BRP Mecha is coming!

[RosenMcStern]

Okay, let us face it. You started to believe it would never happen.

You were wrong.

It is coming...

[Cover may be subject to slight changes before publication... but you got the idea, right?]

[Erasmus1966]

That's a nice cover

Looking forward to seeing the completed item

[Atgxtg]

Pretty cover! Don't suppose BRP Anime is in the works.

P.S. Rosen, you inbox is full.

[RosenMcStern]

And what would you include in BRP Anime? How can one make a ruleset that is comprehensive enough to include Shojo and Shonen, Dragon Ball and Ogon Bat and Tiger Mask, and still be consistent? Even Mecha is in in fact two games in one.

Inbox cleared.

[seneschal]

Power Armor Princesses vs. Vampire Ninjas in the Valley of the Winds, featuring retro-airship combat and cameos by Totoro, Astroboy and Gigantor, naturally! Combatants chauffeured to the battlefield by members of the Racer family. Chinese ghost stories to follow in the wake of the carnage.

[Atgxtg]

And what would you include in BRP Anime? How can one make a ruleset that is comprehensive enough to include Shojo and Shonen, Dragon Ball and Ogon Bat and Tiger Mask, and still be consistent? Even Mecha is in in fact two games in one.

That's true with any generic setting. Sci Fi, Fantasy, you name it. About the best one could do would be to put together some general rules and then tweak them to fit a particular setting.

Inbox cleared.

Clutter on it's way.

[trechriron]

I'm looking forward to checking out the construction rules within. This looks awesome. Mecha + Dragon Lines... hmmm...

[Atgxtg]

How soon? Can we get a time frame? Days, Weeks, Months? Real world time or Chaosium time ?

[RosenMcStern]

Technically, February. But all Chronicle City products are a little bit delayed, so I suggest to wait until Angus confirms the official date.

As for project status, I am waiting for the latest blindtest report to come in this evening (but I know in advance the notes are positive) and then I must make a final pass to incorporate playtest feedback and another couple details that came from our recent discussions about scale etc. And maybe a second scenario featuring a Force Five type squad. A robotech-like scenario is already included in the manuscript.

Once this is done, the book goes to Charles for the final editing. The layout guy is already working on the templates. He has done several Gundam DVD booklets, so the style will be rather in line with the genre. The print file should reach Chronicle City before Christmas. Hope this is enough to keep your hope alive.

Especially because I also have "The Zone" to finish, and TWO new manuscripts to revise and translate waiting in my inbox

[Atgxtg]

Feburary? That's forever!

More seriously, since it is 3 months away, I might as well as a question or two about it.

What method do you use to design the mecha. Not details just the general theory. Do you just do a generic point cost, or does the SIZ of the mecha play a role in determining how much stuff you can fit into the thing? Could you squeeze the weapons, engines and other systems from the Yamato into a Valkyrie if you have the "mecha points" or would you run out of room?

[RosenMcStern]

Point buy? What point buy? Why should you point buy your Mecha? This is BRP, not GURPS or Battletech. In BRP, you just determine what is good for your game, and f... balance and point buy.

Furthermore, some superobots have final weapons that are almost as effective as the Yamato's weaponry (Getteeeer... SHINE!). So yes, you can squeeze anything into a mecha, if it fits the anime you are emulating.

[seneschal]

Heh, but once you finish rolling those six random stats, you have to deal with 250 skill points, a variable number of personal skill points, plus whatever points you have to buy super powers or magic spells with. So, yes, BRP is as much a point-buy game as Hero System, despite denials to the contrary. The balanced characters issue is merely a red herring. Sorry. Derived stats, point-buy skills and powers, DEX ranks, it is all there, just like in Champions.

[Atgxtg]

Yeah it there. But with PCs is sort of a character creation issue while equipment is a bit different. So I don't mind and open system for mecha. It makes it easier to emulate a specific setting.

And after seeing the main gun from Macorss I don't sweat the Yamato's Undulation Cannon.

[seneschal]

"And after seeing the main gun from Macross, I don't sweat the Yamato's Undulation Cannon."

Since either weapon makes the Death Star look like a Derringer, such a duel would be sort of like a confrontation between two Old West gunslingers. Barring targeting system failure, whichever side managed to ready and shoot its main gun first would win. Of course, cranking up that amount of energy takes a while ...

