Quote from: Pat on May 13, 2021, 11:44:36 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 13, 2021, 10:42:22 AM
Indeed, one of the best lessons I think I learned from Palladium's approach was that you can have a fairly low ceiling on vertical improvement as long as there is sufficient lateral improvements for PCs to acquire.

That's exactly what E6, a d20 variant that caps all characters at 6th level, but allows them to continue to gain feats (and skill points), is about. The cap on level-based mechanics is fairly hard; you'll never hit better than a 6th level fighter or cast more powerful spells than a 6th level wizard, and that also applies to things like skills as well. But while your key stats don't improve, you can improve your other skills, learn new combat tricks, and so on. It works quite well.

You mentioned additional spells and equipment, does Palladium support any other kind of horizontal development, or was that mostly roleplaying and campaign development?

That depends on the particular sub-game and which edition of it you're using. Heroes Unlimited, for example, had an entire sub-system for learning and improving skills independent of level via (gasp) going to school (something an unsurprising number of superheroes actually do as their day jobs). Beyond the Supernatural/Nightbane included rules for researching new spells (i.e. not just ones from the books, but spells that did entirely new things). Rifts had various means of augmentation a character could choose to undergo (often with potential side-effects). The most recent addition to Palladium Fantasy ("Garden of the Gods") includes how to incorporate divine dreams, visions and blessings from the gods into your campaign (including receiving permanent blessings for performing or in anticipation of undergoing various divine quests).

Other bits, most notably any sort of domain management/henchmen/followers, was entirely roleplaying and campaign dependent. As a general rule Kevin much prefers for anything involving social interaction to be based on actually roleplaying the characters and not on mechanics. The vast majority of skills are used to perform specific physical tasks or as knowledge checks.

For example, there is not an "Interrogation" skill you roll to extract information. Instead the system has "Interrogation Techniques" which, if successfully used, has the GM tell the PC which approaches they believe will be most effective on a subject and/or evaluate whether their subject is lying or being truthful when answering.

So if you want to rule a territory, you need to talk to the right people, clear the land, convince builders to construct your stronghold and convince people you're worth following (with pay, appeals to common goals, etc.). There's no skill checks to make to win people over or mechanical system to follow that limits how many followers you can have or what level they can be; if you can offer the right incentive a 1st level peasant could theoretically have an elder great horned dragon doing his bidding.

In terms of the definition you gave for heartbreaker, then Palladium most definitely isn't. While you can see some D&D in it, as mentioned by Brad its got notions that appear in other systems as well and, I know from having spent quite a bit of time with the man, Kevin is VERY well read in general and the book shelf in his office every time I visited had the entire lines of other game systems on them (along with books on history, biographies, philosophy, science, classic literature, etc.) that he was quite familiar with.

In terms of original recipe Palladium Fantasy, most notable thematic break was dropping Tolkien-inspired versions of races for more broadly mythological interpretations (ex. trolls for example are not green and rubbery nor do they regenerate, kobolds are spirit-folk second only to dwarves in craftsmanship) including what would be deemed monster races in D&D as PC options with their own cultures (including the Wolfen in the core book, Minotaurs in the first sourcebook and many more down the line). Also, half-races, just weren't a thing. Elves were not just humans with pointy ears, they were a different species with different biology.

The other really distinct part on this level was the degree to which Kevin provided a specific world with a specific history to play in. The Palladium Fantasy world was a specific place with different human cultures speaking different languages in different regions who even used their own coinage; the races had specific histories that shaped the world. The role of the Old Ones (Lovecraftian entities who brought all of the myriad races to the Palladium Fantasy dimension as slaves at the dawn of its recorded history), runic weapons (weapons empowered by forging a soul into them) and the non-traditional forms of magic like runes and wards (that are limited to specific classes, not your traditional D&D spellcasting wizards) and psionics built in from the start help make the setting very distinct.

Mechanically, the first deviation would be in stat generation. First, different stats, only some of which map directly to D&D's and even those that do map have different uses. For example, Physical Strength affects only lifting and strength-based damage. Physical Prowess (which is roughly considered the Dexterity analogue) affects your ability to hit, parry and dodge, but has no affect on your skill performance with acrobatics or climbing and Speed is an entirely separate ability score. Mental Endurance is sometimes considered akin to D&D's Wisdom, but has nothing to do with perception or awareness and is most important in being able to resist psionics and insanity.

The second variation in stats is that instead of everyone using 3d6 and then +/-1 to a few; each species rolled its own number of d6's ranging from just 1 to as many as 5 with no attempt at balance; just what made the most sense for the species as defined. Exceptional results on 2d6 (11+) or 3d6 (16+) got an extra d6 added to the results. Related to this too was that there were no penalties for low attributes (except that a low Physical Endurance limited your hit points and low strength limited what you could carry) and bonuses to various things only started at scores of 16 or better, so the number of things that actually got bonuses from attributes was typically fairly small; most of your bonuses came from your class and skills.

The next mechanical change from D&D would be the classes. "Men-at-arms" classes were entirely defined by the skills their class (which, as previously mentioned, was rather specific and grounded in an actual profession/specialty; mercenary, soldier, longbowman, knight, ranger [no magic; a ranger in the real world historic sense], etc.) and there were many different fields of magic that worked differently from each other.

Character creation was thus focused more around the selection of skills known than particular class benefits gained at specific levels. And because there was a list of specific skills that characters possessed there was less ambiguity as to what a warrior-class was expected to be able to accomplish (sometimes just having a list of prepared spells can serve as a launchpad for devising a plan; knowing that your character is particularly good at herbalism or making traps can serve as a similar springboard for non-spellcasters).

