I like the Essence20 system and there is a gem of game design in the core system but it's marred by a few things...

It's forced into a class and level structure when it probably would be better as a point buy character build system and instead of gaining levels it had a point cost for different abilities.

It has no character Advancement rules in any of the 3 games. Like nothing. It doesn't say to use story, or milestone, and certainly no XP. Just not mentioned. No advice on building higher level characters.

No GM chapter. No tools for building encounters. No tools for making your own threats. No adventure building. No structure. It does have a lot of pre-built threats to pick from though.

Characters start at level 1, but majority of pre-built threats are way over level 1.

It's too shoehorned into the class and level structure due to the licensing from Hasbro.

The actual dice system is really cool. Each has some nice gear customization tools. The character creation system is versatile and is varied enough between the 3 games that they do seem to fit the universes in question.

I just think what they made is a better fit for a XP character build game where everything after character creation costs XP to advance instead of leveling up.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll on November 13, 2022, 11:34:48 AM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on November 11, 2022, 04:20:15 PM
I got the Transformers RPG last night. Is anyone interested in a first reactions, and maybe a review post?

A YouTube vid.

I don't think I'd be very good at making a youtube video review.

Quote from: RebelSky on November 13, 2022, 04:43:13 PM
I like the Essence20 system and there is a gem of game design in the core system but it's marred by a few things...

It's forced into a class and level structure when it probably would be better as a point buy character build system and instead of gaining levels it had a point cost for different abilities.

It has no character Advancement rules in any of the 3 games. Like nothing. It doesn't say to use story, or milestone, and certainly no XP. Just not mentioned. No advice on building higher level characters.

No GM chapter. No tools for building encounters. No tools for making your own threats. No adventure building. No structure. It does have a lot of pre-built threats to pick from though.

Characters start at level 1, but majority of pre-built threats are way over level 1.

It's too shoehorned into the class and level structure due to the licensing from Hasbro.

The actual dice system is really cool. Each has some nice gear customization tools. The character creation system is versatile and is varied enough between the 3 games that they do seem to fit the universes in question.

I just think what they made is a better fit for a XP character build game where everything after character creation costs XP to advance instead of leveling up.

Yeah, I've been holding off on some comments since I haven't scoured the book cover to cover, but there does not seem to be any system or even guidelines on how to level up in a level based system.

Quote from: Thondor on November 12, 2022, 10:55:43 PM
Wow . . . this sounds painful from your description.

I'd much rather play the free fan RPG that James Kerr made for Transformers years ago -- you could actually use the stats that they used to put on the back of the toys with it. James posts here sometimes as Panjumanju.

I, too,would prefer using the real tech-specs (G1).  I made a prototype for a Transformers CCG, and I used the characters' real stats.  I someday must revise that game and play it for my own amusement.

Reading through the book is an adventure. Things in other Essence20 books are not in the same place as this one.

It was blind luck that I found the section on playing characters above 1st level last night.

The Essence20 books really need a good index.

I dowloaded the free PDF of pregen characters from Renegade's website. A bunch of named Autobots like Jazz and Arcee and Bumblebee.
All the characters have the expected health of a starting character. this cements my opinion that the named Decepticons are meant to be solo bosses, with their 10+ health.

I see that this, as well as the GI Joe and Power Rangers games, have a spot on the character sheet for pronouns.  Is that the extent of it or are there any other signs of wokeness in the book?  I'm mostly interested in the GI Joe game. If that's as far as that shit goes it's fine, but that is a big warning sign these days.

Quote from: rgalex on November 14, 2022, 07:48:14 AM
I see that this, as well as the GI Joe and Power Rangers games, have a spot on the character sheet for pronouns.  Is that the extent of it or are there any other signs of wokeness in the book?  I'm mostly interested in the GI Joe game. If that's as far as that shit goes it's fine, but that is a big warning sign these days.

PRONOUNS:BAH!!!

In the comic universe, Transformers don't even have genders, because they're robots.
In the expanded cartoon universe (fan comic Dojinshi #2, set in the cartoon universe), there are genders (exactly 2, like humans) because non-first gen TFs have half a key to Vector Sigma, and both half-keys are required to make new TF life.

It varies. There's a wiki page about female transformers: https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Female_Transformer

Earthspark just introduced Nightshade, a non-binary transformer.

Quote from: Cathode Ray on November 14, 2022, 08:32:49 AM
In the comic universe, Transformers don't even have genders, because they're robots.

There are a bunch of timelines, and there's been varying (or no) justification given for the presence, absence, or rarity of, "female" transformers.  In some timelines transformers have something akin to sexual reproduction, in others they do not.  In the most popular and long lasting recent timeline, basically one of the original ancient transformers was "female", and since every transformer kind of "comes from" one of those, then you end up with some that are "female" in that same proportion.  This was a reasonable explanation that didn't push any politics and tried to adeptly handle the rarity and the existence.  That same company later would go on to reboot everything a couple years ago, in the most recent and hated timeline, they did all manner of gender crap.  This timeline has been shitcanned (probably not for that reason) when IDW lost the license.  Here they actually went through the effort of having "male" and "female" as an aspect of the spark, specifically so that Arcee could have been "born a male" and then transed over to female, complete with body reconstruction.  That, of course, is totally absurd- even if you believe that people can be "born in the wrong body" or whatever, it seems pretty ludicrous to assume that it is a top narrative priority to move this idea over to fictional toy robots that come out of energy souls or something.

Anyway, even if you are playing in that defunct timeline, you still wouldn't end up with "pronouns" being how to represent that- you would have sex or gender (ironically, this being the only time out of all their games where "gender" might be appropriate).  This is entirely an issue with Renegade, and is present in all their products.

