I rather liked it, although I never got to play it fully.

I'd join a Palladium Fantasy 1e game in a hot second. All my memories of the game are tremendous fun.

It occurred to me that if 1E Palladium Fantasy were published today it would probably be considered (rightly) a main-stream OSR rules set. It is really very close to D&D in the structure and mechanics of the game. Perhaps the right way to think of it is someone's house-rule version of 1E.

One of the best things about it is that you get to make direct use of the truly awesome Palladium book of arms and armor!

Quote from: Larsdangly;940406It occurred to me that if 1E Palladium Fantasy were published today it would probably be considered (rightly) a main-stream OSR rules set. It is really very close to D&D in the structure and mechanics of the game. Perhaps the right way to think of it is someone's house-rule version of 1E.

Absolutely! It feels like a mash-up of AD&D 1e and Runequest 2e to me — consider the percentile skill system and the scale of nonhuman attributes.

I'm honestly even surprised that Siembieda got away with publishing this back in the 1980s. Which is also a tad ironical for Mr. C&D.

Quote from: The Butcher;940460Absolutely! It feels like a mash-up of AD&D 1e and Runequest 2e to me — consider the percentile skill system and the scale of nonhuman attributes.

I'm honestly even surprised that Siembieda got away with publishing this back in the 1980s. Which is also a tad ironical for Mr. C&D.

Aside from the stats being kinda simmilar. Theres not alot shared between Palladium and D&D. Though way back there was some grumbling from Gary about some of the wanna-bes. Though no clue who was referring to even now.

And yeah its is VERY ironic.

Quote from: The Butcher;940460I'm honestly even surprised that Siembieda got away with publishing this back in the 1980s. Which is also a tad ironical for Mr. C&D.

While there some similiarity. There are major differences as well. For example there are eight stats not six.

QuoteI.Q.
Mental Endurance (M.E.)
Mental Affinity (M.A.)
Physical Strength (P .S.)
Physical Prowess (P.P.)
Physical Endurance (P .E.)
Physical Beauty (P.B.)
Speed

Racial attributes are handled by rolling different numbers of d6s not +/- of D&D.

Those differences are substantially smaller than the differences among common D&D house rules sets in the 1970's. I was recently re-reading Wraith Overlord (the extended dungeons beneath the City State). In that era, Judges Guild products had all kinds of crazy rules: social level as a stat; your attributes could be rolled against a certain number of times per day as a kind of special saving throw (so, your strength stat might be 105, meaning the value is 10, and you can roll against it 5 times per day). Damage done by weapons would be made up on the spot (e.g., a goblin might have a falchion that does 4-14 damage, never mind that a player character with a one handed sword did 1d6 or 1d8, depending on your rules set). I could go on and on and on.

Quote from: Larsdangly;940910Those differences are substantially smaller than the differences among common D&D house rules sets in the 1970's. I was recently re-reading Wraith Overlord (the extended dungeons beneath the City State). In that era, Judges Guild products had all kinds of crazy rules: social level as a stat; your attributes could be rolled against a certain number of times per day as a kind of special saving throw (so, your strength stat might be 105, meaning the value is 10, and you can roll against it 5 times per day). Damage done by weapons would be made up on the spot (e.g., a goblin might have a falchion that does 4-14 damage, never mind that a player character with a one handed sword did 1d6 or 1d8, depending on your rules set). I could go on and on and on.

Wow, that's crazy.

Worth remembering that Kevin is a Judges Guild alumnus.

Quote from: The Butcher;940973Wow, that's crazy.

Worth remembering that Kevin is a Judges Guild alumnus.

Meaning?  (Honest question, this is before my time, and I'm curious.)

He did illustrations for Judges Guild and probably wrote for them as well.

Quote from: David Johansen;940983He did illustrations for Judges Guild and probably wrote for them as well.

Oh cool!

Years ago at the Palladium Open House, I had Kevin sign some of my ancient Judges Guild stuff.

I don't remember any JG stuff he wrote, just stuff he illustrated.

And yes, JG did make up all sorts of interesting on-the-spot rules that show up in descriptions of monsters and encounters. Highly creative stuff, especially if you look at their pre-AD&D stuff.

Yes, they were pretty much doing whatever the fuck they wanted with the game. But so were the designers - D&D was really a very fluid thing, beyond a couple of core ideas (levels, the core classes, etc.), roughly until 1979 or 80.

Remember, you couldn't buy the hard cover DMG until 1979. Meaning, for a couple of years after the player's hand book and monster manual were published the only way you could play the game was with the boxed set and supplements maybe plus Holmes, which were all over the place when it came to rules. And The Dragon already had a couple dozen issues out, containing tons of non-canonical suggestions directly from the game publisher. It is no wonder JG didn't think it was fine to put forward their own version of basic ideas like what a stat is and how you use it.

Palladium 1e is probably the only game I never owned that I would most like to.

It's a pretty easy acquisition. I think the revised 1st edition is widely available.