Phantasm Gamer's Equinox Postmortem

[Jaymz]

Postmortem of Phantasm Gamer's Equinox:

Not very good sadly. Though it was more or less what I was expecting unfortunately.

Saturday morning's Robotech RPG session had 3 attendees out a possible 6. They had a good time and enjoyed the scenario. (Recon of a Zentraedi wreck). All were new to the RPG though they knew what Robotech was. No one seem interested in what we were playing or even stopped by to observe while we played.

Sunday's session had no attendees at all. I ended up trying demos of a couple of other games.

By comparison my Battletech session Saturday night had 4 of a possible 6 attendees and at least 12 people who stopped to watch to some degree.

The disheartening thing of it was seeing the other tables full with others around them watching. There were the usual suspects of D&D 4th and Pathfinder but there were also old out of date out of print games that were full and had people wishing they had gotten in on the game.

At this point I am not even sure I want to bother running Palladium RPGs locally anymore honestly. There is just so little interest in them it is.......well it is a kick in the teeth to some degree.

Now I have to wait to see if I can actually get my RRT stuff when it was promised for (June/July) otherwise I may just not bother representing Palladium in any way at my local con in September as the work put into it ends up being worthless and a waste of time.

[MacrossMike]

Apr 4, 2014 2:07:50 GMT Jaymz said:

Postmortem of Phantasm Gamer's Equinox:

Not very good sadly. Though it was more or less what I was expecting unfortunately.

Saturday morning's Robotech RPG session had 3 attendees out a possible 6. They had a good time and enjoyed the scenario. (Recon of a Zentraedi wreck). All were new to the RPG though they knew what Robotech was. No one seem interested in what we were playing or even stopped by to observe while we played.

Sunday's session had no attendees at all. I ended up trying demos of a couple of other games.

Eech... I'm sorry to hear that.  It's always a bit of a downer when you don't get the turnout you hoped for.  

Still, I can't say it's entirely surprising given that you were running Robotech.  That's not a title that has a lot of name recognition, and to many anime enthusiasts who remember or are at least aware of Robotech, it's not exactly welcome on account of Harmony Gold's jackass behavior towards Macross and BattleTech and the anime industry in general.

These days, if you want to run Robotech it seems like online is the only way to go... it's easier to find interested players among the niche fanbase that way.

Apr 4, 2014 2:07:50 GMT Jaymz said:

At this point I am not even sure I want to bother running Palladium RPGs locally anymore honestly. There is just so little interest in them it is.......well it is a kick in the teeth to some degree.

Now, are you sure that's a lack of interest in ALL Palladium RPGs in your area... or just Robotech?  

I obviously can't speak for most of the country, but out here in Palladium's backyard there are several Palladium game lines that appear to still have a respectable following.  My local game store carries a fair amount of RIFTS stuff, even though it's principally for tabletop games and TCGs demographically.  Robotech, on the other hand, is an almost literal nonentity hereabouts.  My local store won't carry it, and will only grudgingly order it if I ask nicely... and the last time I asked some of the local RPG crews if they were aware of Robotech on the spur of the moment, they thought I was trying to sell them a pool-cleaning machine.

Apr 4, 2014 2:07:50 GMT Jaymz said:

Now I have to wait to see if I can actually get my RRT stuff when it was promised for (June/July) otherwise I may just not bother representing Palladium in any way at my local con in September as the work put into it ends up being worthless and a waste of time.

Okay, now THAT might be wasting your time.  RRT is so doomed that even Nelson wouldn't laugh at it.  Development problems and the fact that it's selling entirely on Macross's popularity aside, the tabletop gaming industry still hasn't started to bounce back from the recession in most parts of the country.  Many gamers are still lamenting the cost of supporting the biggest names in the industry, like Games Workshop and Privateer Press.  Unless the quality of RRT really improves drastically from what they've shown us so far, the game is a lost cause.  (In terms of longevity, it's already a lost cause... they'll never get this kind of support to do any other saga anyway.)

[Jaymz]

Yeah Rifts didn't get any better turn out when i ran it previously. Oddly enough the three guys who did play, played because of their liking of Robotech. Downside is they only play RPGs AT the con and not the rest of the year and they were all from out of town....

As for RRT yeah.....I am hoping to kit bask the rules and maybe do a home version of Rifts RPG Tactics in the future.