Converting Rifts over to Dragonstar setting?

[Steve Conan Trustrum]

Rifts Conversion is a flop, unless you want your own conversion. I requested permission from the Vice-president at Palladium Books and like everyone else has said it's the Lawyers speaking, they said something about there is something wrong with D20 licensing that forbids the development to an other system. She did not say it couldn't be done though as long as I do it for my own campaigns.
She also said something about not posting it to the internet. So my hopes are not busted, it just means that it can't be done by the community or die-hard Rifts fans that wanted a new game engine that is more understandable to use. Dwarven Godfather

Palladium Books' lawyers have told them that they can be held responsible for any violations perpetrated by a fan who infringes upon someone else's PI (such as by making and posting Star Wars to Rifts conversions; as a moderator of the Palladium Mailing List, I was asked to ban such emails when Episode 1 came out). I've never seen how this can be so (a record company can't be held responsible if a fan takes one of their songs and illegally mixes it with a song from another record company, for instance). However, I'm not the one writing their Internet policy.

Maryann Siembieda (the vice-president in question) and I have also had a few discussions concerning the d20 license and she refuses to believe me when I tell her that her lawyer is mistaken by claiming that doing an official d20 Rifts book would grant WotC the ability to take over the product line should the latter decide to yank the whole OGL/d20 STL industry concept.

 

[Brutorz Bill]

It's really a shame, I think Rifts d20 would benefit everyone concerned, but it would seem that we will never see such a product. I wonder if Palladium Books will be able to continue to be profitable, with it's refusal to embrace new ideas and trends in the gaming industry?
Regards,
Bill

 

[sfgiants]

I personally love rifts and played it for years, but their brutal message boards policy keeps me away. If you criticize the company you get deleted. Without some sort of new business plan, palladium will not make it in the long run. d20 is too big to ignore. The thing that bothers me most is that they refuse to have anything to do with d20, when their game system is lifted liberally from first edition d+d. Think about it:

-saves
-d20 to roll strikes
-weapon damage is the same
-the stats are so close
-roll 3d6 for stats
-the spells, so very similar

Reading the books is funny. Keep the 1e books handy, huh?

 

[Steve Conan Trustrum]

Palladium has a fairly large portion of the rpg market, despite the label of being a "fringe" company, and currently are negotiating a Rifts film. All indications say they're doing well.

 

[qstor]

I love the Rifts setting and some of the ideas. But a lot of the rules and over abundance of PC classes is where they lose me. There is a Yahoo Group called Quality Rifts that everyone might look at.

Mike

 

[Steve Conan Trustrum]

If you check Palladium's site now, you'll find several recent discussions concerning conversions and fan fiction. The latter has merely been banned from their boards while the former has been banned in all ways save for personal, undistributed use.

 

[Heap Thaumaturgist]

I had a friend that played RIFTS a long long time ago, and another set of friends that owned alot of Palladium stuff. I never actually got to play the game, though, due to ever-present time restrictions and moving away and whatnot.

My question is, really, why would anybody want to deal with people like that? I mean, honestly, when the president and the vice-president are husband and wife and they personally oversee the message boards on the website ... there's not really much in the way of a grand corporate machine at work in the background churning out impersonal decisions from on high. And the fact that their legal position is so straight-walled, exact, and based around a basic misconception sounds to me like their "Legal SS" is more along the lines of one lawyer who they consult on a fairly regular basis as opposed to owning wholesale and keeping in the kennel to be loosed on net.geeks foolish enough to enter murky water.

D20 is rapidly turning into MicroSoft, I admit ... and I'm wholeheartedly against the Great Satan of MicroSoft. But, as all of my programming friends point out, the PC landscape as it exists today would not exist if it weren't for Microsoft and IBM making what more or less comes out to being a "standard". RPGs aren't exactly a big-business sort of market in the first place. Unlike MicroSatan, WotC isn't charging big money to lease their OS Code (D20 in this case) to software publishers. Seems like a good idea to work together to solidify the market now and work to grow it into something greater.

Ahhhh ... pointless randomness in the middle of the night. I was bored and wanted to see my own wise tripe spewed across the screen for everybody else to see. Didn't have to be much on topic.

--HT

 

[Crothian]

The thing with Palladium is they've been burned in the past. They were sued by Lucas's people becasue some fan had a sight that converted Star Wars to Palladium. Palladium didn't even know about the site. They've had other problems as well. Sure, they might be over protective, but that at least shows they really care about their work.

Edit: The people at Palladium are actually very nice. I've had the pleasure of gaming with them and talking to both Kevin and Maryann for extended periods. Many people in the gameing business I've tried to talk to blow me off or are quite rude and arrogant. They weren't. So, I support tthem because they are nice. They went so far this year that I got a personal e-mail from Maryann asking me if I was going to be at Origins. What other companies do that with their fans?

 

[Steve Conan Trustrum]

The thing with Palladium is they've been burned in the past. They were sued by Lucas's people becasue some fan had a sight that converted Star Wars to Palladium. Palladium didn't even know about the site. They've had other problems as well. Sure, they might be over protective, but that at least shows they really care about their work.

Just a minor correction here. Things didn't actually progress to the point of litigation; Lucasarts did strongly suggest that Palladium crack down on what its fan base was doing, especially right before Episode I, which is why Maryann asked myself and the other moderators of the Palladium Mailing List to ban the posting of all SW related conversions, topics and other materials. Not much you can do in the face of a Juggernaut like L.A. when you're a relatively small gaming company other than say "ummm, you betcha!"

 

[Neo]

Edit: The people at Palladium are actually very nice. I've had the pleasure of gaming with them and talking to both Kevin and Maryann for extended periods. Many people in the gameing business I've tried to talk to blow me off or are quite rude and arrogant. They weren't. So, I support tthem because they are nice. They went so far this year that I got a personal e-mail from Maryann asking me if I was going to be at Origins. What other companies do that with their fans?

Well i wouldn't dream of disputing this i have never met or spoken to either of them myself, but being nice people really doesn't change the fact they are just plain stubbornly refusing to listen to their own fans feedback by informing them their system is just plain out of date, unbalanced and completely broken.... it may have been fine years ago, but as with anything the competition improves and so do the standards players and GM's alike expect...and system-wise RIFTS doesn;t even remotely cut it.

This is not to say Palladium are a bad company or the founders and management bad people.. No No... i'm sure just the opposite is true, but they need to wake up and smell the roses. They have some of the best ideas and Art in any game company as far as i'm concerned, but their system doesn;t support the great ideas and creativity behind them... and them digging thier heels in and refusing to see this does nothing to help how people see thier games or themselves.

I couldn;t care-less if Rifts was converted to D20 personally although it would be nice of course as i like the System immensely. But Palladium NEED "ANY" System so long as it works and is balanced.

I still buy Rifts from time to time, but being unable to use the material makes it low on the list of priorities.... and until they sort their act out i doubt the opinion i have will change, nor that of the many MANY others.

Great People they may be
Great ideas they absolutely have
Great art they DEFINITELY have
Great System..... not in a million years..in the words of Red Dwarf.... it's "Smeg" and it paisn me to say that as it has potential in BUCKETS!