Transformers

And these are just your characters from G1!

Transformers is a series of Robot Toys created by Hasbro and Takara Tomy that typically turn into cars and other vehicles. Robots are cool, cars are cool and so they became popular. In 1984 they made some comics and a cartoon show. The comics show created a lot of toy sales and the toys kept the shows and comics popular. Over the years they changed things up to sell more toys and new series were made, some worked quite well (Beast Wars, Prime) others did not (Armada, Energon, Cybertron).

Why does this have no tabletop or role playing game? Only comics, cartoons, anime, and finally video games. So much potential. Seriously, it's a setting about sentient, shapeshifting robots fighting a war that spans motivations from political to racial to theological. Hasbro owns Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons via Wizards of the Coast, so it's not like they've never done tabletop stuff before. How the fuck has nobody realised the money-making potential there?

Main Guys

As the series come and go, a certain bevvy of characters seem to be archetypical to the Transformers. Not helped by the fact that, ever since the flop of Beast Machines and the riotous financial successes of the Bay, Hasbro seems to only ever stick with recycling Generation One, with some other characters jumping continuities. These are the Transformers who appear in some form or another in every iteration of the setting.

Optimus Prime: Leader of the Autobots, Lawful Good to the computer-core, the Big Red Hero-bot himself. There's always an Optimus leading the Autobots, and he usually turns into some kind of red truck or hauler. His name is the Latin words for "best" and "first", and he really is both. In the original show (and in the Michael Bay movies -- one of the decent things about them -- and Transformers Prime and the Cybertron games), he was voiced by Peter Cullen, whose awesome deep voice you probably hear in your head whenever you read any of his dialogue. Check it out: "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings." Also has the record of dying the most times out of anyone ever, making one wonder how the hell the GM lets him get away with it each time.

Megatron: If there's an Optimus Prime, there's always a Megatron, the Evil (of some flavor, depending on the series) to his Lawful Good. Megsy remains pretty consistent throughout his appearances, usually varying only in what level of honor he has (which usually depends on his backstory; sometimes he started as a charismatic gladiator turned freedom fighter against the corrupt Cybertronian government -- Angron, anyone? -- but sometimes he's just nuts) and/or how much of a cold-booted psychopath he is. He used to turn into a gun (which could inexplicably shrink down to be small enough to be wielded by another Decepticon), with the barrel giving him a wicked arm cannon in robot mode, but nowadays he usually turns into a tank or a jet. He was first voiced by Frank Welker, whose versatile voice was also used for just about every other Decepticon except for Starscream (and probably at least one role in just about every cartoon ever made), though David Kaye also did a bang-up job in Beast Wars, yeeesss.

Bumblebee: The yellow kid-friendly one, he's usually the main one to interact with the resident token humans. He usually turns into a sports car. Can be surprisingly badass in some adaptations -- his Beast Wars counterpart, Cheetor, went on to basically take Optimus Primal's place as leader of the Maximals in Beast Machines. However, thanks to the abominations of Michael Bay, he will probably never speak again. Not that his VA was good or anything, mind, but that "mute who talks only in radio quotes/beeps and boops like a 60s robot" shit just gets ANNOYING.

Starscream: Megatron's loud-mouthed, whiny, scheming, sneaky, backstabbing second-in-command who always wants to lead the Decepticons, but is neither strong enough to bump Megsy off and take his place, smart enough to trick him to his death, or charismatic enough to persuade others he wouldn't be as bad a boss. Sometimes Megatron himself wonders why he keeps Starscream around, but (when the writers remember) he is actually an extremely competent air commander who just happens to have a bunch of recolored clones, including a Rule 63 one. He usually turns into the latest and greatest fighter jet (unless he's turning into some Cybertronian future-jet) -- historically an F-15, F-16, or F-22. In the original cartoon, his catchphrase (delivered in the classic 80s-villain screech -- in fact, his first voice actor also voiced the similarly screechy Cobra Commander in G.I. Joe) was probably "Decepticons, RETREEEAT!" Was also voiced by fucking Tom "Spongebob Squarepants" Kenny in Animated, man is that a blow to your dignity. Nowadays, though, he's more consistently competent (and given a more menacing voice by Steve Blum in Transformers Prime).

Unicron: The closest thing to a Chaos God/Elder God. He's a giant fucking transforming planet who eats other planets and will dick over anyone that betrays him. Premiered in the '86 movie, where he was voiced by the late Orson Welles, and appeared again in the animu trilogy, where he got to wrap up the first series and become the main focus of the third series as a dimensional balance. Began life in the '86 movie as an enigmatic alien figure, revealed in the next season to have been made by some crazy alien scientist who promptly got his planet nommed for it. The comics of the time instead made him a Satanic robo-god who has been hating on all life since the beginning of the universe. That fucking anime trilogy not only pulled this interpretation back, but made it "official", saying there's only one Unicorn in the entire multiverse - at least, they tried. The comics pay more attention to it, but the shows tend to avoid it; witness Prime, where Unicron is actually sleeping at the heart of Earth instead of running around eating planets.

