GI Joe, Transformers, My Little Pony RPGs Also Confirmed For 2021

Renegade Game Studios and Hasbro confirmed to Forbes that GI Joe, My Little Pony, and Transformers will be coming as official RPGs, following the already announced Power Rangers tabletop roleplaying game.

While they were hinted at in their press release this week, it hadn't been confirmed that - other than Power Rangers -- these other games would be tabletop RPGS.

Casey Collins at Hasbro told Forbes "“The tabletop and roleplaying games Renegade Game Studios innovated for the Power Rangers franchise have proved to authentically connect with both gamers and the Ranger Nation and we are confident that G.I. Joe, Transformers and My Little Pony fans will love the exciting games coming soon.”

Renegade Game Studios' Scott Gaeta elaborated a little more, confirming that the games would be powered by the D&D 5th Edition rules. "Part of the strategy here is that if we want a GI Joe fan to play an RPG. We want to use the system that’s most common and widely known. Fifth Edition at this point is the common language in RPGs. We went back and forth on our discussions but we landed on Fifth Edition being what we wanted to use to achieve our design goals.”

The games should be released in 2021.

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These aren't the only animated properties seeing new RPG revivals. Recently D&D Beyond owner Fandom announced Legends of Grayskull: The Masters of the Universe Roleplaying Game, and a Dragon Prince RPG, powered by the Cortext Prime system. Additionally, Monolith Edition recently announced a Batman roleplaying game.

 

[Undrave]

Slightly more seriously, they could also do the gimmicks (pretenders, combiners, ____ masters, triple changers, etc.) and some of the more distinct subgroups (insecticons) as classes.

HEAD ON! GOD ON!

With the power of the Masterforce you could easily transition from GI Joe or Power Rangers into Transformers!

IIRC, didn't all the Hasbro based properties, that became IDW comic series, become all one big "Hasbro Cinematic Universe" near the end of the IDW Transformers series? Like G.I. Joe and M.A.S.K. was helping the Autobots fight Unicron and Shockwave? I recall Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow taking out Optimus Primal or something.(goodness it was an absolute sin what IDW did to the Maximals/Predacons at the end there.)

It's now coming full circle with the RPG books.

Like literally you can now make up a party composed of a Pony, two Cybertronians, a G.I. Joe, and a Power Ranger with all this happening if ya wanted.

Ah yes! After the 'Revolution event IDW folded new incarnations of GI Joe (which hadn't been part of it the TF universe previously), alongside rebooting MASK, Rom the Space Knight, The Micronauts, and Action Man who were all part of the same universe. After it was revealed that the Dire Wraith, the shapeshifting enemies of Rom, had infiltrated GI Joe (and replaced Joe Colton) Scarlett eventually reformed a new team that included Skywarp. One of their adventure saw her team shrunken down to face down the Army Ants.

Later on, after some magical shenanigans, an entire city from Prysmos, planet of the Visionnaries, was teleported to Cybertron. Their world had been destroyed and the bad guys wanted to turn Cybertron into New Prysmos.

Lots of fun stuff!

 

[Leatherhead]

I must admit, a Transformers rpg interests me.

 

[Aldarc]

Transformers is more in the vein of the superhero genre, which draws upon a common set of characters whose stories have been retold and reimagined a substantial number of times across various media (e.g., television, film, video games, comics, etc.). The characters have various power levels that are sometimes more related to their make than simply their experience. (I doubt, for example, that Rumble and Trypticon are on anywhere close to the same power level, even if Rumble may arguably have more experience.) That's probably why for a Transformers RPG I would look to a RPG system that handles variously powered superheroes well: e.g., Mutants & Masterminds, Cortex Prime (Marvel Heroic), Fate, PbtA, etc.

 

[Leatherhead]

(I doubt, for example, that Rumble and Trypticon are on anywhere close to the same power level, even if Rumble may arguably have more experience.)

One of my favorite absurd Fun Facts: Buzzsaw once took on Omega Supreme, and won.

 

[Aldarc]

One of my favorite absurd Fun Facts: Buzzsaw once took on Omega Supreme, and won.

It's much the same as with superheroes: If go through enough media, then you can find all sorts of ridiculous things like this. But I'm not sure how much stock I would put into things like this.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Here we may be talking about fidelity vs gameplay. In the shooter videogames PCs can survive and recover fastly after by hurt by bullets or other attacks, but in the real life an injury by firearms is enough to be KO. Superman is stronger than Harley Quinn but in the videogames Harley can defeat kryptonians.

In the fiction the good guys always win but the scripter, writter or author chooses the opposite. In the games there is a balance between failure and success, defeat and victory, not too easy neither too hard.

* Maximal and predacons (from Beast Wars) are living constructs, they can eat organic food as hunt pieces or vegetables.

* My theory is MLP will be a new spin-off, something like Equestria Girls. I thought it could be with centauresses but now I can't dare to claim that.

