Kevin Siembieda Calls Me "A Nasty Critic/Hater, Spreading Lies"; My Head Explodes

UPDATE: Kevin Siembieda has apologized; you can read his apology in the comments section. Thank you, Kevin.

In my recent Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles Review & First Impressions, I basically said the book looks good, the new art looks good, the rules have some welcome tweaks on one hand but don’t come close to genre emulation on the other, briefly discuss the “G.I. Joe rule change” and conclude by saying that the source book is still "the best you will have in North America as far as source material goes".

So, apparently there’s this clownboat that has a hate-on for me—he’s sniped at me before in stupid little forum posts over the years—and decides to “report” the post to Palladium—apparently trying to say that my quoting from the rule book verbatim in one paragraph is tantamount to reprinting large chunks of Palladium intellectual property. Blah blah blah fair-use-cakes, right?

So then I get a forwarded e-mail from said online loser entitled “Suck It, Hater!”. And that email contains a forwarded message to said clownboat from Kevin Siembieda himself! Here it is, in all its glory:

“Thanks for alerting us to this website. From what I could tell, he's a nasty critic/hater who is slamming us and tearing about the product, but I didn't see him using or reprinting our rules, stats, etc. Did I miss something.

Can't really do anything about jerks spreading lies and flaming Palladium and its products. Try not to let guys like this get to you.

Thanks again for the heads up. I appreciate your support.”

Wow.

So, apparently because I wrote a review of a product that said I liked some parts of it, but not other parts, the CEO OF PALLADIUM says I am a nasty critic/hater. And a liar.

Never mind that one of my roommates is a Megaversal Ambassador, that I practically drool with anticipation when our GM decides to run a Heroes Unlimited game, or that that I’ve played in a little over half a dozen RIFTS games run by fellow RPGX.org member Wraith. Who knew that all this time, I was actually a Palladium hater?

Can you imagine the CEO of any other company acting like this?

E-mails sent to staff last week asking for a comment were not returned.

RPGX at A-Kon 2008 in Dallas This Weekend

Just a reminder—you can meet members of the RPGX crew at the A-Kon anime convention in Dallas from May 31 to June 1st.

I’ll be wandering the convention on Saturday and Sunday in-between interviewing people, or setting up interviews, or taking notes at a panel. I’ll be waering a plain-white T shirt with the RPGX logo on the front.

Fellow RPGX member (and former roomie) Wraith should be haunting the tabletop gaming area and should be playing in two Palladium Robotech games run by an area Megaversal Ambassador.

My wife is returning to the Dealer’s Room, once again running her Green Dragon Candles ‘n’ More booth, selling scented candles & incense .

Other RPGXers, check in! Any other site fans, are you going to be there? Maybe we could organize some sort of meetup?

First Impressions: Palladium's Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles RPG Sourcebook

I finally managed to get my hands on a copy of Palladium's new RPG source book for the Robotech setting: Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles. Here are my first impressions of the book, based on a few read-throughs and comparison with the previous Palladium Robotech books.

The Villians

While this source book is billed as "The Shadow Chronicles", the content seems heavier on the New Generation Secondary continuity, and lighter on many aspects of The Shadow Chronicles. Of 333 total pages, the main villains of Shadow Chronicles (the Haydenites) garner a rather anemic 6 pages of information. Important statistics for the Haydonites themselves are not given in the sourcebook at all (which means you're going to have to house-rule combat involving the main villains). The 'mech stats are there, but the book provides no numbers on to strike bonuses, number of attacks per melee, etc.

The Artwork

The color cover is gorgeous, and I love the new art for this edition. The style and linework fit this edition perfectly. What is a little disappointing, however, is seeing some recycled artwork that has appeared in other Robotech sourcebooks, going back two decades. What's particularly galling is seeing recycled artwork from other Palladium source books that aren't even Robotech books. Seriously, Kevin, how many times do we fans have to see the same RIFTS Coalition States martial arts instructor? Couldn't you have drawn up an REF instructor kung-fu just this once?

Book Organization

Most of the book is poorly organized,unfortunaly. Not all the character rules are gathered in one place. There is no index in the back of the book, which could have also reduced flipping back and forth. There does not appear to be any ship combat rules, either-- when there are signifgant portions of the movie this is based on that feature ship combat, this is a rather glaring omission. From the press releases released by Palladium before the book's release, players were going to were going to see the stats on the spaceships, and I was looking forward to seeing what the Icarus could do.

Additionally, the Invid section is mostly a word for word reprint of the original Invid Invasion sourcebook content.

Character Creation

Much appreciated is the decision to place the character sheets in the middle of the book, which makes for easy photocopying. The character creation process has also been tweaked. The MOS (Military Operational Specialty) system in Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles adds some
flexibility to the Occupational Character Class (OCC) system. In the original release of the Robotech game, making a unified squadron or unit meant everyone was pretty much the same, with little to no variation between characters since there was really just one practical OCC: Veritech Pilot. Now players can select an OCC (Vertich Pilot) and each player can select a different MOS (Alpha pilot, Beta pilot, or Recon). Another nice touch: the book has some easy to use template characters that makes pre-gen quick and easy.

