Holy crap. I must say that's really something to see pretty much everyone here come out for Palladium 1e. Interesting!

Quote from: Benoist;612377Holy crap. I must say that's really something to see pretty much everyone here come out for Palladium 1e. Interesting!

Don't get me wrong, there's several 2e splatbooks that are wonderful (Bill Coffin's stuff is awesome!), but for game? Yeah, 1e all the way.

Quote from: Benoist;612377Holy crap. I must say that's really something to see pretty much everyone here come out for Palladium 1e. Interesting!

That's because 2e substituted the interesting "as close to an AD&D hack as I can get away with" 1e for the craptastic "Megaversal System" (Palladium's house engine).

Also, 1e has a certain grit and enthusiasm that 2e lacks entirely.

Knowing what I know about your own gaming inclinations I think you'll agree.

And how is the feel/tone? Is it very gritty? High magic? High fantasy? Sword & Sorcery?

The setting always struck me as a very weird kind of sword & sorcery.

RPGPundit

Well, it's just Palladium really.  It's not your gonzo D&D dungeon crawl.  It's grittier than the Princesses & Ponies 2e style.  There's madness and war and death and demons with a physical foothold in the world.  There's elves and dwarves but they're mostly extinct and politically irrelevant.  There's an evil emperor Palpatine.

I guess swords and sorcery could work for it but I think the predominance of Knights and Paladins as the best fighting men might be the more apt clue.  The Church of Light is an analog for the medieval Catholic church if, a little cleaner and purer (having active gods and magic probably accounts for that).

Really it's Medieval Fantasy more along the lines of Chivalry and Sorcery.  The Western Empire is Byzantium and the Eastern Empire is Charlemage's Holy Roman Empire.  The Wolfen are the Wolfen and don't quite fit the mould of Vikings or Germanic tribes, they're almost a new Roman Empire.

Quote from: David Johansen;612644Well, it's just Palladium really.  It's not your gonzo D&D dungeon crawl.  It's grittier than the Princesses & Ponies 2e style.  There's madness and war and death and demons with a physical foothold in the world.  There's elves and dwarves but they're mostly extinct and politically irrelevant.  There's an evil emperor Palpatine.

I guess swords and sorcery could work for it but I think the predominance of Knights and Paladins as the best fighting men might be the more apt clue.  The Church of Light is an analog for the medieval Catholic church if, a little cleaner and purer (having active gods and magic probably accounts for that).

Really it's Medieval Fantasy more along the lines of Chivalry and Sorcery.  The Western Empire is Byzantium and the Eastern Empire is Charlemage's Holy Roman Empire.  The Wolfen are the Wolfen and don't quite fit the mould of Vikings or Germanic tribes, they're almost a new Roman Empire.

Mostly correct but Palladium being Palladium, it's a tad more gonzo than that.

There's no Eastern Empire, just the "Eastern Territory" that's a fragmented mess of petty kingdoms and free cities.

The biggest human powers are the Timiro Kingdom (prosperous slave-owning assholes settled down south, next to the ruined Old Kingdom, under which ersatz-Cthulhu sleeps) and the Western Empire (evil Byzantium with magic up the wazoo; the setting's Elminster/Mordenkainen is actually a henchman of the Emperor and/or the power behind the throne, and they have magic flying warships and a tribe of cyclops working full-time making lightning bolts for them). There's an actual place called Byzantium, BTW, a small maritime power up north. Go figure.

The North is ruled by 8-foot-tall wolf-people called the Wolfen who are not so much "kind of like Romans" as, you know, actual ersatz-Romans, with togas and marble columns and legions and shit (it's actually suggested somewhere that a Roman centurion displaced in time and space taught the old Wolfen tribes formation fighting and Roman law). It's strongly hinted that they're maneuvering into a position to displace humans, as humans once displaced dwarves and elves, as masters of this world. But they're not painted as good guys or bad guys, just "normal people."

Oh, and the Church of Light -- you know, the ersatz-Roman Catholic Church -- worships the Egyptian gods, complete with high-ranking Church officials sometimes depicted in Pharaonic regalia. But don't worry, there's plenty of other religions to choose from, including thinly-veiled Norse gods straight out of Jack Kirby, and the Cthulhoid eldricht horrors which rules the ancient world.

That's the PFRPG setting in a nutshell. It's good stuff, "gonzo pulp fantasy" is how I usually label it, and I've used bits and pieces over some of the D&D games I've run since I've picked it up.

Most of my knowledge is from the original printing first edition.  Second always stuck in my craw a bit.

Still, there was an Eastern Kingdom that was larger than Timro at that point.  I had Arms of Nagash Tor at one point, which was mainly a source book on Timro.

The Church of Light does indeed worship the Egyptian pantheon but it still takes the role of the medieval Christian church.  I'm not sure who's regalia is more absurd but there's still all the pomp and ceremony and political power.

