This shit is o-r-a-n-g-e-s!
I have a special place in my heart for Mondays. While I loathe them, the realization that I'll have to work for the next five days doesn't really set until Wednesday evening. By which time I'll already have worked three days.
This weekend was fun, as it got up to triple-digit temperatures. In my infinite wisdom I decided it was time to cut the grass. I couldn't have picked a better day or time as the heat index reached 113 at around 2 pm. Perfect grass cutting weather! I already hate cutting the grass because my brother makes it harder to do simply because he can't buy his own gas for his car. I could knock off half an hour from the grass cutting if we could just keep a full gas can in the garage, but we can't because Steve has to dump it all in his car. Now everytime I want to cut the grass it takes me 30 more minutes of hunting down a gas station that isn't full of people. After an hour of cutting I almost died twice, proving yard work is a hazardous risk that all homeowners take.
I also saw a movie or two, and read a book, want to hear about them? No? WHY ARE YOU SO MEAN TO ME?!?
I love reading sourcebooks for RPGs even if its not a game I play because, hey, good ideas can be anywhere. This week I happened across a motherload of RIFTS books, with a few Robotech ones thrown in. While the RIFTS setting defines the term "cluster fuck", there was a particular Robotech book that caught my eye and taught me to love again. Lancer's Rockers. Without going into some long winded explanation of giant robots and horrible songs that made an alien menace our friends, Lancer's Rockers offered some of the dumbest ideas ever printed, bound, and sold to the general public. Humanity could never get itself into enough interplanetary wars with folks in the Robotech series. Zentraedi, the Robotech Masters, the Invid. Maybe even the Noid from the old Dominos commercials, I don't know. But what was the one thing that was always with humans through out all these tragedies? Transformable airplanes? Yes, but even more important were unbearable songs belted out by the likes of Minmei and Yellow Dancer. While Minmei may have given us "Stage Fright", Yellow Dancer gave kids their first look at cross dressing recording artists in war torn worlds who also piloted robotic motorcycles.
Just the kind of thing we can all relate to. I think. Lancer's Rockers offers a fleshed out adventure concerning the ruins of old Detroit in the year 2048 after what must have been a massive anime and furry conference. But thats not what we're here for.
What we want is the juicy new O.C.Cs and gear. This book's sole goal is ruining the fun of both of these for me. For anyone wanting to run an older character from any of the other books, this book gives you the rules to turn them into a 80's New Wave band member by throwing away valuable skills and learning to play instruments.
"Do the Invid have cold hearts that can only be won over by the power of love as conveyed by the medium of music?" you may ask.
No, these are special "instrumecha". If you ever wanted to kill an alien species with Blondie's "Heart of Glass", heres your chance. All your basics are here; a helmet with a giant speaker, a guitars (both regular and bass), drums, keyboard, a lance. I don't know how lances got to be musical instruments, but given the nature of the book I won't question it ever again. I don't want my brains blown out by Judas Priest's "Breakin' the Law".
"So now what? Do the drumsticks shoot lasers? Can I beat someone's face in with a guitar? Can I annoy someone to death with a keyboard solo of that song from the movie "Big" where Tom Hanks is in the toy story on that giant keyboard that lights up when you step on it?"
No, thanks to technological advances brought to us by AC-DC, just playing the instrument in the general direction of your enemy will cause damage. Mega damage that is, for those who know anything about the Palladium RPG system. A system that haunts my tortured nightmares of blood with percentile skills and SDC and MDC AND hit points.
By singing, playing the guitar, keyboard, drums, and lance, you can just hop on a Cyclone cycle and and rock the Invids' faces off.
I can't really decide if this book was intended to make fun of Robotech fans for not buying all the Macross stuff instead, or if folks at Palladium really ran out of steam when it came to Robotech. My guess is they went out to a karaoke bar after hours one Friday night. After an evening of poorly rendered versions of hits like "Rock You Like A Hurricane" and "Strawberry Wine" as done by drunken unemployed bar flys, the staff was really trashed. Before heading off to a drunken slumber they somehow wrote, illustrated and published this enitre book.
The layout for this book, as it is for every other Palladium book I've ever seen, is non existant. Two column copy. An occasional illustration. Somebody always gets a credit typography, which is amazing considering every line of copy in this book is the same damn type face! Theres no cutting edge use of type to convey information. Theres not even an interesting use of type to change things up or introduce chapters. Not choosing "Times New Roman" to do your book in doesn't qualify as typography, though I guess to some it does. No color either inside, but thats probably a good thing as they only ever have line art and it keeps the cost down.
I can only ever imagine buying this book because you need to express your hatred for Robotech in a physical manner, and painting the RDF symbol on your face while you drove nails through your testicles wasn't quite enough. Or maybe you're a completist and this was the last Robotech RPG book that was left. Or you hate your brain and wanted to kill a few brain cells.
