[Palladium] Exceptional Attributes House Rule

I've been in the mood to play some Palladium Fantasy lately.  Like many of you, the first thing I'm doing is looking at potential house rules for any game I'm going to play. I'm not opposed to the use of exceptional attributes in the game, but I've always wanted to tweak the rule.  Instead of a roll of 16-18 granting a guaranteed D6 bonus to the attribute score, I've always wanted to change it to a possibility of a bonus. I've tinkered with several different ways to do this but until I recently posted at The Ruins of Murkhill about it I hadn't been happy with the ideas I previously attempted to use.  Thanks to The Perilous Dreamer for suggesting the modification to my original idea.  The house rule is detailed below.

Exceptional Attributes: A roll of 16-18 during attribute generation grants the possibility of an exceptional attribute.  A roll of 16 gives a 10% chance, a roll of 17 gives a 25% chance, and a roll of 18 gives a 50% chance of an exceptional attribute.  If the exceptional attribute roll is successful, you roll another D6 and add the score to the previously generated score.  

I think that will work.  It's easy to implement and it makes the exceptional attributes more rare and truly exceptional.  I haven't tested it out in play yet, but it sounds reasonable.  I may look at the attribute table in general to see if it needs to be modified as well.  Have you done anything like this with Palladium? Did it work? Any suggestions?

What's on Your Quest List?

In my continuing efforts to break up the monotony of the D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge series of posts, I am taking a look at some products that I wish I had gotten over the years.  I was originally going to post about a free OSR support magazine but that will come later in the week.

It has been my experience that if you have been involved in this hobby - or any hobby for that matter - for a time then there are products you did not get when they were available for some reason and now you wished that you had added them to your collection.  Maybe one of your friends had the game and you were not worried about your own copy?  Your friend now lives three states away and it will not be so easy to borrow now.  Maybe you had a copy and sold it?  The game is now out of print and you can not find a copy. Whatever the reason may be, we all have an item, or even a list of items, that we would like to have if the opportunity presented itself.  I have a list of items presented below with a few notes added.

Chivalry & Sorcery 1st or 2nd edition

I knew about C&S being "like D&D but more like real medieval society" and was interested but I did not buy any products until the third edition.  I was intrigued by the ideas presented in the rules but I was not very fond of way they were presented.  The weird fonts used in some areas made headings hard to read and there were LOTS of errors in the text.  I sold it in irritation.  I am still interested in either original or second edition C&S for no other reasons than to see how well it captures a more realistic medieval flavor and to do some comparing and contrasting with Adventures in Fantasy.

Everway

I was intrigued by the notion of not only going with a game system built around cards instead of dice but the fact that the cards were similar to tarot cards instead of traditional playing cards.  I only every saw it in the store twice and I already had other products in hand to buy.  I have not yet found it at a reasonable price.

Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game original edition

This was the first game that came along that made us put away our AD&D game for a while and play it instead.  I know Palladium has its fair share of detractors but this is a different game than the beast that RIFTS has become with all of the changes to the rules.  It uses an earlier form of the Megaversal system that is much easier to handle and we had a blast with this game.  There were many more character classes than AD&D, there were insanity rules, nice little touches like the pictures of coins from various nations, and a score of other cool stuff.  I do not know the difference between this edition and the revised edition pdf offered on drivethrurpg but I just might take a chance.

Powers & Perils

I remember seeing this in the old hobby shop for a long time but I never got around to buying it.  I probably picked it up 20 times or more.  I have seen the website and looked at the rules; I would just like them in the original printed and boxed form.  Since realizing all these years later that Powers & Perils was designed by the co-author of Adventures in Fantasy makes me even more interested in owning this game.

That is probably the "big four" on my list.  I have excluded some games - Fantasy Earth and Pelicar - that I want but have since discovered they are cheaply available from online retailers. What is on your list?  Can you tell me anything about the games on my list?  Got something you want to sell? ;-) 

  

    

G is for Game Systems

G is for Game System(s)

There are several game systems that I have debated about using for the campaign world of Toldara.  I discussed some of the original design in the 3E system and the evolution to a Pathfinder based campaign on my About Me Me page.  I discussed the decision to change my Toldara game to the B/X system in my earlier post, Back to the Basics. At other times, I have thought about using other game systems but ultimately decided against doing so.  Maybe one or more of these will happen in the future?