"Fire the Wave Motion Gun!"

"Yessir. It'll be ready in about ... oh, 20 minutes or so."

"Sigh. I'll just hit the men's room, grab a cup of coffee from the officer's mess, and come back."

Obviously, those combat scenes were edited a bit for television.

Edited November 16, 2012 by seneschal

[RosenMcStern]

Tsk-tsk, the Wave Motion Gun can be fired with a warning of one minute or so. See episode 11 or 12 of the original series, I cannot remember which exactly of the two: Okita tells Kodai to shoot a sunflare coming from a nearby star, and Kodai has but a few seconds to comply or become a Starburger rather than a Starblazer.

For those not knowledgeable of the Matsumotoverse, we are speaking of THIS WEAPON (image from the live action movie).

[Atgxtg]

"And after seeing the main gun from Macross, I don't sweat the Yamato's Undulation Cannon."

Since either weapon makes the Death Star look like a Derringer, such a duel would be sort of like a confrontation between two Old West gunslingers. Barring targeting system failure, whichever side managed to ready and shoot its main gun first would win. Of course, cranking up that amount of energy takes a while ...

Advantage Macross. It has better range and a faster reload time. At least until the fold system makes some parts disappear.

[i

"Fire the Wave Motion Gun!"

"Yessir. It'll be ready in about ... oh, 20 minutes or so."

"Sigh. I'll just hit the men's room, grab a cup of coffee from the officer's mess, and come back."

As opposed to:

"What the... THe MAin Cannon's comming on line!"

"Stop it"

KR-BLAAAAAAMM!

"All systems back on line."

"Uh, we just took out part of the island."

Much faster. Although you don't find out about the alien ships you you just blasted out of lunar orbit for the next five minutes.

[i

Obviously, those combat scenes were edited a bit for television.

Yes, mostly the end of WWII anit-American stuff that wouldn't have gone over well in the States.

[seneschal]

"Yes, mostly the end of WWII anit-American stuff that wouldn't have gone over well in the States."

They started it. We finished it. No apologies.

Besides, with manga, anime, electronic games, and Hello Kitty, they've succeeded in taking over the world, after all.

[RosenMcStern]

No political stuff please.

Thank you.

[seneschal]

For me, one of the most impressive moment in Starblazers was an early episode where the Gamalons are bombing the dessicated surface of Earth in what used to be the Pacific Ocean near the rusted, nearly unrecognizable hulk of a ship. Suddenly, the ship's gun turrets swivel as thick inches of ocean crud flake off -- to reveal fresh paint (???). The bombers are blasted into tinfoil, then the entire hulk levitates, rust and corrosion falling away in a virtual rain of dust, to reveal the shiny new Yamato (Argo in the American version) reborn. Hey, waitaminute! Where'd those tail fins come from?

[Atgxtg]

"Yes, mostly the end of WWII anit-American stuff that wouldn't have gone over well in the States."

They started it. We finished it. No apologies.

You missed my point. And it has nothing to do with who did what to whom during a war. In the original Yamot series, there were scenes showing the sinking of the BAttleship Yamato at the end of WWII and some combat scences. These were excised in the Starblazers version, supposedly becase it would not have gone over well in the US, since the US was the enemy during WWII.

Starblazers was fairly heavily chopped anyway. Butchered. It's amazing how much footage they reused to keep dead characters going in the series. THe idea that major supporting characters could get killed in war was not acceptable in a show aimed at kids on US TV.

Knox did not get out right behind you.

[Guest Vile Traveller]

Starblazers was fairly heavily chopped anyway. Butchered. It's amazing how much footage they reused to keep dead characters going in the series. THe idea that major supporting characters could get killed in war was not acceptable in a show aimed at kids on US TV.

IIRC one character died but then, wait! It was just a clone! And after one huge battle when the decks were strewn with the bodies of dead Yamato crew, the dub had lots of moaning and groaning and "oooh my head ...". The funniest thing was watching them get regularly plastered on "spring water" (especially the doc) ...

Most "babyfied" anime suffered from the treatment (e.g. Gatchaman), but Starblazers was so overdone it was actually funny (although "Argo" instead of "Yamato" was terrible. They should have gone with "Bismarck"). In this day and age I try to stick to the original Japanese releases with fansubs, myself.

