D&D 4E Palladium's philosophy for D&D 4e? Pros and cons

[BlackMoria]

The proof is in the pudding, as the saying goes.

Look at the number of people playing D&D and number of people playing Palladium. Or look at the market share.

If the 'free wheeling' system (represented by Palladium) is the supposed holy grail, then the numbers should be reversed, with Palladium as top dog and D&D below them. The fact is it is otherwise speaks volumes in that the majority of players want a structured rules based RPG, not a free wheeling, quasi-toolkit RPG.

Which means the probability of 4E going to a 'free wheeling' structure like Palladium is virtually non-existent. The digital initative is proof of that.

 

[jdrakeh]

To contribute to the thread more productively. . .

Pros to Applying Palladium Philosophy to D&D 4e

• Attracts an entirely new player base.
• Less prep time involved, as mechanical balance in play is no longer an issue.
• Core rules become available as a standalone product complete in one book.
• Rule bloat is significantly diminished, as optional rule expansions are rare.

Cons to Applying Palladium Philosophy to D&D 4e

• Alienates a large portion of the current player base.
• More heavy-handed DMing required now that mechanical balance does not exist.
• Core rules rarely edited or corrected and usually very poorly explained.
• Official optional rule expansions are rare.

When I refer to rule expansions, I don't mean new classes or races (which Palladium has many of in each supplment), but things like new skills/feats/magic/etc. Palladium introduces precious few new fiddly bits aside from OCCs and RCCs.

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

eh, having to play fast and loose and making things up causes alot of problems. Maybe it didnt in the bad old days but in my experience having ot make stuff up causes alot of arguments, regardless if your the DM or not. If you make a call that doesnt make sense to someones logic their going to whine, the only solution to this is to have a base set of rules and say "well these are the rules live with is." players seem to be more accpeting of logic defying rules if it was published officially.

 

[Lanefan]

eh, having to play fast and loose and making things up causes alot of problems. Maybe it didnt in the bad old days but in my experience having ot make stuff up causes alot of arguments, regardless if your the DM or not. If you make a call that doesnt make sense to someones logic their going to whine,

Of course, and if any useful discussion arises out of that whining a half-decent idea can follow; and thus a homebrew game (with best-case player buy-in) is made.

players seem to be more accpeting of logic defying rules if it was published officially.

Sad, but true.

Earlier in this thread someone, in trying to prove 3e's dominance, said something like "look how many people are playing 3e as opposed to 1e". Well, duh! There's no support!

1e hasn't had any official support for 15 years or more. 2e hasn't since about 2000. And Arashi is quite right in saying many players will only accept (and-or play) things that have official backing. No idea why this is, but...

Lanefan

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

1e hasn't had any official support for 15 years or more. 2e hasn't since about 2000. And Arashi is quite right in saying many players will only accept (and-or play) things that have official backing. No idea why this is, but...

Lanefan

Maybe because lots of us got sick of the lack of rules and abusive DM's?

Player "I want to jump the pit"
DM "Uhh... whats your worst save? Yeah, roll that.... oh, you rolled a 20? You went too far and fell in the next pit"

Antagonistic DM's are afraid of published rules. No wonder the grognards hate having anything written down, since it slightly hampers the "screw the players on the fly" feel of 1E.

 

[jdrakeh]

Nevermind.

 

[T. Foster]

My point, I guess, wasn't that D&D never had any poorly explained rules, but that TSR went to great lengths to eliminate such issues when they arose. Palladium just ignores errors and missing explanations, it seems. Hence the whole not explaining how skills work for the better part of two decades.

Whereas my point, I guess, was that for a significant chunk of D&D's (and thus the rpg hobby/industry's) early history (1974-1979) it had just such a poorly explained ruleset, comparable to how people in this thread are describing RIFTS (a game I have no first-hand experience with, fwiw), and that people who played in that era (including, notably, Kevin Siembieda) therefore learned to approach it with a particular attitude -- not to take the rules too seriously or expect them to even make sense, not to worry about consistency or balance, and to always be prepared to make stuff up on the spot guided primarily by what'll be most fun in the moment. Yeah, the professional end of the industry (including/especially TSR) pretty quickly moved away from that model and has never looked back, and people who started playing with more coherent second-generation and later rulesets learned to approach the game in a different manner -- that the rules are supposed to fit together and make sense, and if they don't there's either something wrong with the rules or with your understanding of them. But it wasn't always that way and Kevin Siembieda is, apparently, a relic of that former era. See also this essay at The Forge about the early history of the "D&D hobby."

 

[rgard]

Nevermind.

Ditto.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

To contribute to the thread more productively. . .

Pros to Applying Palladium Philosophy to D&D 4e
...
[*]Core rules become available as a standalone product complete in one book.

Minor nit, the PHB is 98% of the way towards being a standalone complete system. It would only require adding a very few pages more, leaving the rest to "supplements". Certainly I could run a campaign with that book as is and off the cuff rulings, if I had the mind to.

 

[lukelightning]

I think the problem with the jury-rigged nature of the Palladium system is that a lot of the game can turn into a battle of wills between the players and the DM. At least that was my experience.