What's wrong with Palladium?

[Doctor Otaku]

I used to play both Rifts and HU up until a few years ago. I just got tired of having to come up with more house rules to balance out all the broken mechanics that would pop up. I still like the concept of Rifts, I just can't choke down the game mechanics anymore. If Kevin Siembieda is planning to perform a much needed trimming of the rules fat from Palladium. I would suggest that he listen to those who still play and GM the system. So that what is left from the operation works.

[Chimpira]

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?

I played a Field Scientist in their Robotech game. I had to. I just knew every other guy there was going to fly a big robot and I said screw it the class is there I am going to play it. The funny thing is that I became leader of the group and utilized everyone to their highest potential. Especially when we did not have the Veritechs to fly and had to rely on our skills. It just depends on what sort of game you are playing. If everyone is taking the Walking MDC monster? Yeah I think the Fur trader is going to be a smudge.

[Madstone]

I was introduced to Palladium through the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness game way back in high school. Liked the concept, but the system had a lot, a lot of problems. It wasn't until I tried RIFTS that I truly learned to hate, hate, HATE the system. Just so many very bad ideas, very munchkiny, and just ick.

That being said, Palladium produced what is my Questing Beast of RPG collecting: The Justice Machine supplement for Heroes Unlickitysplit or whatever it was called. That's because I'm a JM fan, however, and not a Palladium fan.

Palladium...*brrrr*

[Chimpira]

I was introduced to Palladium through the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness game way back in high school. Liked the concept, but the system had a lot, a lot of problems. It wasn't until I tried RIFTS that I truly learned to hate, hate, HATE the system. Just so many very bad ideas, very munchkiny, and just ick.

That being said, Palladium produced what is my Questing Beast of RPG collecting: The Justice Machine supplement for Heroes Unlickitysplit or whatever it was called. That's because I'm a JM fan, however, and not a Palladium fan.

Palladium...*brrrr*

I once owned that book. Much love for The Justice Machine.

[Worldmaker]

I'd love to answer the question, but I'd have no clue where to start...

[Vondy]

The system is ineptly named - it should be Pandemonium.

I always liked their settings, and did play the fantasy game between our AD&D and Chartmaster runs, but the system is amorphous, they reprint too much material with each book, and its heavily given to litanies of exceptions and excessive munchkinism.

[Solomon]

I'd rather not discuss the Palladium system - it's clunky, outdated, convoluted, munchkiny and inconsistent, but some people like clunky, outdated, munchkiny and inconsistent systems. I'm not trying to be sarcastic, honestly - I've played Rolemaster for years, after all. To each his own.

There are worse things than the systems itself IMHO. Palladium's editing is abysmal. Their rate of content recycling is unmatched by any other game company. They *can't* stick to a publishing schedule (missing a deadline once in a while is excusable, missing most of your deadlines is not). On the plus side, there's some clever writing in a few Paladium books - I especially like Bill Coffin's stuff.

[Magmarock]

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.

Nothing wrong with Palladium... it's great source material for Hero!

Mags

[megaplayboy]

Wouldn't a "what's wrong with Keven Siembeda(sic)?" be more apropos?

[DoctorItron]

I'd rather not discuss the Palladium system - it's clunky, outdated, convoluted, munchkiny and inconsistent, but some people like clunky, outdated, munchkiny and inconsistent systems. I'm not trying to be sarcastic, honestly - I've played Rolemaster for years, after all. To each his own.

There are worse things than the systems itself IMHO. Palladium's editing is abysmal. Their rate of content recycling is unmatched by any other game company. They *can't* stick to a publishing schedule (missing a deadline once in a while is excusable, missing most of your deadlines is not). On the plus side, there's some clever writing in a few Paladium books - I especially like Bill Coffin's stuff.

Palladium isn't the only gaming company to consistently miss deadlines. Palladium was starting to do a commendable scheduling job just as I stopped playing Rifts, but I have no idea how they've done in the past few years.

Re. scheduling, look how long it took to get Hero 5th edition out I'm thankful that Steve Long has a crack habit of whatever it is that lets him churn out incredible volumes of quality text

[Jhamin]

The main problem with Palladium is that their core system stopped evolving fifteen years ago. After that they started writing books that included new character classes or equipment without actually playtesting how that fit into their rules set.
Back in the eighties, Palladium had a very respectable rules set in comparison to the other games on the market. Their main problem currently is that the rest of the gaming market has moved on and they haven't.
Of course, I sometimes hear this charge leveled at Hero too.

I also suspect that what playtesting gets done uses Siembiada's house rules, which somehow haven't made it into the books.



While I can no longer make myself play Palladium for more than a couple games, I still feel that they have some of the best settings in the industry.
-Rifts and After the Bombs are both among the most fun Post-Apoc settings in the industry (and see chaos-earth for Rifts in the first couple months after the disaster)
-Palladium Fantasy's setting is right up there with the Forgotten Realms in terms of generic fantasy gaming goodness.
-There are a series of world books attached to the Rifts line that include an entire game setting in a single book. Wormwood, Phase World, and more. I still mine these for ideas.

[Killer Shrike]

Some good concepts, but oh my god, the worst rules system of any "mainstream" rpg. I've always been shocked that people can play that game as is.

I could get over the clunky inconsistent and arcane mechanics. Even the absurd and totally illogical MDC concept could be dealt with. But the one thing that is completely endemic to the system is the absolute and total lack of game balance of any kind.

Now granted, it is a little more of an organic approach to take the stance of, hey, who said everyone was equally talented and "powerful". But Palladium completely ignores any sort of metagame logic that indicates that some kind of parity between starting and advancing characters is a worthy goal.

This total lack of internal balancing combined with a very fast & loose relationship with synergy results in a warm & damp environment ideal for the growth of munchkins and other forms of mold. In some games a munchkin at least needs a certain low cunning or skills in the field of "creative interpretation", but single celled organisms could munchkin out their PC's for a Palladium game.


There is a story that I heard once; don't know if it's true or not, but as the tale goes one of the original HERO's guys told Kevin Sembieda essentially "good concepts, crappy system" at a gaming convention. Probably just a rumor, but it's not outside the bounds of reality

[teh bunneh]

Like many folks here, I like the world concepts but don't much care for the mechanics.

The thing that completely turned me off of Palladium was an essay in "Villains Unlimited," in which Kevin S goes on at great length about how it is simply impossible for a person to knock another person unconscious. Any game designer who wastes a page and a half for a rant against one of the staple conventions of the superhero genre is missing a few cards from his deck, IMHO. :P

Bill.

[Vondy]

Like many folks here, I like the world concepts but don't much care for the mechanics.

The thing that completely turned me off of Palladium was an essay in "Villains Unlimited," in which Kevin S goes on at great length about how it is simply impossible for a person to knock another person unconscious...

Bill.

forget genre conventions. has he every been to a professional boxing match? or been hit in the head with a hard blunt object?

[Almafeta]

The system's great, especially when you get good writers like Wujcik to work with it.

It's the company's actions and KS's additudes towards his own customers that really turns people off.