25 June 2019

Theme of Macross as a setting


It’s a while, and I don’t think I’ve ever actually typed up my thoughts and feelings on the Macross metaseries/franchise.
Macross is not a mecha anime, which is hillarious because of the mechanical depth to they transforming mecha done.
Macross is a love story. But it's not just about the love triangle between the 3 principle characters. Or the romances or other types of love between side characters. While yes those all equally important.
Macross is also a love story between humanity and the Other that plays out through a literal culture war through weaponized music and culture. Primarily music.
Time and again, music is turned into a weapon to attack the Other, but this also proves fruitless and possibly potentially the destruction of humanity and the Other. It is only through love destruction averted. It's always a love song that ends the series.
And I maintain that all the different shows adhere to this, even SDF, despite some of them, Plus, having heavier focuses on combat or mecha.
Love beats War is the primary message of Macross, even if people get hurt badly, stretching the idea of individuals in love to humanity and the Other as characters in their own right.
There is always one pilot, who is also one of the corners of the love triangle, who enters the War out of their love of flying and as an expression of love for another corner & has a struggle with killing and combat. There is always at least one corner that loves singing or music
Plus and Delta are kind of unique in that two corners are pilots who love flying to differing degrees (this is believe in the case of Delta a byproduct of the love triangle not initially being intended but kind of forced in)

I really can't speak to other long running metaseries like Gundam with respect to their underlying themes. Like gundam just seems to have a portion of its fanbase that adores fascist iconography and has poorly relayed "war is bad mmkay" message.

1. I don't hold to the Real vs Super being good (sub) genre But
2. I don't really watch that subgenre
3. Eva is probably about love.
4. A lot of other real robot shows seem to be more about the hardware even when they are also about the human element.

5. This different emphasis between Macross as a franchise as Robotech is an interesting thing because of all the Minmay hate I still see, and even older fans of Macross getting really big mad about Frontier and bigger mad about Delta, which is Idol Band the Show and why some Macross fans don't like 7. And don't like song as SPACE MAGIC.
This is part of the reason I don't know if Thank You For Your Service is actually a mecha game or not. The sketch of a setting assumes self-aware mecha warmachines and pilots dealing with post-war life, but it doesn't actually need the mecha. It's about post-war life of soldiers.
It is because of all of these factors that Kyuun Kyuun: Super Dimensional Love has been kind of stuck in development. Also because I haven’t felt like trying to actually playtest my vague ideas. What I want the game to do is kind of weird. And while I’m not so much on the mechanics are the game kind of space right now, I don’t the entire love and relationship aspect to be handwavy kind of shit tacked on to a game like Mekton or DnD. I feel like rules should be on the things that really the interesting bits. Where the real tension is hiding.

 
I think I might just say fukit and type up some shitty draft rules for Kyuun Kyuun so I can stare at them and hate myself for not working on the fucking game. Because I want to do with this game isn't something I can just hack DnD or another similar game

And then lean on the reaction roll for the important focus while handwaving relationships and feelings.

Because part of what I want is for players to sometimes lose control of their characters because of their emotions.

Another part of it is I don't want a campaign arc to be a rigid arc or defined goal w/ solution or forgone conclusion.

I want the game to be the kind of game that you could plausibly believe would result in the events of the various macross shows. I want the results to create what you would expect.

Not some kind of meta narrative based game. I don't fucking know. This fucking game irritates me because I don't even know how to talk about it. And what I (don't) want.

I want the game to lead to that final battle that is won through a fucking love song BUT I don't want that victory to be assured. I want there to be that chance of failure and to have the space to answer

What IF it wasn't enough at that time. What happens next. Making what felt like would be the CLIMAX be a turning point of the grand story.

I want there to be room for shit like espionage and romance and dirty politics, civil war, questions of personhood & citizenship. What does war mean. What IS love. These are all things that show up in different shows.

Capitalism, militarism, colonialism. These are all themes in macross. All while they are love stories.
Step one would be to figure out how to structure the construction of the Other and the conflict between them and humanity.
Step Two would be to figure out roughly how long (session wise) it would be desirable to play through.

Step 3 is figuring out how to measure the progress towards the eventual (hopefully) final climax and end of series. While have enough slack to allow for a failure to finish there.


BTW
I have all my stuff on sale on Itchio.
https://itch.io/s/19177/summer-sale-2019