TheRPGSite

Is this game playable and fun as is, or does it have major structural flaws/limits  that need a massive houseruling effort to remedy?

For purposes of this thread, "lack of class balance" or indeed any rule or element by which Teh Gonzo trumps Teh GURPS, shall not be defined as a major structural flaw/limit.

Note: 1st edition, aka "Palladium Roleplaying Game," not 2nd.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityIs this game playable and fun as is, or does it have major structural flaws/limits  that need a massive houseruling effort to remedy?

For purposes of this thread, "lack of class balance" or indeed any rule or element by which Teh Gonzo trumps Teh GURPS, shall not be defined as a major structural flaw/limit.

Note: 1st edition, aka "Palladium Roleplaying Game," not 2nd.

I played a great non-houseruled campaign of this in 1992 or so. That said, you will be in the content creation business (creating monsters and stuff) if you seriously play it.  

It's a cool game.

I've got the revised edition (black cover w/red type and illo, no MDC, no spell points...I think that's very similar to first?) but, while I've read it a couple times, I haven't played.  However, it looks pretty damned complete to me, though horribly organized.

1st Edition is the best ruleset Palladium ever released.  The rules are remarkably clear, simple, and straightforward, their only flaw being a rather random organization, and a lack of a character sheet to help present some level of structure to the chargen process.

Really, imagine the current snaketangle that is Palladium, stripped back down to it's bare core, back before they started grafting all kinds of random shit to it it was never intended to do, and that's what you've got.  

It's a solid, well done alternate D&D, with a heavier focus on medievalism, and an overall grittier, yet still fairly high magic feel.  

I like it, a lot.  Way more than I ever thought I would.

I freakin' love that game. Echoing previous replies, its main flaw it the horrible organization. Otherwise, it's a great game with a lot of player races, classes, and a shitload of spells, all presented within a playable system. So no, you wouldn't need to houserule the hell out of everything. I played in several games with the rules "as is" and it worked fine.

Further echoing previous replies, it was a cool alternative to AD&D when we need a break from AD&D or whatever other game we were playing at the time. And unlike AD&D, higher level games were still just as sweet as low level games (maybe that's a personal preference with AD&D though; we always found that the game broke at higher levels).

The only thing I didn't like was the setting, or at least most of it.

-=Grim=-

I think all Palladium Games lend themselves to power gamers, as long as you're not worried about a player trying to juice his character or capable of handling that I'd say it'd work fine.

Quote from: J Arcane1st Edition is the best ruleset Palladium ever released.  The rules are remarkably clear, simple, and straightforward, their only flaw being a rather random organization, and a lack of a character sheet to help present some level of structure to the chargen process.

Really, imagine the current snaketangle that is Palladium, stripped back down to it's bare core, back before they started grafting all kinds of random shit to it it was never intended to do, and that's what you've got.

It reminds me a lot, in fact, of the original release of RIFTS - before all the supplements and stuff. Core-RIFTS, circa 1990, looks a lot like core-Palladium Roleplaying Game, 1st edition.

It's interesting how as soon as RIFTS happened Palladium became "Palladium Fantasy" and not just "the Palladium Roleplaying Game". According to at least some accounts I've come across Kevin's original campaigns that inspired PFRPG actually resembled RIFTS a fair amount - or at least, had great heaps of SF tech thrown into the mix (in the classic Blackmoor vein) - but those aspects were toned down for PFRPG. It's like as soon as RIFTS came out PFRPG was no longer the closest representation of Kevin's Game that Palladium had published, and got kicked from flagship line to supplementary line. Which I think is kind of a shame.

OK OK, I'm getting it.

I actually got the Baalgor Wastelands this afternoon. I know, stats would have to be converted. I just wanted finally to find out whether Bill Coffin is as good as they say. Based on skimming it, I'd say he probably is.

Warthur, your description of The Kev's early gaming sounds right on. Lots of gonzo tech in the Defilers campaigns, AFAIK. (Lots of players too btw--usually around 20, according to the Master.)

I had it when it first came out, or shortly thereafter.
Decent game. Better at the time than DnD, or so I thought.

Palladium Fantasy first edition is one of the best rpg designs of all time hands down.  Indeed it borders on the very edge of out awesoming Rolemaster Standard System.

