Pretty sure Fokker is just a longwinded reference to the Fokker DR-1, or just the Fokker company in general. Hell, one of the backstory tidbits mentioned a 'Flying Circus', which was a nickname for Manfred von Richthofen's (Better known as the Red Baron) fighter wing during the later parts of WW1.
You want to see some big time symbolism the watch the scene where Rick hears Roy has died. He's holding a Fokker triplane model. He drops it and there's a solomo close up of it shattering as it hits the floor.
Pretty sure not even Gundam ever offed the entire bridge crew. At worst they only killed the ones with a love interest (because falling in love in Gundam is the karmic equivalent to a kiss of death in Gundam)
I'm going to go off on a bit of a rant here, lol, because this feels like the perfect place for it. I was a massive fan of robotech, I was in middle school when it aired on TV and it sucked me into the fact that cartoons could be a little more deep than most. Harmony gold had done a great job blending the three different anime together, you had a show that had the death of main characters, interracial couples, the good guys don't always win. Heady stuff. At the same time you had two authors writing under the pseudonym of Jack McKinney writing novelizations for Del Rey Publications, and these novelizations included information from the Bible and background information that Harmony gold had put together. So if you were a fan at the time, there was a wealth of information that you normally did not get out of an average show. Things like visual archives, behind the scenes, audio commentaries just did not exist. So then you get Robotech from palladium. Palladium did a pretty good job, including pulling a lot of details from that same bible. I even have the Macross to role-playing game and two of the three deck plan supplements that came out for it. There was a pretty good attention to detail and a respect for the source material. And then both Harmony gold and Palladium decided to squat on the IP that they had and do nothing with it. Palladium could have easily continued to reprint the role-playing books, perhaps consolidating them into their larger books as many of them are very small. Instead they chose to let everything go out of print, only keeping a couple of the books in publication. Harmony gold could have continued to print and sell the Robotech anime, but only did so briefly with ADV as a remastered Edition. Harmony gold was really big on fleshing out the rest of their story, but gave up really quickly when it came to putting out the Sentinels. Jack McKinney did continue to publish novels, there were five novels based off of the Sentinels and then four books written after the end of the cartoon, with three of them being prequels. The most any of us got was over a decade ago when Harmony gold put out the shadow chronicles, a brief OVA that ignored that continuity they had spent so much time painfully putting together. Symbata finally released in a new book even though he still refused to do any good reprints of the existing ones, and he went to the well on that one for his fans conning them into purchasing the book twice. The first time it was in a small manga sized book, but then he printed a hardcover that when he originally shielded it implied it was going to be a much larger collection of material. What we got was just a larger version of the small book. In the meantime my eyes had long since been opened to the larger Macross franchise, and I was exceedingly frustrated that I couldn't see any of those without putting on a pirate hat because of Harmony and Palladium squatting on the IP and retaining the rights to something they weren't using, making it impossible to untangle the gordian knot. The founder of Harmony gold died a few years ago, and it looks like his survivors don't really care much to fight the fight. They relinquished their rights, there have been a slew of board games and a new role-playing game coming out based off of robotech. Palladium completely gave up the ghost after a horrendous attempt to create a BattleTech knockoff with a company that apparently took the money and ran, making it a possibility that I may one day get to finally see the rest of the Macross franchise My big regret about all of this is that for me and many people of my generation, Robotech was a gateway drug into the wonderful world of Japanese anime and legitimately has some of the best writing around. But with the shoddy way the main companies have maintained the license and ip, few people are going to get to experience that. Shortly before the shadow Chronicles came out, some actor I forget which one maybe Tobey Maguire was reported as trying to obtain the rights to do a movie adaptation. It's hard to know what was finalized because there was a lot of rumor and speculation, but I doubt we'll ever see that now.
"Why would you want to play a guy with a sexual innuendo for a last name in a giant stompy robot?" Oh gee, Mr. Welch, I think because he has a sexual innuendo for a last name and he's in a giant stompy robot!
Hate to have to correct you Mr Welch, but the Robotech RPG came YEARS before Rifts did. It was based on the Palladium Fantasy system, which later became known as the "Megaversal System" as it was a common set of rules across almost all Palladium series games (with a few notable exceptions) This and TMNT were two of the main products that founded Palladium (along with Palladium Fantasy and Mechanoids, which actually used an earlier, but limited system of Palladium's game system), and gave Kevin the seed money to produce Rifts, which then became the central focus of Palladium's catalogue, and the basis for their entire "shared universe" from that point onward.
Yep, RIFTs was mostly the end of the road. Simebieda just took every game setting, rule, etc... rolled it into one setting and starting selling splat books like they were going out of style.
Not to mention there's technically two editions of Robotech. The old one from the 80's and the new one they did as a tie-in to the CGI Robotech Movie in the 2000's. The latter is compatible with Rifts Ultimate while the former is tied more to old Rifts. That said they are mostly compatible either way it's just the new stuff adds MOS (Specialization) on top of OCC (Class) and the numbers and names are a bit different (Raider X in the old Robotech, Defender in the new, still the Rifleman in Battletech). Also, it appears that Palladium had the rights to Macross II (the one Macross fans tell you to skip because it's not canon) at some point, have a book for that somewhere...
