Transformers Tabletop RPG

For years, I've always wanted to play Dungeons & Dragons (or any kind of tabletop RPG for that matter), but I never was able to find the most important parts of a TTRPG:

• a proper dungeon master
• friends that were interested in meeting up for weekly sessions

However, in March of 2016, I finally got my chance to play a D&D campaign. It was done via a website called Rolz (https://rolz.org/), which is developed and managed by one really cool dude. Unfortunately the campaign (based on D&D 3rd Edition, if you're curious) lasted for only 25 sessions before every player left except for me. And I didn't want to continue the campaign by myself, so we opted to just leave the campaign on hiatus.

Anyhow, fast-forward to 2019, I went and bought myself a Pathfinder Female Elf Rogue by WizKids to have a physical manifestation of my character from that unfinished D&D campaign so long ago. I later got figures for the other players just to have the gang back together in some way (I wouldn't mind giving the figures to their respective players if they were interested) and painted them all. It was strange, as I never thought I would ever get into painting miniatures since I never excelled in painting in my art classes. But here I am, a full-grown adult, painting tabletop figures for a game I'll never finish.

Then suddenly, in 2021, I came across a Kickstarter campaign for a tabletop RPG terrain set by Archon Studio that drew my interest. For years, there have been plenty of companies that produced modular tabletop RPG terrains for fantasy settings, but this was the first I've seen that made terrains for sci-fi settings. At first I wanted to get the fantasy sets, but upon seeing the sci-fi sets, my thoughts went:

"F**k Hogwarts! I'm building Cybertron!"

I splurged on 2 core sci-fi sets and all the sci-fi rooms available in the Dungeons & Lasers line of terrain. So here I was with a bunch of sci-fi terrains and props with no figures to put in them. Obviously I decided to see if perhaps someone on Etsy or somewhere sell 3D prints of Transformers characters.

And then I saw it.

WizKids had started producing official tabletop RPG figures for Transformers.

Obviously I had to buy up everything they had, because what's a tabletop Cybertron without tabletop Cybertronians? But something was immediately amiss when I began purchasing the figures: there were missing characters. Indeed, WizKids had announced a Wave 2 to be released later in 2020, but only half of those characters were ever released. What happened to Ironhide and the Minicons? No one seems to know, not even WizKids customer service themselves. The same year I bought the figures, I learned that a company called Renegade Game Studios is producing a core rulebook for a Transformers tabletop RPG to be released in 2022. Odd that tabletop RPG figures were released before a rulebook when it's usually the other way around.

So what's going on? Why has production on the figures stopped? One explanation could be legal issues, as some people have speculated. Maybe Hasbro wanted to give WizKids the license for the figures and then changed their minds after a year? However, some websites are still taking preorders for Wave 2 figures, despite not even WizKids knowing when the rest of the figures will be released. (Or if they even will be released.) It can't be supply issues since WizKids is still releasing D&D and Pathfinder figures on schedule. So the hangup must be on Hasbro, then.

I am also interested in getting the TTRPG rulebook from Renegade, but it appears the PDF they've already released is riddled with typos and misspells. For a TTRPG rulebook with a $55 price tag, the least that should be done is proper proofreading before printing. Not a good look for the launch of the Transformers TTRPG with such a rushed and messy release between the rulebook and the figures. I want to support the creators, but this doesn't instill me with confidence about future releases.

Much like how Hasbro hasn't instilled much confidence about Transformers' future and still don't. But I guess we'll just have to wait and see.