Why is Palladium so ant-d20?

[warlord]

I just want to know why Palladium is so anti-d20?

 

[Crothian]

Because they have their rules and they beleive their rules work just fine. They really aren't just anti d20 as anti everything but their own system. d20 being the biggest and baddest rule set on the market though, makes them seem more anti d20 then the others.

 

[wingsandsword]

Well, there is longstanding bad blood between Palladium and WotC over a very early product (early 90's, predating Magic: The Gathering) called The Primal Order. It was meant to be a generic, intersystem sourcebook on playing gods. It included a conversion for the Palladium system in it (among conversions to other systems), which got Palladium suing WotC, and later settling. Notice that WotC still exists and is bigger than ever after that, and they were selling Primal Order after the settlement.

Also, Palladium books is run by one man: Kevin Sembieda. When you say "Palladium books likes/dislikes. . ." you really mean "Kevin Sembieda likes/dislikes". He makes all the decisions, and he created the entire system and it's settings. The Palladium system is essentially his personal homebrew rip-off of 1st Edition AD&D mixed with a percentile skill system and a few other ideas. Saying you want a d20 version means you don't want the version of his personal, private system and he takes that as a personal insult. He's quite happy with his system as far as he's concerned, you should be too.

They also seem to not understand the concept of the OGL, and are deathly afraid that if they make a d20/OGL version of their game (or permit others to, even fans doing so informally) then WotC owns all their intellectual property. To him, fans who try and produce a d20 conversion of the game to share with others aren't fans, they are ungrateful copyright thieves who are bastardizing the game, and fans who just ask for a d20 version are merely sheep who are on the "d20 bandwagon" and are ignoring his "good, proven" system for the "fad" of d20.

Palladium used to have a reputation of being good to it's fans, but it also has a reputation of being the most heavy-handed company in the entire RPG business when it comes to anything smelling of IP law. I doubt any other company in the industry would go to the trouble of sending Cease & Desist letters to fans on an internet mailing list discussing how to convert their product into another system, for example. Admittedly TSR in the "bad old days" did do things like send small-press magazines Cease & Desist letters for merely mentioning AD&D in their articles and columns and threatening fans who put up a homebrew spell or character class on their web pages, but look where that attitude got TSR.

 

[Turjan]

I think that the #3 of the RPG companies does not win anything by connecting itself to the #1. White Wolf did not go towards d20 with its main lines, either. Additionally, I think that Palladium has a slightly different target audience than WotC. I suppose they sell their stuff mainly via comic stores. They simply don't want to steer their fans to a competitor .

 

[Felon]

I think that the #3 of the RPG companies does not win anything by connecting itself to the #1. White Wolf did not go towards d20 with its main lines, either. Additionally, I think that Palladium has a slightly different target audience than WotC. I suppose they sell their stuff mainly via comic stores. They simply don't want to steer their fans to a competitor .

I don't get your reasoning here. If Palladium were to produce and sell d20 versions of their games, the money goes in their pockets, not a dime in WotC's. Now granted, they shouldn't bother converting Palladium Fantasy, but a D20 version of Rifts certainly doesn't give players a jump-off point to abandon it for D&D. They are pretty radically different games.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Besides, can you imagine converting RIFTS into D20? The characters would start at epic levels.

"So, my juicer has a plus 56 to hit swinging his broken-off concrete telephone pole, and he does 60 megadamage, but I still automatically miss 5% of the time, no matter what?"

 

[Turjan]

I don't get your reasoning here. If Palladium were to produce and sell d20 versions of their games, the money goes in their pockets, not a dime in WotC's. Now granted, they shouldn't bother converting Palladium Fantasy, but a D20 version of Rifts certainly doesn't give players a jump-off point to abandon it for D&D. They are pretty radically different games.

I'm not sure whether it works this way. You had the example of the collapsing d20 market when WotC changed D&D from version 3.0 to 3.5. This showed that d20 companies make themselves dependent on WotC and their decisions. If their player base then sees directly that the d20 system is better than the Palladium system, this will change the whole Palladium company fundamentally. Then they cannot go their own pace anymore, but have to follow closely on WotC's steps. I suppose, this loss of independence regarding their business strategy keeps them from doing the step towards d20.

 

[Lord Rasputin]

Also, Palladium books is run by one man: Kevin Sembieda. When you say "Palladium books likes/dislikes. . ." you really mean "Kevin Sembieda likes/dislikes". He makes all the decisions, and he created the entire system and it's settings. The Palladium system is essentially his personal homebrew rip-off of 1st Edition AD&D mixed with a percentile skill system and a few other ideas.

There's a long-standing joke that Siembieda couldn't decide whether to rip off D&D or Runequest, so he hedged his bets and made a system that ripped off both of them.

I don't get your reasoning here. If Palladium were to produce and sell d20 versions of their games, the money goes in their pockets, not a dime in WotC's. Now granted, they shouldn't bother converting Palladium Fantasy, but a D20 version of Rifts certainly doesn't give players a jump-off point to abandon it for D&D. They are pretty radically different games.

Really, why? In this case, I can see Siembieda's logic. There's a glut of d20 products, and they're starting to gain a rep for low quality and saturation. Rifts has been selling well for ages. Besides, Rifts players love the inconsistent, über-munchkin nature of the system. (True story: a friend of mine was trying to get some other players to play Rifts using GURPS rules. The others told him that they liked using the Palladium system, precisely because it was such a kluge. It's part of the charm, apparently.)

 

[Crothian]

Besides, can you imagine converting RIFTS into D20? The characters would start at epic levels.

"So, my juicer has a plus 56 to hit swinging his broken-off concrete telephone pole, and he does 60 megadamage, but I still automatically miss 5% of the time, no matter what?"

Rifts is not epic levels, not even close. A Juicer is someone with huge bonuses to Str, Con, and Dex and higher base speed. Its fine to not like the system and the game, but at least try to get it right.

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

Well, so maybe there's a few Palladium players who like it's doofy problems, but myself and plenty of my fellow ex-Rifters left because it got to be too much. A Rifts world with a stable, portable ruleset would be a phenomenal seller, IMO.