@@SwordlordRoy I have the Macross too role playing book, along with two of the three deck plan books that they released as supplements for some strange reason. I say strange, because it was a very out of left field sort of supplement, why would you release One Core book but then three smaller books that are just maps of the ships. My guess, Palladium knew they didn't have much to work with but we're trying to put out as many things as possible with the Robotech and Macross licenses so he cobbled together books out of whatever he was provided. As for shadow chronicles, as I mentioned in my rant above that was a bit of a disappointment. The vast majority of the Shadow Chronicles book is just reprints cobbled together from all of his other Robotech books, the story itself for shadow Chronicles is very thin and introduces a bunch of plot inconsistencies which is frustrating because Robotech itself was actually very meticulously plotted, Harmony gold having a large Bible to keep things on track. Additionally Palladium could have used this opportunity to revitalize interest in the game, instead they conned the existing fan base. I put it that way because they originally released the role-playing book for shadow Chronicles as a quote unquote manga Edition which was just a small rule book that was about the size of a manga book, and then later on announced he was releasing a deluxe edition which turned out to be nothing more than just a normal sized hardcover of the original book with no discernible new material.
Alternative use of the Mac II with a veritech squadron: Have the squishy fighter planes take cover behind the Monster's legs and pick off enemy missiles with their guns while the big boys do all the heavy lifting.
"..and Minmei was selfish." One of the nice things about growing up and getting to see the original uncensored Macross anime was seeing all the Minmei skin it showed. Until then I had no idea what Rick Hunter/Hikaru Ichijyo saw in her.
It helps that the original Minmei was voiced by an actual singer who could, you know, *actually sing.* As opposed to whoever Harmony Gold got to voice Robotech Minmei.
A little unfair about the destroids and battletech. While the destroys didn't exactly have a big presence in the series, they did show up throughout all three parts of robotech. I'm particularly fond of the moment when they transform the SDF one and punch through the ship, then open up the front of the aircraft carrier that is the fist to reveal that they have loaded it up with a crapload of destroys that just unload everything. Impractical, probably more than a little crazy, but damn it looked good as a kid. The whole bit between battletech, robotech, and Japan is so fascinating. The Japanese were not really keen on paying attention to how copyright laws worked in other countries and just haphazardly handed out rights to different things to different people. BattleTech itself always seem to be a little cursed back in those days, originally they were battle droids and then Star Wars Sue them. I'm sure that that made them a little slap happy and trying to avoid future problems, which is why they just removed the Robotech images from the game. Personally I never understood why BattleTech fans were so up in arms, we're talking about maybe a half a dozen designs out of the Endless variety that was BattleTech, and the veritech itself really wasn't a good thing to put into BattleTech considering everything else was land-based. Yes there was an Aerotek release, which I do have, but there was no way to go from one to the other so if you did put a veritech into a BattleTech game, you would have a rather unimpressive and slender light Mick that would probably get stomped by all of your friends who have all gone with the 100 ton option and loaded it with as many weapons as they could get away with, more so if they forgot some of the little crunchy rules
@@Mr_Welch That thing is Awesome it has one of the best moments in the Anime in episode "Force of Arms" it's just gotten it's reflex warheads loaded (nukes) and needs to go outside from it's hangar. It takes it's first step and starts demolishing the floor because it's so heavy.
@@AdurianJ Fun thing about the MAC-II, in the Macross continuity it has a descendent of sorts, a Variable Fighter (Veritech) version that is used as a big bomber. They replaced the three big cannons with big railguns and gave it reaction warhead (reflex warhead) shells.
I watched the show as a kid and didn’t put it together what had happened to the bridge crew. Then I read the book as a teenager and realized how sad it was that all those charcters just died at the end of the fight.
I'd love an R Lee Ermy training scene where characters get chewed out for having relationship conversations during live fire exercises, and given strict orders to never do so on pain of immediate firing squad because it will get themselves and/or comrades killed if they decide that the middle of combat is the right time to stop and declare their feelings and make apologies for whatever.
Murderer or battle pod? *waits for tex and other battletech content creators* Mr: welsh: Love triangle Me: Ah. Terrible writing advice, how i love your videos.
I was watching Robotech back when I was five and the themes of alcoholism, interracial relationships, and the concept of main characters dying has stuck with me ever since. Still my favorite giant robot franchise ever! The Veritech fighters use a 20 mm rotary cannon that fires depleted uranium slugs.
The best setting for a "normal" RPG campaign in the Robotech series of RPG books is the "Invid Invasion" setting. By this point in the timeline of the series the earth is basically a post, post apocalyptic setting and the Invid will pretty much ignore the player's characters so long as they are not actively using anything equipment/vehicles that are powered by protoculture, but make sure that none of the players are Meta-Gaming that knowledge unless their characters have figured that out the hard way in the game. Also while the campaign should have a basic military theme and focus, it at least allows for a lot more than "mission, fight and return to base if still alive". Yes "reflex point" should be the groups main objective for the campaign end goal and it does end up paralleling the story for this section of the Robotech series. But it does let other character occupations possibly be able to do meaningful things in the game. Yes for the most part none pilot characters have to hang back during combat and are mostly unable to do anything meaningful during that to support the fight. But once the fighting is over, someone has to fix up those dinged up mechs! Also because of this setting being the last in the timeline, it means that the players could come across other "older" mechs/vehicles from the Macross or Southern Cross.
Thinking on it, did anyone here ever get annoyed about the weird usage of Mach speeds in space for Palladium stuff? That's why I think Kitsune's RIFTS conversion stuff into accelerations and such works better.
This game predates Rifts by a number of years. Most of what was put in the Blender came from Heroes Unlimited and Palladium Fantasy. I had all of these games back in the day.
