Tell me of your Love (Hate) for the Palladium RPG engine [Mega-Damage!!!]

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Malleustein said:
Yeah, in Southern Cross most (all?) weapons and armour were M.D.

G.C.M./New Generation is my favourite era of Robotech. I saw it long before I knew it was a third and entirely unrelated anime, so it all seemed like a (logical?) progression from Macross to Southern Cross to New Generation. I approached the role-playing game that way. Honestly, I was too excited to have Cyclones and Alpha/Beta to worry about what was and wasn't sensible when it came to M.D.C.
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New Generation/Mospeada is also probably the best setting to run as an RPG of the three. Since military stuff has broken down and it is much more "adventurey".

Also Cyclones are just dope. (seriously though, I'd love to run/play in that generation... just not with Palladium rules. Just... basically anything more custom made for mecha please).
 
Bourbonjack said:
The biggest thing I (and my group) just couldn't get past was the concept that no matter how tough, how trained or how experienced most human (or humanoid) characters could be, unless they were wearing MDC armor the weakest MDC hand weapon would take them out with one hit. It became a running joke/tactic to buy MDC armored "underwear" so said characters could always survive at least one hit.
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We adopted MDC clothing.

Uniforms were MDC. Not much. It was just enough that a surprise shot from a 1d6 MD handgun wasn't an automatic character death.

But we were also using Macross II stuff. That meant we had Marduuk. That meant there were Emulators running around.

And those skimpy outfits they wore? We declared them MDC. Because for game purposes, we had to.

Another thing to consider is no one is running around with SDC weapons by that point. There's no point. The ABSOLUTE MINIMUM anyone is going to carry as a sidearm is a 1d6 MD pistol. We still kept track of SDC and HP at that point, but it was completely irrelevant.

You reach a point where your character's armor is their HP total, and that's it. But all that shit Siembieda spouts about there still being a role for SDC after you put MDC at the personal scale? That just shows he doesn't play or run his own game.
 
Bourbonjack said:
The biggest thing I (and my group) just couldn't get past was the concept that no matter how tough, how trained or how experienced most human (or humanoid) characters could be, unless they were wearing MDC armor the weakest MDC hand weapon would take them out with one hit. It became a running joke/tactic to buy MDC armored "underwear" so said characters could always survive at least one hit.
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Yeah that's why MD is such a huge disconnect for me. A single point of MD is going to turn a human into bloody pulp and mist. Conventional military weapons are incredibly destructive and MD beats them by an order of magnitude. No human (or unarmored vehicle, for that matter) is gonna survive getting lit up by a .50 "Ma Deuce" and I am pretty sure it doesn't even qualify as a MD weapon. A 155mm artillery shell will destroy a 4 story brownstone with a direct hit and a typical artillery barrage is dozens of rounds. IIRC a 155mm HE artillery shell is on the low end of the MD scale.

The most expedient defense against these kind of weapons is Mother Earth ("digging in"); they told me in the Corps that 18" of earth will stop most things and at the time I accepted that unconditionally. I imagine MD weapons would destroy conventional defenses like fighting holes and sandbags with ease.

Edit: I can imagine MDC weapons and armor in a high tech battlefield with heavily armored, highly mobile infantry armed with crazy shit like fusion bombs and plasma guns.
 
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Rather than going with MDC clothing, we went with uniforms that converted the MDC to SDC damage; x1 SDC damage from hand weapons, and x10 from mecha scale stuff. So while you could pretty easily survive a hit from a Weasel, most people would be pasted by a short burst from a GU-XX.
 
sureshot said:
Not first edition of HU. It's in the second edition. Megahero is really the only way HU comes close to matching the power level of superheroes. Of course Kevin would hate that as it shows the shortcomings of Heroes Unlimited. Some of the Special Training OCCs have not aged well. Stage Magician is toast in most HU.
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Again, that's why I call it Heroes Limited.

jg
 
sureshot said:
If the game was built for street level superheroes like characters from the Arrowverse sure. Instead the rpg is promoted and sold like full supers rpg like Mutants and Masterminds. In a campaign where everyone has superpowers and can fly and run super fast they have to essentially end up carrying the character from place to place. The Special Training feels out of place. Except for the Ancient Master. The rest imo belong more in Ninja and Superpies.