It's a well conceived game world in any case.  Especially with the innner portion of the continent being largely wilderness / adventure fodder and the civilization largely hanging around the coasts.


Huh, almost makes me want to take a stab at a Palladium 1e game, wish I still had a copy.

Well, the nice thing is there are plenty of copies available on Amazon for between $5-10 each:

link to PFRPG 1e on Amazon

1e Monsters & Animals

Quote from: Novastar;612375Universal consensus, even on Palladiums own messageboard, is that 1e is better than 2e (2e is basically the RIFTS-ification of PF, for corporate reasons; basically the same reason there's new dragons in RIFTS: Ultimate Edition).

I prefer 2nd myself and have said so several times on the PMB. I started out gaming with MERP so by far prefer a system like P.P.E. to cast spells from then a certain number of spells per day.

Quote from: Shawn Merrow;612741I prefer 2nd myself and have said so several times on the PMB. I started out gaming with MERP so by far prefer a system like P.P.E. to cast spells from then a certain number of spells per day.

I prefer the PPE system for spells. I just like having points providing more choice, than spell slots which just seem silly and too simplistic to me.

Other than that, I wouldn't use 2nd edition at all. And that was the first version that I ever played!

I really like 2e, but then again, I also ran Rifts for a year when I was 18. I know the system very well, and it works (even though it certainly has its own issues).

Quote from: The Butcher;612653Mostly correct but Palladium being Palladium, it's a tad more gonzo than that.

There's no Eastern Empire, just the "Eastern Territory" that's a fragmented mess of petty kingdoms and free cities.

The biggest human powers are the Timiro Kingdom (prosperous slave-owning assholes settled down south, next to the ruined Old Kingdom, under which ersatz-Cthulhu sleeps) and the Western Empire (evil Byzantium with magic up the wazoo; the setting's Elminster/Mordenkainen is actually a henchman of the Emperor and/or the power behind the throne, and they have magic flying warships and a tribe of cyclops working full-time making lightning bolts for them). There's an actual place called Byzantium, BTW, a small maritime power up north. Go figure.

The North is ruled by 8-foot-tall wolf-people called the Wolfen who are not so much "kind of like Romans" as, you know, actual ersatz-Romans, with togas and marble columns and legions and shit (it's actually suggested somewhere that a Roman centurion displaced in time and space taught the old Wolfen tribes formation fighting and Roman law). It's strongly hinted that they're maneuvering into a position to displace humans, as humans once displaced dwarves and elves, as masters of this world. But they're not painted as good guys or bad guys, just "normal people."

Oh, and the Church of Light -- you know, the ersatz-Roman Catholic Church -- worships the Egyptian gods, complete with high-ranking Church officials sometimes depicted in Pharaonic regalia. But don't worry, there's plenty of other religions to choose from, including thinly-veiled Norse gods straight out of Jack Kirby, and the Cthulhoid eldricht horrors which rules the ancient world.

That's the PFRPG setting in a nutshell. It's good stuff, "gonzo pulp fantasy" is how I usually label it, and I've used bits and pieces over some of the D&D games I've run since I've picked it up.

How could anyone read this and not think its fucking awesome?

Its what I love about Palladium: for all the shit it gets about being "immature" or the likes, pretty well all of Palladium's RPG settings are very big on having on having some very hardcore elements and very rarely have a "cormyr"-style Dominant Good Guy Kingdom.  Whether in RIFTS or the Palladium Fantasy world, the dominant powers are usually Selfish at best, or Hostile at worst.

They were doing "points of light" before it was cool, and they did it way better than 4e ever did.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;612956How could anyone read this and not think its fucking awesome?

Its what I love about Palladium: for all the shit it gets about being "immature" or the likes, pretty well all of Palladium's RPG settings are very big on having on having some very hardcore elements and very rarely have a "cormyr"-style Dominant Good Guy Kingdom.  Whether in RIFTS or the Palladium Fantasy world, the dominant powers are usually Selfish at best, or Hostile at worst.

They were doing "points of light" before it was cool, and they did it way better than 4e ever did.

I sure as hell can't, I felt like dusting off my old copy even as I typed this.

Accusing Palladium of immaturity makes about as much sense as accusing White Wolf of pretension; i.e. technically true but irrelevant to actual gaming.

I like to think that Kevin Siembieda learned at the feet of greats like Bob Bledsaw and Erick Wujcik, but in any case, the man knows what is it that makes a setting tick. It's a huge influence on my D&D games.

Also, to be fair, everyone was doing "Points of Light" before 4e. Greyhawk, FR, Glorantha, fuck, even World of Warcraft's Azeroth is a "Points of Light" milieu. There was nothing new about it, just a buzzword for the sort of setting that's hardwired into D&D's DNA.

Nevertheless, Palladium, along with The Known World a.k.a. Mystara, remains one of my two Platonic examples of gonzo D&D-ish fantasy setting done right.

Yes, done right, but extremely different!

RPGPundit