The Rules

As a whole, while the game is based on the Robotech anime, the combat system doesn't feel true to its source at all. There are still no concessions by the Palladium combat system to emulate the rules of the Robotech universe. For example, there are no one shot kill attacks, except for missile volleys missile volleys. Volleys of 4 or more missiles cannot be dodged at all, which is counter to nearly every Robotech anime, ever. Hitting Invid Eyes has been made nearly impossible (it now counts as an aimed shot with -11 to strike) and not worth the effort to attempt. While the MDC (Mega-Damage Capacity) of enemy 'mechs have been increased, the damage the good guy's weapons do has not. Unless the Invid in powered armor is an important NPC, it should not take a group half an hour to destroy it.

Conversely, The Robotech source book has an interesting way of handling Palladium's MDC rule, that while not quite in the spirit of Robotech, is at least a little closer to G.I. Joe:

The last M.D.C. of any armor, be it a body suit, mecha, or vehicle, absorbs all the damage from the final blast that reduces it to zero or below, saving the character inside. This is the case even if there are only a couple of M.D.C. points left and the attack inflicts M.D. x10 or greater.

For example, if a bandit is standing there with 10 M.D.C. left on his armor, and someone strikes him with a volley of 60 missiles from an Alpha mech doing, say, 3000 MDC... the bandit only loses his armor and is now standing on the battlefield naked and unharmed.

While this sourcebook may be a tad lacking as a Shadow Chronicles RPG sim, it is small, portable, and has some welcome tweaks from the first Robotech sytem that make character generation easier and more fun. If you decide not to use the Palladium Rules system, this book still is the best you will have in North America as far as source material goes, should you decide to convert to another system.

You can buy Palladium's Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles right here.

Reminder For Those Robotech Fans NOT In The USA or Canada

From Kevin S himself, on the Palladium Message boards:

Please Note: We’ve forgotten to remind people in our last few Press Releases that, currently, Palladium can only sell the RPG in the USA and Canada. I know that must disappoint a great many of our friends and fans overseas. Each additional country costs an additional licensing fee (and a substantial one at that), so it just wasn’t cost effective for us to add even places like England, France, Germany and Australia. That may change in the future, depending on how many books our distributors in those countries think they can sell, but for now, only the USA and Canada can get the books. I hope you understand.

So, take any Amazon release info with a grain of salt. Aside from having someone you know in the US or Canada that could buy a copy and ship it to you, any other international orders seem to be out of reach for now.

Palladium's Robotech RPG Re-Launch May Release On Time

In a recent press release from Palladium, it was announced that the Robotech RPG re-launch is almost a done deal:

"We are working hard to get the Robotech® The Shadow Chronicles® role-playing game done and to the printer by next Friday."

An since Palladium did announce a release date of February '08, this looks like it's shaping up to hit its release target! Further details include:

We estimate 70% of the artwork is ALL NEW and it looks fantastic!

Awesom-- wait, what? So is 30% of the artwork recycled?

Well, uh, um... the book's gonna look hella-cool, and the staff's pretty sure it's going to the printers by this Friday, right?

The writing is close to completion and many sections are undergoing final editing. That means we are also still shooting for an end of February release, though it could slip into the first week of March (we hope not).

Awww, Palladium, why ya gotta do this to me? Writing is close to completion? With 4 days to to hit the printers? And the release date might slip AGAIN? Of for the love of --

All the text is new, updated and brought in line with the official timeline, data, stats and info of Harmony Gold, plus additional details, info and gaming data... Stats have been adjusted to reflect the official Robotech data and satisfy a new generation of gamers.

Oh, Palladium, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, come back!

Good News, Bad News: Palladium Edition

First, the bad news.

The new Robotech RPG release date has been bumped again, with a release date set for February 2008, as announced in the Palladium Forums by Kevin S.

The good news? Palladium seems to be pretty optimistic about its future, and a recent press release teased some interesting details, like...

Downloadable adventures, source material and G.M. aids; therifter.com, and a second podcast program...

... which is very encouraging. Could we finally see Palladium making greater use of digital distribution?

Hell, be still my beating heart, might we even finally see... PDFs? E-books?

The most recent press release is here.

Palladium's New Robotech RPG: WIll It Make Its Scheduled November release?

One of the new products announced by Palladium Books (publisher of the RIFTs series) earlier this year was "Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles." The role-playing game would be released in a smal, "manga-sized" pick up where the DVD movie released by Harmony Gold begins (return of the Robotech Expeditionary Force, the separation of Rick Hunter and the SDF-3 from the rest of the fleet, etc.), and was scheduled for a November release coinciding with the release of the direct-to-DVD anime movie.

Then the release on the product page was changed to "November (tentative)".

Then, in an official press release, the release date was given as December.

As of October 30th, the Robotech RPG was categorized as being "still in development".

Dyval, the next book in line for being published before Robotech, isn't even finished.

When posters at popular tabletop gaming portal RPG.net expressed concerns that the Robotech book wouldn't cover the Macross era due to licensing restrictions, Alex Marciniszyn
(Editor for Palladium Books) said: " Your information is inaccurate. Macross era will be covered."

So, whether the new Robotech RPG will be released in November, or December... when then hell are we going to see any marketing for it, if it's going to be out in the next month or two? Why not release a table of contents, or a character sheet?

What eras of the anime will be covered? Will there be canon characters with stats? What new things will you be adding? Maybe a taste-- like stat blocks for Veritechs?

Why don't more anime news portals know about this?