Quote from: Spinachcat;884695Though as horror goes, Chaos Earth lends itself nicely...but that game needs a 2e and a relaunch.

While hardly a relaunch, Chaos Earth received its first official supplement in a decade recently in CE Resurrection, which I thoroughly enjoyed.  I was worried it would be a copy/paste effort with Dead Reign's zombies, but far from it, a very cool campaign toolkit.

Does BTS do anything better than Call of Cthulhu that gives it a niche in the horror rpg genre?

Quote from: Malleustein;882335Bafflingly, the Nightbane sourcebook Shadows of Light is available, even though that has been pretty much disowned and hasn't seen print in years.  Yet Beyond the Supernatural hasn't been converted yet.

I suspect it went down like this:

Shadows of Light had burned through its print run(s), and Kevin S. wasn't seeing returns like he wanted but Nightbane was still selling.  Meanwhile, folks were hollering "we want PDFs!  Why no PDFs?  You know we make pirated PDFs of your books because you don't sell them right?"  So Kevin S. released Shadows of Light as a PDF in test form (I think he was still supposed to be using light tables and wax rollers for layout at this time, seriously, so PDFs were new and scary waters for Palladium) and... it sold.  Not great, because it was a shitty book, but it still sold some copies.  So Kevin S. released more obscure and less popular stuff via PDF, and has been doing so ever since.

Of course, paying someone to do conversions would mean he'd have to spend money.  So he or somebody else does a few here and there as they have time, focusing on popular titles first, and less popular ones (i.e. BtS) later.

Meanwhile, he figures folks wanting monsters and spells and such for BtS can just go buy Rifts books and convert stats, and puts the BtS books on the back burner (creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure.  "BtS books don't sell because they lack support.  I won't support BtS because BtS books don't sell.").

Anyway, that's my speculation.

Quote from: Spinachcat;884695RPGPundit, start up a thread about Systems Failure!!

Agreed!  I'm not really a fan of post apocalyptic, and I think Palladium's ruleset is clunky as hell, but I LOVE me some Systems Failure!

Quote from: Ninneveh;1055931Does BTS do anything better than Call of Cthulhu that gives it a niche in the horror rpg genre?

BTS does modern horror and certain types of horror/fantasy/SF far better than CoC. They usually, but not allways, play very differently. BTS has a more Ghostbusters and especially Ghostbusters Extreme feel to it as the PCs tend to be alot more aware of the supernatural and may be packing the hardware or powers to try and go toe to toe with some of these things.

BTS effectively does what some CoC players bitched incessantly for. The ability to just go in gunz-a-blazin and not be massacred (much). CoC can handle that too. Just differently and of course BTS can handle investigative style play.

Quote from: Omega;1056025BTS does modern horror and certain types of horror/fantasy/SF far better than CoC. They usually, but not allways, play very differently. BTS has a more Ghostbusters and especially Ghostbusters Extreme feel to it as the PCs tend to be alot more aware of the supernatural and may be packing the hardware or powers to try and go toe to toe with some of these things.

BTS effectively does what some CoC players bitched incessantly for. The ability to just go in gunz-a-blazin and not be massacred (much). CoC can handle that too. Just differently and of course BTS can handle investigative style play.

Awesome! I'm picking it up.

I have the original and had a glance through the new version.

Personally I like the original a little more as it had more class options as it were and the equipment section was much more impressive, that and the monster section for the new version feel much much smaller. Worse. What little there is of equipment is bundled in with the skills sections and I did not see any of the original high tech gear. Seems like the tone of the gam has been shifted heavily to the psionics side. And I do not recall there being any actual magic caster classes in the new version?

The new version though spends ALOT more time explaining the premise. The original just kinda threw you in there with the basics.

Also while the new cover isnt bad. It feels a bit too 30s-esque. And I rather liked Corbens cover on the original. Also some of the new interior art isnt as lively either.