Whew, I better rest up for those movies!
This weekend was fun, as it got up to triple-digit temperatures. In my infinite wisdom I decided it was time to cut the grass. I couldn't have picked a better day or time as the heat index reached 113 at around 2 pm. Perfect grass cutting weather! I already hate cutting the grass because my brother makes it harder to do simply because he can't buy his own gas for his car. I could knock off half an hour from the grass cutting if we could just keep a full gas can in the garage, but we can't because Steve has to dump it all in his car. Now everytime I want to cut the grass it takes me 30 more minutes of hunting down a gas station that isn't full of people. After an hour of cutting I almost died twice, proving yard work is a hazardous risk that all homeowners take.
I also saw a movie or two, and read a book, want to hear about them? No? WHY ARE YOU SO MEAN TO ME?!?
I love reading sourcebooks for RPGs even if its not a game I play because, hey, good ideas can be anywhere. This week I happened across a motherload of RIFTS books, with a few Robotech ones thrown in. While the RIFTS setting defines the term "cluster fuck", there was a particular Robotech book that caught my eye and taught me to love again. Lancer's Rockers. Without going into some long winded explanation of giant robots and horrible songs that made an alien menace our friends, Lancer's Rockers offered some of the dumbest ideas ever printed, bound, and sold to the general public. Humanity could never get itself into enough interplanetary wars with folks in the Robotech series. Zentraedi, the Robotech Masters, the Invid. Maybe even the Noid from the old Dominos commercials, I don't know. But what was the one thing that was always with humans through out all these tragedies? Transformable airplanes? Yes, but even more important were unbearable songs belted out by the likes of Minmei and Yellow Dancer. While Minmei may have given us "Stage Fright", Yellow Dancer gave kids their first look at cross dressing recording artists in war torn worlds who also piloted robotic motorcycles.
Just the kind of thing we can all relate to. I think. Lancer's Rockers offers a fleshed out adventure concerning the ruins of old Detroit in the year 2048 after what must have been a massive anime and furry conference. But thats not what we're here for.
What we want is the juicy new O.C.Cs and gear. This book's sole goal is ruining the fun of both of these for me. For anyone wanting to run an older character from any of the other books, this book gives you the rules to turn them into a 80's New Wave band member by throwing away valuable skills and learning to play instruments.
"Do the Invid have cold hearts that can only be won over by the power of love as conveyed by the medium of music?" you may ask.
No, these are special "instrumecha". If you ever wanted to kill an alien species with Blondie's "Heart of Glass", heres your chance. All your basics are here; a helmet with a giant speaker, a guitars (both regular and bass), drums, keyboard, a lance. I don't know how lances got to be musical instruments, but given the nature of the book I won't question it ever again. I don't want my brains blown out by Judas Priest's "Breakin' the Law".
"So now what? Do the drumsticks shoot lasers? Can I beat someone's face in with a guitar? Can I annoy someone to death with a keyboard solo of that song from the movie "Big" where Tom Hanks is in the toy story on that giant keyboard that lights up when you step on it?"
No, thanks to technological advances brought to us by AC-DC, just playing the instrument in the general direction of your enemy will cause damage. Mega damage that is, for those who know anything about the Palladium RPG system. A system that haunts my tortured nightmares of blood with percentile skills and SDC and MDC AND hit points.
By singing, playing the guitar, keyboard, drums, and lance, you can just hop on a Cyclone cycle and and rock the Invids' faces off.
I can't really decide if this book was intended to make fun of Robotech fans for not buying all the Macross stuff instead, or if folks at Palladium really ran out of steam when it came to Robotech. My guess is they went out to a karaoke bar after hours one Friday night. After an evening of poorly rendered versions of hits like "Rock You Like A Hurricane" and "Strawberry Wine" as done by drunken unemployed bar flys, the staff was really trashed. Before heading off to a drunken slumber they somehow wrote, illustrated and published this enitre book.
The layout for this book, as it is for every other Palladium book I've ever seen, is non existant. Two column copy. An occasional illustration. Somebody always gets a credit typography, which is amazing considering every line of copy in this book is the same damn type face! Theres no cutting edge use of type to convey information. Theres not even an interesting use of type to change things up or introduce chapters. Not choosing "Times New Roman" to do your book in doesn't qualify as typography, though I guess to some it does. No color either inside, but thats probably a good thing as they only ever have line art and it keeps the cost down.
I can only ever imagine buying this book because you need to express your hatred for Robotech in a physical manner, and painting the RDF symbol on your face while you drove nails through your testicles wasn't quite enough. Or maybe you're a completist and this was the last Robotech RPG book that was left. Or you hate your brain and wanted to kill a few brain cells.
Whew, I better rest up for those movies!