Palladium RolePlaying Game

Joe · Post by **Joe** » Mon Oct 26, 2009 10:44 pm

I don't remember if it was Rifts or Palladium or both I played.

My general opinion was that it was high powered munchkin style game.

I remember playing a dragon.

I'm not into flying minotaurs and Dragons & Aliens in the same game.

I never got too deep into the mechanics because I was turned off by the "cheese" factor.

I'm more into gritty Thieves World type stuff rather than high powered high fantasy.
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Kayolan · Post by **Kayolan** » Mon Oct 26, 2009 10:47 pm

Joe wrote:
I don't remember if it was Rifts or Palladium or both I played.

My general opinion was that it was high powered munchkin style game.

I remember playing a dragon.

I'm not into flying minotaurs and Dragons & Aliens in the same game.

I never got too deep into the mechanics because I was turned off by the "cheese" factor.

I'm more into gritty Thieves World type stuff rather than high powered high fantasy.

What you describe sounds a lot more like Rifts. Now keep in mind I am only familiar with the revised 1e of Palladium (which came out before Rifts and doesn't use the same rules, at least not the mega damage and so on), but I'm almost positive that the 2e didn't diverge that much from the original. Palladium FRP is basically a variant AD&D game; heavily house ruled. You can run it low, medium or high power if you like without difficulty.

Rigon · Post by **Rigon** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 12:23 am

Joe wrote:
I don't remember if it was Rifts or Palladium or both I played.

My general opinion was that it was high powered munchkin style game.

I remember playing a dragon.

I'm not into flying minotaurs and Dragons & Aliens in the same game.

I never got too deep into the mechanics because I was turned off by the "cheese" factor.

I'm more into gritty Thieves World type stuff rather than high powered high fantasy.

Not having ever played the system, I wouldn't know anything about "high powered munchkin" stuff. All I know is there will never be a dragon PC in my Palladium game. From what I've read, the game seems a bit more powerful than standard AD&D, but I think it wouldn't take much to get that gritty feeling out of it.

R-
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Omote · Post by **Omote** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 12:49 am

Palladium Fantasy is as munchkin as the GM allows. Sure, just like most games there are mechanical aspects to the Palladium Fantasy game that can be tricked out and abused. For example, a character can choose all physical enhancing skills to buff up his character to rediculous heights. As GM, make sure you throw some skill challanges at that character.
~O
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Christina Stiles · Post by **Christina Stiles** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 12:15 pm

I know Palladium has a bad reputation all around for various things (and I know freelancers who've been burned by them--luckily my freelancing extent with them was only one article in the Rifter or I might have been among them), but I do very much enjoy their game books. I've been playing in a RIFTS solo campaign my cousin runs for over 10 years now. In fact, I just played it this past weekend. I know we don't play strictly by the rules, but it's close enough.

There are some damn great stories to tell in the Megaverse! Luckily, my cousin has a lot of time on his hands to read through the umpteen setting books and RIFTERS to cull game ideas from. God bless him! It's definitely not a game that I would want to run. Ages ago, I did run several sessions of Palladium Fantasy. I liked it well enough, but we always just gravitated back to AD&D.
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Omote · Post by **Omote** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 1:42 pm

Here here. Palladium does get a bad rap in many ways. Deserved or not, Palladium does have some great settings and as Christina put, the Megaverse (the Palladium Universe of games) does have many stories to tell.

The only freelance writer I ever cared about at Pally was Bill Coffin (no offense Christina ). Yeah, that guy apparently got snubbed by Palladium hardcore. But the real tragedy is that Bill Coffin writes so infrequently now. If you are a Palladium Fantasy fan, take a look at the books Bill Coffin wrote. They are stellar (as well as Bill's Systems Failure game which is fantastic).
~O
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Christina Stiles · Post by **Christina Stiles** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 2:15 pm

Omote wrote:
Here here. Palladium does get a bad rap in many ways. Deserved or not, Palladium does have some great settings and as Christina put, the Megaverse (the Palladium Universe of games) does have many stories to tell.

I've heard some of Bill's stories. He's a great writer! Do go out and read his stuff if you get a chance.

Not to thread jack, but my Misfit Studios buddy, Steven Trustrum, was treated badly, as well--and I think Grey Elf (Jason Vey) too. So, I would never suggest trying to freelance for them, but their products are fun.
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Omote · Post by **Omote** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 2:25 pm

Oh yeah, good ole Steve "conan" Trustrum. I remember those stories too. I guess I just assumed the same stuff happened to Jason Vey, but by that time I had stopped visting Pally's message boards. Extremely clique-ish they were back in the day. Oh well, regardless of all of that BS, Palladium has some great games.

~O
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Duke Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ ~ Prince of the Castles & Crusades Society

serleran · Post by **serleran** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 4:30 pm

Like virtually every game with a ton of support material, from AD&D "2.5" through d20 and others, what is allowed in the game is up to the person running the game. Certainly much of Palladium material is over-powered compared to other Palladium stuff -- that is the nature of the world and system. In C&C, you don't just let Wilbur play an Age 12 Dragon just because you could....so why would it be any different in Palladium? 'Cause the rules make it easy?
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TWhaley · Post by **TWhaley** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 4:45 pm

Palladium is my first choice of fantasy gaming, not the rule book version of course, as Palladium is the "best house ruled game ever", as many people have noted.

In the 80s it was easy to make the switch from AD&D to Palladium, because all you needed was in one book and the game just oozed with flavor. About 5 or 6 years ago when I got back into gaming, I was heartbroken by what Palladium had become. I think 1st edition Palladium will always be Kevin Siembieda's masterpeice. It has great layout, the art is consistantly good, game mechanics felt simple yet realistic, magic was handled in a unique way, and it was a complete game, an excellent alternative to AD&D at the time (especially if all those 1st edition AD&D books were beyond your teenage budget).

So now, inbetween 'my' Palladium game rewrites, I'll play other games, like C&C.

Just me 2