The difference between what happened to RM2 and TPFRPG when they went to new editions is simple.  RMSS is carefully integrated, frighteningly complete, and internally consistant in ways RM2 never was.  TPFRPG2 is a scrambled, incomplete  mess that loses all the beauty and elegance of the original.

Now if I can just cross breed the two in my lab.  Mwahahahahahahaha

Also a DMing tip, you don't need to generate stats for npcs, if you've got their class and level you can look up all of their skills on the skill charts, so all you'll need is their hit points.

Let me hit the high points:

While there are elves and dwarves they're nearly extinct and live among humans.

Decidedly humanocentric world with monsters mostly living in the fringes and ruins of fallen civilizations.

Fast character creation

Minimal npc record keeping required (see above)

Excellent defense roll mechanism that manages to avoid most of the pitfalls without needing special auto success rules.

Skills as flat percentiles from a chart.

Brilliant weapon differentiation through skill incrementation.

Simple as red box basic D&D more flexible than D&D 3.0 less cluttered than AD&D

Really messed up way of getting more spells for your level one wizard.  Also one of the coolest wizard characters in gaming.  Not to mention Diabolists and Summoners.

Of course, even then it's not as Good as Mechanoid Invasion Book III but nothing else really ever will be.

Palladium Fantasy first edition is one of the best rpg designs of all time hands down.  Indeed it borders on the very edge of out awesoming Rolemaster Standard System.

The difference between what happened to RM2 and TPFRPG when they went to new editions is simple.  RMSS is carefully integrated, frighteningly complete, and internally consistant just as TPFRPG is.  TPFRPG2 is a scrambled, incomplete  mess that loses all the beauty and elegance of the original while RM2 never really had it.

Now if I can just cross breed the two in my lab.  Mwahahahahahahaha

Also a DMing tip, you don't need to generate stats for npcs, if you've got their class and level you can look up all of their skills on the skill charts, so all you'll need is their hit points.

Let me hit the high points:

While there are elves and dwarves they're nearly extinct and live among humans.

Decidedly humanocentric world with monsters mostly living in the fringes and ruins of fallen civilizations.

Fast character creation

Minimal npc record keeping required (see above)

Excellent defense roll mechanism that manages to avoid most of the pitfalls without needing special auto success rules.

Skills as flat percentiles from a chart.

Brilliant weapon differentiation through skill incrementation.

Simple as red box basic D&D more flexible than D&D 3.0 less cluttered than AD&D

Really messed up way of getting more spells for your level one wizard.  Also one of the coolest wizard characters in gaming.  Not to mention Diabolists and Summoners.

Of course, even then it's not as Good as Mechanoid Invasion Book III but nothing else really ever will be.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityIs this game playable and fun as is, or does it have major structural flaws/limits  that need a massive houseruling effort to remedy?

Yes...to both questions.

When it came out, the dominant paradigm was that houseruling and content creation was a fun part of the hobby just like painting is part of Warhammer.

Have you ever played Palladium's Valley of the Pharoahs?   Its Palladium's only boxed set game and its Fantasy Egypt.  You can get it as a free download on their website.   I played it at Open House 2007 and it was great fun to get all funky and Egyptian.   If you liked Scorpion King, snag it.

http://www.palladium-megaverse.com/cuttingroom/valley/valley.html

Quote from: David JohansenOf course, even then it's not as Good as Mechanoid Invasion Book III but nothing else really ever will be.

David, you speak utter insanity.   Pure crazy.  Weirdness of the 10th degree.

That said, I am running a Mechanoids Homeworld event at the next Palladium Open House because I missed that game in the 80s and its just an infectious read that screams out for some playing.

For those of you who don't know, the Mechanoid Invasion was Kevin Siembieda's Trilogy RPG with three games packaged for three wildly different campaigns - kinda like what Black Library promised to do with 40k.   The first is Invasion where we have a scifi world getting squished by killer psychic robots, the next is Some Other Title where you try to survive inside the giant mother ship of the robots like mice in an aircraft carrier and lastly, Homeworld which is in the far future where various races squabble over the remains of the psychic robot's ancient legacy.

When did they release those as pdf? The page says it was modified in 2006.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityIs this game playable and fun as is, or does it have major structural flaws/limits  that need a massive houseruling effort to remedy?