The people working on transformers patterned them after human men in terms of facial structure and voice, then added female characters later and gave them human-like relationships. None of this made sense. Why do transformers neatly conform to the physical profiles that what we associate with men and women? I know it's because humans can't help but imagine non-humans as being exactly like humans even though it makes no sense, but in this case they set themselves up to be caught in the gender craze.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on November 14, 2022, 04:16:31 PM
...in this case they set themselves up to be caught in the gender craze.

I mean, yes and no.  Remember, many of the movers and shakers in this were actually lefty types even in the 80s, but they couldn't get away with much yet.  So to some degree, yes, certainly- there was no reason to have the robots ever seem like they had anything analogous to a human sex.
...but once they did, they definitely didn't need to have anything analogous to sexual relationships (brought about as near as I can tell specifically so that they could introduce a homosexual relationship), or to have the idea that the body you were fated to have was the "wrong gender" and you needed to be a trans²former.  Nothing in the idea of "lets make a pink one to see if girls buy the toys too" equates to any of that.

Anyway, while "pronouns" is definitely the stupidest and most offensive piece of that character sheet, a close second has gotta be "animal handling".  This is a race of million year old robots, and like a good chunk of their potential "social" powers is how to ride a horse or whatever?  That has to be totally ridiculous.  I'd expect something to the effect of diplomacy with non-cybertronians would be the order of the day there- that would also help you if you were gonna run these Autobots anywhere but Earth, given that their universe is full of various robotic and non-robotic life.

Also, my impression is that you want to specialize in whatever gun you actually plan on using.  Unless I'm reading it wrong (and I could be), this lets you roll a pile of dice and take the highest, on every single to-hit roll using your chosen weapon.  If that's legal, then wouldn't everyone do it?  It's actually one of my pet peeves with skill-based games (which this kind of is) that level based games usually pass on.  Is it cheesy to specialize in your blaster pistol or whatever?  If you were like a factory worker on cybertron or something suitably autobotty?  I feel it is not, it's like one single pip of speed point or whatever for a huge boost to-hit, wouldn't you be doing that basically at level 1, or did I miss a rule blocking that?

Quote from: rgalex on November 14, 2022, 07:48:14 AM
I see that this, as well as the GI Joe and Power Rangers games, have a spot on the character sheet for pronouns.  Is that the extent of it or are there any other signs of wokeness in the book?  I'm mostly interested in the GI Joe game. If that's as far as that shit goes it's fine, but that is a big warning sign these days.

Can't speak to the GI Joe game, but the pronouns spot on the character sheet is all the identity politics I've seen in the TF game so far.

Quote from: Cathode Ray on November 14, 2022, 08:32:49 AM

Quote from: rgalex on November 14, 2022, 07:48:14 AM
I see that this, as well as the GI Joe and Power Rangers games, have a spot on the character sheet for pronouns.  Is that the extent of it or are there any other signs of wokeness in the book?  I'm mostly interested in the GI Joe game. If that's as far as that shit goes it's fine, but that is a big warning sign these days.

PRONOUNS:BAH!!!

In the comic universe, Transformers don't even have genders, because they're robots.

Robots that evolved though natural selection.




Until they retconned it into a divine origin by the Transformer God Primus. Hallelujah! Amen.



If  Transformers "evolved" this implies some kind of self replication analagous to organic beings. If they were created by Robot God, then he could make them male and female as he sees fit.

In either (and more) cases, Transformers definitley present as gendered.

Quote from: Venka on November 14, 2022, 04:30:25 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on November 14, 2022, 04:16:31 PM
...in this case they set themselves up to be caught in the gender craze.

I mean, yes and no.  Remember, many of the movers and shakers in this were actually lefty types even in the 80s, but they couldn't get away with much yet.  So to some degree, yes, certainly- there was no reason to have the robots ever seem like they had anything analogous to a human sex.
...but once they did, they definitely didn't need to have anything analogous to sexual relationships (brought about as near as I can tell specifically so that they could introduce a homosexual relationship), or to have the idea that the body you were fated to have was the "wrong gender" and you needed to be a trans²former.  Nothing in the idea of "lets make a pink one to see if girls buy the toys too" equates to any of that.

Anyway, while "pronouns" is definitely the stupidest and most offensive piece of that character sheet, a close second has gotta be "animal handling".  This is a race of million year old robots, and like a good chunk of their potential "social" powers is how to ride a horse or whatever?  That has to be totally ridiculous.  I'd expect something to the effect of diplomacy with non-cybertronians would be the order of the day there- that would also help you if you were gonna run these Autobots anywhere but Earth, given that their universe is full of various robotic and non-robotic life.

Also, my impression is that you want to specialize in whatever gun you actually plan on using.  Unless I'm reading it wrong (and I could be), this lets you roll a pile of dice and take the highest, on every single to-hit roll using your chosen weapon.  If that's legal, then wouldn't everyone do it?  It's actually one of my pet peeves with skill-based games (which this kind of is) that level based games usually pass on.  Is it cheesy to specialize in your blaster pistol or whatever?  If you were like a factory worker on cybertron or something suitably autobotty?  I feel it is not, it's like one single pip of speed point or whatever for a huge boost to-hit, wouldn't you be doing that basically at level 1, or did I miss a rule blocking that?

Worse, if you roll maximum on any of those skill dice, except the D2, your roll is a critical. That gives a character with two pips in any skill, or any character rolling a specialized skill with two or more pips, a 25% chance to crit.