Why so anti-Palladium

[kenobi65]

The percentages listed add up to 78+%. So if we assume that FFG and SJG are exactly tied that means they each have 11% or less of market share, placing them both tied at 3rd place.

Incorrect. He said that FFG and SJG were 6th and 7th; since the 5th place company (AEG) is listed at 3%, then FFG and SJG are both somewhere less than 3% but more than 1+%, where FanPro, Hero, Kenzer, and Decipher are.

It doesn't add up to 100% because you're forgetting about the dozens, if not hundreds, of other little RPG companies out there. Each of them appear to have 1% or less of the market, but together, they likely account for that "missing" 22%.

And, keep in mind that Ken Hite acknowledges that these numbers are probably more than a little screwy, anyway.

 

[Davelozzi]

That little incident is only the second time (Jacquays was the first, I think. Or maybe he was second. I forget.) I've ever read something about the way an industry person behaved that made me actively avoid anything they produced.

Care to fill us in on what happend with Jacquays?

 

[Rackhir]

I liked the background data they had in the Robotech books, but was stymied in my attempts to actually do anything with them by the complete and total lack of movement rules aside from a handful of manuvers listed under piloting skills.

Did they ever actually come up with movement rules for Robotech?

 

[WayneLigon]

Care to fill us in on what happend with Jacquays?

On second thought, I should not dump this on Jaquays head. I have no idea if it was his idea or not, since I wasn't looking over his shoulder or anything. He's listed as the editor but there were at least two other writers on that book.

Anyway, it was this blurb in the introduction (?) to Central Casting: Heroes Now which stated that the Central Casting books were going to be the 'op-ed' of gaming. Then it went into some brief political discussion of the sort no-one wants to get into here. The only changes in the gaming section of the book were some rather choice turns of phrase. Otherwise it was 99% the same as the other CC books at that point. I still use it from time to time to jumpstart ideas on modern characters; the job lists are great for things like that. I have the book somewhere around and could dig it up if anyone wants the exact quotes and stuff; you can PM me or take it to email.

I know that there were at least a couple more books in the series but I don't think they dealt specifically with characters, nor if Jaquays was involved in them or not.

Anyway, said choice phrasing was enough to put me off any further purchases of the line or Task Force Games, when they still existed.

 

[Davelozzi]

Ok, thanks Wayne.

 

[Gundark]

A friend of mine recently told me to read these about the inner workings of Palladium:

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=74137&page=18&pp=10

This has got to be the funniest thing I have read in some time......I playe Rifts and Heros Unlimited for years....dark times. It got to the point where I was like.....why am I banging my head against a wall when it comes to this system??? I gave rpgs a rest because I hated Rifts and Heros....ugh. You know I actually want to see this company go down....down hard. I know this seems harsh and I'm not usually like this, but damn I hate that company and game.

 

[wingsandsword]

Palladium was one of the first games I ever played. After being introduced to RPG's via the d6 Star Wars RPG, and finding an AD&D 2e group in college, I met a big RIFTS fan who got together a large game. Now, over the years he was always a big Palladium fan, who always took every opportunity in conversation or message board to plug Palladium and was quite proud that he had every book (except one or two he just couldn't find) ever published. Now, he hasn't bought a new book in 5 years (the power creep and recycled materials got too much for even him) and is a firm hater of the the company (although he still runs RIFTS, using his own home-brew d20 conversion). Why does he hate the company? Well, after being a loyal fan, writing letters to them, generally being a first-rate fanboy for almost a decade, when d20 came out he recognized it as a superior system. He joined a mailing list discussing ways to make a d20 RIFTS conversion. Yeah, you see where this is going. They were only at the point of deciding the basic ideas of how to convert it when they all got nice, elaborate threats from some Palladium lawyers about copyright and trademark infringement. Their outright hostility towards fans who want to continue to buy their products but play them in another system is one thing that I know has made some of their own fans hate them.