For purposes of this thread, "lack of class balance" or indeed any rule or element by which Teh Gonzo trumps Teh GURPS, shall not be defined as a major structural flaw/limit.

The illustration in the front sums it all up for me. It's KS's drawing of his group, the one that played the original campaign. It looks like THE RIFTS GROUP, including a goblin, giant, superheros, robot, more. These guys played for hours on end. I often get the feel that a decade more of main Palladium products have never been playtested. Not so here. You can feel the dice rolling.

KS's PRPG is The Satanic Bible to Gygax's AD&D. Where Gygax said THOU SHALT NOT PLAY THIS, KS said THOU SHALT. Monster pcs? Check. Evil characters? Check. Skills? Check. On and on.

Plus it has a kickass deadly adventure in the back written by Erick Wujcik.

It does put rules bits in oddly, under the classes they mesh with. So combat is covered in the fightan classes, spells in the magic ones and so forth. But, it has the MEAT in just one solid trim book that took 2nd edition 3+ thick books to cover! :pundit:

The only thing I really enjoy from 2nd edition not in this one are the full spell point system (it sorta kinda exists here), the wonderful pulpy inked illustrations and other art, and Bill Coffin's writing. But they're pretty compatible, so just pick up the region books you want from 2nd edition.

Quote from: darWhen did they release those as pdf? The page says it was modified in 2006.

Palladium's had the Recon etc. pdfs up for a while now, including the first supplement book for PRPG. (Arms of Nagash-Tor?) I'd think before 2006 actually but I could be wrong.

Quote from: SpinachcatDavid, you speak utter insanity.   Pure crazy.  Weirdness of the 10th degree.

That said, I am running a Mechanoids Homeworld event at the next Palladium Open House because I missed that game in the 80s and its just an infectious read that screams out for some playing.

Not at all, Homeworld is just that good.  You've got what?  A dozen detailed character classes in two pages.  All the rules of play in four?  The coolest half dozen PC races ever to appear in an rpg?  A system that works, is balanced, flexible, and does a good job of everything?

Yeah, I don't know how Kevin went from such absolute brilliance to Rifts, I really don't.  (well okay, Heroes Unlimited to TMNT to Rifts but damnit Kevin!)

Hey! No Blasphemy! TMNT is dynamite dude! :D

TMNT was the Wuje's, and is beautiful.

TMNT reinforced the physical skills mess from Heroes Unlimited but was otherwise a brilliant bit of work.

Not to say that I wouldn't change a couple things about the system.

No extra hit points per level.

May increase any attribute by one point each level.

Each percentile skill has a linked base stat that provides a bonus instead of just IQ.

BTW, the Wuje's personal copies of Palladium 1st and 1st revised are up for auction at the Kev's ebay store. All I know is that the reserve is higher than $20. Your turn.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityBTW, the Wuje's personal copies of Palladium 1st and 1st revised are up for auction at the Kev's ebay store. All I know is that the reserve is higher than $20. Your turn.

It's worth over $20 just to have a book with the infamous sexual deviancy insanity chart.  :p

Please tell me that it's to raise money for Eric's family and not another "crisis of treachery" gimmick.

Oddly enough, when I think about it, I think Kevin picked up a lot of his marketing savy from sixties Marvel Comics covers.

Does anyone have a link to that auction?

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditDoes anyone have a link to that auction?

RPGPundit

From the press release (shows all stuff being auctioned by Kev, scroll down to find the TMNT book):

http://stores.ebay.com/kevinstoys-artandcollectibles (http://stores.ebay.com/kevinstoys-artandcollectibles)

Click on "Auction Only." That weeds out the Star Warz toyz.

Alright, I'm done reading the Baalgor Wastelands, and it brings the awesome in spades. Bill Coffin is a good man.

I wouldn't have posted this hadn't I just come across a link to that "Why I left Palladium" harangue he wrote back when, and which instantly promotes him from good man to demigod.

I must share it. It's in my Eternal Top 10 Rpg.net Posts.

http://forum.rpg.net/showpost.php?p=1445566&postcount=184

What I love about the original PRPG is how easily you could multi-class to gain power, and since many classes had their own unique HtH table, you could stack all those bonuses up :)

Also a great way to gain HP by multi-classing as throw-away OCCs, getting a d6 for much less experience.

