Robotech games at Origins

[glitterboy2098]

i'll ask Basara over on the RDF communications center board to post the ones he ran. though only 2 of his had players. (and mightily funny were they.)

[Tinker Dragoon]

Judging from posts on the All Things Palladium forum, one of them majorly sucked (no idea who ran it yet).

[Fat_Ninja]

Hiya!

I ran one of the aforementioned Robotech games. I just hope mine isn't the one that sucked....lol. I was the GM for "Festival of Blight" on Friday morning at 10:00am.

Setting- Invid Invasion, starting in a small town east of a smallish Genesis Pit.

Plot- Crops are dying out all around the town from west to east. Townspeople get together and ask the best armed and trained folks in town to investigate.

Characters-
1-Genesis Pit experiment with horrid fear of Invid (untrained)
2- RDF Military Specialist: Coward who ran during forst two wars, trying to redeem himself
3- REF Military Specialist: lost and alone on an occupied Earth
4- Southern Cross Recon Escort Patrol: Rough and tough.
5- Female Freedom Fighter: Local equivalent of the blacksmith. As many mechanical and physical skills as I could pile on her. Definitely one tough lady. (played by our own CyberPaladin85)
6- Male Freedom Fighter- Employee of the local "Blacksmith".

I think everyone had fun. Or at least that's what they all told me...lol. Actually, four of the players found me on Saturday and asked if there was any way to survive the mission. Just the fact that they thought about it even the next day and kept trying to consider what mistakes that they may have made was enough to make me happy.

I think I'll be running two Robotech's in 2005 instead of two HU2's. It seems that more people wanted RT than HU2. Good times, though!

[Hav0k]

Seems nice!

But then *was* there a way to survive it? What were the odds, why crops were dying?

(yes, I am trying to get as much info of the adventure as I can, since it seems like fun and may be I can run a similar one)

[Fat_Ninja]

LOL. Nice. That's right, steal my ideas! Wait, that's be pretty cool.

I'll start with why the crops were dying-
Genetically manufactured blight supposedly created by the Invid. This blight kills off normal Earth plants and leaves the ground black and nicely fertilized for the Flower of Life. There was one geneticist that lived in the town (actually on a hill outside of town), and his home was almost nothing but a charred ruin when the PCs investigate that. Real creator of the blight..... that geneticist, of course. Later it worked out that he "likes to be on the winning side". Then his better nature takes over and drives him mad. Of course the Invid don't care about him being insane and he leads them through this hive on a wild goose chase.

Ways to survive- Don't trust Dr. Heidlehopper or whatever I called him. Capture him and make him talk. Don't start shooting when the Invid have you surrounded and outgun you by at least 300 to 1.

On the other hand, I gotta love their fatalism. "Crud, we're at the Brain. Outgunned, surrounded, and going to die. Hmmmm. OPEN FIRE!!!!". In all actuality, they did "win". Their biggest goal was to stop the creation and spreading of the blight. Survival was a secondary goal at that point. Good group of players there.

Of course next year's game(s) will be totally different. Next year I may let them have mecha! :D

[Omote]

Sounds pretty good. I wish I would hve played in your game.

..................................Omote
FPQ

[Fat_Ninja]

Sounds pretty good. I wish I would hve played in your game.

..................................Omote
FPQ

I'm already burning the midnight oil (so to speak) thinking up neat ideas for next year's games. This time I'm going to try for the elusive "not have to do everything the night before" concept. I even forgot my HU2 book at home and had to buy another one!

I'm kind of odd as a GM. I usually don't put up any kind of screen, no papers or books in front of me, and I like to roll dice randomly. Sometimes for in-game effects.... sometimes to make people nervous. And thank you, Omote! There's only one compliment I prize higher as a GM: "I had fun".

For next year I'll do my best to let the fine folks on the boards know what games I'm running and when. I guess I just didn't want to try and hog all the glory this year. I didn't want to come off as "OOH! Play in MY game". Especially not when there were so many other fine GMs running games.

I'm sort of thinking about a RT "Dungeon Crawl" being part of one of next year's games. Just so I look a little more "professional" and have a map in front of me or something....lol.

[Omote]

Well count on me playing in next year's Robotech game! And who cares man, PIMP YO GAME on the boards! There were apprently a few Palladium run events that didn't have a single person show up! It's all about the lack of advertising.