Point of fact, MDC came from the Robotech RPG to scale the game up to giant Robot sizes. It was imported into Rifts from the Robotech RPG and not the other way around.
Pa played this rpg when he was in college-his party each had two sets of characters, the bridge bunnies and the fighter jocks. They'd switch to each set as the action picks up
Copied word for word... that is an understatement. Most of Semibiedas stuff was made before the digital revolution, and he never really migrated. He was old school, so he would literally cut out sections of old books and just paste them onto the mattboards for the new books. You can actually see the cut lines where he just snipped out a section of TMNT or Heroes Unlimited charts before sticking them in there. Typos, bad formatting, mismatched type face, actual physical errors from printing press all just got copied, like had literally photocopied them in. The man was a hack, but he was a successful hack. He made stuff on a shoe string budget, and knew hot to make it pay. Literally the "Loyd Kaufmen" of RPGs.
Palladium rules were not that bad, they were not great either with some features being little more than a different take on D&D rules and concepts rather than an evolution. Siembieda is reasonably smart and capable man, but success and his personality made him a toxic figure who thought he could do everything, including designing and sculpting minatures for Rifts with mixed results. Rifts was fun in concept, but it broke the back of the game, as we started to call it "Rifts, the Quest for more Mega Damage !!!" Robotech is more or less playable as is, it's very old school and concerned with every nut and bolt, never looked at the new version so I don't have any comparison to make there.
@@rotwang2000Yep, Rifts started out as a fun idea, but got DEEP into the splat. Kevin realized that the only ones who cared about rules balance were the GM's, and that players would buy books at a three to one ratio, simply to see what bigger badder gun, OOC, RCC, etc.. was available with the latest splat book. Meanwhile, Robotech is actually surprisingly playable. Its all bit one dimensional, AKA: you're all a bunch of Veritech pilots (etc...), but the rules are incredibly reactive Compared to other rules at the time and it was solid gold. More in depth then BECMI, and faster then GURPS, and most decisions were actually meaningful as everything had a cost. 20% of all attacks automatically miss, then the rest is a series of sacrifices and contest between the attacker and the defender. Did he hit? Did he hit you, or your armor? Can you dodge (sacrificing an action) or parry (for free)? Or both if one fails and the other is still an option. Do you want to go prone rolling with damage? Do you want to expend some of your missiles to destroy their missiles. Do you have enough MDC/SDC to soak the damage, or are you risking hit points. Etc... I've actually started using some of that philosophy in my other games and it works surprisingly well. Currently playing with a rule now in 5e, where players can sacrifice to avoid damage. When they are about to take a big hit, they either break a shield, lose their weapon or get knocked prone but can roll HITDICE to resist the incoming damage. This lets them survive big hits, by sacrificing their healing, and putting them on the disadvantage. This has removed a lot of the calls for short rests, while keeping the game rolling along at a fast pace, and moving their survival from mere luck, to strategy and tactics. I guess I learned a lot form that old game
@@Mr_Welch I'd love to see Mekton and Zeta. Too bad we didn't get the newer game. Had to back Lancer for giant stompy robot goodness and it's not AS crunchy as I wanted
@@Mr_Welch looking foward to it, my group and I have done UNHOLY things using the Roadstriker II supplement in conjunction with Cyberpunk 2020 You can already guess how that went
SO...let me see if I remember this properly...the Zentraedi were defeated by Lyn Minmai singing because they were such a warlike race the concept of music was completely unknown to them and they were so paralyzed with wonder that they just decided to leave humanity alone, or something? And also, the could shrink to human size without any sort of physical problems somehow. I have no idea why they would want to shrink to human size but they did sometimes.
To experience normal culture since the Zentradi & Meltrandi, at least in the original Macross (not Robotech), were pretty much like giant clone humans who had been deliberately starved of any culture, music, etc. The Protoculture that created them (typical dead Precursor race) had created them to fight in an interstellar civil war of theirs caused by extradimensional aliens that had accidentally been unleashed and was possessing tons of the Protoculture. Hell, later Macross shows have it/reveal that the Protoculture engineered the Zentradi to be practically MC'd by music.
If you’re still interested in a more modern approach to Robotech RPG stuff, the company Strange Machine Games made one called -fittingly- Robotech RPG The Macross Saga Roleplaying Game. It’s a d6 based system that overall captures the feel of the show’s flow, + does p well at immersing people who aren’t really into simulationist mecha stuff. Helps that it does have rules to make it more crunchy. Tho it won’t ever get as crunchy as Palladium.
Battle Century G might also do the trick, though it's not particularly crunchy and very much based on the Super Robot Wars franchise (where Macross made a few appearances). Still, if you wanna transform all the time and spam missiles, the system's got you covered.
Ended up getting the miniatures tactics game for $30 from Massdrop of all places...must have been a fire sale. I've never tried to assemble the figures, but I heard the same thing about it being a pain.
Yeah, that melee & modern weapons chart was a mainstay for Palladium filler. Those pages were in basically every Palladium book until the mid-90s. As a side note, the "Rifts stuff"... Rifts didn't come out til 91 or 92? Robotech the RPG was much ealier. Heck my brother was running a TMNT campaign when I was in elementary, and I was running Robotech campaigns in Junior high. Rifts didn't come out till I was half way through high school.
The Lancers' Rockers supplement has musician player classes and instruments that double as MDC sonic weapons. You can even homebrew them into earlier wars like the Macross era and change them from doing MDC damage to doing a morale damage system when broadcast to Zentraedi troops during battle using performance skill checks instead of attack rolls.
