My Life As A Gamer: An Open Letter To Palladium Books

Dear Palladium Books,

Recently you lost the license to Robotech. That's a shame, because the "Shadow Chronicles" edition was a far superior revision to the original line that you published beginning in the late 1980s. However, it also grants you an opportunity for a new product line; you've proven that you can make a tabletop RPG product line focused around action, romance, and giant robot combat. You did it with the first edition, repeated it with Rifts, and did it again (Macross II) and again (aforementioned second edition).

You do not need to seek another anime property to license. You can, and you should, publish an original property to fill the void that Robotech leaves in your catalog. However, to be successful with such a product line you have to comprehend what the target audience wants out of such a game and then to deliver only those things required to meet that demand. In short, it requires a degree of competency and focus that heretofore you've been lacking.

The reason is that what works for successful tabletop RPG publishing is not what works in other media, even closely-related media.

Palladium's games, without trying, have been good on the question of liminality since the beginning. This is key to a successful tabletop RPG, but to succeed at being a successful mecha game you need more than that. You need a crystal-clear reason to do anything but blow shit up in mechs; failing to answer that question is why BattleTech remains the tabletop mecha property, with Mekton, Heavy Gear, and Robotech being perennial also-rans. The corollary to this issue is the recognition that mecha fans who want mecha RPGs aren't the cohort into the relationship porn; they're in it for the mechajock fantasy, with anything else being a sideline.

Note that BattleTech is a wargame, with its TRPG being a sideline to its primary product line. Note that Mekton is not considered a complete product without the full construction system. Note that Heavy Gear and Jovian Chronicles are treated also as wargames first, with TRPG stuff as a sideline good for forum bullshit. In short, you're going to have to change your thinking about how to do this if you want to succeed, especially since you're competing with videogames and they do all-action all-the-time better than ANY tabletop alternative.

(Aside: This question is settled now, conclusively. You need a product that appeals to the only cohort that would care--wannabee pilots--and then give them a reason to get out of the cockpit. Yes, the only cohort; shippers write fanfic or watch/read the material and have no interest in a TRPG, something you should have figured out 30 years on from the original publication of Robotech as a RPG.)

Your game is going to be a wargame at its core. Your difficulty is devising reliable and repeatable reasons to get out of the cockpit. You can't rely on Muh Feels because the core audience couldn't care less about that. That means you have to give them operational reasons to get out, and that means completing a mission will require doing that. It's either that, or you embrace Troupe-style play and let the same players play both pilots and non-mecha operatives in a system of play that switches between the two.

You have already published a scenario that allows for this: the Invid occupation of Earth. There are other existing anime with a similar playable premise, such as Fang of the Sun Dougram, because "Partisans vs. Occupiers" is a TRPG-friendly scenario that makes best use of the liminality of the TRPG medium while retaining the tight focus on external action that wargaming does. Review those titles, collect what is common between them, remove any reliance on relationship porn and build your game around that.

Good luck. You're going to need it.

Sincerely,

Bradford C. Walker