Using OCC bonuses to skills was also a better way of raising them rather than getting to higher levels.

It was a good RPG as written IME

Aha, this thread is old- but it's THE PALLADIUM ROLE PLAYING GAME FIRST EDITION, therefore worthy...

Just wanted to mention something about the the haphazard way the book is organized.  After reading the book several times, I began to see that it is organized, just differently.  All the rules for combat are in the Men At Arms OCC section.  All the rules for Magic are in the Men of Magic section, same for the religious section and so forth.  Makes navigation easier.

I'd play in a PF1e campaign (with a good GM and players) in a heartbeat. Awesome game and a great setting.

How many sword-blows does it take to down a typical combatant in Palladium Fantasy? Is it fast-and-deadly like early D&D, or is it grinding-and-attritional like 4E?

I loved RIFTs and Heroes Unlimited but the MDC/SDC stacked so high that it took forever to defeat enemies (unless you were a Glitterboy). Does 1st ed PFRPG play faster?

Quote from: amacris;771108How many sword-blows does it take to down a typical combatant in Palladium Fantasy? Is it fast-and-deadly like early D&D, or is it grinding-and-attritional like 4E?

I loved RIFTs and Heroes Unlimited but the MDC/SDC stacked so high that it took forever to defeat enemies (unless you were a Glitterboy). Does 1st ed PFRPG play faster?

Characters all have HP equal to Physical Endurance + 1d6 per level, no SDC except for armor.
So a 1st level human character has 4d6 HP. Weapons do a bit more damage than D&D, 1d6 for a knife, 3d6 for the greatest of great swords.
In short, yes it plays faster than Rifts.

Quote from: J Arcane;2157711st Edition is the best ruleset Palladium ever released.  The rules are remarkably clear, simple, and straightforward, their only flaw being a rather random organization, and a lack of a character sheet to help present some level of structure to the chargen process.

Really, imagine the current snaketangle that is Palladium, stripped back down to it's bare core, back before they started grafting all kinds of random shit to it it was never intended to do, and that's what you've got.  

It's a solid, well done alternate D&D, with a heavier focus on medievalism, and an overall grittier, yet still fairly high magic feel.  

I like it, a lot.  Way more than I ever thought I would.

This is straight up correct. Every subsequent revision and related games degraded this terrific game. It has a lot of D&D feel to it, but also a coolness factor in the magic and monsters that I usually associate with Chivalry and Sorcery or Call of Cthulhu, and I love that there is lots of effort made to support character types that are closer to classic fiction and history and further from tweaked out video game BS. Your Knight seems like a knight.

Wolfen Paladin enough said.:)

Quote from: Spinachcat;771107I'd play in a PF1e campaign (with a good GM and players) in a heartbeat. Awesome game and a great setting.

My typical D&D settings crib a lot from Palladium.

And the game itself is awesome, evocative, atmospheric and gritty. Do bear in mind that I came to it from AD&D 2e and BECMI/RC, and that I discovered it before AD&D 1e.

Quote from: Dan Vincze;771112Characters all have HP equal to Physical Endurance + 1d6 per level, no SDC except for armor.
So a 1st level human character has 4d6 HP. Weapons do a bit more damage than D&D, 1d6 for a knife, 3d6 for the greatest of great swords.
In short, yes it plays faster than Rifts.

Cool! Thanks for answering.

Just be sure to get 1E and not 2E! This is essential. 2E introduces whatever that shitty acronym stat is that inflates HP. Combat crashes to a halt with this added.

O.k., now I'm off to dig up my ratty graph paper notes for my ca. 1983 Palladium campaign...

Quote from: Spinachcat;215911Have you ever played Palladium's Valley of the Pharoahs?   Its Palladium's only boxed set game and its Fantasy Egypt.  You can get it as a free download on their website.   I played it at Open House 2007 and it was great fun to get all funky and Egyptian.   If you liked Scorpion King, snag it.

http://www.palladium-megaverse.com/cuttingroom/valley/valley.html





QUOTE]

That link no longer works...any idea where Valley of the Pharaohs can be found now? I would love to get it in any format I can.