[Atgxtg]

Yes, it ironic that the series that probably did the most as far as making Anime "mainsteam" and popular in the US, was also one of the most infamous as far as being edited, and chopped to shreds goes.

And that spring water thing had me wondering what the big deal was when I was a kid. It's just a glass or water. And it couldn't have been as rare or as special as they made out on the series,m since they were cracking open a bottle every five minutes. The Captain mist have stored away more bottles on the ship than two years of Perrier's total output. Instead of kids thinking that these people were lushes, we though they had a water fetish.

I think Starblazers was so overdone becuase it was successful in the US, so they had to keep recycling it, and edit more and more stuff. When they kill of a major character towards the end of the first series, it was easy to cover for it until the end. But when they went on to do the second series they had to find a way to keep the guy around for an entire season using stock footage. And as more and more characters died off it got sillier and sillier. I found out about the Knox thing when I was still a kid and they were still doing the US TV show. LAter on, I found out about just how much got cut.

[SDLeary]

Yes, it ironic that the series that probably did the most as far as making Anime "mainsteam" and popular in the US, was also one of the most infamous as far as being edited, and chopped to shreds goes.

And that spring water thing had me wondering what the big deal was when I was a kid. It's just a glass or water. And it couldn't have been as rare or as special as they made out on the series,m since they were cracking open a bottle every five minutes. The Captain mist have stored away more bottles on the ship than two years of Perrier's total output. Instead of kids thinking that these people were lushes, we though they had a water fetish.

I think Starblazers was so overdone becuase it was successful in the US, so they had to keep recycling it, and edit more and more stuff. When they kill of a major character towards the end of the first series, it was easy to cover for it until the end. But when they went on to do the second series they had to find a way to keep the guy around for an entire season using stock footage. And as more and more characters died off it got sillier and sillier. I found out about the Knox thing when I was still a kid and they were still doing the US TV show. LAter on, I found out about just how much got cut.

Odd. I saw the first run here in SF in 79, and certainly remember death and dismemberment, etc. I don't remember dead characters returning, though that may have been in later runs... kids censorship became much more an issue in the 80s.

In fact, even in the first run of Macross (yes as Robotech) they hadn't completed the editing yet, and when the SDF-1 changed, you'd see body parts flying as people got sliced up by shifting bulkheads, or during battle explosions. When I saw this run later, it was obvious that stuff had been airbrushed out.

Been years... I should track some episodes down and watch. OH! Has anyone heard ANYTHING about the recent live-action Battleship Yamato being dubbed into english? I would LOVE to see that.

SDLeary

[RosenMcStern]

Hey, you are getting political again. This time by criticising the censorship in Western TV versions

Jokes aside, I appreciate the general rejection of this stupid censorship policy. Kids are smarter than adults think. We did not suffer from these cuts in Italy (except for Yamato and, which arrived from the Stats as Starblazers and not from Japan), as these shows were mostly broadcast by minor tv networks which did not care much about this subject. Later versions were cut when our Big Brother Network started airing them, but most animes were circulating in uncut versions until the end of the 80s.

One of the goals of BRP Mecha is that of allowing players to recreate stories "as in the anime". This implies a taste and flavour that is somehow different from an equivalent Western series. Seeing that the general audience in the States can discern and appreciate the difference is encouraging.

As for the Yamato real life movie... why dub it? I have seen a subtitled version, and it was great. I have started to appreciate subtitles over dubbing lately. Japanese audio is part of the fun. I tried to show some subtitled anime to my daughter (10 at the time) when we were travelling back from Eternal Convention last year, and she had no trouble at all watching them. It was unexpected, but she really loved them, and had no trouble following the story at all.

[RosenMcStern]

So, I have just finished the second adventure included, word count is way over 60k and the last blindtest report has just come back with positive comments. I will now take one more week to include feedback received, clarify the mecha build process a little bit (sorry, no point buy will be added) and smooth other things out. Then the manuscript goes to Charles for editing and we start commissioning the interior illustrations.

Many thanks to those who commented and contributed. If you were somehow involved in the project, do not forget to send me your (and your players) real name for inclusion in the credits.

And now.... BRP Mecha... HASHIN!!!