Dancing Robots

[Makaiju]

Have you guys noticed problems with the robot gangs?

I love the idea of robot gangs and think they do fine in one off games. However their upgrade rules seem to make them… well… ineffective.

While I would ‘like’ to just be complaining about little things like a lack of fluff support. (I mean, shouldn’t robots have their own injury table with goofy things that could only happen to a robot? Like some kind of head injury roll caused a ‘lost memory sector’ and the affected robot lost 1 trait?!)

What I think is wrong is how much robots have to spend to upgrade. It feels wrong that the robots have no “juve” members and in turn can not replace dead robots with a free gang member. That if a robot gang loses their first fight, they will be in a much bigger disadvantage then other gangs because of how little money the robots will make.

The other week a friend of mine started a campaign with me and some others. His first game was with me and I killed one robot out right and blew the head off another. (Effectively I removed 2 of his starting gang members from the rest of the campaign.)

So he losses, can’t replace any of this bots with a free member (like other gangs can), and doesn’t have enough money to get his gang back up to the same level of effectiveness as his gang started with on day one.

Has anyone else noticed these kinds of problems?

 

[umw]

So, he should call the cops to bring you down. That is how the game stays fair...the great equalizer.

In our house league the Robot gang does very well. I think the ability to just buy upgrades is way better than having to live long enough to get traits. As for another injury table, the game is meant to be fast and fun. I think a lot of the appeal (for me at least) is that you aren't forever digging thru endless rule books to find the game winning rule or another sub-table.

And remember the golden rule: Kill your friends before they kill you.

 

[umw]

Speaking of Dancing Robots...check out the Beck video for "Hell Yes".

Man, can THOSE robots dance! :lol:

 

[Makaiju]

Well judges are a great way to keep things equal. However this was both of our first games. So if the opening game plan for a robot player is “play first game, call judges on everyone else the next game” that just seems a little strange.

Maybe my gaming group is just a little off. I know they try to hold off on calling judges unless someone is just on a roll and kicking everyone’s @$$ every game. If there is a 10 point or less gap in gang rating, they want the bragging rights of being the one who beat that person. Maybe that is the problem?

I still think the no juve rule, instant death from judges, and the price of the upgrades don’t feel balanced as fairly as the mutants or ape gangs.

 

[umw]

I play an Undercity gang myself. My win loss ratio is super crap, I win one in six. Still, I carry on. Try some sneaky scenario choices. The Raid or the Graffitti one or the smash stuff up one. (The names elude me right now.) Just be a cold hearted bastard about everything. Get some Hostages and sell 'em back for cash! Still, it sucks that it happened right out of the starting gate. That is life in the Big Meg...

 

[JoseDominguez]

GOMC-1 isn't meant to be fair

With luck robots can get really good, really fast. Earn enough and everyone gets a trait. Even the best human gang still has to roll 5,6 when it wins. Also, a robot gang tends to get a core of really hard, skilled gangers as you choose to upgrade a few. A human gang has no way of selecting and ends up with it's skills scattered.

 

[ned-kogar]

As a case in point, in our fledgling campaign my Robot gang (the Meat Beaters) lost their first fight, just scraped together the creds for a single bot to replace the two injured / cherry-pick Ambush Tactics for their Top Dog to compensate for low membership.. then managed to pull off a victory, bag a Drugs Factory and - as soon as they had a bit of money - have been able to custom-build some ugly new gang members. You can easily assign specific tactical roles to your robots with those first 1000 cred upgrades.

(Although I do miss the immediate gratification of rolling for a trait (I've always liked post-game experience gambles.. mmm, Chaosium experience rolls..).

 

[Judge Death]

I also like being able to buy upgrades but one thing I don’t like about the robot rules is that the will just give up and be taken away when caught buy a judge. But if the robot has broken from its program, should that not make it immune to the ‘Stop it’s the law’ rule.

 

[umw]

But if the robot has broken from its program, should that not make it immune to the ‘Stop it’s the law’ rule.

That is quite likley, that being said. If you would refuse to be arrested I'd just add more Riot Judges instead of Senior Judges...nothing says, "STOP In The Name Of The Law!!!", like Riot foam. :lol: