“Dateline: Robotech” in 1986

Here we see a few different battlegrip.com subjects align in a strange sort of way. This two-page spread from Gateways magazine in 1986 if one of the first glimpses at Palladium’s original Robotech roleplaying game (find at Amazon.com*). Just like the recent Mekton article, this offers up a brief peek at the Robotech RPG. Unlike that Mekton article, though, this comes from before the game was released and is more of a news piece and not a summary/overview of an already-published work.

“The hottest news on Robotech for readers of Gateways, however, comes from Detroit, Michigan in the guise of Palladium Books’ Robotech: The Role-Playing Game. Due for release in mid-November in the form of a brilliantly colored glossy paperbound volume, Robotech: The Role-Playing Game has taken Harmony Gold’s science fictional universe from the tube to the tabletop.”

Some pretty exciting language there, but I think they were a bit off on the printing side of the game since it’s a B&W softcover book and nothing like the full-color games we would see a decade after this announcement. Still, picked nits aside, this is a blast to read and a snapshot of how the world was reacting to the Robotech RPG before the game was even released.