There's new miniatures! A company called KidsLogic has the license for minis, now, and they're actually GOOD. They are resin, though, if that's a turn-off...but the quality is leagues above and beyond the Palladium ones
As I recall, Robotech (played first in 1987) came out before Rifts (I bought it new in 1990 when it first came out). I think most of the filler was copy pasted from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
I'm just waiting for the "new and improved" Robotech RPG based on 5E when (if) the movie comes out. Seems like everything gets a 5E based sourcebook. Even G.I. Joe and Rambo of all things. This is the D20 SRD all over again, but with 0 creativity, present company excluded.
The kickstarter minis are easy to assemble. Hard is frigging Nyss mercenaries for Warmachine, or 1st gen Skorne for Hordes. Optionally any number of GW models that I have to risk breaking to put together because of utterly bizarre assembly angles. I can assemble the robotech minis while half asleep. That being said, if people want to believe the whiney Robotech Tactics KS crowd like Siembeda did then good, more minis for me. Siembeda does not always make the best decisions. I wonder if he's still offended about my boss' boss telling him that Paladium was "like an easier, more beginner-friendly D&D."
The Nyss archers for a time-honored right of passage for any merc player in war machine. You aren't a true Merc player until you had glued your hands together trying to get their little three part arms glued to their bow.
Ah Palladium, a game system which makes me want to beat my head against a wall one minute, and then try to convince my friends the system is fine the next. What a mess of design ideas it could be at times.
@@DolFan316 It opened the door for abusive DM's that would make you skill check for literally everything. Make you take piloting checks to just do routine flying stuff instead of just for risky maneuvers, combat stunts, landing in inclement weather, etc.
Palladium's "Megaversal System" is a fairly easy to follow lineage, and a good warning about what might have happened if D&D never left second edition AD&D. The basic rules from the early 80s read like a lot of house rules grafted onto D&D to make it play better and be more flexible. Armor class goes up, magic is not slots per day but an energy pool you can use at will, anyone can have skills, protective gear has durability and can be bypassed with a good enough roll... However for each new game or setting they grafted on more and more like firearms rules, extra extra attacks for superheroes, cybernetics (ninjas and superspies) horror factor (Beyond the Supernatural/Nightbane) and eventuall MDc (Robotech). That last addition worked well enough when there was a clear distinction between military items (mecha) and other things. Rifts - which tries to include everything, and has pistols that outperform tank HEAT shells - well there is your problem.
@@Mr_Welch I looked into a few sourcebooks my brother-in-law has. Must be a lot of fun, especially if the GM turns it into a parody (with some seriousness in it) of the mecha genre. Would you consider creating a video about Mekton (or what do I need to do to encourage you)? Prolly good stuff for grognard weaboos of the 80s/90s like myself.
![[Macross] Too detailed diorama! 1mm for cars!? ~Miemo 2023~](/img/n.gif)
Pretty sure Fokker is just a longwinded reference to the Fokker DR-1, or just the Fokker company in general. Hell, one of the backstory tidbits mentioned a 'Flying Circus', which was a nickname for Manfred von Richthofen's (Better known as the Red Baron) fighter wing during the later parts of WW1.
Now I want a biplane veritech.
You want to see some big time symbolism the watch the scene where Rick hears Roy has died. He's holding a Fokker triplane model. He drops it and there's a solomo close up of it shattering as it hits the floor.
In the original Macross anime, the entire bridge crew of the SDF-1 survive the final battle.
Pretty sure not even Gundam ever offed the entire bridge crew. At worst they only killed the ones with a love interest (because falling in love in Gundam is the karmic equivalent to a kiss of death in Gundam)
I'm going to go off on a bit of a rant here, lol, because this feels like the perfect place for it. I was a massive fan of robotech, I was in middle school when it aired on TV and it sucked me into the fact that cartoons could be a little more deep than most. Harmony gold had done a great job blending the three different anime together, you had a show that had the death of main characters, interracial couples, the good guys don't always win. Heady stuff. At the same time you had two authors writing under the pseudonym of Jack McKinney writing novelizations for Del Rey Publications, and these novelizations included information from the Bible and background information that Harmony gold had put together. So if you were a fan at the time, there was a wealth of information that you normally did not get out of an average show. Things like visual archives, behind the scenes, audio commentaries just did not exist.
So then you get Robotech from palladium. Palladium did a pretty good job, including pulling a lot of details from that same bible. I even have the Macross to role-playing game and two of the three deck plan supplements that came out for it. There was a pretty good attention to detail and a respect for the source material.
And then both Harmony gold and Palladium decided to squat on the IP that they had and do nothing with it. Palladium could have easily continued to reprint the role-playing books, perhaps consolidating them into their larger books as many of them are very small. Instead they chose to let everything go out of print, only keeping a couple of the books in publication. Harmony gold could have continued to print and sell the Robotech anime, but only did so briefly with ADV as a remastered Edition. Harmony gold was really big on fleshing out the rest of their story, but gave up really quickly when it came to putting out the Sentinels. Jack McKinney did continue to publish novels, there were five novels based off of the Sentinels and then four books written after the end of the cartoon, with three of them being prequels.
The most any of us got was over a decade ago when Harmony gold put out the shadow chronicles, a brief OVA that ignored that continuity they had spent so much time painfully putting together. Symbata finally released in a new book even though he still refused to do any good reprints of the existing ones, and he went to the well on that one for his fans conning them into purchasing the book twice. The first time it was in a small manga sized book, but then he printed a hardcover that when he originally shielded it implied it was going to be a much larger collection of material. What we got was just a larger version of the small book.