Not to mention too many redundant power descriptions. All we need is one Energy Expulsion or Alter Physical Structure power.
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IMO it is more street level supers, or those slightly above, so for the most part it will be for those kind of characters seen in Arrowverse. Sure you can do characters above that, but that system is not geared, and cannot really handle that level of power.

For the most part Special Training, and Physical Training do not seem too out of place. I essentially did a freeform variant of it with what I called talents, where you are effectively using your on bio-energy (lifeforce) to power stuff. Re-wrote most of the classes, but also kept parts of the original - just re-jigged.

Assassin: You're Jason Bourne or Black Widow or someone like them.
Hunter: You're a human that would be a Predator (Yuatja) that enjoys tracking superhuman game, or at least close to it.
Master, Ancient: You're Sonny from Into the Badlands or someone like him.
Master, Weapon: You're like a Grammaton Cleric wielding a gun, or Oliver Queen with a bow.
PhysicaL: You're Batman, or at least smeone like him.
SpecOps: You're John Reese or Frank Castle, or at least someone like them.
Spy: You're Slade Wilson or someone like him

Each was assigned a level of stats, with explanation of how it worked and then asked to pick talents. Most only got access to mind over matter stuff, while the AM got to pick any five (as opposed to those ones in the book just to add variation).

Malleustein said:
The Weapons Master from Powers Unlimited covers most of the Arrow heroes and villains. Why it isn't a O.C.C. in the core book I'll never understand. Hardware: Electrical still has a spot after 3 editions, but not Green Arrow/Hawkeye!?
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Yes it certainly does.
 
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Saw an interesting bit on Twitter about this sort of topic.

Initial:
Of all the passages in Rifts, this is the one that's threatening to break my brain: "This is not a beginner's role-playing game, nor one conducive to hack and slash gaming. Like many of our games, Rifts is a thinking man's game."
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(Not my) response:
This really had me thinking. Then it hit me. It's accurate... if you subscribe specifically to the combination of endlessly stat'd war gear and magic powers, and incredibly heavy narrative gaming style that KS does at the same time. Get out your tinfoil hats.

"Rifts is a thinking man's game" sounds ludicrous, if you stay in the surface layers of Rifts. It's a game where a single fire fight against even basic CS Grunts could wipe a party. But that's not how KS "sees" Rifts as being played. Dude loves a heroic narrative. LOVES.

It's right there in the XP table. But to see how he sees the game being played out, you can't look at the normal books. You need to read the graphic novel/sourcebook, Machinations of Doom. In it, a scrappy pack of mercs with no body armour or plan raid a CS installation.

They succeed. With no casualties. Why? Narrative driven game + loads of plot armour. Their opponents? Functionally incompetent, a common Palladium thing. Everything is seat of the pants ad-libbing and declining battles. That's what he means by "thinking man's game".

He expects that GMs are building strong narrative structures in the Rifts sandbox. He expects that enemies aren't competent, and that players will be able to flip situations to favour them. And he expects lots of plot armour. Lots and lots of it. And in this context, that quote kind of makes sense. The problem is that none of it is obvious, explained, or more than vaguely hinted at in the art for the books. But implied playstyle and messaging in games is a separate discussion for a different day.
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Steve Dubya said:
Saw an interesting bit on Twitter about this sort of topic.
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I'd chalk that up as a potential disconnect between fluff and the game. Machinations of Doom isn't necessarily Rifts as Siembieda envisions it. It's Rifts as Perez envisioned it.

Without going into detail, the Perez-ification of Rifts was one of the big things which made me realize I didn't like Rifts. I don't like his art. And I don't ascribe this second part to him, but I also didn't like what I perceived as a shift in the tone and feel of the setting at the time.

What I liked about Rifts was how it was originally presented with a strong horror vibe. There were also themes of extreme isolation. There was a wild west feel, and maybe that's why one of my last holdouts for things I liked about Rifts was New West (which was the only place I ever felt Perez's art fit).

