For good or for ill, my interest in the history of the hobby of roleplaying is intertwined with my interest in the history of the industry to which it gave birth. In particular, I find the history of The House That D&D Built – TSR Hobbies – to be endlessly fascinating, especially how dysfunctional it seems to have been as a business for most of its existence. To be fair, very few RPG companies have much to crow about in this regard, but TSR seems to be a prime example of a company succeeding in spite of itself. The more I learn about TSR's history, the more surprised I am that it managed to survive for nearly a quarter of a century.
I was reminded of this as I looked through the Ares Section of issue #99 of Dragon magazine (July 1985) and came across Mike Breault's article "Psybots and Battle Mechs." The article in question was intended as a preview of a then-upcoming science fiction roleplaying game, entitled Proton Fire. By "preview," I don't mean of the game's rules but mostly of its background, though there are a few snippets about the mechanics (characters can be warriors, rangers, or engineers and there are "talents").
Background-wise, it's pretty thin gruel. The humans of the Matri system descend from colonists who long ago arrived from Earth and settled on Coreworld, the fourth planet of the system. In the colony’s early centuries, power gradually fell into the hands of the Corporation and its ruling council, the Quintad. Originally five elected officials, over time they became increasingly authoritarian. Their corruption deepened after the developments in cybernetics allowed them to transform themselves into immortal cyborgs and rule indefinitely through violence and intimidation.
The dominance of the Quintad collapsed when a laboratory accident released a devastating virus that killed 90% of Coreworld’s population and shattered the Corporation’s control. In the aftermath, the University, an academic colony hidden within a moon of the fifth planet, declared independence and began searching for a new home for the surviving humans of Matri. The central conflict of Proton Fire now pits the University and its agents, who explore and defend humanity’s future, against the Corporation and the immortal Quintad, who seek to restore their former domination using ruthless operatives known as Eliminators.
Like most Dragon readers of the right age I remember the Proton Fire teaser stuff, just as I remember RIP. Even had the RIP comic (four issues, IIRC - some fishing around the comic back market could confirm easily) as well as the rest of the "comic module" titles in their entirety, because I'd buy just about anything that came with a game bound into it back then. I even picked up the Gammarauders book (which wasn't technically part of that comic line) for the ultralite RPG published across a few issues - well, and a general fondness for all things Gammarauders, which was delightfully gonzo to a level even Gamma World rarely achieved.
ReplyDeleteI rather liked what they told us about Proton Fire, but I'm sure my visions of it vastly exceeded what we would have gotten if it had come out. Remember reading reviews of Palladium's Mechanoids for years before I finally got a copy, and boy, what a disappointment that turned out to be. Maybe being unreleased isn't such a bad thing, it at least preserves hopes of it being something great rather than an actually so-so game.
Proton Fire was supposed to be a non-branded Transformers/Go-Bots game, which was obvious from the box cover design, which is basically Ironhide (from the Transformers) in bipedal form in a generic action shot. According to the TSR Archive, Proton Fire made it into the 1985 catalog schedule, fully packaged with 4 adventure modules to follow:
ReplyDeletePlanet Fall (MX1): "New frontiers opened for the survival of mankind."
Silent Thunder (MX2): "The alien juggernaut is on a collision course with coreworld."
Warbots Rising (MX3) and Warbots Embattled (MX4) did not have a tagline at the time of cancellation.
I actually believe Proton Fire had the potential (based PURELY on my recollection of my 1985 self) to be bigger than Marvel Superheroes. My theory is that the adult game designers at TSR lost all their passion for the project as soon as the original idea was redesigned for non-licensed kids toys/cartoons. Maybe TSR corporate was worried they would step on Marvel's toes (who published the wildly successful and licensed Transformers comic at the time) by putting out a Transformers game knockoff at about the same time as the Marvel-licensed game.
I imagine both issues played some sort of factor in isolating the fully designed play-tested and ready to publish "Proton Fire!"
My only clue to my imagination being anywhere in the ballpark can be found in the 1985 catalog pre-publication blurb:
"The role-playing game that captures the excitement of the hottest new toys - Robots. An introductory level role-playing game, PROTON FIRE game adventures pits humans with and against thinking robots in order to save their worlds."
There's a brief mention in "Designers & Dungeons 1970s":
ReplyDelete"One other RPG almost appeared in this era. A game of robot roleplaying called “Proton Fire” was scheduled for July 1985. It was advertised as “the last word in robot role-playing” — though it might have been the first word too, as Traveller’s Robots (1986) was still a year out. Today, info on Proton Fire almost reads like an early cyberpunk game, with players helping “The University” fight against “The Corporation.” At this late date it’s unclear if the game had been greenlit by the Blumes or not — but in any case it wasn’t one of Gygax’s projects."
“Droids” was from 1983, but it was more of a combat than role-playing game:
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droids_(role-playing_game)
I see that it actually made it to the 1985 distributor's catalog:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.tsrarchive.com/cat/1985/11.jpg
Orders must have been too low for viability. They clearly are going for a soft Transformers tie-in, but in the most generic way possible. No mention of The University or the Corporation.
When Steve (Winter?) called it a "mishmash" I wonder if the resultant product wasn't bad to play but simply lacked vision to such a degree that it didn't have a clear market. Transformer Kids might have picked up the box (were they in Hobby Stores - which they weren't) and RPG Kids might have been attracted to a "robot-human psionics factions" game (were that marketed on the box - which it wasn't) but distributors might have seen a rogue-IP to undercut Marvel Superheroes sales. (Remember: in 1985 Marvel's rack brands were : Secret Wars, X-Men, Transformers, GI Joe, Spider-man, Iron Man, Thor. - This is different than Comic Shop sellers, but even at hobbyist comic shops, Transformers was a top 15 monthly.)
So, if I'm a comic shop, a hobby shop and especially a comic and rpg shop in 1985, Proton Fire would look like a big inventory gamble to me. Better to stock up on Robotech and try to trick the Transformer Kids that way, while scratching the robot-fighter itch for the gamers.