In the meantime my eyes had long since been opened to the larger Macross franchise, and I was exceedingly frustrated that I couldn't see any of those without putting on a pirate hat because of Harmony and Palladium squatting on the IP and retaining the rights to something they weren't using, making it impossible to untangle the gordian knot.
The founder of Harmony gold died a few years ago, and it looks like his survivors don't really care much to fight the fight. They relinquished their rights, there have been a slew of board games and a new role-playing game coming out based off of robotech. Palladium completely gave up the ghost after a horrendous attempt to create a BattleTech knockoff with a company that apparently took the money and ran, making it a possibility that I may one day get to finally see the rest of the Macross franchise
My big regret about all of this is that for me and many people of my generation, Robotech was a gateway drug into the wonderful world of Japanese anime and legitimately has some of the best writing around. But with the shoddy way the main companies have maintained the license and ip, few people are going to get to experience that. Shortly before the shadow Chronicles came out, some actor I forget which one maybe Tobey Maguire was reported as trying to obtain the rights to do a movie adaptation. It's hard to know what was finalized because there was a lot of rumor and speculation, but I doubt we'll ever see that now.
You're kicking the wrong hornet's nest on this one.
"Why would you want to play a guy with a sexual innuendo for a last name in a giant stompy robot?" Oh gee, Mr. Welch, I think because he has a sexual innuendo for a last name and he's in a giant stompy robot!
Longbow , Warhammer, Archer, Rifleman. Strong lance. Don't really care who do what first.
We are all united in our appreciation for awesomeness.
Hate to have to correct you Mr Welch, but the Robotech RPG came YEARS before Rifts did.
It was based on the Palladium Fantasy system, which later became known as the "Megaversal System" as it was a common set of rules across almost all Palladium series games (with a few notable exceptions)
This and TMNT were two of the main products that founded Palladium (along with Palladium Fantasy and Mechanoids, which actually used an earlier, but limited system of Palladium's game system), and gave Kevin the seed money to produce Rifts, which then became the central focus of Palladium's catalogue, and the basis for their entire "shared universe" from that point onward.
Yep, RIFTs was mostly the end of the road. Simebieda just took every game setting, rule, etc... rolled it into one setting and starting selling splat books like they were going out of style.
Rifts was 1990, Robotech was 86, with several releases up to 2008.
@@Mr_Welch right, several years earlier, to Sean's point.
Not to mention there's technically two editions of Robotech. The old one from the 80's and the new one they did as a tie-in to the CGI Robotech Movie in the 2000's. The latter is compatible with Rifts Ultimate while the former is tied more to old Rifts. That said they are mostly compatible either way it's just the new stuff adds MOS (Specialization) on top of OCC (Class) and the numbers and names are a bit different (Raider X in the old Robotech, Defender in the new, still the Rifleman in Battletech).
Also, it appears that Palladium had the rights to Macross II (the one Macross fans tell you to skip because it's not canon) at some point, have a book for that somewhere...
@@SwordlordRoy I have the Macross too role playing book, along with two of the three deck plan books that they released as supplements for some strange reason. I say strange, because it was a very out of left field sort of supplement, why would you release One Core book but then three smaller books that are just maps of the ships. My guess, Palladium knew they didn't have much to work with but we're trying to put out as many things as possible with the Robotech and Macross licenses so he cobbled together books out of whatever he was provided.
As for shadow chronicles, as I mentioned in my rant above that was a bit of a disappointment. The vast majority of the Shadow Chronicles book is just reprints cobbled together from all of his other Robotech books, the story itself for shadow Chronicles is very thin and introduces a bunch of plot inconsistencies which is frustrating because Robotech itself was actually very meticulously plotted, Harmony gold having a large Bible to keep things on track. Additionally Palladium could have used this opportunity to revitalize interest in the game, instead they conned the existing fan base. I put it that way because they originally released the role-playing book for shadow Chronicles as a quote unquote manga Edition which was just a small rule book that was about the size of a manga book, and then later on announced he was releasing a deluxe edition which turned out to be nothing more than just a normal sized hardcover of the original book with no discernible new material.
Alternative use of the Mac II with a veritech squadron: Have the squishy fighter planes take cover behind the Monster's legs and pick off enemy missiles with their guns while the big boys do all the heavy lifting.
Sorry, I cannot hear you over the sound of BattleTech.
Respect your elders, kid
@@heymay724 Not after what Harmony Gold did to FASA. It made Shadowrun lose braincells.
@@LastHCompany harmony gold isnt the owners of Macross, Kid
> Pre-Emptively stole from Battletech by designing them first
This line is so funny it has slain me xD
0:30 Fokker is the name of a famous Aircraft company. Your mind hits the gutter to soon!
"... which will stop a lot of questions on how airlocks operate."
Flawless.
"..and Minmei was selfish."
One of the nice things about growing up and getting to see the original uncensored Macross anime was seeing all the Minmei skin it showed. Until then I had no idea what Rick Hunter/Hikaru Ichijyo saw in her.
Now *I* want to see this anime 😍Too bad nothing is uncensored in today's world 😢
It helps that the original Minmei was voiced by an actual singer who could, you know, *actually sing.*
As opposed to whoever Harmony Gold got to voice Robotech Minmei.
Thanks for reviewing my games! This rpg was the first I cut my teeth into.
