Newly minted graduates of the Robotech Defense Forces basic training program are transferred direct into combat, unless they are chosen for the Accelerated Training Program. The ATP is designed to turn these green recruits into the elite of the RDF. The real life use of the ATP book for GMs is as a location to help new players grasp some of the basics of the system, without having to worry about coming back KIA after doing something stupid.
The book begins by explaining the two styles of training sessions and their differences, individual (you guessed it, one player at a time) and group training. Then we have two pages of covering what weapons are where on the commonly encountered mecha and combat vehicles, before covering what’s required to pass the ATP both in character and in real life. The next 7 pages cover NPCs, both generic NPC generation tables, your very own blank NPC generation sheet and two pages of random roll tables to flesh out the NPCs borrowed pretty much wholesale from the main Robotech RPG Book.
The rest of the book has the ATP training adventures. Section one is all to improve the players reaction time, section two is to teach humility and has a lone player sent into a random area against a greater number of enemies. Section three has players dueling against each other aboard either of the two submersible carriers that formed the SDF-1’s arms, almost direct reprints from the versions in the RDF Manual. The largest section, number four, covers getting used to different environments such as air combat, space combat, underwater combat and fighting under radio silence. Section five is a live fire exercise against target drones, then recapture of stolen RDF mecha, capture of rouge RDF troops and fighting against evil Eastern Bloc Soviet Independent State forces.
Section six is just Capture the Flag by another name, while section seven offers the chance for each player to serve as group leader. The remainder of the book covers a Scavenger Hunt in a predetermined area and a couple of extra random encounter tables and missions if they are needed.
In some ways the whole ATP principle makes sense, the players might take more risky action if they know their characters won’t die, but it also takes away part of the fun. Most of the training exercises are also rather basic and straightforward; simple space combat, basic combat underwater and a scavenger hunt. All the kind of things that pretty much every GM can come up with after sitting down for five minutes.
I guess GM’s strapped for time, or those so lazy as to only rely on printed adventures might find some use with this book. Sure $7.95 isn’t much, but I personally think you’d be hard pressed to find even at that low price value for money within it’s covers.
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