In each of their books they inherently presume you have every book ever published. Every book is full of references to everything that came before, and it seems very designed to cater only to the dedicated "fanboy", and to get up to speed costs very big money. They have endless, infamous power creep in their games (I was in one game where every PC was made with the core book except for one, playing some odd Juicer variant, and he singlehandedly kicked the tails of everyone in the party with raw firepower when he decided to betray us). Nothing seems playtested at all, and the purely random character creation (if you roll lucky, you get incredibly powerful psionics that can overshadow your actual class abilities) or random ability scores so you have to hope you can roll the stats for what you want, but probably won't be able to. Then add to it really lousy production values, with cheaply printed books with horrible art and abyssmal editing editing and much of the book seems recycled from other books or just cobbled together at the last minute.

In short, they have all the bad design and legal ideas that plagued TSR in the "bad old days" of AD&D 2e and made people leave it in droves only to come back to d20/3e.

I think it's very telling that the 3 RIFTS games I've seen played by people I know (in 3 different social circles) over the last 5 years, every one was done with a different home-brewed d20 conversion (2 using d20 Modern/Future and apparently being quite succesful with it). Every group of players who play RIFTS and d20 that I know of ditched the horrible, train-wreck of the Palladium system for d20 the moment it hit. In fact, I don't know anyone who has bought a RIFTS book in 5 years (other than anecdotal evidence at my FLGS of a few hardcore players who keep up with anything they make).

As to the "Palladium markets to teens" bit. When I was in Junior High and getting interested in RPG's in the early 90's, everybody knew about D&D, so people naturally gravitated towards it on name recognition alone (and being all over the place didn't hurt), but being a big Star Wars fan and seeing the references to things from their RPG in other Expanded Universe books (like Thrawn novels being written to intentionally coordinate with the RPG) meant I checked out the SW RPG. It's also a lot easier to get ahold of RPG's now than then, because when I was growing up, if you wanted to buy RPG's, there was no big superbookstore in the neighborhood with the biggest games in the industry, there was just this one little bookstore that had a small shelf of D&D books. I know I never heard of Palladium until I was firmly a gamer.

I seriously doubt they are currently the #3 company. If I go to a Mass Market bookstore, I will see books by WotC, White Wolf (and it's SSS label), and occasionally a few books from AEG and Mongoose. Mongoose has probably supplanted Palladium in the #3 spot a while back (those industry stats are even admittedly suspect, and they are over a year old). If they do have a lot of sales, it is apparently to a small, dedicated cadre of fans who don't interact much with other gamers.

 

[gleicher27]

You were??


Principly among this is that its making GAMES (not "works of art", not pseudo-intellectual angst-filled garbage), that are playable on various levels, but with the main emphasis being on lite diversion. Not every RPG needs to be mentally "Lite", but the industry would do well to realize (and WoTC has, to some extent) that the majority of gamers (not us, the minority of fans for whom RPGs are a lifestyle) are actually just looking for something "lite" and a good way to kill an evening. They aren't looking for meaning and purpose within an RPG. Just killing things, and taking their stuff, and in a way Palladium takes that concept to its logical conclusions.

Secondly, something Palladium is doing that no one else is right now, NOT EVEN Wizards, is directing their games to a teenage audience. That's why, despite the "critics" having constantly panned and hated Palladium for the last 15 years, its stood the test of time. Because it gets gamers young, and keeps many of them. While other companies have strategized to make increasingly sleek products that are increasingly more expensive, aimed at a 25-35 year old budget, palladium has made games with a lot of concepts and artwork that the average 14 year old would find "cool", and kept the production (and yes, quality) relatively low to keep the price point affordable for the teenage budget, as well as interesting to the teenage mind.

Nisarg

I think in terms of Palladium this is the point that I felt most disenchanted with. The system I may be able to work around, but frankly the cool ideas from Rifts got to silly for me in the later supplements, and did not represent the true combination of horror and tech. that I or my players really want. Also as I have matured so has the preference for material that I would like to buy and read. Personally, I think you can make a product that is balanced for both adults and teens in terms of writing quality. Palladium has (from what I saw last) only marketed to the teen quality. So I have put Palladium books on a shelf, and I hope that they will have collector value one day.

 

[jester47]

You know, hearing all this stuff about P/KS makes me want to find the long time freelancers/inhouse writers that KS has fired or sent away and start a game company.

If I ever have a PDF biz, I might just call on them to write cool stuff for d20.

Someone should.

A.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Hell, I know Bill Coffin still pots to RPG.net occassionally. Get him to start doing work for Phil Reed or something. He's got some great ideas.