All i thought about this video is "cool gundam, and topgun" and you did not disappoint
A little unfair about the destroids and battletech. While the destroys didn't exactly have a big presence in the series, they did show up throughout all three parts of robotech. I'm particularly fond of the moment when they transform the SDF one and punch through the ship, then open up the front of the aircraft carrier that is the fist to reveal that they have loaded it up with a crapload of destroys that just unload everything. Impractical, probably more than a little crazy, but damn it looked good as a kid.
The whole bit between battletech, robotech, and Japan is so fascinating. The Japanese were not really keen on paying attention to how copyright laws worked in other countries and just haphazardly handed out rights to different things to different people. BattleTech itself always seem to be a little cursed back in those days, originally they were battle droids and then Star Wars Sue them. I'm sure that that made them a little slap happy and trying to avoid future problems, which is why they just removed the Robotech images from the game. Personally I never understood why BattleTech fans were so up in arms, we're talking about maybe a half a dozen designs out of the Endless variety that was BattleTech, and the veritech itself really wasn't a good thing to put into BattleTech considering everything else was land-based. Yes there was an Aerotek release, which I do have, but there was no way to go from one to the other so if you did put a veritech into a BattleTech game, you would have a rather unimpressive and slender light Mick that would probably get stomped by all of your friends who have all gone with the 100 ton option and loaded it with as many weapons as they could get away with, more so if they forgot some of the little crunchy rules
Say what you will about the books... They *knew* what you were there for.
Didn't the "Mac 2" have 3 pilots?
According to the sourcebook it had a crew of 2 or 3, with 8 passengers.
@@Mr_Welch That thing is Awesome it has one of the best moments in the Anime in episode "Force of Arms" it's just gotten it's reflex warheads loaded (nukes) and needs to go outside from it's hangar.
It takes it's first step and starts demolishing the floor because it's so heavy.
@@Mr_Welch So do 2 (or 3) PCs have to choose to pilot it, or does the GM just throw in the missing number of NPCs?
@@ckmishn3664 one guy can pilot one guy can shoot. Rules aren't very specific
@@AdurianJ Fun thing about the MAC-II, in the Macross continuity it has a descendent of sorts, a Variable Fighter (Veritech) version that is used as a big bomber.
They replaced the three big cannons with big railguns and gave it reaction warhead (reflex warhead) shells.
Lol, Sammy, Kim, and Vanessa, taking a cruiser to the face is some top tear anime moments right there.
You know I realized I used tear instead of tier, but it works.
Also yay Amber next.
Yeah, Mr Welch's comments aside, that ramming attack would not lead to any slow deaths...
I watched the show as a kid and didn’t put it together what had happened to the bridge crew. Then I read the book as a teenager and realized how sad it was that all those charcters just died at the end of the fight.
@@Dalton791000 Funny thing, in the original Japanese Macross stuff, the entire bridge crew survived from what I remember.
Played the shit out of Palladium. Robotech, TMNT, and Heroes Unlimited we're my jam for years.
The Palladium RPG's are typical early 80's RPG's!
Nothing boring about Destroids! They did the real work.
I'd love an R Lee Ermy training scene where characters get chewed out for having relationship conversations during live fire exercises, and given strict orders to never do so on pain of immediate firing squad because it will get themselves and/or comrades killed if they decide that the middle of combat is the right time to stop and declare their feelings and make apologies for whatever.
Even with all the palladium issues still fond memories of playing
Murderer or battle pod?
*waits for tex and other battletech content creators*
Mr: welsh: Love triangle
Me: Ah. Terrible writing advice, how i love your videos.
*YES!!! I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY COMMENTER HERE WHO WATCHED THAT CHANNEL!!!*
@@DolFan316 lolz.
I was watching Robotech back when I was five and the themes of alcoholism, interracial relationships, and the concept of main characters dying has stuck with me ever since. Still my favorite giant robot franchise ever!
The Veritech fighters use a 20 mm rotary cannon that fires depleted uranium slugs.
I liked the source material, for rules I tended to use Mekton
The best setting for a "normal" RPG campaign in the Robotech series of RPG books is the "Invid Invasion" setting. By this point in the timeline of the series the earth is basically a post, post apocalyptic setting and the Invid will pretty much ignore the player's characters so long as they are not actively using anything equipment/vehicles that are powered by protoculture, but make sure that none of the players are Meta-Gaming that knowledge unless their characters have figured that out the hard way in the game. Also while the campaign should have a basic military theme and focus, it at least allows for a lot more than "mission, fight and return to base if still alive". Yes "reflex point" should be the groups main objective for the campaign end goal and it does end up paralleling the story for this section of the Robotech series. But it does let other character occupations possibly be able to do meaningful things in the game.
Yes for the most part none pilot characters have to hang back during combat and are mostly unable to do anything meaningful during that to support the fight. But once the fighting is over, someone has to fix up those dinged up mechs! Also because of this setting being the last in the timeline, it means that the players could come across other "older" mechs/vehicles from the Macross or Southern Cross.
Loved the Robotech and the Robotech RPG was the only good thing to ever come from the RIFTS system. 👍
Thinking on it, did anyone here ever get annoyed about the weird usage of Mach speeds in space for Palladium stuff?
That's why I think Kitsune's RIFTS conversion stuff into accelerations and such works better.
Best theme song in Cartoons was 'Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors' or 'Cybersix'
And thanks to this video, I now get at least one more joke I missed in Tex's marauder video.
This game predates Rifts by a number of years. Most of what was put in the Blender came from Heroes Unlimited and Palladium Fantasy. I had all of these games back in the day.
