About Robotech - A Macross Saga RPG

Robotech means a lot to me. It was by far my fav cartoon show when I was a kid. I was young enough to enjoy big transforming robots, but also old enough to understand the sentimental complications that were part of the show, as well as the depth and nuances of the strange war that went on between the humans on SDF-1 and the Zents.

 Robotech - A Macross Saga RPG is a Savage Setting published by Battlefield Press in spring 2019 and one of the first settings native to Savage Worlds Adventure Edition.

So you can imagine my happiness when a Robotech setting book was announced for Savage Worlds, I couldn't believe my eyes!

For a Robotech fan, the book is simply fantastic: full of amazing art by Fransisco Etchart and detailed information about the general story and its secrets, all the characters, and of course all the human and Zent vehicles, spacecrafts and mechs. 

The book met and exceeded my expectations, except for two things that I expected to find within its pages: the first was a detailed transcription of the events of the original show, episode by episode (which can be found in the other Robotech RPG... no, not the Palladium one, the one by Strange Machine Games), and the second was a dedicated system to run space battles, something deeper than Mass Battle rules, but lighter than the standard Chase rules of Savage Worlds Adventure Edition.

A few months after its release, I had the honor and pleasure of translating it for the Italian edition,  as well as running it here and there at several cons and events!

While translating it, I also prepped a scenario for those con games: the player characters were a squad of Veritech pilots (OF COURSE), chosen by Roy Fokker himself to perform an acrobatic show with their VFs during the celebrations for the SDF-1's first flight... If you know the show, you can figure how it continues! The scenario included

• A Quick Encounter scene with the pilots describing their acrobatic maneuvers in the sky above Macross Island
• A Dogfight against a dozen of enemy spacecrafts and mechs as the Zent fleet attacks the SDF-1
• An optional Interlude, ensuing when the SDF-1 folds into space along with part of the island, and pilots are temporarily stranded and floating into space
• A Dramatic Task to rescue the civilians within the island shelters, which must be taken onboard the SDF-1
• A final confrontation with a stranded Zent Ace emerging from the ruins of Macross city.
• An epilogue on the SDF-1 where the surviving pilots are informed of what is truly going on and where they are!

I think I've run this scenario about six or seven times, with little variations here and there, and it was always a lot of fun! It worked well with players who knew the story, because it was from a different angle than the protagonists of the show, and it worked just as well with players who just knew we were going to play a game with transforming mechs, because really I only had to explain very little of the setting before starting the game.

I must say I always played this scenario with the Aces High rules for the dogfight: after all, that's what I had designed it for!