Palladium?

[kigmatzomat]

From the posts at RPG.net of former writers, he is a nice guy.....until he feels you betrayed him. At which point in time you become dead to him. Or the equivalent. KS sounds like people I know and he appears to have the same kinds of social disfunction common to most geeks. He is a gamer and he gets on well with many gamers. Until he doesn't.

In a way, KS sounds a lot like Richard Stallman of GNU fame. Both can be quite affable while also highly defensive of any criticism of their One True Way. Both are still influential but I think both are slowly sliding into irrelevance via excessive eccentricity. (KS still cranks out Rifts books via wax transfers and transparencies? Madness!)

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I just want to point out an interesting figure.

Palladium spokesmen claim that Steve stole 11,000 books over a period of two years.

I wonder how an extremely controlling business owner like Kevin failed to notice the loss of just over fifteen books per day for two years.

There's a lot more wrong with that place than just the theft.

 

[prosfilaes]

His fears are well founded - hop onto a P2P network - any D&D book older than 3 months is out there, Palladium books are harder to find.

But many of those D&D books were scanned in. That almost certainly has more to do with D&D being far more popular than Palladium.

 

[Glyfair]

I sat in on a discussion panel with Kevin a few years back - he is opposed to PDF's big time. Very worried losing alot of sales to PDF's floating around the internet. His fears are well founded - hop onto a P2P network - any D&D book older than 3 months is out there, Palladium books are harder to find. Copy protection schemes are broken right away, then the PDF is sent out - other people, break the binding on books and scan in the entire thing, but this is much rarer, as you have to destroy the book you bought.

However, most of thiose books were not purchased PDFs. Palladium books are just as vulnerable to that.

The difference that's there is probably due to the difference in popularity. D&D is far and away the most popular RPG product. That means that the odds are greater that a pirate has the D&D books, and the people who want pirate products might be asking for them.

 

[Mitchbones]

I'm just bout to start Tabletop rping this summer, and the GM is using Palladium, I mentioned that I have all the 3.5 (ive wanted to paly for years) and he said we could play that instead.....Im indifferent to either system, should we use d&d instead?

 

[Treebore]

I would. I would recommend Castles and Crusades over either, but I like simple rules for a fun game.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

No game can please everybody. I can't stand the Shadowrun rules, and avoid that game like the plague. It doesn't mean the game sucks - the rules just don't appeal to me.

Perhaps you missed the part where I said I was a player who was driven away. Look- I bought Palladium RPG, Heroes Unlimited and RIFTS (including 80% of the RIFTS supplements) from day one, and their revisions...and some of the problems I found- actual errors- remain unchanged in those 20 years. Some were just typos, but some were not.

That is not good.

Playtesting: The nature of the Palladium rules does allow this to be skipped in certain circumstances.

No. Just no.

If you don't playtest, you don't find out if something is seriously flawed or not.

They just did a revision of Rifts last year.

I didn't buy it. The reason why I didn't buy it is I went and checked it out in the store, seeing if my least favorite errors were fixed. They weren't- including the typos. Now, you could argue that keeping certain errors were on purpose- design decisions- but you can't make that assertion with typos. Not correcting typos in an era of word processing and spellcheckers is LAZY.

What I am seeing, is people just bashing the rules/Kevin because they personally don't mesh well with the rules. If you don't like the rules, don't play the game, but there is no reason to start slamming the man. Find what works for you, if it is not Palladium games, no need to slander Kevin and his life's work.

While some ARE just bashing KS to bash him, it isn't me. My distaste is not for him, but for the way he runs his business, and the way that in turn affects his game.

It's not slander to speak the truth. Some of his former co-workers/employees (like Bill Coffin, CJ Carella & Steve Conan Trustrum) have posted on these (and other) boards about the process of putting together a book- and it wasn't flattering. What they described was a creative process that at best was detrimental to creating good products.

As Bill and SCT said elsewhere (check out posts #184 & 187 at http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?p=1445566#post1445566):

...Because Kevin's so busy doing all you've outlined, when his writers call him up to ask "here's what I have so far, does it fall in line with what you want?" he is too busy running around ala le poulet sans tete that he can't talk to the writer on the phone and so when the s*** hits the fan and the writer hands in something that isn't what Kevin had in mind, he'll yell at the writer for not keeping in touch often enough...

 

[GQuail]

Playtesting: The nature of the Palladium rules does allow this to be skipped in certain circumstances. For the *most* part OCC's and RCC's are much less complex than D&D or other games. A couple stat bonuses or skill's aren't going to throw a game out of whack. Not to mention the guy has been working with these rules for 25+ years, he would know what works by this point.

I gotta be honest: before this sentence, I may not have agreed with you but would have at least understoof where you were coming from, but this sentence just defies all logic. I say that as a gamer, a computer programmer, and a general human being: Beta testing is not optional.

There is absolutely no excuse for not playtesting stuff. No matter what game system you use, no matter what kind of item it is, until you see it in play you have no idea if it works like you've intended. Until you try it out with all kinds of different combinations to see if it's breakable, you can't say it's intact.

Furthermore, while you go on to mention the fact there's been a revision of RIFTS lately, I think it's telling that in the above quote you mention he's been "working with these rules for 25+ years": which seems to back up the general consensus that RIFTS is, at heart, the same game it's always been, no matter how many changes it claims.

Hurling claims of "Pun-pun!11!!!!!11!!one!" at D&D in defence of another game with problems does not deal with the bulk of complaints against Palladium: that they have book production techniques rarely seen outside of museums, that the game hasn't had the real, ground-up revision a game of its age could use, that KS's style of management has hamepered many individuals working under him, and (perhaps worst of all) that criticisms on these and other subjects are cast aside out-of-hand because it appears KS's way is the only way for the company.

Telling me what a nice guy he is, really, when you get to know him, does not make these very real problems go away. I''ll agree that people do dogpile on the company, but I think to claim it's without merit is quite a stretch of the imagination.

 

[Felon]

I sat in on a discussion panel with Kevin a few years back - he is opposed to PDF's big time. Very worried losing alot of sales to PDF's floating around the internet. His fears are well founded - hop onto a P2P network - any D&D book older than 3 months is out there, Palladium books are harder to find. Copy protection schemes are broken right away, then the PDF is sent out - other people, break the binding on books and scan in the entire thing, but this is much rarer, as you have to destroy the book you bought.

Palladium books are not really that hard to find, and certainly no more impervious to page-scanning than a WotC book.

Considering KS's long-standing unwillingness to use modern desktop publishing techniques--techniques that are big-time time and money savers--I think there's some evidence to suggest that he's a bit of a luddite who believes no good can come of change. One of those people who uses the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" axiom as a way of putting a positive spin on complacency.

 

[Felon]

Kevin does bust his rear to do everything he can for his fans. Look at the price of a Palladium book compared to other books on the market now adays. EVERY YEAR he sells Christmas Grab bags where you can get things for 60-70% off! Kevin personally takes the time to post on the Palladium forums and give updates, etc (this is bigger than it seems, as 2 years ago I asked Kevin how many hours a week he put in, and his response was 100-120!). Giving out autographs...I have about 30 autographs from the man. After he had over 1000 sales of the "save Palladium" art print, he decided he was going to personally write a thank you note with each one - he already had the money, this was just him showing his true appreciation to his fans.

If any of this is true, then I do make hat off to the guy.