Ok, since palladium is being discussed, I'll add in.

I really do not like the palladium system, the armor rules just make me choke too much.

That being said, palladium has some good points. The whole "MDC" concert was useful in reflecting that some things, like tanks, are basically immune to normal damage and require tremendous amounts of force in a single attack to penetrate.

Now, when they started getting into MDC bikinis, I think it went too far....

But by and large I'm not a palladium fan, however I can admit that there are some good things about their stuff.

1. It's still paperback and mostly B&W on flat paper, making it more affordable, even if there is too much of it....

2. It makes great source material for other games, and you can leaf thru a rifts book, and usually find a weapon, vehicle, creature, etc that makes you go "Hmmm, you know this is an Ok idea and illo, I think I'll port it over to game....."

Palladium really does do some nice ideas and illos of things that can really inspire people. Hell, doing the mechanoids in gurps would be a great campaign for gurps space. (I ca see a player saying to me: "What do you mean, the ship is the size of the north american continent?!?!")

One thing I do not like re palladium is the fact that KS has this bug up his ass about letting people do conversions of palladium material. I think this hurts palladium a lot, and besides that, legally I'm not sure he really can stop anyone from doing it as a fan production. I know that sjg won't allow anyone on the andy hackard forums to print guprs/rifts conversions, but if someone, especially in a non american country were to more or less just ignore KS and print an on line conversion for free I don't know what palladium could really do except bitch.

Maybe if palladium let people do conversions for their game it might encourage people to buy more of their stuff because it'd be easier to use it for other games, and since palladium seems to be constantly on the edge of collapse this would be a good thing for them, so I think it's really stupid of them to sabotage efforts to do pallasium conversions, and I hate stupid companies.

Still, palladium has it's good points, almost in spite of itself, and I wish that their good points were easier for other gamers to use.

As for the future, well, I guess if palladium finally goes under, then they really won't be able to stop people from using their material in other games or from doing conversions, which would be a good thing in that it let some good ideas mired in a crappy system get more use, but kind of sad that it happened over palladium's dead body, even if they did mostly bring it about themselves.

Really, guys, let some folks do palladium ports to other systems, it won't fucking hurt you and could help. Sheesh....

Quote from: Dominus NoxNow, when they started getting into MDC bikinis, I think it went too far....

...Whereas I think it was just getting good...

But I'm defnitely part of the Rifts/Encounter Critical Axis of Gonzo, so that's how I roll.

One thing I'd use as an example of porting a palladium product over to another game is the time I, after looking thru a basic rifts book, noted an over the top vehicle that was like a huge metal skull on spider legs with a couple huge cannons mounted on the sides of the jaw. It game me an idea....

I used the illo of it and home made stats in a fairly serious SF game, and a couple players groaned about it being stupid, until they realized it had been built by a relatively small group who were using them to terrorize and dominate a backwards, low tech planetary population.

Once the players realized that the vehicles had been made for psychological warfare basically as terror weapons instead of practical war machines, they thought it was actually pretty clever and made sense, even in a fairly hard SF game. (They still mocked the machines and their operators for being stupid as hell, but agreed that having some creeps running a halfass outfit making them fit in with the idea of them being slimey and not too brite...)

So yeah, I borrowed the 'spider skull walkers' idea for a game and made it work, I'm sure there are lots of other things in rifts that I could use if I were willing to actually buy one of the books....

I REALLY like Mystic China and Ninja and Superspies even if the latter does have some inaccuracies in the martial arts. It's the perfect book combination to use with other systems. If only I wasn't so turned off by the rules - that really made me stop buying Palladium products when I picked up all the Robotech books like 20 years ago.

I like how Palladium Fantasy has different flavors of magic, standard magic, circle magic, runes, etc, and have used it in place of and as an addition to AD&D magic rules.