So what's wrong with Palladium?

[RainOfSteel]

RPGs have been poisoned with a belief that if we only had the perfect rules, then we'd achieve tabletop utopia where everyone would be equally wonderful snowflakes.

I feel that you are exaggerating the situation. Balance is a contributor to better game play, not a silver bullet, not a panacea, nor have I personally run across serious claims that it was.

And one of us who thinks the Rifts setting is impressive is Jerry Bruckheimer.

I know.

 

[Summer-Knight925]

Just a little point here: The cult of balance actually includes the palladium games. Why else would different characters require different XP to level? There were attempts made at balance there, it's just that they were completely laughable.

It's actually an over looked thing, but the XP in Rifts is based on the challenge, and not as a party, but as single characters

so the rogue scholar would get more XP for fighting a dragon than a Glitterboy

and I actually banned the glitteryboy as a starting thing, you can be the pilot, but starting with the glitterboy is a tad bit unfair, I agree...but the pilot is great on his own...i think it is sort of like the D&D PrC the Kensai, it is an amazing class, but 1. it has roleplay backlash (you have to be loyal to a master) and 2. you MUST have that item, however on your own you are still a strong class (usually a Samurai, although I did a fighter Kensai once)

But again, we are looking at combat, Rifts has combat rules and a combat setting, but the actual play does NOT have to be heavy combat, in fact I see the combat as meant to be unbalanced, as in if you don't have a giant robot to help you fight that Coalition Tank, you're in for a tough fight, however, once you get to a non-combat section, suddenly that Rogue Scientist helps more than anything.

Rifts is more like the crew of Serenity, they don't all fight, they all know how, but...like 3 of them actually fight often (Captain, Zoe, and Jayne [JAYNE! THE MAN THEY CALL JAYNE!]). So a good GM (in Rifts, and all actually) makes an adventure for the characters, so the operator has something to do, just as the headhunter does, and the hacker borg (something one of my players made, its a full conversion borg with finger jacks and arm computers and all that so he can hack into just about anything, also took the same skills)

The way I see it, Rifts is the 'crew' game, not the 'party' game.
Some people like it, some people don't, but if you've ever used a vibro-blade to cut your way through a theater full of psionic zombies, then you probably love it.