All that was erased for the All Coalition, All the Time Show. The terror of the setting was replaced by silly D-Bees and the GI Joe rule. The isolation was destroyed by urban renovation and a new major town and kingdom every few steps.
 
Gabriel said:
I'd chalk that up as a potential disconnect between fluff and the game.
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Just look at magic - where a magic-user can only use 3-4 3-4 level spells without running out of juice - yet bizarrely Rifts is a high magic zone. Yet someone with super powers can blast away until they're blue in the face, the mage on the other hand has to use a gun.

Yet when mentioned on the Palladium boards, none of the people on there seem to grasp this rather key, and salient, yet important part of the setting.
 
Rogerdee said:
Just look at magic - where a magic-user can only use 3-4 3-4 level spells without running out of juice - yet bizarrely Rifts is a high magic zone. Yet someone with super powers can blast away until they're blue in the face, the mage on the other hand has to use a gun.

Yet when mentioned on the Palladium boards, none of the people on there seem to grasp this rather key, and salient, yet important part of the setting.
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They do grasp it. They tend to ignore it or worse tell you to carry an weapon around once the character runs out of PPE. Which not only defeats the purpose of playing a caster. It also goes against the mantra "that magic-users consider tech inferior and magic superior". So the fix is to carry a weapon. Why am I playing the caster again.

It's the same with those who play 3.5./Pathfinder their no linear fighter and quadratic wizard power issue. Just carry a bow. Except the Wizard does not the bow to hit a target at long range and the fighter is stuck having to be mundane and fire arrows.
 
Panzerkraken said:
Rather than going with MDC clothing, we went with uniforms that converted the MDC to SDC damage; x1 SDC damage from hand weapons, and x10 from mecha scale stuff. So while you could pretty easily survive a hit from a Weasel, most people would be pasted by a short burst from a GU-XX.
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hmmm...with no hit location rules this can only lead to the MDC thong.
 
David Johansen said:
hmmm...with no hit location rules this can only lead to the MDC thong.
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My group already had MDC lingerie thanks to the Emulator outfit.

But we also had the constant joke of the MDC Speedo. (Which was hypothetical and never literal)

These things had AR. So technically we could still use the SDC system. You just needed to roll over the AR to hit character SDC.

But the way we treated MDC was that AR never applied (which is actually a rule in the books). If an MD weapon was fired at someone wearing any type of MD armor, then the MD weapon struck the MD armor regardless of AR.

So the MDC speedo meant that anytime you got shot, it was straight in the nuts. Which we always opined would probably be pretty painful if a railgun hit you there.

But we also never had the GI Joe rule. Damage in excess of the armor went straight to character. So if a character with 1 MDC armor got hit by 2 MDC of damage, they better have more than 199 SDC because otherwise they were dead.
 
sureshot said:
It's the same with those who play 3.5./Pathfinder their no linear fighter and quadratic wizard power issue. Just carry a bow. Except the Wizard does not the bow to hit a target at long range and the fighter is stuck having to be mundane and fire arrows.
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God don't even get my started my dislike for 3x/Pathfinder. I swear the designers must be a bunch of nerds who got beaten up by jocks because they have no love for Fighters.

The designers should have allowed martial characters to magnify their skills to supernatural levels. A high-level rogue is so good at hiding that they just flat-out become invisible and can escape from completely sealed rooms by teleporting. High-level fighters are able to fight, like, two-hundred guys at once and split stone walls with their fists.

Asking someone to play a mundane Fighter alongside a fantastical Wizard makes as much sense as asking someone to play a mundane 'Wizard' alongside a fantastical Fighter.

Would you find it fun to play Penn or Teller in a party with Achilles, Beowulf, Hercules, or Cú Chulainn?
 
