Why is Palladium so ant-d20?

[Umbran]

I guess he likes being "right" more than being rich. Which is well within his right, but it isn't very friendly to the consumer.

What, refusing to do d20 conversions is now considered unfriendly to the consumer? Is d20 now the Borg with a really good spin doctor? Join the one collective system, or you're a cad and a ruffian?

d20 is a fine system, but failing to convert to it does not make constitute unfriendly behavior.

 

[Sir Elton]

What, refusing to do d20 conversions is now considered unfriendly to the consumer? Is d20 now the Borg with a really good spin doctor? Join the one collective system, or you're a cad and a ruffian?

No, refusing d20 conversions is not considered unfriendly to the consumer. However, being paranoid of people converting your inhouse system and putting it up on the net with no harm to your renavue, and then asking them to stop, is unfriendly behavior. It's within their rights, of course, but it doesn't win friends.

 

[Staffan]

Palladium isn't even close to #3. RIFTS doesn't have anywhere near the market penetration and distribution that GURPS has.

I think you're either overestimating GURPS by a lot, or that GURPS must have swelled immensely the last few years. In that pre-3e survey WOTC released, the most-played (not most-bought) games were:

Permissions: This file is Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast. This file
may be freely redistributed or quoted in whole or part, provided that this
attribution remains intact.

Getting back to the people still playing the games, when asked what games
TRPG players play monthly, the answers (multiple choices allowed) were:

D&D: 66%
Vampire: The Masquerade: 25%
Star Wars: 21%
Palladium: 16%
Werewolf: The Apocalypse: 15%
Shadowrun: 15%
Star Trek: 12%
Call of Cthulu: 8%
Legend of the Five Rings: 8%
Deadlands: 5%
Alternity: 4%
GURPS: 3%

Note that at the time, Star Wars was out of print - West End Games had lost the license, and WOTC had not yet produced the d20 version. I'm not 100% sure, but I believe "Palladium" refers to all Palladium games as a group.

As for GURPS' commercial success, I believe it is somewhat larger than the above table indicates, because many people buy GURPS books in order to loot them for their own campaigns in other systems. However, I doubt that factor is large enough to compensate for the difference between 3% of RPGers and 16%.

 

[Kanegrundar]

All I know is I would buy a well-done D20 version of Rifts if KS would set the ego and fears aside and put it out; OR allow me to put up my own extensive conversion up online without fear of reprisal.

I know he's worried about losing his trademarks and his customer base (both silly fears), but ever since I decided to try my hand at a D20 version of Rifts, I've bought more Rifts material than I did when I was actually playing Rifts! I suspect that I'm not the only one with this story as well. If anything, a D20 conversion would drive UP the sale of his books.

Oh well, you can lead a horse to water...

Kane

 

[Desdichado]

Do you seriously think that a line that consitutes close to 200 separate products released is not a "main line"?

Number of products is irrelevent. Go to http://www.white-wolf.com and tell me what you think they're main line is. On their menu, Scarred Lands doesn't show up at all, and Sword and Sorcery Studios is 8th of ten; below even Minds Eye Theatre. Also, the actual White Wolf design studio has always been World of Darkness; the Sword and Sorcery Studio was a completely seperate group of people.

And how did a couple dozen that you mentioend earlier turn into close to 200 unless you're also counting products that were developed by completely seperate companies that had distribution partnerships with White Wolf, i.e., Fiery Dragon, Malhavoc, etc.? Those don't count, since White Wolf didn't develop them. If you're also calling Warcraft and Everquest -- two completely separate lines -- part of that "line" you've got a funny definition of what a line of products is.

Also, look at what White Wolf are producing today. Scarred Lands had a good run, but its kaput. World of Darkness is still undergoing a massive relaunch.

 

[Crothian]

No, refusing d20 conversions is not considered unfriendly to the consumer. However, being paranoid of people converting your inhouse system and putting it up on the net with no harm to your renavue, and then asking them to stop, is unfriendly behavior. It's within their rights, of course, but it doesn't win friends.

Except that is not that reason they do this. Early in the days of cyberspace they allowed people to have conversions of their game. But Palladium got cease and disist orders by others becasue fans used the palladium system in conversion. And there was the little thing with Wizards using the Palladium system for conversion without permission as well. So, Palladium learend a lessen in those early yerars and they stick by what they were taught: fan conversions can come back and get the company in trouble.