I think it is on DrivethruRPG now

Otherwise, torrents are your friend.

playabe. Not broken. Excellent. Do it.

The only thing I feel needs to be added is that Mechanoid Invasion Book III is the best game Palladium ever published.  TPFRPG is incredible and awesome but it just isn't as incredible and awesome.

Quote from: Matt;777628That link no longer works...any idea where Valley of the Pharaohs can be found now? I would love to get it in any format I can.

$6 PDF - I'd also try eBay
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/64236/The-Valley-of-the-Pharaohs

It deserves a relaunch. Just a one book game, but its lots of fun.

Quote from: Pierce Inverarity;215739Is this game playable and fun as is, or does it have major structural flaws/limits  that need a massive houseruling effort to remedy?

Two major problems I could see:

1. there wasn't that much of an HP difference between races (ie Gnomes / Humans / Giants, except for minor PE differences were about the same) or the SDC of armor worn by different sized beings. 2nd ed didn't fix the armor SDC issue but with raw fleshy durability, sort of addressed it by giving the larger races SDC bonuses.

2. combat could be as slow as 1 attack per minute, hard to envision, though sort of hilarious. 2nd ed remedied this a bit by making it at least 1 attack per 15 seconds. Still seems slow though, I prefer 1 attack per second in GURPS.

3. magic had a spells / day system which wasn't entirely clearo n how it worked, like if you had to wait 24 hours to get your slow back or if you could cast your full payload at 11:59, wait a couple minutes and cast full payload again at 12:01. 2nd ed dealt with this by introducing BTS/Rifts' PPE system, which used point-based costs for spells similar to what this RPG did for psionics via ISP since inception.

4. due to increasing XP requirements for higher levels, and gaining a die of HP every level-up, if you wanted to rack up HP it was cheaper to do so by multi-classing and using your new OCC to get HP dice at a rapid rate

5. similar to the above, unlike later RPGs from Palladium Books and PF2, which said you could only have 1 hand to hand skill or that you could only use one at a time, multi-classing and getting a couple levels in multiple combat skills (each men of arms had their own!) could give you much better bonuses than leveling up a single OCC's class

6. with skills, since +% bonuses from OCCs were cumulative (the example given is both Thieves and Wizards getting a bonus to Prowl) it becomes easier to get a higher percentage in many skills by multi-classing and relying on their bonuses to 1st/low level proficiency to rack up, than to actually level up the skill to a high level in a single OCC.

7. Diabolists were godly because they got scroll-making as an OCC ability and could impart level 6 strength to any spell they put into it. Otherwise scrollmaking could only be done via a high level spell called Create Scroll (page 74). Wizards could only drink blood to learn spells from 1-6 and this was 10th so you had to buy it or convince ice-dragon-god Kym-Nark Mar (page 160), northern god Od (page 164), bird-god Thoth (page 169), Devil Lord Satan (page 186) or a Great Horned Dragon (page 213) or their priests (for gods, 6th level or higher page 142) or witches (for Satan) or a wizard who learned from one of the former to teach it to you, since nobody else knew it. Even if you did learn it, the spell was cast at your level, not improved to 6th, which is only a disadvantage at higher levels. Otherwise, only Priests had the deific ability to make scrolls (also 6th level, via Prayer of Intervention with a 54% chance, once per day)

Unlike wizards, witches gained spells as they leveled up and were not capped to level 6. They operated more like warlocks. Unlike priests (limited to learning spells their god knows, page 140) it doesn't say (page 100) that they're limited to learning spells that their demon/devil master knows. Which is certainly useful if you're serving Demon Lords like Kubera-Loe or Mictla (180) or Charun or Abdul-Ra (181) who didn't know any spells. The only Devil Lord who didn't have spells was Diabolus (page 187).

There were gods who didn't know any spells, their priests were screwed.

The downside to being a witch was it didn't allow multiple OCCs whereas I think Priests could multi-class. Better to hire high level witches to get access to rare cauldron-less spells 7+ than to actually be one.

Palladium 1E is a terrific game. It has all of D&D's good qualities, but an array of classes and class powers that feels more generalizable (and, in particular, better for quasi-historical settings), and a rich, interesting magic system. It is a fun, well balanced game. I find later editions totally unplayable, in part because of the changes that pump up player power and slow combat.