Point of fact, MDC came from the Robotech RPG to scale the game up to giant Robot sizes. It was imported into Rifts from the Robotech RPG and not the other way around.
Pa played this rpg when he was in college-his party each had two sets of characters, the bridge bunnies and the fighter jocks. They'd switch to each set as the action picks up
Copied word for word... that is an understatement.
Most of Semibiedas stuff was made before the digital revolution, and he never really migrated.
He was old school, so he would literally cut out sections of old books and just paste them onto the mattboards for the new books.
You can actually see the cut lines where he just snipped out a section of TMNT or Heroes Unlimited charts before sticking them in there.
Typos, bad formatting, mismatched type face, actual physical errors from printing press all just got copied, like had literally photocopied them in.
The man was a hack, but he was a successful hack. He made stuff on a shoe string budget, and knew hot to make it pay.
Literally the "Loyd Kaufmen" of RPGs.
If any system needed a core rule book shared by its various settings, it was Palladium. Could've saved _a lot_ of paper.
I loved palladium played from 11 to 16, robotech being out favorite
Palladium rules were not that bad, they were not great either with some features being little more than a different take on D&D rules and concepts rather than an evolution. Siembieda is reasonably smart and capable man, but success and his personality made him a toxic figure who thought he could do everything, including designing and sculpting minatures for Rifts with mixed results.
Rifts was fun in concept, but it broke the back of the game, as we started to call it "Rifts, the Quest for more Mega Damage !!!"
Robotech is more or less playable as is, it's very old school and concerned with every nut and bolt, never looked at the new version so I don't have any comparison to make there.
@@rotwang2000Yep, Rifts started out as a fun idea, but got DEEP into the splat. Kevin realized that the only ones who cared about rules balance were the GM's, and that players would buy books at a three to one ratio, simply to see what bigger badder gun, OOC, RCC, etc.. was available with the latest splat book.
Meanwhile, Robotech is actually surprisingly playable. Its all bit one dimensional, AKA: you're all a bunch of Veritech pilots (etc...), but the rules are incredibly reactive Compared to other rules at the time and it was solid gold. More in depth then BECMI, and faster then GURPS, and most decisions were actually meaningful as everything had a cost.
20% of all attacks automatically miss, then the rest is a series of sacrifices and contest between the attacker and the defender. Did he hit? Did he hit you, or your armor? Can you dodge (sacrificing an action) or parry (for free)? Or both if one fails and the other is still an option. Do you want to go prone rolling with damage? Do you want to expend some of your missiles to destroy their missiles. Do you have enough MDC/SDC to soak the damage, or are you risking hit points. Etc...
I've actually started using some of that philosophy in my other games and it works surprisingly well. Currently playing with a rule now in 5e, where players can sacrifice to avoid damage. When they are about to take a big hit, they either break a shield, lose their weapon or get knocked prone but can roll HITDICE to resist the incoming damage. This lets them survive big hits, by sacrificing their healing, and putting them on the disadvantage. This has removed a lot of the calls for short rests, while keeping the game rolling along at a fast pace, and moving their survival from mere luck, to strategy and tactics.
I guess I learned a lot form that old game
"Destroids can't fly"
*Laughs in the VB-6 Konig Monster*
Any chance of doing Mekton in the near future ?
If I can work it into the schedule. I'm playing massive amounts of catchup. Eventually I hope, I've covered just about everything else R. Tal.
@@Mr_Welch I'd love to see Mekton and Zeta. Too bad we didn't get the newer game. Had to back Lancer for giant stompy robot goodness and it's not AS crunchy as I wanted
@@Mr_Welch looking foward to it, my group and I have done UNHOLY things using the Roadstriker II supplement in conjunction with Cyberpunk 2020
You can already guess how that went
@@AlVainactual Mekton Zero is like the poster child of how to _not_ make a crowd-funding project for a book.
SO...let me see if I remember this properly...the Zentraedi were defeated by Lyn Minmai singing because they were such a warlike race the concept of music was completely unknown to them and they were so paralyzed with wonder that they just decided to leave humanity alone, or something? And also, the could shrink to human size without any sort of physical problems somehow. I have no idea why they would want to shrink to human size but they did sometimes.
To experience normal culture since the Zentradi & Meltrandi, at least in the original Macross (not Robotech), were pretty much like giant clone humans who had been deliberately starved of any culture, music, etc.
The Protoculture that created them (typical dead Precursor race) had created them to fight in an interstellar civil war of theirs caused by extradimensional aliens that had accidentally been unleashed and was possessing tons of the Protoculture.
Hell, later Macross shows have it/reveal that the Protoculture engineered the Zentradi to be practically MC'd by music.
Well the at the core is magic space flowers being the key to FTL drive. I mean if you accept that shrinky-dink zentradi are no big leap. Lol
If you’re still interested in a more modern approach to Robotech RPG stuff, the company Strange Machine Games made one called -fittingly- Robotech RPG The Macross Saga Roleplaying Game. It’s a d6 based system that overall captures the feel of the show’s flow, + does p well at immersing people who aren’t really into simulationist mecha stuff. Helps that it does have rules to make it more crunchy. Tho it won’t ever get as crunchy as Palladium.
Battle Century G might also do the trick, though it's not particularly crunchy and very much based on the Super Robot Wars franchise (where Macross made a few appearances).
Still, if you wanna transform all the time and spam missiles, the system's got you covered.
Would be interesting to see a "Mad Musings"-esque d&d video
This video isn't working, guess I clicked on it mid copyright strike or something 🤣
Edit: Damn right when I hit send on my message it started lol!