GURPS 3E or Hero 5E

I am fascinated by the amount of detail in both of these systems.  These are two of the games in my collection that I have never gotten to play.  It seems that none of the people I have ever gamed with are interested in that level of detail. 

Palladium Fantasy
I played just as much Palladium Fantasy as I played AD&D back in high school.  I made up some classes for the old first edition rules back then also.  Unfortunately, all I have is the second edition of this game and I have no practical experience playing or designing items for use with this version.  There seem to be enough differences that I would not feel comfortable converting my campaign over to these rules.  Of course, it might be easier to convert the player information over with the inclusion of all of the available OCCs, RCCs, and races.  For instance, the Wolfen could be re-skinned to be the Karnin as one quick example.  Hmmm…. 

Talislanta

I discovered Talislanta with the second edition.  We played quite a few games back in high school.  Future editions added quite a bit of detail.  If I was going to convert to the Talislanta system I would probably use the second edition due to my experience.  At the time of starting the campaign I was concerned with the out of print status of Talislanta so I skipped it; yes, I am aware that a large amount of formerly printed Talislanta products are available for download in free pdf form at the Talislanta Library.  I was the only person with a printed Talislanta rulebook but all of us had a B/X rulebook so Talislanta was eliminated.   

USR

This game system is even more rules-light than the B/X rules and someone else has already started doing a Moldvay Era conversion.  A Toldara campaign using this system is highly likely to happen at some point.

The Top 7

I stumbled across the top 7 role-playing games meme that was going through the gaming blogosphere recently.  I have read the following posts about their respective top seven games:

 

Gnome Stew

Rather Gamey

Harvester

Tower of Zenopus

The Other Side

 

This type of stuff always interests me because it gives an inside look at what other people in the hobby were doing at the same time.  The summer of 1980 was when it all started for me.  I received the Holmes Basic Set and the three AD&D hardbacks from my uncle David.  I have played a ton of games since then but I am not going to do a separate list for games I played and games I ran.  Both lists would basically be the same but the games would occupy a different spot in both lists. 

 

1. AD&D: My buddies and I actually started off with Holmes and followed the references to the AD&D books I also owned.  We really liked the additional rules and restrictions offered up by AD&D.  It was pretty common for us to use D&D stuff with AD&D; it did not matter because it was all Dungeons & Dragons as far as we were concerned.  No one game got more play time from our group than this one.  I never moved up to 2E but I did game a little with 3E.



 

2. Palladium Role-Playing Game: Out of all of the stuff that has come and gone in my collection this is the one item that I wish I still had more than anything else.  This is the one game that made us all stop playing any form of D&D to play it instead.  It almost seemed like an upgrade to AD&D with the similarities in the rules systems; that made it easy to use stuff between the two systems also.I have the second edition around here somewhere but it just has not grabbed my attention like the original.     

 

 

 

 3. D&D: It all started with the Holmes Basic set but over the years AD&D got much more play out of our group.  We were under the mistaken impression that using AD&D meant we were playing a more "sophisticated" game.  I know, the folly of youth and all that jazz.  If I was starting a new campaign today I would probably just go with Moldvay or Holmes and some of the fan expansion material. 



 4. Talislanta: I stumbled across the second edition of the Talislanta Handbook and Campaign Guide on a random trip to the local game store.  We were instantly intrigued by the out of the ordinary races and campaign setting.  I always liked using one of the Gnomekin character options.  As cool as some of the more recent editions have been, I still feel like the slimmer manuals from that time were better at capturing your imagination.

5. Villains & Vigilantes: This was the first and in many ways still the best supers game I ever played.  V&V seemed to emphasize fun more than anything else.  This was the first game that had us actively building connections and relationships between various character and stories in the campaign. My old V&V folders are somewhere in storage with a ton of character write ups.  I would like to find them someday and post some to my blog. 

6. Marvel Super Heroes: I played quite a bit of the old Marvel Super Heroes game from TSR but I was not a big fan of the basic game.  It was cool because it was Marvel but I always felt like it was a little "too basic" in presentation.  When the Advanced Set was released, I became a big fan of the rules.  In fact, we used them for doing things other than supers.  There was a short GI JOE campaign that added a list of MOS options to the character creation process.  We had stats for a ton of the official characters also.  We also did a Transformers campaign. 