To be the odd man out I prefered 2E to 1E. While 1E was better organized. I found that 2E added some elements missing to classes. The Longbowman was not that diffierent from a say their version of a Fighter. Except for having the Longbow WP. In 2E they actually had some cool abilites like parrying arrows. As for being unbalanced. Many rpgs allow for tha. Some easier than most. I can make a Wizard in Pathfinder with the right feats and spells that can defeat most encounters. Personally I like the fact one can actually parry and dodge a attack. As well Dwarves and Elves while being part of the good races are also assholes as well. As they almost wiped each other out in a no holds barred geneciodal war. The Balgor Wastelasnds were not always wastelands and it's a direct result of that war. that they are. For someone who went from AD&D 2E to Palladium Fantasy it was a refreshing change. Mind you after thinking about it. Some of the non-standard races in the back of the book are so much more stronger than the core. So in that regard that would be the only issue where it maybe somewhat unbalanced. If I'm not mistaken a Troll has 5D6 Physical Strength vs a human 3D6.

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.

Quote from: RPGPundit;941714Palladium 1e is probably the only game I never owned that I would most like to.

Maybe someone can send you a free copy to review.

If I ever play D&D again, it would probably be The Palladium Roleplaying Game. Combat is more fun if I recall it right.

Quote from: Dumarest;967781Maybe someone can send you a free copy to review.

If I ever play D&D again, it would probably be The Palladium Roleplaying Game. Combat is more fun if I recall it right.

Palladium isnt D&D. Theres enough difference that the two arent compatible. Stats alone dont quite match up really to D&D stats. Though baseline is still 3-18 for humans. Mental Endurance doesnt work like Wisdom, and Palladium divides Charisma into two stats, etc. Its got a kinda similar HP system. But PCs start with more PE+1d6. +1d6 thereafter. Magic is very different though as it uses effectively spell points to cast with.

Which about sums up Paladium Fantasy. Its "kinda similar to D&D. But not."

Quote from: Omega;967785Palladium isnt D&D... Its "kinda similar to D&D. But not."

That is the entire point. :D  Perhaps the humor was too subtle.

Yeah but you could say that of quite a few RPGs. The resemblances are superficial. But juuuust enough that with alot of work you might be able to convert some things.

I think the magic system could be ported over whole cloth for example to D&D, or D&D's system over to Palladium

The point is that I personally think D&D is not very good and Palladium is superior in every category. Spelled that out for you.

Palladium 1E is close enough to D&D that you can totally run a hybrid of the two without it being weird. There are classes and levels and hit points and armor classes and monsters and spells and so forth. That's D&D. The mechanical differences are well within the norm of common group house rules and publishing-house specialty rules from that era (as I noted above for Judge's Guild products). Even Palladium's own books had a similar blurring of rules from book to book. Consider that their famous compendium of weapons and armor uses stats and rules that vaguely resemble 1E's system but aren't actually compatible with it (or any other game). If you published something like that today people would think you were a lunatic, but at the time I don't recall anyone complaining. At least my group just superimposed a couple of rulings to jam it into whatever game and edition we were playing

I'm pretty sure I have their compendium of modern weapons and equipment somewhere at home.

Quote from: Omega;967785Magic is very different though as it uses effectively spell points to cast with.

1st edition Palladium Fantasy uses spells per day. Diabolism and Summoning are/were refreshingly different from other magic systems of the time. I've been thinking about porting those to LotFP or DCC at some point. Regardless, 2nd edition Palladium Fantasy uses spell points, not 1st edition.

Quote from: everloss;9686111st edition Palladium Fantasy uses spells per day. Diabolism and Summoning are/were refreshingly different from other magic systems of the time. I've been thinking about porting those to LotFP or DCC at some point. Regardless, 2nd edition Palladium Fantasy uses spell points, not 1st edition.

1e wizards are still effectively using a spell point system. Just not the same as later. But a 6th level Wizard has 9 castings. Essentially 9 points. Warlocks, Witches and Priests used the same system. The Diabolist had a limit of how many wards they could have running. The Summoner had a limit on how many thingies they could have under their nominal command. And Healers Mind Mages used straight up ISP to power their tricks.

5 different systems. 6 if you count the Druids animal friendship power too.