* All those IPs as TTRPGs with d20 system are possible, but totally compatible with the rest of D&D is a different matter. I think we will not see a 6th Ed at least until 2030, but we will do a new d20 system to be genre universal, even superheroes, although some sacred-cow to be sacrificed, for example a different list of abilities scores. Maybe Chaousium would dare to create a hybrid system mixing d20 and Basic Roleplaying System (size as ability being replaced with body-mass)

Will be these titles totally compatible with D&D to allow crossovers? Could my druid PC have a changeling pony as animal companion? And a crossover G.I.Joe/Gamma World, or Transformers/Spelljammer (or Transformers/Kaladesh), or Power Rangers/Ikoria, or a G.I.Joe/Walking Dead?


If this works, you can bet adaptations of Japanese franchises as videogames or manga-anime.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

I did see something that was missing. A Song of Ice and Fire (before it was Game of Thrones) got a D&D conversion in Dragon Magazine #305 (March 2003).

Thanks. Got it. I went and distinguished two different Green Ronin editions as well.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Nice list. It is missing the original version of the Adventures of Luther Arkwright RPG, which was released in 1992. The supplement released for RuneQuest 6/Mythras by The Design Mechanism is due for a rerelease as a stand-alone game in the next year (or so).

Thanks. Added it.
Could you share a link/source for the reported rerelease?

 

[Undrave]

IIRC, didn't all the Hasbro based properties, that became IDW comic series, become all one big "Hasbro Cinematic Universe" near the end of the IDW Transformers series? Like G.I. Joe and M.A.S.K. was helping the Autobots fight Unicron and Shockwave? I recall Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow taking out Optimus Primal or something.(goodness it was an absolute sin what IDW did to the Maximals/Predacons at the end there.)

You can actually go even deeper into crossover land!

Do you know who is a member of GI Joe? Sgt Slaughter, the real life 80's wrestler. Sgt Slaughter appeared as himself in an episode of the Super Mario Super Show in the live action segment... who else visited the Mario Brothers in those segment? Inspector Gadget himself! The 80s Hasbro properties also had a journalist character that appeared in Transformers, GI Joe, Jem and I think even Inhumanoids.

Meanwhile, GI Joe had an encounter with the Street Fighters in a special comic book miniseries!

Street Fighters also had a recent crossover with... Power Rangers, where Ryu and, later, Chun-Li, gained Ranger powers.

According to the Project X Zone games, even before we get into space-time hopping shenanigans (which would lead, among others, to the world of Fire Emblem!), Street Fighters is in the same universe as:

Tekken
Rival School
Fighting Vipers
Yakuza franchise
Streets of Rage
Resident Evil
House of the Dead
Dynamite Cop (AKA the sequel to the Die Hard arcade game!)
Dead Rising
Darkstalker
Phoenix Wright
Bravoman
Wonder Momo
Namco X Capcom (it is the home dimension of Xiaomu and Reiji)

Furthermore, Xiaomu knows of 'The World' the virtual MMORPG that is the setting of the entire .Hack franchise! Xiaomu and Reiji are also aware of Segata Sanshiro!

And the characters of Darkstalker seem to have connections to Vallkyrie of Legend of Volkyrie and Arthur of Ghosts & Goblins!

Tekken, incidently, includes a character who is descendant from a character in Soul Calibur.

It's also possible that SNK vs Capcom is canon to that universe as well.

Also, the Transformers used to be in the Marvel canon! In fact, that's where space bounty hunter Death's Head originated from! And in those strip there was a Decepticon that had a friggin' Dalek shell as an alt mode!

I could probably spiral out from there even more but I'll stop from now.

Transformers is more in the vein of the superhero genre, which draws upon a common set of characters whose stories have been retold and reimagined a substantial number of times across various media (e.g., television, film, video games, comics, etc.). The characters have various power levels that are sometimes more related to their make than simply their experience. (I doubt, for example, that Rumble and Trypticon are on anywhere close to the same power level, even if Rumble may arguably have more experience.) That's probably why for a Transformers RPG I would look to a RPG system that handles variously powered superheroes well: e.g., Mutants & Masterminds, Cortex Prime (Marvel Heroic), Fate, PbtA, etc.

Well Transformers' full Japanese titles is "Super Robotic Lifeforms: The Transformers" and Transformers Animated was basically a superhero show. And Spider-man kicked some Decepticon butts once!

Trypticon isn't a PC, he's a LOCATION... or at least a Tarrasque level enemy. Titans like Metroplex are pretty much another lifeform compared to regular Transformers, their brain and body so vast, you need special 'City Speaker' training to even comprehend their thoughts and communicate with them!

 

[Aldarc]

Well Transformers' full Japanese titles is "Super Robotic Lifeforms: The Transformers" and Transformers Animated was basically a superhero show. And Spider-man kicked some Decepticon butts once!

Trypticon isn't a PC, he's a LOCATION... or at least a Tarrasque level enemy. Titans like Metroplex are pretty much another lifeform compared to regular Transformers, their brain and body so vast, you need special 'City Speaker' training to even comprehend their thoughts and communicate with them!

Fair point. But I still think that you need a system for Transformers that allows your Batmen equal footing with your Supermen.