Why so anti-Palladium

[warlord]

I will first say I'mn not trying to cause trouble with this thread. But I have seen a number of anti-Palladium threads and want to know why you people dislike it so much. It has good concepts P.P.E. and I.S.P(I think thats what its called) and their books cost at most 30$ for about 300 pages Wizards could learn something from that. So why do you not like Palladium?

 

[MrFilthyIke]

I like Rifts, and Robotech, and own a good number of books...

however, I've heard that the Palladium people/fans loath d20.
And Palladium/Rifts leads to a sort of escalation of power with
each book.

I don't dislike, but haven't played in a LONG time since I've
found better systems. :\

 

[francisca]

I like the one Palladium product I own: Compendium of Castles, Armor, and Weapons.

I have no opinion on any of their other products.

 

[Crothian]

I was a huge Palladium. I have every book they published through 98. That's not an exageration. The first thing that really started to bug me about Palladium was a few personal scandals. They would part with some good talent and the reasons were never clear. They had their story, the talent had another story. After talking to a few of them there really seemed to be an unfriendly patern about it. Then there was the duiscussion on their message boards that started to not be allowed. Like saying things were wrong with the system. These weren't rants of flames, though they turned into them. But the Palladium system has flaws that no one seemed willing to talk about, discuss, or help solve. THere was the constant reprinting of material, and never having it make sense. Then there were the vaporware books. Their delays were bad enough (Beyond the Supernatural 2, only a decade late!!) and while they seemed sorry about them, they never fixed them. A few delays are expected but book after book after book, it became a joke. Then there is the changing of settings. Rifts Earth as presented in the main book is not what we got with the suppliments. The one up man ship of power and AIs was just terrible. The last straw for me was the fans. I'd go to cons and message board, chat rooms, etc and the fans were becoming people I could not talk to or play with. It seemed that Palladium fans took munchkin to a new level and the company was supporting this.

 

[jester47]

Palladium is not bad. I think its just dated. I mean back in the day of rifts it was either Palladium or Gurps for your generic RPG system.

d20 did several things that put Gurps and Palladium out of date. First it used the best mechanical concepts from many different games and put them under a similar die roll. This made the rules modular. With this rules modularity and the OGL/d20 liscenses, d20 is more accessible. You don't have to cut a deal with Steve or Eric this makes production a lot easier. If Steve or Eric were to OGL their systems, they might survive and give a revival to their lines. But the thing is both are probably a little bit of control freaks (most of the founding fathers are). They can't let go like a faceless company such as WotC can.

Thats why I am not into Palladium. The mechanics are decently ok, but overall, it winds up being an inferior system when you want to make changes.

Aaron.

 

[Teflon Billy]

I will first say I'mn not trying to cause trouble with this thread. But I have seen a number of anti-Palladium threads and want to know why you people dislike it so much.

I don't kow that I hate Palldium. Robotech was played a lot in my group back in the day.

What I--and I thnk most of the people you are talking about--do dislike about it is the inherent power-creep (every new supplement for Rifts becomes the new benchmark for ass-kicking), the absolutely iron-clad refusal by the publishers to get a nerw edition out that is something mroe than cobbled together "Faux 2ED&D"...or admit that the system is less than perfect.

Heroes Unlimited was unadulterated crap, that I can admit

 

[Saeviomagy]

To be blunt, PPE and ISP are not exactly the most unique idea out there.

The flaws in the system are many, varied and critical, and no effort whatsoever has been made to address them. New books just add more powerful stuff, balance be damned. Actually - balance be damned in the 'core' books (possibly excluding beyond the supernatural, but even then...).

Palladiums only real strong point is that it has a lot of cool ideas. Their system is awful. Because of this, there's a lot of fans who would like to convert it and run in d20. Since you'd still need to own the original books to get all the good stuff, this could only lead to palladium making more money. Their attitude towards anyone attempting a conversion however is to threaten lawsuits. (which would appear to have no grounds but who the hell knows?). And I'm talking threatening people with threads on messageboards here, not companies looking to make a profit.

In short, they don't really seem to be interested in gamers, just in their own game.

 

[Treebore]

Palladium and RIFTS are NOT the same game. Rifts had the power creep, Palladium did not UNLESS you imported the RIFTS rules.

Personally I like Palladium, but seriously dislike RIFTS. I loved the Wolfen and the Changlings plus the detail of the world. I even like the magic system and artifacts and "Old Ones".

Too bad they refuse to do a D20 incarnation. They have really forced themselves to be left behind in the dust.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I *love* them. Well, except for Shilsen's, who would likely immediately fall in my game, depending on his deity.

Oh, wait ... Palladium...

 

[jester47]

TB, Crothy, Saev and Tree:

So by all your accounts they are just really lousy people who don't really care about their customer base?

A.