Why so anti-Palladium

[Nisarg]

If you're reading too much into things you're not the only one. This statement of KS's is pretty uncontroversial, really. There's plenty of REAL problems with Palladium as a company or a system, and there's no need to make up problems.

And to me, as I already said, the fanatical palladium-haters are just as annoying as the fanatical palladium-fans.

Nisarg

 

[Salad Shooter]

Personally, I'm rather fond of Palladium. Yes, the company has its problems. Power creep in RIFTS, continuity issues, delay of book releases, that sort of thing. But their ideas are BEAUTIFUL. I love their games. I've recently acquired several of their books, and am definately looking into buying more. As for people who say the message boards are full of jerks, I haven't noticed that yet. As a certified lurker on the boards, I see a lot of the usual discussion, much like the things here. A lot of the holes in the system are addressed by players in the boards, and nifty new ideas added. Kevin Siembieda, the owner of Palladium Books, seems to be a nice guy, and accounts of him filling some of the requested items in the companies annual grab bag sale from his personal collection are around.

Yes, the company has issues. What company doesn't? Yes, the system has its issues, but what system doesn't?

As for him not switching to d20, he has his own system. The company is tiny, and releases would become even MORE infrequent if he was supporting both. Much of the Palladium fanbase is diehard, and switching to d20 would drive many of them away, so it would be either the Palladium system, or both. Some fans have offered to convert the books for them, Kevin still refuses, for reasons I am not aware of at this time.

I don't hate Palladium. Frankly, I'm still bewildered by people who are diehard any ONE system, and won't even acknowledge that other systems from other companies (or even the same company) are worth playing.

So thats my blurb on that.

 

[Crothian]

Yes, the company has issues. What company doesn't? Yes, the system has its issues, but what system doesn't?

Ya, but few the degree and amount of problems Palladium has. Actually, there are more then a few companies that have zero issues I know of. Malhovok, Green Ronin, Atlas....all really good companies that I don't know of any skeletons in their closet. And I could name a lot more smaller companies as well.

 

[Saeviomagy]

As for him not switching to d20, he has his own system. The company is tiny, and releases would become even MORE infrequent if he was supporting both. Much of the Palladium fanbase is diehard, and switching to d20 would drive many of them away, so it would be either the Palladium system, or both. Some fans have offered to convert the books for them, Kevin still refuses, for reasons I am not aware of at this time.

Noone's asking him to support or release d20. What they ARE doing is asking him to stop threatening to sue private individuals who do such conversions. Every other company I've heard of has web guidelines that basically say "If you don't pretend to be us, and you don't try to sell it for cash, go ahead and put it on the net". But palladium threatens users of message boards.

 

[drothgery]

Noone's asking him to support or release d20.

... though I'd suggest that you had better be very, very confident in your own system if you're selling a rules-heavy game with classes and levels that's not d20 (or an obviously d20-derived OGL game). And even then think twice.

 

[King of Old School]

Which he even says in the very next sentence.

No, he doesn't. He admits that they are tenuous and not verifiable, but the fact that he even publishes the report suggests that he thinks they have some merit (and in fact, he does say this). I'm arguing the opposite -- that the C&GR numbers are so wholly without merit that it is misleading and harmful to publish them, and give them a veneer of credibility such that people use them in debates (like this one). It gives people (like Kevin S., frex) a false sense of the state of the industry. No one should be using these numbers to prove anything, any more than I'd try to "prove" that I am the smartest and best-looking poster on these boards because my mom told me I was the smartest and best-looking kid in the world when I was 8.

Think about all the crap that people report hearing from their FLGS, stuff that even a cursory examination of company and industry websites would show is complete bunk but is spouted as gospel truth by ignorant game shop owners (who in turn, influence their customer base). Think about how many FLGS horror stories we all read on boards like this one and RPG.net. Do you really think a random sampling of these stores would establish anything worth paying attention to? And FTR, I've seen other discussion of the C&GR survey which would suggest it's even worse than that -- it's not a random sampling, and it's not based on any kind of objective merit either.

FTR, I don't believe that Palladium's current sales numbers come anywhere near the figures given in the C&GR survey (though I believe they once did). The statements of ex-Palladium freelancers, whose knowledge is a hell of a lot more credible, would support this. Kevin S. is a snake oil salesman.

KoOS

 

[Merdusk]

The Palladium system may have it's flaws and have games that promote munchkining. It's fun, that's what every game is supposed to be. RIFTS is supposed give you mega powerful characters it helps represent the Power of technology and MagiC, esp when combined.

Anyways if you want the ultimate munckining system, your all playing it, it's called 3Ed or 3.5Ed, come on look at all the non-Wizards feats that exist, or non-Wizards prestige classes. Heck even some wizards stuff is horribly unbalanced.

3rd and 3.5 Editions are a munchkiners wet dream! For anyone that plays D&D, you better take a hard look at the version you play. The non-wizards stuff for the most part is geard towards power and munchkin happy people.

BTW i do not hate 3rd or 3.5, just pointing out some serious issues with it, i do hate 75% of the crap that is release for it it, wizards and non wizards stuff.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

My math

The missing 22% wasn't stated in the either the article or the post. So I assumed that the math was wrong. That means the Forge (www.indie-rpgs.com) caters to one of the largest game communities out there, everyone else.

As for Palladium books, the only store that sells them in my area has placed all of them on the half-price shelf because they don't sell.

 

[Sketchpad]

I used to play Palladium back in the day ... stuff like TMNT, HU, N&SS and even some Robotech and BTS. Didn't have any huge problems with it then ... I think HU was the only system that I found glitchy because of its power system. Then Rifts came out. The concept behind the game is really neat ... here's a game that ties all of the other games together. Neat. But then more and more books came out and, as I looked through them (heck, even picked some of them up), I realized that the system just doesn't work, at least for anything I'd want. How could it be fixed? Well ...
* Drop the MDC cannons in EVERY book. MDC weapons IMHO should be rare and few
between. Honestly, if you walk into a town and someone pulls a gun on you, will you go
for the SDC pea-shooter, or the MDC cannon?
* Clean up multi-classing.
* Clean up the super power system. There needs to be either some more building blocks
here or a different way to have powers. The system presented in any of the books just
doesn't work.
* Get the TMNT license back.
* Bring out a solid core-rulebook geared towards building any game and follow up with
genre/setting books. Most companies now do this and it works well for them.
* Graphic Design. Learn some.
In all honesty, I think these ideas would help the game and company. If Kevin actually ever looks at these threads, then here's hoping he'll realize that, while Palladiuim has a loyal fan base, he's also alienating a LOT of people as well. Every game has some kind of fan base which is pretty loyal. Someone mentioned Hero before. There are a TON of loyal fans of Hero. You don't see them here because they hang out at Hero Games' website I think Kev needs to get off the high-horse and realize that he needs a new edition of Palladium, as well as realizing that there are people everyone converting his stuff over to a plethora of systems. Palladium: Where the ideas are good and unique, but the system's turned into the Old Yeller of RPGs

 

[slaughterj]

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.

Er, Hero pre-dated both of them, and is still going strong.