7. Nightlife: I do not remember much about this game other than we played several sessions.  I know it was one of those "monsters in the modern world" games but that is about it.  I believe it was released several years before White Wolf began the World of Darkness.  It remains the only horror type game that I have ever played but I would definitely like to try Call of Cthulhu.

There you have it - the top 7 games I have participated in as a player or game master.  I may be late in posting it but I made it.  

 



I'm Still Around...

Just a quick post to say that posting will resume shortly.  Putting it bluntly, the summer college semester is eating up my time since I also have work and family responsibilities.  Even thought it's been basically two weeks since I last posted, look for posts on the following subjects soon:

1. Adventures in Fantasy: I still have the read through of Book 3 to complete the rules.
2. D.O.T.T.: The Death of the Territories wrestling game by Eric Baker.  I have messed around a little bit with it but I need to investigate further.
3. Quest Card: A neat little card game by Liam Thompson that has a lot of promise and potential.
4. Perilous Journeys: I dig the crap out of this game because it makes the Lejendary Adventure rules a lot more accessible.
5. RIFTS or Palladium Fantasy: I get the itch to run these two games every so often and the itch is coming on strong again.

Basically, I have several plans for new posts BUT real life stuff has just kept me busy.  Posting will resume soon.

Oologah the Unmerciful

I recently registered for the Forums of the Megaverse over on the Palladium Books site.  One of the users, MurderCityDisciple, noticed my hometown of "Oologah" listed in my profile and decided it would make a good name for a troll adversary that could face off with the characters in his Palladium Fantasy campaign.  He posted the stats for Oologah the Unmerciful in this thread.  It's good stuff all around.  I think it's pretty cool that someone got a creative spark from a passing reference to my hometown and created an NPC to use in his campaign. Without further delay, Oologah the Unmerciful is also presented below.

Oologah
10th level Troll Mercenary
Miscreant
IQ 14 ME 12 MA 10 PS 30 PP 24 PE 23 PB 7 Spd 18
HP:63 SDC:100
Size: 13 feet 670 lbs
Age: 140
Horror Factor: 12
Natural Abilities: Nightvision 60', Climb 75%/65%, Swim 60%.
Saves: +4 vs Magic, +4 vs Poison, +3 vs Horror.

Combat-
Attacks: 5
Crits on 18, 19 & 20.
To Strike: +7
Dodge:+8
Parry: +8
Roll with Punch: +2
Pull Punch: +4

Claw: 2d6 +18
Kick: 2d4 +18
Body Flip
Body Block
Pin: 18, 19 & 20.
Crush: 2d6 +18
Bite: 2d4

Weapons-
Twin Duel-Wielded Battle Axes: (double attacks) +11 to strike +10 thrown (5d6 +18 damage)
Hooked Broad Sword: +11 to strike +12 parry (3d4 +18)
Cast Iron Shield: +12 parry +9 bash (3d4+18 damage) 180 SDC
Spear: +11 to strike (3d6+18) +10 thrown (3d6+18+1d6) range 120 feet
Net: +10 to strike +11 parry (2d4+18 damage when used as a scourge) can entangle, snare and engulf victim (see book)

Armor: Hodge podge armor consisting of scraps of leather, hides and random metal rings and plates equivalent to AR13 SDC 58.

Skills:
Languages:
Troll 98%
Gobbley 90%
Eastern Common 90%
Literacy: 75%
Wilderness survival: 90%
Detect Ambush: 80%
Track Humanoids: 75%
Interrogation/torture: 70%
Recognize Weapon Quality: 75%
Camoflage: 70%
Prowl: 70%
Faerie Lore: 45%
Use/Recognize Poison: 24%/16%
WP-Axes, Swords, Paired, Spear, Blunt, Chain, Net, Shield, H2H expert.

Oologah is a scarred, bent and wicked old troll. He has a broken tusk capped with bronze, his hair is caked in grime, matted and grey. Both his beard and hair have dozens of rings both precious and otherwise woven into it. Wise, cruel and treacherous he loves nothing more than an ambush followed by looting and slaughter (both of which he excells at). He usually tries to capture a few captives for his own amusement, which he cruelly mocks, tortures and eventually eats. Oologah usually keeps a band of (10 or 12) kobold sneak-thieves and woodsmen in his company to scout out and spy unwary travellers. Tactically, he prefers not to jump into a fight, but would rather strike foes unawares or those otherwise engaged. He loves nothing more than feasting on faeries, which he often hunts for with his net and kobold trackers. He attributes his long life and good luck to his long history of eating faerie-kind.