Brock Savage said:
God don't even get my started my dislike for 3x/Pathfinder. I swear the designers must be a bunch of nerds who got beaten up by jocks because they have no love for Fighters.
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They don't call it Mathfinder for do reason. lol

Brock Savage said:
The designers should have allowed martial characters to magnify their skills to supernatural levels. A high-level rogue is so good at hiding that they just flat-out become invisible and can escape from completely sealed rooms by teleporting. High-level fighters are able to fight, like, two-hundred guys at once and split stone walls with their fists.
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Yeah they should have taken skills to supernatural levels.
Weird thing, is that while looking at converting Palladium Fantasy into a freeform narrative play I have been incorporating various PF / DnD abilities into this. Thing is most of them are based around game mechanics - some obviously are not, and this is what the Fighter is lacking, big time.
 
Ok so here we go.....

Just a heads up, I'm a bit of a pariah among the hard-core PB crowd (sureshot can verify this to a degree)

"So a few questions in no particular order

So to those of you who've played/owned/sold/loved/hated/etc. the system what do you think of it as it stands today?"

It's archaic, outdated, and in very serious need of revision and modernization in a variety of ways.

"How has it changed over the years? I know the Mega-Damage change was a big deal in the fan community with some loving, others hating it."

It hasn't really changed aside from minor tweaks here and there with other things haphazardly bolted on without thought. Despite what many will claim the rules cannot be used as literally written. If it were computer it wouldn't even boot up.

Thats not to say we can't make it work but we shouldn't have to work up our own patches or make our own assumptions to do so.

"Not to get into to much drama but I've read that "Kevin Siembieda" is somewhat litigious when it comes to fan websites, is that true?"

If by litigious you mean sending cease and desist letters on official company letterhead that actually had zero legal power or basis, then yes.

"Is the engine more or less universal across all the companies various settings? or is it highly tailored to each setting?"

Universal? Nope. Each game has its own idiosyncrasies that, while possible, make cross setting play a pain in the posterior at minimum, and not worth it in some cases.

"Does it scale well? that is how well do Average Humans interact with Gritty Commandos with Super Heroes with Godzilla?"

Only if you have a good gm otherwise its a train wreck waiting to happen at any moment.

"What do you think of the various settings? Macross, Rifts, Heroes Unlimited, Palladium Fantasy, etc."

Rifts is the shiz to me (after Star Wars my childhood sweetheart and love of my life of settings) then macross and Robotech. Phaseworld is right up there too.
 
Rogerdee said:
I amazed you stayed until the end of the game to be honest.
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Hope sprung eternal, I was hoping I'd be given something to do, that day. But I didn't return to the game after that. I think it died shortly after, although I don't know the reason why (No, it wasn't me.)
 
Gabriel said:
Yeah, the Palladium crowd gets a bit unfriendly when you don't accept Unca Kev as your lord and saviour.
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Well the reasons of my being a pariah go well beyond just not bowing down to kev dating back to before the Facebook fiasco of 2010 (almost exactly 10 years ago actually)and the "cabal of 24" so.....
 
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sureshot said:
They do grasp it. They tend to ignore it or worse tell you to carry an weapon around once the character runs out of PPE. Which not only defeats the purpose of playing a caster. It also goes against the mantra "that magic-users consider tech inferior and magic superior". So the fix is to carry a weapon. Why am I playing the caster again.

It's the same with those who play 3.5./Pathfinder their no linear fighter and quadratic wizard power issue. Just carry a bow. Except the Wizard does not the bow to hit a target at long range and the fighter is stuck having to be mundane and fire arrows.
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I've noticed that in any game that combines super tech with high magic, the blast 'em quotient of high magic is either neutralized or made redundant, so you have to focus on the stuff that magic can do that tech can't, like say, mind control people or turn them into lawn chairs.

JG
 
James Gillen said:
I've noticed that in any game that combines super tech with high magic, the blast 'em quotient of high magic is either neutralized or made redundant, so you have to focus on the stuff that magic can do that tech can't, like say, mind control people or turn them into lawn chairs.

JG
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Thing is that they can only cast 1-3 spells before running out of juice, whereas technology has no such limitations. Look at Phase World, while the books do not mention 3-D printers (designed before they were a thing), no intergalactic civilisation would survive without one.

