grabs a Destroid in an emergency) and maybe a Gerwalk/Guardian Specialist class, although the latter may be stretching things a bit.

That's just a handful of classes based around fighitng styles, but there's a couple other support roles that could fit in. Maybe a "VT Trainer" that is meant to be an instructor reassigned or forced into a combat role, and gets some special skills to motivate others. (Think the D&D Warlord.) Or maybe a dedicated '2nd seat' if there's any two-seat VTs in canon (It's been too long. I can't remember.).

Anyway, my point is that I feel the old RPG (and apparently the new) focused heavily on simulating the setting without a clear look at making the interesting bits fun and varied. It's kind fo why most Star Wars RPGs i've seen try to make Jedi interesting by having multiple Jedi classes or archetypes. Star Wars is also a good example as the various RPGs have also spent a lot of time making the Scoundrels and other non-Jedi interesting to play with a role in the game beyond side-kick.

I found what you were talking about. Here's the link. It's interesting how he has a similar view of SC.
http://rosswatson.blogspot.com/2012/06/shadow-chronicles-new-robotech-rpg.html

After perusing the PB and seeing that a civil discussion to bring about change will only lead to flame war I was both turned off and disgusted by the hostility encountered there. I'm grateful for the fact that here it's possible to have an intelligent and constructive discussion. Thank you dakka.

It would appear that industry insiders know more than we (I) do about how PB does business. Here's another insightful article about the goings on at PB.
http://rosswatson.blogspot.com/2012/06/palladium-time-is-now.html

As a fan of Mr. Watson's work on the 40k line of RPGs, I have to say its refreshing to see honesty of this sort coming from a highly respected industry professional.

A conversation was started over at RGC for those who may be interested. We are discussing character traits for the game. Kinda tongue in cheek but I'm adding these to my rules write up. Go there and give your 2 cents or say something here. Here is a summary of the traits we've come up with so far.

1. Aware (5 Points)  Unit may attempt to dodge inescapable weapons

2. Backstabber (5 Points)  Unit generates 3 command points for every friendly unit with Life is Cheap that he/she destroys.

3. Battlefield Commander (15 Points)  Pil +1, Gun +1 and Leadership +3

4. Born Leader (5 Points)  Leadership +2

5. Brutal (5 Points)  Units with this trait will add +1 MDC of damage to all weapons that do less than 5 points of damage and will add 2 points of damage to all weapons that do 5 or more damage. These pilots are considered insane by many others and remove the safeties from their weapons. Every time units with the Brutal trait fire and roll an unmodified natural 1 on the strike roll, re-roll the die. If the result is another 1 the weapons system is destroyed and the unit takes one MDC of damage.

6. Claustrophobic (-5 Points)  (Campaign only) Players with this trait suffer a -1 to Pil and Gun while they have more than 3 allies within 3 inches of themselves.

7. Crack Shot (5 Points)  Units hits by a unit with the Crack Shot trait cannot be protected or shielded by other units allowing the units to split the damage. Units with shields suffer a -1 penalty to their parry rolls.

8. Deadeye (5 points)  Increase all weapons ranges by 25% (rounding down)

9. Flashbacks (-5 Points)  (Campaign Only) When confronted with an enemy that has shot them down in a previous encounter this unit suffers a -1 to PIL and -1 to all anti-missile rolls while that enemy is within 12 inches of them. When they move outside of the 12 inches or the enemy is destroyed the restrictions are lifted.

10. Lucky (5 Points)  Units may roll for free against any attack. When hit roll a D6, on a 4+ the player automatically takes 1/2 damage as if the unit had rolled, this also works on overwhelming attacks.

11. Master of Confusion (10 Points)  One enemy faction/player suffers a -1 penalty to his initiative rolls.

12. Melee Specialist (5 Points)  Special Melee attacks do not require command points and all melee attacks do +1 MDC damage.

13. Missile Expert (10 Points)  +1 Strike with missiles and -1 to Anti-Missiles rolls for targets.

14. Natural Commander (Roy): Pilots with this trait get an additional +1 to both PIL and GUN just like pilots with the Natural trait would but they also have an additional 2 Leadership points. They also add +1 to the initiative roll for their side. This is not cumulative with other character bonuses that add to the initiative roll.

15. Natural (5 Points)  Pilots with this trait get a +1 to both PIL and GUN skills. All other abilities remain unchanged.

16. Natural Fighter (20 Points)  Pil +2, Gun +2, Quick, Melee Specialist

17. Nemesis (Free)  Pilots in a battle with "their" Nemesis gain +2 MDC Damage against all targets between (blocking) their path to their Nemesis, and must advance each turn at least 3 inches towards their Nemesis (if physically possible) until within 12 inches. Once within 12 inches the Nemesis become targets of each other and cannot target any other enemy units until their Nemesis is destroyed.

18. Overconfident (-5 Points)  Must always advance towards any enemy unit by at least 4 inches (if physically able) on each turn.

19. Protector (5 Points)  May shield other units without paying command points and also may attempt to shield if the unit has one free of charge and with a +1 parry bonus.