To be honest, there wasn't too much ORIGINS hype on the boards this year as compared to 2003. Quite surprised knowing the number of palladium events that were run this year.

I think I'm going to run a game at Origins as well next year (not Robotech!)

.................................Omote
FPQ

[Fat_Ninja]

Well, if you're doing Origins, you better do GenCon also, Omote.

Origins is for GMing. GenCon is for playing (for me). You know I didn't even know about the compensation for volunteering (GMing)??? I just figured they wanted all that info for keeping track of stuff and planning for next year...lol. Little did I know.

The RPG coordinator told me that next year he's hoping to do every game in 4 hour blocks of-
9am-1pm
1pm-5pm
6pm-10pm
10pm-2am
I guess thanks to people like me (starting my morning games at 10am) that a number of people were bummed about missing a game because their last one started an hour later than everything else. Had I known, I would have started earlier. Oh well. Not too shabby for my first real con.

Went to GenCon last year for a whole day (kinda), but that doesn't count. We went through the dealer's room and left, pretty much. That 4 hour line to get day badges was pretty horrific.

Nonetheless, I think I have rough ideas about what days and times I'll be running stuff:

Wednesday night (10pm)- Gonna do the Villain HU2 game again. Different plot and characters, but it seemed to be pretty fun for everyone.

Thursday morning- Rifts. Again, different game. (I refuse to use the same game twice).

Thursday afternoon- Robotech!

Thursday evening- May go do my WizKids thingy.

Friday morning (or thursday evening, depending)- More Robotech!

Friday afternoon/ Friday evening- Some SDC game. Systems Failure, HU2, TMNT.......something.

And the rest of the con, I'll be trying to get into games and playing. Or I may decide to toss all that away and just GM all weekend. If that's the case, expect about 4-5 different Robotech games. I find it difficult to fathom that the cons consider GMing to be volunteer time when I have just as much fun GMing as I do playing.

Anyway, that leaves GenCon wide open for me to play. Of course I can also see me GMing into the night at GenCon 2005.......just not on the official schedule....lol.

Keep us all aware of what game and time you're gonna be running a game, Omote. I think maybe we should have all done that this year. Oh well. A learning experience for one and all, anyway.

[Hav0k]

I see you really enjoy GMing...

I think it is easier to create adventures for cons, since you dont need to follow a campaign. It just has to be fun, for GM and for players....

I wish I could see more of those adventures of yours... hehe

[Fat_Ninja]

I wish I could see more of those adventures of yours... hehe :twisted:

AHHHHHHHh!!!!! Brain picker, BRAIN PICKER!!!!!!!!!

Gimme a game, and I can draw up a few basic outlines. I'll warn you now, that's usually all I use when I GM. But drop me a PM or something, or maybe I'll just start a sort of GM Brainstorm thread in the GMs forum. That way when something cool comes over me or someone else, for whatever game, we can just post it!

[Hav0k]

AHHHHHHHh!!!!! Brain picker, BRAIN PICKER!!!!!!!!!

Ok, no more idea sucking.....


I think it depends (for Robotech) on the setting you are using. I find REALLY difficult to create adventures for players inside the SDF-1 on the trip back to Earth and NOT changing the original series... (well, I know you can just simply rewrite everything and have John Doe as Skull Squadron Leader... but that is not my case).
This can not be compared to adventures for other eras such as post-Dolza Earth, SC, Sentinels, Invid-invaded Earth and such...

I agree with a post I recently read stating that New Generation (Earth and Sentinels) is the easiest, because it is so big and open, you can handle it just like Rifts or any other RPG world where you have a bunch of characters as a "party" and give them an adventure with a "go-kill-bad-guys-and-bring-anything-useful" theme...


What I like to do is, if you see 5 pilots flying next to Rick Hunter during an attack on the original series, I try to figure out a story for the 5th pilot. That way, may be that pilot is the player's character.... I love to have the players in the middle of everything, and not changing anything.. It is possible to create stories without altering continuity....(but not easy )

I still remember the players faces when they witnessed the SDF-1 doing the Daedalus Maneuver for the first time on Saturn....

[Omote]

Hopefully by next year's ORIGINS, or for that matter GenCon, we'll have a better understanding of Robotech Shadow Force (!new series!). Maybe even a game or two could be set during that time.

.............................Omote
FPQ