This has to be the best thread ever on tBP.

It highlights what makes Palladium so dam good, IMO.

That does sound like it was a lot of fun.  

Pete

All who were able to go (not me this, sadly) said it was friggin' incredible.  If you get a chance to meet Kev and the rest of the gang, you see they really, truly love gaming and everything about it.  And they're really, really, really nice people, too.

Dang. Makes me want to run TMNT.

I went this year and last year. It was a blast both times. Its great being around so many people interested in the same thing. Meeting and gaming with great people. Meeting some of the people in real life, that I only know from screen names. Not to mention meeting the people who write and illustrate the books I enjoy. Its just a fun time.

Wow.

I still have no first-hand experience with Palladium or its games, but this sounds neat.  And surprising.  RPG.net has always struck me as particularly (and openly) hostile toward Palladium.  It's weird to see this kind of gushing shoot right out of it.

Darned cool, though.  I love gamer enthusiasm like this.  It's infectious.

I really want to try out Rifts someday.

Quote from: RedFoxWow.

I still have no first-hand experience with Palladium or its games, but this sounds neat.  And surprising.  RPG.net has always struck me as particularly (and openly) hostile toward Palladium.  It's weird to see this kind of gushing shoot right out of it.

Darned cool, though.  I love gamer enthusiasm like this.  It's infectious.

I really want to try out Rifts someday.

I advice if you do stick with the old Rifts books.

Original Rifts Mainbook
World Books 1 - 22
Sourcebooks 1 - 4

Ignore the Seige of Tolkeen books until you are used to the setting and system. Then pick up SoT 4 Cyberknights, and SoT 6 (details the city of tolkeen).

Dimension Books worth the money:
Splicers
Phase World 1 & 2

Why get old books?

I'd get Rifts Ultimate, Conversion Book 1 Revised, and, eventually, just for the toys alone, the GM's Guide.  Reading through Rifts Ultimate will give you a good feel for places you want to know more about, if you decide you want World Books and such down the road...

Quote from: RedFoxWhy get old books?

Rifts books devolve in quality the farther you get from the original, with the exception that the core book has largely been dismally incomplete.

By and large, all the world books add is more classes, more races, and more guns.  And they get more ridiculous, and ridiculously imbalanced, as time goes on.  They're splatbooks pretending to be setting books.

Well, I'll just tell you this, Red Fox:  there are some great Rifts sourcebooks and worldbooks, and there are some stinkers.  Very few people seem to agree on precisely which are which.  I will say I feel that Rifts has undergone a writing renaissance of sorts since about World Book 26.  The freelancers they have now--Jason Richards, Todd Yoho, Carl Gleba, Brandon Aten, etc., have been doing really good work on a lot of the recent products (Arzno, Madhaven, D-Bees of North America...).  There's an enthusiasm, and a spirit of cooperation and collaboration between the freelancers that I hadn't seen in a long while.  

If you do ever decide you want to play/run Rifts, and are looking for advice, I'd be happy to help you out.  You can tell me what genres or subgenres or genre elements you like, and I bet we can find you something you'd love.

But for starters, yeah, Rifts Ultimate and Conversion Book 1.

I like kitchen-sink mish-mashes, with a particular soft spot for space opera.  Also, high-powered fantasy.  Star Wars and Exalted (the setting, anyway) are right up my alley.

I'm pretty shameless about what I like.  It doesn't have to be too serious or anything.  And I like furries (anthropomorphic animals) for their own sake if they're thrown in anywhere.

That rpg.net post by Spinachcat... it... it... did something to me. I'm monitoring this thread closely.

By all means, do recommend some worldbooks and stuff, Zachary, and whoever else has an opinion. My taste is pretty close to Mr.Fox's.

Why is a conversion book a must have? Or does the term here mean more than some stat conversions from earlier editions?

Quote from: Pierce InverarityThat rpg.net post by Spinachcat... it... it... did something to me. I'm monitoring this thread closely.

By all means, do recommend some worldbooks and stuff, Zachary, and whoever else has an opinion. My taste is pretty close to Mr.Fox's.

Why is a conversion book a must have? Or does the term here mean more than some stat conversions from earlier editions?

The Conversion Book is very poorly named.  It doesn't really "convert" anything, except from other Palladium games.  

It adds some tables for generating robots, a bunch of re-statted monsters and stuff from Palladium Fantasy, and some random new rules, IIRC.

I am glad good things are happening for Palladium.    Even though I no longer have any of their games and do not play their games anymore I would hate for the gamers who are a fan of their stuff to no longer get new stuff.

It does look like after the outpouring towards Palladium Kevin got humbled a little bit (which is a good thing).