What's wrong with Palladium?

[FenrisUlf]

Why do so many gamers seem to hate Palladium so much? I used to be a follower of their Rifts line, but I bugged when it became increasingly obvious that you had to buy literally every Palladium book to play it. Not just every book in the Rifts line, but every book period, as they casually tossed in references to their fantasy or martial arts or TMNT or whatever lines every ten pages or so.

Pity, as I liked the setting too.

[paigeoliver]

I have their Fantasy book, seems nice, never played it. I used to have TMNT, and that was, well, it was awesome, character generation in it was a real hoot.

[Lord Mhoram]

I didn't read it until after I had found HERO, and HERO fits my playstyle perfectly, so I didn't think much of Palladium. The problems to me are that it is clunky and has many holes and inconsistancies, and the rules are spread through way too many book, as you mentioned.

Kevin is apparently going to do a stripped to the bones version of the system (well he announced it, whether it actually comes out is another matter) that seems to fix most of those problems. I wouldn't play it (I have HERO after all), but it would be closer to something I would.

[JeffreyWKramer]

Palladium is a clunky RPG system that carries over a bunch of early concepts most games have abandoned (for good reason), is needlessly complex and generally does a poor job of reflecting the genre/source material it emulates. Palladium is the epitomy of what people use the term "old school" in a disparaging manner.

Some of the sourcebooks - NINJAS AND SUPERSPIES, for example - are well-written, but the system itself sucks pustulent zits. Probably the worst offender is the Palladium superheroes game (HEROES UNLIMITED? Is that the name? I honestly can't remember any more). It features such winning concepts as when you purchase some defensive powers, you roll percentile dice to see how well they work. You could get an 04, which means the equivalent of wearing a few layers of newspaper under your shirt, or 100, in which case you make Thor and the Hulk seem fragile - but either way it costs the same, since you just choose to go for the power but what you actually get is completely random. This is also a superhero game where being a guy with military training and a gun pretty much assures you of being vastly more competent than any other sort of character, such as aliens, mutants, etc. You'll notice, of course, how well that corresponds to the superhero comics, where guys like Thor, Superman and the Fantastic Four are worthless and the Punisher is the toughest person out there.

I could say more about my loathing for the Palladium System, but I just finished lunch and would rather think about more pleasant things.

[Gunrunner]

Ditto

Kramer said it all as far as why I hate the system. The Rifts setting however, I do enjoy. If Hero Games had come out with Rifts instead of Palladium, that would be the only game I'd play!

I want Post-Apocalypse/Fantasy/Dark Champions/Mecha Hero!

[Old Man]

sucks pustulent zits.

Wow, I gotta remember that one.

[Chimpira]

I have to admit that for a while I preferred their Palladium Fantasy setting to AD&D but that was a while ago. It worked best when it was simple as dirt but when adding more complexity to the system it just does not hold out. Heroes Unlimited is a joke and although they have made quite a few revisions on the system, like allowing Magic User and Psionics to be a viable class, it is still an inferior system. Now the system does allow you to choose your class and powers if you wished but it really does not have any middle ground so either you are unstoppable or you are a joke. If you roll there is a great chance that you would be better off buying a gun because some of the powers just will not combine right. In the old Heroes Unlimited system I would disallow some classes just because no one in their right mind would take them. They had the Physical Training class sounds good except that if you got powers you can take pretty much all the things that the physical training guy took. The combat system... (sigh) I just do not have enough time to talk about the combat system. The characters after a while all just feel redundant and unimaginative.

[sinanju]

I know little or nothing about the Palladium system. What I know is that when Primal Order book--which I really liked--came out, it including conversion notes for a number of game systems in the appendix (including GURPS, Champions and others, including Palladium's). The Palladium guy had a conniption and raised holy hell.

He's an ass, and I swore I'd never cross the street to pee on him if he were on fire. Hey, I can be unreasonable too. More reasonably, I'll never, ever contribute a dime to his wallet.