Praise for Palladium Fantasy & Thoughts on Palladium Books

I have read several rants on a few message boards that stated the writer would welcome the demise of Palladium Books.  I am not a fan boy nor do I turn a blind eye to any mistakes on the part of Palladium Books but I would like to see them not only recover but make a big comeback.  Their products always felt like the company that made them were a group of fans that got lucky and hit the big time.  I think an RPG industry without Palladium would be worse by their absence.

I started playing Palladium RPGs sometime around the mid to late 80's to the best of my recollection.  My buddy Jamie and I noticed a copy of Palladium Fantasy Role Playing Game that looked really cool so we pooled our money and bought it.  Of course, we rushed back to his mother's house and started checking it out immediately. We literally spent hours flipping through the pages and taking turns passing the book back and forth between us.  There were two teenage role-players really excited that summer day about the contents of that one book.

As we flipped through the pages of Palladium Fantasy, there were several things that caught our attention.  First, we noticed the rules were somewhat similar to AD&D so it would make learning this game much easier; unlike AD&D, we played using all of the rules.  Second, there was also an abundance of "official stats" for playing many more races and classes than in AD&D.  Who would not want to try something different from the typical player character options?  Third, the alignment system was a nice touch in my eyes.  There were lists of actions in each alignment description that guided players in the actions of their characters.  Fourth, Palladium had a full blown percentile skill system in contrast to the AD&D secondary skills.  Fifth, Palladium had many small details such as the illustrations of the money.  There wasn't just a listing of the generic gold piece, silver piece, etc. as in AD&D but there were actual names for the coins with illustrations of the respective currency.  Finally, there was the biggest difference between the two games - you only needed one book to play Palladium Fantasy.  It was great to have all of the information required in one rule book.  Granted, supplemental books would add further options and adventures in the palladium world but the fact remained that you only needed one book to play the game.  In contrast, when RIFTS would hit years later we would buy up the latest source books as soon as possible.

 After learning the rules, we played quite a bit of Palladium Fantasy.  We continued to play AD&D but for a time the focus was clearly on Palladium Fantasy.  In fact, our Palladium group was bigger than our AD&D group and shared some of the same players.  One funny fact is that we never bought any of the supplemental material.  I don't know why but we just didn't feel it "necessary" the same way it did for our AD&D game.  This isn't a judgement about either game, just a noted difference in our perspective on the necessity of further material within our group.  That isn't to say that we didn't use any expansion material in our games, though.  We shared ideas and adapted rules between AD&D and Palladium Fantasy and even developed some custom Occupational Character Classes.

We had many successful sessions of Palladium Fantasy over the years.  Eventually, we moved on to play other games. Palladium Fantasy was one of the few besides AD&D and V&V that we would return to play again.  I know many people think D&D when it comes to fantasy adventure gaming but I always think of Palladium Fantasy in the same instant.  I do have the second edition of Palladium Fantasy but I have yet to do any actual play using the rules.  It seems the rules have become a little bloated from first edition but that's just a general impression.  I also noticed that it looks like the complete line of Palladium Fantasy first edition is available on DriveThruRPG.  I may have to buy them and get another Palladium Fantasy campaign up and going.

That's my experience with Palladium Fantasy and why I remember it so fondly.  The other Palladium products I have played include Chaos Earth, Heroes Unlimited, RIFTS, and Robotech; I am interested in picking up Dead Reign to see what they have done with the Zombie genre.  I know that many people have problems with Palladium due to their release schedule snafus and the stories of board room politics that have taken place at their offices.  I understand the release schedule irritation and have no defense for the delays and cancellation of products.  As far as the politics go, all I can say is that there are two sides to every story and I did not witness any of the drama so I have no opinion on that.  The one thing I am sure of is the feeling of creativity that I get when I crack open a Palladium book.  There might be problems with the rules themselves but the story and background seems to be top notch every time.