Primus: The Emprah to Unicron's Chaos God, except he's an actual god...who actually transformed into a planet and fell asleep for a fuckton of years. In this form, he became Cybertron. Like Satan!Unicron, he hails from the 80s comics and didn't make an appearance on the screen (other than a prophetic text/pseudo-bible named the Covenant of Primus in Beast Wars) until the Energon Trilogy, which is where he's stayed.

Generation One

The original, the alpha iteration, the place where it all to began. At the time, it was just called "The Transformers", with a cartoon by the same name for three seasons (and two more seasons in Japan) from 1984-87 and the animated film "The Transformers: The Movie" in 1986. The movie's soundtrack is awesomely 80's, and it features the amazing song "The Touch" when Optimus Prime fights Megatron. Quite literally, this movie shit all over Bay's multi-million crappers. Issue was that the movie was so good that it marked the peak for the young franchise and it began a downhill slide from there, with the show scrambling to cope with all the losses (yeah, lots of people died here. Even Optimus), while the toys began getting gimmickier without getting better.

The "Generation One" title was applied retroactively after Hasbro released the "Generation 2" line in 1993. By the way, G2 was the reason Transformers was considered dead for most of the 90's. The comic was that cheap sort of "gritty for no real reason" and the toys had pretty much burned themselves out and no gimmick could really help them on that. There was also a shortlived "Transformers G2" show, but it was just G1 with new CGI openings/endings and scene changes, so it only lasted a few episodes before flopping.

Beast Wars

The first Western-released sequel to G1 (there were two Japanese-only continuations to G1 that never got released outside of Japan and the G2 comic mentioned above), a CGI show created by Mainframe (also responsible for Reboot and War Planets). Set up as a "loose sequel" to G1, it involves new transformer races called "Maximals" (Autobots) and "Predacons" (Decepticons).

A Predacon terrorist leader styling himself after the original Megatron, including taking his name, hijacks an artifact with a mysterious connection to Megatron the first and goes on the run into deep space with a band of terrorists, planning on restarting the Great War and this time causing a Predacon victory. A Maximal deep-space exploration vessel commanded by Optimus Primal attempts to intercept, and both vessels end up stranded on a mysterious alien world, where an overabundance of raw Energon crystals forces them to adopt the forms of local fauna to preserve themselves. The two forces promptly start trying to wipe each other out and then escape the planet. There's also a sideplot involving an ancient alien civilization that ends itself with Season 1.

They would eventually find out that this strange world was actually Earth, which was where Megatron II was trying to get all along, and they find the wreckage of the Ark of the original series, when new Megatron decides to headshot Prime in order to change the future for his benefit. It kinda flops when new Optimus takes part of old Optimus' soul, gets another upgrade and becomes sorta-truck. It inspires Megatron II to try the same trick with his namesake, turning him into a huge firebreathing dragon-bot.

Though Hasbro would mostly consign this story to oblivion after Beast Machines, the character of Blackarachnia (sexy spider-bot who changes from evil to good thanks to love) would be re-used in later eras.

Beast Machines

Sequel series to Beast Wars. On returning to Cybertron, our heroes are attacked by armies of transforming cookie-cutter drones. It eventually turns out that Megatron broke free from the Maximals' prison and flew back to Cybertron before them; he infected the entire planet with a cyber-virus that put them all into comas, ripped out their hearts/souls and stashed them in some hidden bunker, and melted down their bodies to rebuild them into mindless robot slaves.

Awesomely grimdark concept, but hampered by two huge flaws. Firstly, a super-annoying green aesop, which was very clumsily handled because this is a planet of talking robots, not nature. More importantly, major character derailment -- it was made by a different team to Beast Wars, and they weren't even allowed to watch the first series to familiarize themselves with how the Maximals were supposed to behave, so it'd be "more accessible".

Probably why Hasbro only recycles G1 instead of trying to do its own thing with new shows, the way these two shows did. Even though it was their own damn fault because they made this series into what it turned out being.

Robots in Disguise

An obscure anime that came out roughly a few months before Armada. Best known for its gag dub and general comedic focus that makes it surprisingly laughable, and certainly more fun to watch than any of the Energon Trilogy. Usually forgotten about.

Energon Trilogy

Comprised of the shows Armada, Energon, and Cybertron, which are also called the Unicron Trilogy due to the antagonist's return to the spotlight after being virtually nonexistent since The Movie. Anime reinterpretation of G1, decaying from "poor but watchable" to "completely unwatchable drek" for all the reasons people hate /a/: bad dubbing, overly lengthy scenes of nothing, a shift to crappy CGI, and a plot that is so terribly paced and search-questy that you'd be praying for your GM to be railroading this. On the plus-side, competent badass Starscream (who unfortunately inspired a whole generation of Linkin Park listening wannabes). On the downside, far too much focus on humans and not enough on giant robots trying to kill each other. Kicker, from the later series, is considered one of the worst human sidekicks the Transformers have ever had.

It has been said that, for all the failings of Beast Machines, at least it's better than this trilogy. That at least had the mercy of ending in two half-sized season instead of three full-sized ones.