Quote from: Ninneveh;1056035Awesome! I'm picking it up.

I would buy the original 1E version. It's pretty compkete imo. The 2E version is misding both magic and a monster section. With no ETA on their release.

I never liked the Nega-Psychic both as a class and a concept. It's one thing to have abilities that bother and disrupt psychic and magic abilities. It's another to be in complete denial about the existence of the supernatural. It stopped making sense for agent Scully in the X-Files  after a few seasons of the show imo.

It makes less sense for a class imo. I only saw one played at a table and thst was because the player was a asshole who liked being disruptive and attention seeking. Who got a kick screwing over other players classes at the table. We walked away when his character was torn to shreds. The GM made it clear it was a no win situation yet stayed behind because he just needed to be the center of attention at every table and encounter.

At least in Rifts they brought tbe class back and dropped the stupid rationale of being in denial and obviousness of the Supernatural  it really does not work in Rifts imo. Not to mention both in Rifts and BTS such individual would be targeted for extermination and perhaps genocide. Or at the very least enslaved by the Splugorth.

Yeah the new BTS is sorely lacking in many things.

Equipment: Heavily gutted and now some of it is buried in the skills section?
Magic: all gone.
Monsters: about 75% missing.

And dont get me started on the Nega Psychic. The class works best if you view them as someone who probably saw something supernatural and went 1000% insane. Because the class as presented IS insane. And like the Kender or Tinker Gnomes in Dragonlance, they seem to attract the wrong players. Though the new Autistic Savant Psychic I found made for a wonderfully logical counterpoint. Someone who unshakably believes vs someone who unshakably disbelieves.

Quote from: Omega;1056149Yeah the new BTS is sorely lacking in many things.

Equipment: Heavily gutted and now some of it is buried in the skills section?
Magic: all gone.
Monsters: about 75% missing.

Dafuq?

Palladium went temporarily insane as a whole for a certain period of time. They thought they could gut Chaos Earth ( missing psionics, magic and monsters) and BTS 2 missing most of the monsters and magic from both core books.  Sell them as " complete " and thought the fanbase was too stupid to notice. Too bad for them they did. At least Chaos Earth has a magic and monster book available. The same cannot be said for BTS2.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1056150Dafuq?

Pretty much my reaction too. I thought I'd missed it on my glance through. But no. I went through again and nada for magic casters. No Diabolist. No Magic Practitioner or equivalent.
Same with equipment. There isnt even an equipment section! A Palladium book WITHOUT AN EQUIPMENT SECTION!!!!!! Weapons are bundled in the skills section and pretty basic. No vehicles or other equipment I could spot.
And there are only about 10 monsters +3 or so variants of entities. About all the iconic BTS horrors are missing.

Any game that allows a human schlub survive a .44 mag slug to the torso and SURVIVE EASILY, is one I tend to shy away from.

I agree that BTS has a lot of good information, but Palladium man...  I want so much to like this system, I loved it back in Palladium Fantasy 1e, but since TMNT (first printing) it's gone downhill hard.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1056157Any game that allows a human schlub survive a .44 mag slug to the torso and SURVIVE EASILY, is one I tend to shy away from.

I agree that BTS has a lot of good information, but Palladium man...  I want so much to like this system, I loved it back in Palladium Fantasy 1e, but since TMNT (first printing) it's gone downhill hard.

er... In BTS your average PC will have around 13 HP (3d6+1d4) and on average 7 SDC without any training. A Magnum does 6d6 damage, (not sure what it was in the original. Probably 4-6d6) averaging 21 damage. Thats going to blow right through the average characters SDC and chunk off half their HP if doing 4d6 and all of it if 6d6. so yeah it can potentially drop a person in one shot. But just like the real thing it might not due to whatever factors.

The real problem is how SDC and HP are described while in gameplay SDC seems to act more like D&D HP. mostly stamina/dodging/luck that gets depleted and then the real meat of the character is the HP.