20. Push the Limit (5 points) Units with this trait may increase their movement by 50% once every 3 turns

21. Quick (5 Points)  +1 to all Dodge Rolls (May be combined with the same trait on a mecha

22. Sixth Sense (15 Points)  Does not pay command Points to Dodge, May pay command point to allow attempt to dodge weapons with the inescapable trait.

23. Sneaky (5 Points)  Targets suffer -1 to their dodge rolls

24. Sniper (5 Points)  +1 Strike Rolls

25. Strategic Genius (10 Points)  Faction Initiative +1

26. Tactical Genius (10 Points)  Leadership +2, Chance to steal initiative costs ½ as much

27. Weapons Specialist (10 Points)  May fire 2 Weapons systems at no command point cost

Palladium games (specifically Robotech) are what got me into roleplaying and tabletop gaming in general so they'll always hold a special nostalgic place for me... but pretty much everything has changed in the almost 25 years since except for the mechanics of the game. When it came out, clunky cobbled together RPG mechanics were pretty much the norm (see D&D 2nd ed for a prime example) but the story line by Kevin S and excellent line art by Kevin Long made palladium games stand out. Unfortunately, the world has moved onto full color digitally laid out game books with cohesive mechanics and palladium is still treading water in almost exactly the same place they were when D&D 2nd edition was new... 2 column rules arranged however the copy/paste fits with the same style B&W line art and book covers whole laminate peels even with simple storage and no use.

The announcement that palladium was bringing the rules in house from Ninja Division raised alot of concern for me (can't provide a link with how disjointed and haphazard the little information given has leaked out since the KS). I was frankly impressed that the minis game did *NOT* use the d20/percentile frankenstein mess of a megaversal system even if I saw alot of the other pet peeves of mine from the RPG creep in. I hope that the relative silence on the rules doesn't mean that it's getting closer to the RPG...

If they stray too far I can add in the RPG bits that I have written up and balance things out again. The conversion system that I have appears to work very well. I just need to tweak the invid a bit.

 Cypher-xv wrote:
It would appear that industry insiders know more than we (I) do about how PB does business. Here's another insightful article about the goings on at PB.
http://rosswatson.blogspot.com/2012/06/palladium-time-is-now.html

As a fan of Mr. Watson's work on the 40k line of RPGs, I have to say its refreshing to see honesty of this sort coming from a highly respected industry professional.

Yeah, that update and its later naming and shaming of some of the hardcore fans who dared speak up in the next one caused more than a few locked threads. I usually only used to check the site every few weeks and that one got me to log in for the first time in months to express my dissatisfaction. It was actually 99% of fans quoted as happy and he arrived at that highly exact number by secretly polling attendees at the palladium open house mini-convention they hold... I'm not kidding. He arrived at that exact percentage and based his premise on chatting with fans at their in-house convention by discreetly dancing around the subject without them knowing. Enough people who actually attended the convention piped up in the various threads and said they were absolutely NOT asked for their opinion and had plenty of suggested changes they would have expressed that the 1% number (even when the general terms "fan" and "customer" are limited to the highly distilled number of gamers who actually trek across the country to attend the event) was complete BS. Bascially, if the owner of the company whose convention you were attending saw you and asked how you were doing and you said "Fine", you were counted as a satisfied customer who wanted no changes.

 warboss wrote:
Palladium games (specifically Robotech) are what got me into roleplaying and tabletop gaming in general so they'll always hold a special nostalgic place for me... but pretty much everything has changed in the almost 25 years since except for the mechanics of the game. When it came out, clunky cobbled together RPG mechanics were pretty much the norm (see D&D 2nd ed for a prime example) but the story line by Kevin S and excellent line art by Kevin Long made palladium games stand out. Unfortunately, the world has moved onto full color digitally laid out game books with cohesive mechanics and palladium is still treading water in almost exactly the same place they were when D&D 2nd edition was new... 2 column rules arranged however the copy/paste fits with the same style B&W line art and book covers whole laminate peels even with simple storage and no use.

I agree with this completely. Just wanted to point out that taken in context, the Robotech RPG was wicked cool in 198X.

 warboss wrote:

The announcement that palladium was bringing the rules in house from Ninja Division raised alot of concern for me (can't provide a link with how disjointed and haphazard the little information given has leaked out since the KS). I was frankly impressed that the minis game did *NOT* use the d20/percentile frankenstein mess of a megaversal system even if I saw alot of the other pet peeves of mine from the RPG creep in. I hope that the relative silence on the rules doesn't mean that it's getting closer to the RPG...

I've seen a few RPG writers sever relationships with Palladium over similar concerns. Writing a book, then having it re-written.

I figured it must have been something like that. It's this type of attitude that's keeping PB from taking a larger chunk of the RPG market. Imagine if their RPGs were on par with the 40k ones. I might even drop 40k entirely for macross.

I can only imagine the bloodbath that would take place if someone linked either one of those links on the PB forums or the ks comments section.