I think Palladium Robotech (1986) predates Rifts (Aug, 1990).
Thank you sir. I love robotech.
Ended up getting the miniatures tactics game for $30 from Massdrop of all places...must have been a fire sale. I've never tried to assemble the figures, but I heard the same thing about it being a pain.
Yeah, that melee & modern weapons chart was a mainstay for Palladium filler. Those pages were in basically every Palladium book until the mid-90s.
As a side note, the "Rifts stuff"... Rifts didn't come out til 91 or 92? Robotech the RPG was much ealier. Heck my brother was running a TMNT campaign when I was in elementary, and I was running Robotech campaigns in Junior high. Rifts didn't come out till I was half way through high school.
3:55 I don't care what anybody says, destroids are the coolest. Especially the spartan.
The no rules for pop stars. It was a good thing Shadowrun came out and then right Rockers.
Because we always wanted to play Minmei's Band
The Lancers' Rockers supplement has musician player classes and instruments that double as MDC sonic weapons. You can even homebrew them into earlier wars like the Macross era and change them from doing MDC damage to doing a morale damage system when broadcast to Zentraedi troops during battle using performance skill checks instead of attack rolls.
I saw one and only one of these core rulebook. Also, Lisa is easily best girl.
Robotech predates RIfts And the destroids were stolen by battletech, not the other way around
The destroids were a joke. Retroactively stolen by doing it first
There's new miniatures! A company called KidsLogic has the license for minis, now, and they're actually GOOD. They are resin, though, if that's a turn-off...but the quality is leagues above and beyond the Palladium ones
My first Palladium game
As I recall, Robotech (played first in 1987) came out before Rifts (I bought it new in 1990 when it first came out). I think most of the filler was copy pasted from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Yeah unfortunately I am one of those that switched the channel to Mask. Hence why I only have one Robotech toy and almost all of the Mask toys.
There's some tweaks to do for sure, but I loved Palladium
I'm just waiting for the "new and improved" Robotech RPG based on 5E when (if) the movie comes out. Seems like everything gets a 5E based sourcebook. Even G.I. Joe and Rambo of all things. This is the D20 SRD all over again, but with 0 creativity, present company excluded.
History repeats itself...
Oh yea… I was one of those fools that backed that Tactics kickstarter. >.>
Fortunately only lost like 40$.
Amber? I see welcome back welchy
anyone else notice the marauder in this video?
Ah yes, Robotech. Home of the Unseen.
0:15 (cough) OMG, all these decades and I never realize that about Roy's name... I watch that show in the original run been a fan since 😀.
The kickstarter minis are easy to assemble. Hard is frigging Nyss mercenaries for Warmachine, or 1st gen Skorne for Hordes. Optionally any number of GW models that I have to risk breaking to put together because of utterly bizarre assembly angles. I can assemble the robotech minis while half asleep. That being said, if people want to believe the whiney Robotech Tactics KS crowd like Siembeda did then good, more minis for me. Siembeda does not always make the best decisions. I wonder if he's still offended about my boss' boss telling him that Paladium was "like an easier, more beginner-friendly D&D."
The Nyss archers for a time-honored right of passage for any merc player in war machine. You aren't a true Merc player until you had glued your hands together trying to get their little three part arms glued to their bow.
Unfortunately the Palladium system was too clunky to emulate the fast-paced mecha action of Macross/Robotech.
Ah Palladium, a game system which makes me want to beat my head against a wall one minute, and then try to convince my friends the system is fine the next. What a mess of design ideas it could be at times.
This is the system that made you do skill checks to open a door, right?
@@DolFan316 It opened the door for abusive DM's that would make you skill check for literally everything. Make you take piloting checks to just do routine flying stuff instead of just for risky maneuvers, combat stunts, landing in inclement weather, etc.
Battletechs stone rhino looks alot like the mac 2
YEEEEEEEEEEES!!!!!
Palladium's "Megaversal System" is a fairly easy to follow lineage, and a good warning about what might have happened if D&D never left second edition AD&D. The basic rules from the early 80s read like a lot of house rules grafted onto D&D to make it play better and be more flexible. Armor class goes up, magic is not slots per day but an energy pool you can use at will, anyone can have skills, protective gear has durability and can be bypassed with a good enough roll... However for each new game or setting they grafted on more and more like firearms rules, extra extra attacks for superheroes, cybernetics (ninjas and superspies) horror factor (Beyond the Supernatural/Nightbane) and eventuall MDc (Robotech). That last addition worked well enough when there was a clear distinction between military items (mecha) and other things. Rifts - which tries to include everything, and has pistols that outperform tank HEAT shells - well there is your problem.
mr welch do you have any thoughts on the warhammer wrath and glory game, keep up the good work
I've been trying to find a copy, especially the original terrible version.
Can you review TALISLANTA or TEKUMEL?
If I can find copies. Have about 10 games in the pipe right now
Any chance you heard of/played Mekton?
Oh yeah. RTal classic. Started with Road Strykers
@@Mr_Welch I looked into a few sourcebooks my brother-in-law has. Must be a lot of fun, especially if the GM turns it into a parody (with some seriousness in it) of the mecha genre.
Would you consider creating a video about Mekton (or what do I need to do to encourage you)?
Prolly good stuff for grognard weaboos of the 80s/90s like myself.
@@Tempestus88 I can add it to the list, but it's already 12 games long
Wooooooooo!!! Anime
The fact that the name "Fokker" makes you think sex rather than German aviation says a lot about you, buddy. Just saying.