Michael Bay Films

The dark force known as Michael Bay bought Transformers back as a series of live-action + CGI movies. Considered the Matt Ward of the Transformers universe, Bay's movies are rage-inducing fails that have far too much focus on annoying human characters and on lowbrow humor. Seriously, in the first movie, we don't get to see an Autobot for, like, 30 minutes while dealing with very bland characters who get billed way too much, and we have to facepalm our way through an awful gag about Bumblebee basically pissing on a guy. The second one is no better with two black stereotypes as heroes, a gag about balls, and a two-for-one gag about farting/incontinence - from a Transformer, no less. Real classy, Bay.

About the only shallow redeeming qualities it has is that the CGI Transformers look amazing (even if some neckbeards have cracked up over how they're "not accurate" to the G1 character modes), the fight scenes are suitably glorious for giant alien death-machines ripping each other to pieces, and most importantly is it has introduced Transformers to a whole new generation of fans, who can hopefully be shown the good stuff instead of thinking this garbage is the true representative of the setting.

Animated

G1 inspired series with notoriously unusual but smooth animation. This time, Optimus Prime and his crew are lowly space janitors who stumble across a superweapon from the Great War and have to defend it against Megatron, who seeks to use it to restart the war and this time ensure Decepticon victory. This version's Optimus is much younger and less experienced than usual; funnily enough, he was voiced by the actor who voiced Megatron in Beast Wars. Generally noted for having the best human sidekick (who turns out to really be part-transformer anyways). The other Autobots also tend to have some interesting characterizations from "Complete dumb muscle who actually knows everything about building Space Bridges" Bulkhead to "Weeaboo Robo-Ninja" Prowl to "MY EGO IS AS BIG AS MY CHIN AND MY ASSHOLEITUDE IS EVEN BIGGER!" Sentinel Prime. The Decepticons sometimes do better with the schizophrenic Blitzwing and badass robo-Clint Eastwood Lockdown.

The series was weird in that alongside the Decepticons were also some gimmicky human villains from a Shakespearean Robin Hood knockoff to a cute little girl who's a mad scientist to another mad scientist who rips off Transformer heads to replicate an old G1 gimmick. These villains were a bit ridiculous, but it helped break up the monotony of the constant 'con fighting, especially when Megatron was reduced to a state worse than Abaddon as a head. The creators came up with the idea to emphasize just how dangerous the 'cons are, compared to their Autobot opponents; when one 'con shows up, it's an emergency that takes the whole team to try and pull out a win. Hell, Starscream could beat up the entire Autobot team in his first few appearances before they figured out how to handle him.

Cybertron Series

There were many, MANY, video games made for every part of the Transformers, but most of them ranged from forgettable to utter shit. The closest these guys got to a good original game series (so no whining about the Movie-Games) were the games War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron, both made by High Moon Studios.

These games act as the Horus Heresy to G1's 40K by explaining how Optimus became a leader and how Megatron became a dictator while their war and its demand eventually destroyed their homeworld. While the gameplay itself isn't much more than a basic third-person shooter, the vast amount of references to the rest of the series and the rather well-written story and characters make it stand out, Fall of Cybertron may be considered the most grimdark setting of the whole series while not being as totally ham-handed like Beast Machines. It also helps that the second game gave some bonus variety in some segments by giving you a level as a FUCKING ROBOT DINOSAUR named Grimlock, and another where you get to play as a combiner (who has an awesome helicopter-arm, but is otherwise not very memorable besides being huge).

There is a third game -sorta- called Rise of the Dark Spark, which decides to make the stupid decision of merging this series to the Bayformers continuity. The only thing to remember is that the Cybertron segments are still awesome, while later parts will just shoehorn you with mutebee and Weeaboo samurai-bot Drift (who at least has an awesome special attack), with one level playing as Grimlock again and lacking any Decepticon plot post-Cybertron.

Prime

G1 inspired CGI series that somehow salvages the fairly decent elements of Michael Bay's crapfest movies (e.g. Peter Cullen and Frank Welker reprising their respective roles, artstyle, some character elements/background lore) and crafts an awesome show out of it. Amazingly gritty and intense, very good.

Biggest major problem is Miko, who is tying with Kicker (from the abovementioned Energon Trilogy) for the title "worst human sidekick in a Transformers show, ever!" Obnoxiously gungho and always charging off into danger, even when told not to, invariably making things worse for the Autobots in the process.

See Also

While no official roleplaying or tabletop games exist, the idea of "giant robots turning into vehicles" is so cool that lots of homebrew and independent mecha RPGs include mechas or characters that are totally NOT the Transformers, we swear! For example:

• Giant Guardian Generation
• Horizon - Mechamorphosis is literally "Transformers with the serial numbers filed off, done by way of Dungeons & Dragons 3.5".
• Mekton - Extremely flexible with what it can do: the rules for transforming are simple (as far as Mekton goes anyway) and adapting to a Transformers setting, but the game's hilariously broken.
• Rifts - Some homebrew stuff floating around on the net for playing Transformers exists. Pity it relies on the godawful RIFTS mechanics...

External Links

• TFWiki.net, a wiki dedicated to all things Transformers. They take a pretty laid-back, humorous approach to their material that will be familiar to readers of this wiki (although usually not so profane).