 

[jasper]

... However, being paranoid of people converting your inhouse system and putting it up on the net with no harm to your renavue, and then asking them to stop, is unfriendly behavior. It's within their rights, of course, ....

No unfriendly just protecting their rights. Just like Lucas can reshoot or change parts of the original Star Wars movies. His toy. Not mine, not yours, not the fans. Of course both may lose money doing so but it appears that both are happy with the money that is coming in.

 

[Turjan]

Do you seriously think that a line that consitutes close to 200 separate products released is not a "main line"?

Besides WoD being White Wolf's main line, we were discussing the point of converting established settings/games to d20. Palladium did not convert Rifts to d20, and my point was that White Wolf did not do that with any of their lines, either. No conversions means no blurring of product identities. WoD can in no way be associated with WotC, but is clearly a WW only product. Each and every WW d20 product was a completely new product that had no connections to their existing lines. If a company does reasonably well, this is a value in and itself and helps the customer with building trust into a company, or simply recognition.

If Palladium wants to avoid Rifts being associated with WotC, I'm fine with that. They might lose some sales in the short run, but they keep their product identity in the long run. I don't know which strategy is the best, but I think K.S. know his numbers better than I do .

 

[Gundark]

One thing that appeals to some Palladium/Rifts/etc. GMs is this: there are so many conflicting rules across various systems that you have to pick and choose which of those rules you're going to use. Some GMs like this flexibility.

As a player, I think the thing I liked most about Rifts was that the setting had a ton of flavor. You name the genre, if you looked around long enough in the Multiverse, you'd find it. I mean, really, in how many other systems can you play an anthropomorphic mutant cougar psychic from the Outback who meets up with a techno-wizard Asgardian dwarf and a young amnesiac demigod and then goes dino-hunting in what's left of Florida, vampire-hunting in the desert Southwest, and finally off to do Shadowrun-like missions in a planet-sized city? (And no, I didn't just make that up. Those really are tidbits from the campaign.)

Actually this is what drove me away from Rifts.....well one of the many many reasons.....

 

[wingsandsword]

No unfriendly just protecting their rights. Just like Lucas can reshoot or change parts of the original Star Wars movies. His toy. Not mine, not yours, not the fans. Of course both may lose money doing so but it appears that both are happy with the money that is coming in.

And that's what we call the "T$R" mentality. It isn't protecting rights, it's overprotective. It alienates the fans, builds corporate ill-will, and slowly poisons a company.

Palladium got some C&D letters early in the internet age, as a lot of the details were still being feeled out. This was the same era when TSR demanded all fan-written material was their copyright and had to be hosted on their servers, and when Paramount was going around trying to shut every Star Trek fan site down claiming "copyright infringement" for having a web site that talked about Trek. However, Cease and Desist letters mean squat. All they mean is "Our lawyers are unhappy with you." They are often more of an intimidation tactic than anything. C&D's are often written for claims that wouldn't stand up in court but they hope they'll intimidate people into stop doing things that they could never get a court to order, and some people in gaming have ignored them repeatedly knowing they are nonsense (I love the editorial/retrospective in KoDT #100 where they talk about the huge file of TSR C&D's Shadis regularly got for mentioning AD&D and ignored knowing they were legally in the clear).

I seriously doubt that Palladium is still the #3 company in roleplaying. The 2000 WotC market data is 5 years old (predating the entire d20 era), and the Ken Hite data is highly suspect even by his own admissions. We have no accurate, up-to-date information on the status of the industry.

We generally know that WotC is #1 and White Wolf is #2, and from there it is debatable. AEG, Mongoose, Steve Jackson, Palladium, FanPro and such are jockeying for position. From what I've seen, I'd say Mongoose is #3 or #4, and Palladium has slipped, since the amount of space I've seen devoted to them in the several FLGS I know has shrank steadily over the course of the last 5 years. Steve Jackson just announced a gross of $2.8 million last year, I doubt that makes him 3% of the industry, gaming isn't a particularly huge industry I'm afraid.

Also, if Palladium is mainly selling through comic book stores, as is proposed, are they really even in the same industry anymore if they are selling to a different fan-base who doesn't play other games, doesn't want anything to do with any other company, and doesn't really compete for shelf-space or customer's dollars with D&D or GURPS or whatever?