So mages cannot really compete with matter creation above what technology can accomplish either. So the more you think about it the more an advanced civilsation is better than mages going by game mechanics - yet fluff says the opposite in that they can go toe-to-toe with dragons creating a massive disparity between the two.
 
Well it really depends on the spell...many of the go to spells are 5th level or less and you can cast maybe 10-15 of those before typically running out of juice as written.....one of the many things I try to address in my "2.0" rules.
 
Another issue with magic is two things. One casters in Palladium rpgs once they take one point of damage lose the spell. Which means all it takes is a kid with a bag of rocks and a slingshot to keep a caster from being able to use magic. Second in a world like Rifts their is no decent anti-tech spells. I don't have the core book with me and I think the spell is called Negate Mechanics or technology and it is an absolute joke imo. Psionic characters can inexplicably mind control power armors and robots with I think it it called Telemachinal Posession. Somehow in a super magic PPE rich world no caster has not thought to learn a magic version of a decent anti-tech spell.
 
Jaymz said:
Ok so here we go.....

Just a heads up, I'm a bit of a pariah among the hard-core PB crowd (sureshot can verify this to a degree)

"So a few questions in no particular order

So to those of you who've played/owned/sold/loved/hated/etc. the system what do you think of it as it stands today?"

It's archaic, outdated, and in very serious need of revision and modernization in a variety of ways.

"How has it changed over the years? I know the Mega-Damage change was a big deal in the fan community with some loving, others hating it."

It hasn't really changed aside from minor tweaks here and there with other things haphazardly bolted on without thought. Despite what many will claim the rules cannot be used as literally written. If it were computer it wouldn't even boot up.

Thats not to say we can't make it work but we shouldn't have to work up our own patches or make our own assumptions to do so.

"Not to get into to much drama but I've read that "Kevin Siembieda" is somewhat litigious when it comes to fan websites, is that true?"

If by litigious you mean sending cease and desist letters on official company letterhead that actually had zero legal power or basis, then yes.

"Is the engine more or less universal across all the companies various settings? or is it highly tailored to each setting?"

Universal? Nope. Each game has its own idiosyncrasies that, while possible, make cross setting play a pain in the posterior at minimum, and not worth it in some cases.

"Does it scale well? that is how well do Average Humans interact with Gritty Commandos with Super Heroes with Godzilla?"

Only if you have a good gm otherwise its a train wreck waiting to happen at any moment.

"What do you think of the various settings? Macross, Rifts, Heroes Unlimited, Palladium Fantasy, etc."

Rifts is the shiz to me (after Star Wars my childhood sweetheart and love of my life of settings) then macross and Robotech. Phaseworld is right up there too.
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Hey Jaymz welcome to the PUB and yes Jaymz and to a certain extent I am too a pariah amongst the hard-core PB crowd.
 
Gabriel said:
Yeah, the Palladium crowd gets a bit unfriendly when you don't accept Unca Kev as your lord and saviour.
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Agreed and seconded. Though it also is because they want to complain about the lack of players and popularity of the system. Yet at the same time want nothing to change and because they easily know the system every other player should to. In some cases then go on a rant about how Savage Rifts is a terrible system and how Pathfinder/5E ruined the gaming hobby.

Rogerdee said:
Let's just say I opened a thread on PB forums asking if we need a Second Edition.
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Good luck yet expect the usual in that they want nothing to change at all. Yet expect a miraculous financial recovery for PB with the rules unchanged and all the while maintaining the status quo.

Jaymz said:
Well the reasons of my being a pariah go well beyond just not bowing down to kev dating back to before the Facebook fiasco of 2010 (almost exactly 10 years ago actually)and the "cabal of 24" so.....
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It has been awhile yet was it not you that caused them to look like fools because Kevin, some of the employees and the hard core fanbase insisted that creating a Facebook page was too time consuming and hard to do. Kind of challenged you to create one if it was so "easy" to do. Within 24 hours or even less you had setup a Facebook page.

That era was not very welcoming over at the boards and they still want nothing to change and the status quo maintained. Then get angry when no one wants to play PB rpgs and no stores carry PB product.
 
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