RULES
FOR ROLEPLAYING TRANSFORMING ROBOTS FROM SPACE IN A GENERIC OLD SCHOOL FANTASY
GAME
This
is explicitly and specifically about playing transforming robots that have a
humanoid or animaloid primary mode and at least one alternative mode in the
context of the swords and sorcery, elfs and halflings, noun-crawling fantasy
roleplaying games of the OSR.
You
play a robot from a distant and ancient species or group of related species, if
species can even be the correct term for a technological life form that may or
may not use sexual reproduction. At some temporally distance time, 65 million
years or more, but really any long ass time ago works, you and/or your group of
robots crashed on the planet and subsequently took a eon long nap. You may or
may not be the only one awake, and may or may not have a rival faction out for
your cogs and electrolytic fluids. All of that is for the Referee and you to
decide. But in any case, your access to energy and advanced facilities is
limited.
Lost Transforming Robot
Ability
Score Requirement: None
Hit Die: d10 per level.
Attack
Bonus: As a fighter.
Saving Throws: As a fighter.
Experience
to Level: As an elf.
Armor: Special see below.
Weapons: Any.
Special Abilities: Base AC as chainmail (5 or 15); 1d4 unarmed strike; elf chances to
detect secret doors and surprise checks.
All
robots start out at roughly human size, and due lack of mass displacement,
their initial alt-mode is the same size, therefore not being hugely suitable
for carting around more than 2 passenger (more like 1).
You
roll your ability scores the same way your rules want you to.
Roll
or pick for alt-mode:
1. A giant
head. You are actually a Master, and
as such your spark/soul/consciousness cannot be housed in a larger body, or
undergo mass displacement, but you can co-opt a larger mechanical body by using
your alt-mode, after severing its head. You can also eventually construct a
headless body that you can control while in your head alt-mode. This can also
have an alt-mode, and this can also be a head. It can be heads for increasingly
large robots. It can be heads all the way up.
2. A giant
weapon. You might be a different type
of Master or you might be a normal robot. While you cannot hijack another robot
by jacking into its neck, you can be wielded as a weapon by such robots, or be
used mounted on vehicles. If you attain mass-displacement you can apply it to
your alt-mode to make it a weapon for human sized creatures.
3. A wheeled
vehicle. The number of wheels, or
whether they are tracks, is up to you.
4. A winged
vehicle. You are either a rotary-wing
aircraft or a fixed-wing aircraft. Rotary-wing craft can hover but are slower
than fixed-wing.
5. A
watercraft. You know, a boat, like
the size of a canoe.
6. A piece of
equipment. Like a telescope or
smelter.
7. An organic
creature. Yes your alt-mode is
actually a person, or a human-sized animal. You are what is known as a
Pretender. While in your alt-mode are treated as a normal creature.
8. An animal. You are some kind of animal, but it is obvious that
you are a machine. Yes you can chose your primary mode and alt-mode to be
animals, and you can make your animal mode your primary mode with your alt-mode
being your humanoid mode.
Transforming
takes a full round. You're made of metal; thus your base AC is that of
chainmail, and your unarmed strikes do 1d4 damage. You do not start off with
integrated weapons. Getting armor made for your primary mode costs 3-5 times
the base cost, and it will get irreparably destroyed when you transform.
You
don't eat normal food, do not need to breathe, and cannot be poisoned. You do
need highly energy dense substances to sustain yourself. As radioisotopes and
other exotic substances will be hard if not impossible to find in the standard
fantasy setting, you're probably fucked. Work with your Referee on how to
sustain yourself. Suggestions are, spending a full-day every week collecting the
life-giving rays of the sun, consuming your mass in coal or charcoal or lantern
oil daily, eating the heart of a dragon, implanting the heart of a dragon
within yourself, drinking the blood of an angel, demon, or other extra-normal
creature, eating golems and other animated objects. All of this is ignored if
you're a Pretender, in which case you must eat twice the food a normal person
does daily.
All
of those wonderful things from your favorite transforming robot shows and
comics? You get none of that starting out, other than transforming into
something cool and being a fucking robot. Those cool things you don't get
initially include things like: flying outside of alt-mode, integrated weapons,
energy swords, combining with other robots, turning into a city, changing size
when you transform etc. Other than your size, these are not tied to your level.
All that leveling does is give you more of what you get for leveling in your
system.
In
order to get those cool other things, you need to find raw materials, a
computer and repair/manufacturing facility, and/or the components that do what
you want, and in the case of mass displacement, a total rebuild, or gaining
additional alt-modes, more hit dice.
You
can add a level of mass displacement every 2 hit dice. You can add an
additional alt-mode every 3 levels. You can increase your primary mode's size
one level every 4 hit dice, which also effects the size of your alt-modes
unless you have mass displacement for each one. Instead of improve your base
size, you can get a build an extra headless body per a master or load-bearer
armor, which is effectively increasing your primary mode's size while still
leaving you free to roam in human-sized areas. Each of these improvements cost
an amount of silver/gold/credits equal to the experience points needed to the
second highest level earned. This might seem expensive, but you are effectively
buying built-in magic items with the treasure you used to level.
Just
because you are from a highly technologically advanced species does not mean
you are skilled technician. You cannot "hack" computers, perform "surgery" on yourself or other
mechanical things, or other things that rightfully belong under the purview of
professionals. If it's the kind of thing you, the player, would consult a
professional for it's not something your space robot can innately do. They can
however, do a lot of things that a member of a technological species could
reasonably be expected to: operate a personal conveyance, operate personal
computing devices, use weapons, perform first aid etc.
Mechappendix
Novum:
Allandaros of Legacy of
Bieth's Mega Robot (Megaman)
James M. Spahn's Novomachina
from the White Star Companion