[philnicau]

I have to dissent from most of the posters on this thread, and state that i actually enjoy the Palladium system, especially Heroes Unlimited, its one of the best for playing semi-realistic super hero games where you have to worry about getting hurt or the effect your powers have on your clothes and the world around you, it also balances well highly skilled normals and supers, and excells in powered-suit heroes.
I accept that its not as free-form as Hero, but it doesn't involve as much number crunching either, both have their pluses and minuses.
I've had a lot of fun over the years playing both Champions and Heroes Unlimited.

[Captain Obvious]

Palladium seems to have made no efforts to create any sort of game balance. It seems like most of their games have a few uber classes that rock anything else in the game, to the extent that no one familiar with the game will play anything else.

In D&D, there were several spells, like fireball, that increased in damage by a die for every level of the caster, until it reached the kiloton range. Palladium saw this, and raised them by allowing spellcasters to throw the effect a number of times equal to their level per casting. That's right, a 10th level caster doesn't just get one 10d6 tacnuke, he gets to throw ten of them.

[Old Man]

I thought their spells didn't increase with character ability. They were just as is. Oh, and you used up magic points or some such to cast the spells.

I really hated the list of useless classes. I mean come on, in the world of RIFTS who's going to play a scientist, technician or fur trader?

[DoctorItron]

To be fair, Palladium does not suck. Like any game system, there are good things and bad things. IMO, the rules for Palladium are not very good, but the settings in some of their games are excellent:

What's wrong:

• The rules are not consistent. Different books may have abilities with the same name, but the rules are slightly different in each book. Assuming that you play several different Palladium games, it's incredibly difficult to memorize the rules because the rules change ever-so-slightly between games.

• No core rulebook. Too much stuff gets reprinted in each book.

• The rules provide no hints as to the power level of different classes, short of inspecting classes line-by-line. New GMs can wind up with a dragon and a serf in the same game.

• Too many character classes. Do we really need different classes for "American soldier", "British soldier", etc.?

• Power escalation. A lot of Rifts books introduced uber-classes to outdo the uber-classes from prior books.

• Not easily customizable. Heroes Unlimited, for example, is built for relatively low powered heroes. There's no easy way to scale the power level.

What's right about Palladium games:

• The Rifts universe. The perfect post-apocalypse multigenre setting, IMO.

• The Robotech setting, but I think they lost the license a few years ago

• The Mechanoid setting.

• Excellent GMing hints in some of the books. Not quite as good as Strike Force, but nothing will ever match that

• Quick character creation.

• Quick combat resolution.

[DoctorItron]

I know little or nothing about the Palladium system. What I know is that when Primal Order book--which I really liked--came out, it including conversion notes for a number of game systems in the appendix (including GURPS, Champions and others, including Palladium's). The Palladium guy had a conniption and raised holy hell.

He's an ass, and I swore I'd never cross the street to pee on him if he were on fire. Hey, I can be unreasonable too. More reasonably, I'll never, ever contribute a dime to his wallet.

I hear this complaint about Kevin Siembieda a lot. He's been a nice guy when I've spoken to him via email and at conventions. Maybe whoever wrote Primal Order didn't ask for permission, or asked and was for whatever reason turned down.

Hero Game' current policy, if I understand correctly, wouldn't allow Hero conversions to be printed without permission from Steve and Darren. If you printed a conversion book without asking, they might raise holy hell, too.

[BNakagawa]

The art was pretty good. The rules, not so good.

[sinanju]

I hear this complaint about Kevin Siembieda a lot. He's been a nice guy when I've spoken to him via email and at conventions. Maybe whoever wrote Primal Order didn't ask for permission, or asked and was for whatever reason turned down.

Hero Game' current policy, if I understand correctly, wouldn't allow Hero conversions to be printed without permission from Steve and Darren. If you printed a conversion book without asking, they might raise holy hell, too.

Could be. It was a long time ago, and he may have had a point. All I know is that his reaction left a very bad impression on me and I've had no occasion to change my mind since then.