Re: Wholescale RPG conversions: who pays?

[Robotech_Master]

I've been trying to think about this for a long while but I'm still confused.

It's not so simple as just having everyone agree that we're playing in the Robotech universe, because there's considerable disagreement over exactly what the "canonical" Robotech universe is. (It's been going on in fandom for years, and continues to this day.)

What I'm concerned with is having the mechanics of all the various mecha in place as master classes to instantiate individual peoples' mecha from. That Cyclones, as a rule, have trait Transforming, and some of them have trait mini-missiles x2, and some of them have trait Beam Cannon instead. It's a bit too much to expect everyone to keep everything straight in their heads, especially since not all of the Robotech source material is itself internally consistent—and some people may be more familiar with the Robotech canon than others.

I've written down on a clipboard somewhere master descriptions for most Robotech mecha. I guess the easiest thing would be to just house rule them into existence, though it seems a little cheesy to pay 1 coin to get the benefit of dozens' of coins' worth of master class construction.

[Valamir]

Great questions.

There's no problem with having made up Master Components in advance.  If you play an extended series of sessions all in the same universe, any Masters created previously would be available currently without having to be paid for again, so its as simple as just assuming some unplayed "session 0" where all this got created.  If you wanted to be particularly rules "true" about it, you could treat it as a Gimmick in the Tenets phase saying "all of these premade templates are in the game"...one Coin.

However, I do recommend thinking long and hard about what Traits you gave your Mecha masters.  There's no wrong way to build but there are ways that will seriously impact the flow of the game.  For starters I probably wouldn't list off every different weapon system as a Trait, and I'd be really hesitant to give any x2 Traits to weapons.  Why?  If you have access to a ton of dice based on Weapons then the Conflicts featuring fighting are going to be HUGE, dwarfing Conflicts featuring other things.  That many dice generating that many bonus Coins will give very different play...it won't "break" the game...but it will change how it feels pretty dramatically.

Instead I'd give Traits only to those things that are really Iconic about a given mecha.  The ability to Transform?  absolutely.  But weapons I'd probably just do a trait like "bristling with weapons x2" to cover all the firepower at once.

This would actually be a great opportunity for a Rules Gimmick...lets see, this is me musing aloud, so let me know what you think.  I'm not familiar with the RT canon so use whatever weapons are really called.

First, do each weapon type as its own Master Component.  Give each of these weapons 1 Trait representing the thing they do best like:  Micro Missile Swarm:  Can't be Dodged.  Or Super Heavy Blaster: Penetrates Any Armor.

Then on your Mech Master Component just list one generic Weapons Trait using a multiplier for relative firepower.

Here's the Gimmick:  In parenthesis after the Weapons Trait, list all of the different weapons systems that Mech has access to.  The player normally uses the Weapons Trait dice, but can call on an extra die from one of the weapon systems if that system trait is applicable.

That way, you keep the actual number of Traits (and hense the importance) under a bit tighter control, and can then load up your mecha with Traits for other things that make them cool.

[Robotech_Master]

Hmm, that's an interesting thought. I'd have to think about it some more.

The ones I give x2s to are mainly the ones that are known for having lots of the things. It's iconic for certain Robotech mecha to unleash clouds of missiles, which I figured deserved a x2 if anything did.

Hmm.

Of course, it's all largely theoretical given that I'm not sure I'll ever come into circumstances where it would see use. But it certainly does make some good points about the flexibility of the game.