In terms of combat, the biggest change was the degree to which it remained relatively flat relative to level, opposed checks for most combat task resolution and definitely the way armor functioned (as essentially a layer of hit points that could be bypassed with a high enough roll).

A warrior with the same PE and level as a wizard probably had nearly the same number of hit points, but their ability to wear heavy armor that needed an 16 or better on a d20 roll with fairly small bonuses to bypass and, most importantly, their no action cost parry ability (which if you were blessed with a high physical prowess could allow you to pull off the lightly armored warrior concept without any special rules or class abilities) increased their survivability compared to non-warriors greatly.

There's also just the little things, like Knights in 2e automatically getting proficiency in Dance (+15%), Heraldry (+20%), Literacy (+20%), Basic Math (+15%) and two skills from the Communication category (things like literacy in additional languages, playing instruments, singing, writing and public speaking at +10% each) in addition to combat related abilities really highlights their position in the First Estate as someone expected to be a member of an upper class household and not just a down-in-the-dirt warrior. The class also gets three bonus skills based on their family background; old nobility, minor landowner, military, business owner, politician, religious or newly knighted; and that you have 1D4 relatives in your homeland can give you a place to rest, recover and live for an indefinite period of time (though you will be expected to assist in maintaining the household if its an extended stay) during which time you'll be fed and have your basic needs attended to and, if really down on your luck, might be given some basic gear to get you back on your feet so long as you haven't worn out your welcome; GM's call on that).

Are their similarities to D&D? Yes. But those are not the defining elements of the game system by any means. It's a whole potpouri of ideas and concepts that really does add up to more than the sum of its parts.

Quote from: Brad on May 13, 2021, 11:38:16 AM
Palladium Fantasy is Kevin Siembieda's idea of what D&D should look like, i.e., class-based system with percentile skills and a combat system that allows for defenders to react (parry, block, dodge). At its surface it looks like KS took the best parts of Runequest and D&D and just put them together for publication, but probably more likely he was exposed to all those systems when they came out and just integrated them into his own game as he saw fit, like any one of us does when we actually run games. There wasn't some sort of cohesive design process, more like, "lemme try this, oh that's cool, I'll make that a rule" etc., etc. When I ran AD&D in high school, I used Rolemaster for the crit tables, Palladium psionics and combat system, and some Runequest skills for resolving non-combat stuff. Ripped off whatever I could if I thought it'd be fun. I think the whole notion of a formalized process to create a game is very modern and results in a whole lot of garbage that looks great in a book and sucks at the actual table (D&D 3.X and the "unified mechanic" nonsense). It's easy to pontificate about "fantasy heart-breakers," but most of the time that sort of tripe comes from someone outside looking at the game you're running and enjoying, not understanding why you're doing anything.

Basically, Palladium Fantasy is a GOOD game because it is FUN to play. I would jump at the chance to run it in the future as a nice vacation from Greyhawk AD&D.

I get you.  I found Beyond the Supernatural to be a very refreshing and fun game, back when it first came out.  It had some really convoluted and backwards mechanics, but you could tell they were from "edge cases" that arose in play, and not a cohesive design structure.  Still worked fine.  There's a case to be made that mechanics and flavor go hand-in-hand (which is why I think Palladium rules worked better for BtS, TMNT, and Robotech than for fantasy, IMHO), but that didn't make the game not fun...

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 13, 2021, 01:26:49 PM
In terms of the definition you gave for heartbreaker, then Palladium most definitely isn't. While you can see some D&D in it, as mentioned by Brad its got notions that appear in other systems as well and, I know from having spent quite a bit of time with the man, Kevin is VERY well read in general and the book shelf in his office every time I visited had the entire lines of other game systems on them (along with books on history, biographies, philosophy, science, classic literature, etc.) that he was quite familiar with.

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 13, 2021, 01:26:49 PM
Are their similarities to D&D? Yes. But those are not the defining elements of the game system by any means. It's a whole potpouri of ideas and concepts that really does add up to more than the sum of its parts.

That's an interesting anecdote. Just as independent evidence, look at all his contributions to Judges Guild magazines, including magazines and Traveller modules. Sure, he mostly contributed art, but that's clear evidence he had at least some broader exposure. But while it's not a strict heartbreaker in the Edwardian sense, it does seem to share some characteristics.

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 13, 2021, 01:26:49 PM
In terms of original recipe Palladium Fantasy, most notable thematic break was dropping Tolkien-inspired versions of races for more broadly mythological interpretations (ex. trolls for example are not green and rubbery nor do they regenerate....

Tom, Bert and William would probably be dismayed at that description. If you're not aware, D&D's trolls come from Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions, which is a very worthwhile read even without the body horror monster.

In any case, thanks for the thoughtful summaries.

Quote from: VisionStorm on May 13, 2021, 09:58:59 AMYes, and almost all of them are with Pat [...] consider that it takes two to tango.

Perhaps you could allow Pat to put someone else on his dance card for a little while? Or if you are truly intent on dancing with each-other and no-one else, you could get a room among private messages so we aren't tempted to watch?

Quote from: Chris24601Indeed, one of the best lessons I think I learned from Palladium's approach was that you can have a fairly low ceiling on vertical improvement as long as there is sufficient lateral improvements for PCs to acquire.

An insightful post, thankyou.

Quote from: PatThat's exactly what E6, a d20 variant that caps all characters at 6th level, but allows them to continue to gain feats (and skill points), is about.

An idea which I find more appealing as time goes on. I've always felt the more interesting play happens at lower levels.