Last year when one of our GMs was ready to a break from his Mutants & Masterminds 3e campaign, our group planned on several other games in various systems, mostly one-shots and short campaigns. One of those was Renegade Games’ Transformers RPG. (I’ll call it TFRPG here.) Note that I, alas, don’t have my own copy of the TFRPG, so I can’t tell you anything about how the book’s contents, how it is organized, if it is of good quality paper and binding, or deep-dive into the mechanics.
The TFRPG uses Renegade’s Essence20 system. A character’s skill levels are represented not with numbers, as in many systems I’ve played but by polyhedral dice (d2 to d12). The more faces the die has, the better the PC is with that skill. The core mechanic is still everyone’s old friend (or frenemy, depending on your dice/dicebot luck) the d20. Roll 1d20 plus the skill die and if the total exceeds the difficulty you succeed. If you have a Specialization in a skill you also roll all the dice below and add the highest result to the d20. My (pregen) Autobot Scamper has both Might d4 and Repair d4, but is Specialized in Repair. So for Might checks I roll d20 and d4, but for Repair I roll d20, d2, and d4.
There are critical fails and successes, rolling a 1 or the highest number for the die type, respectively, except the d2. Several other mechanics (Story and Energon Points, Edges, Snags) are used but this covers the very basics. It took me a few sessions to get used to it but this is common when I encounter a new system. Of far more importance than the mechanics, at least to me, is how well did the game capture the feel of the source material and how much fun it was.
Unlike others in the group, I had very limited familiarity with the franchise. I never saw the cartoons, as I was already in college when they came out. Of the two or three movies I saw, I only really enjoyed Bumblebee. But “My friends want to” and “I love Bumblebee!” were good enough reasons to say yes. Since TFRPG is mostly based on the older animated shows, I watched some of them ahead of time to prepare.
The game sessions really did remind me of the episodes I watched on YouTube. Our Autobots first helped and then were helped by some humans, a trope I recognized from the first story arc on the 1984 show. Recalling that our GM mentioned his Autobot’s holographic avatar in a game he’d played in, I asked if we had them and the answer was yes, so we described them. Since Scamper was the repair/medic/energon battery PC, and I remembered my friends mentioning there were rare “female-presenting” Cybertronians, I described her avatar as a nurse wearing scrubs decorated with race cars.
Which brings me to two things the GM did to not just make it feel more like Transformers but also make it more fun for all of us, regardless of our Transformer familiarity. The first was, that – like he always does when making pregens for this group – he made PCs that were somewhat tailored to our playstyles and character preferences. Hence, Scamper the Medic since I do like that role in many games. For my part, I made Scamper my own, interacting enthusiastically not just with my team but eagerly admiring and working with more-skilled NPC Autobot Tech types. And joining in the banter:
Friend’s damaged Autobot: Is this [repair] gonna hurt?
Scamper: Yes, it’ll hurt! You took that Decepticon badge I wanted for a trophy.
Friend’s damaged Autobot: …Alright, you can have it.
Our GM also used as NPCs a number of Autobots and Decepticons from the TV series. All of us I think saw favorite Autobots show up. I loved that my Bumblebee was one of them. In one or two cases he reskinned Decepticons in the adventure for those characters. I gather some of those TV baddies were in the core book but their official stats were not suitable opponents for starting PCs. (I got a big laugh from the group when I described Slipstream as “a Decepticon Karen!”)
Another thing of interest to me was that the game can be combined with other Renegade Games RPGs. Renegade Games also publishes the GI Joe and Power Rangers RPGs, also using the Essence20 system, and our GM told us about playing in a game that had both Autobot and Joe PCs. (A 3 way crossover is also possible.) I would love to play in a TF/GI Joe game. And I swear it’s NOT just because one of the other players told me, “Lin, you can have an Animal Companion in GI Joe.” Although that is another reason for me to play either a crossover or just GI Joe.
If you enjoyed the Transformer shows or movies, I think you’ll like the TFRPG. Or if you’re into Power Rangers or GI Joe, give those a try next time your groups wants to try something new. The core books range from US$40-55, depending on the store/website.
Linda Whitson
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