I admit it - I'm a big time Palladium Fantasy fan even without playing in years.  I also enjoy their other products that I have picked up; mainly Chaos Earth and RIFTS.  While I do enjoy their products and want them to make a comeback, I think there are several things Palladium must do to thrive:

Revision
The Palladium system has been around since the 80's. Having been revised and expanded over the years, it is time to consolidate, clean up, and clarify all the rules.  The rules don't have to be completely overhauled but putting all references on a related topic together would be a good starting point.  A further re-organization to the rules would probably helps also.  I've heard that Kevin Siembieda does not even use the rules as published, so why not a look at the rules he does use?  All of these thoughts tie into the thought of a unified main core rule book.

Megaversal Rule Book
After a thorough revision of the rules, they should be consolidated into a nice hardback rule compendium.  I know some of the fans are very vocal about not wanting hardback because of increased prices but I think this is one expense well worth it.  With the Megaversal rules in one rule book then the core book for each game line could include a small section at the beginning about rule differences for that game.  The core rule book for each game could then focus on that game instead of reprinting the entire rule system in every time.  Yes, it would take two books to play a Palladium game but each core book would just be about that game instead of half the rule book being a reprint.  While you're at it, make the core books hardback also and leave the softbound books for source books.

Release Schedule
I completely understand the excitement about a new product and wanting to share the information with your loyal customers.  In doing so, there is no reason to give a firm release date until the actual release date is a short time away.  There are several books that have been announced at several different times with the release date getting pushed numerous times.  Eventually, the book is taken off the release schedule again.  It seems that this is currently happening with RIFTS Lemuria once again.


Support
Simply put, support ALL of the game lines - not just RIFTS.  I know RIFTS is like their stallion product at the moment but you can not grow a game line without supporting it by releasing new products.  It doesn't have to be a flood of new products but just throw a bone to fans of Chaos Earth, Dead Reign, Heroes Unlimited, Palladium Fantasy and the rest of the game lines several times a year.




    



    

[Rant] Charts & Tables - UGH!

I hate charts & tables, I hate charts & tables, I hate charts & tables, I hate charts & tables, I hate charts & tables, and - just for emphasis - I HATE CHARTS & TABLES! Now that I have that off of my chest it is probably time to explain myself.  It's a fact that most every rpg I have played has some sort of chart(s) in the rules somewhere. 

I have no problem with games using LOTS of charts and tables or very few at all.  I have no problem with games referencing charts or tables during combat or character creation.  Some of the games I have played with charts include AD&D, DC Heroes, Marvel Super Heroes, Palladium Fantasy, & Talislanta.  I have no problem coming up with the details of charts or tables that I create. 

So, what is my problem with charts and tables?  It is the physical act of typing in the information and creating the chart or table itself.  It always seems so tedious and I always have bad luck with editing.  In other words, it always winds up being atleast twice as difficult as it should be for me.

[Rant] My Experience Using D&D Meetup

*Note: this is just my experience with using the local D&D Meetup service one time. I'm sure some others have had similar experiences but I'm also sure that many others have had a good experience using this same service. Put simply, the experience was pretty lame but it was the person encountered that was the source of my disappointment and not the service itself. ****

I used to play a ton of RPG's.  I started with D&D/AD&D back in 1980.  Over the years, I tried many other games from DC Heroes, Marvel Super Heroes, Champions, Fantasy Hero, Villains & Vigilantes, Super World, Car Wars, GURPS, RIFTS, Talislanta, Palladium Fantasy, and many other numerous titles.  The old faithful lineup of RPG's that I continuously played through the 1980's until I graduated high school in 1991 consisted of AD&D, RIFTS, Talislanta, Villains & Vigilantes, and Palladium Fantasy.

A month after I graduated from high school I left for the Army.  I didn't play a lot while I was in the military but I did keep up with gaming in general, discovered Magic: The Gathering, and did actually play a few sessions of AD&D.  I left the Army in 2000 and returned home.  Most of my old gaming buddies had either left the hobby or moved out of town.  I had virtually no face to face gaming available.  One bright spot is that I did introduce my cousin, Alex, to 3E and we still hook up to play occasionally. We have also been developing a shared campaign world, Toldara, for several years.

I tried to overcome this absence of face to face role-playing by finding other outlets.  After some internet searches, I ran across some PBP games, message board games, PBEM games, and also heard of MEETUP. I don't know the exact time frame but I registered for the local D&D meetup around the time of 4E's release.  IIRC, the Pathfinder Alpha was out but the completely playtested Pathfinder Core Rulebook was not released yet.

I was on the D&D Meetup site for only a short time before I got contacted.  It sounded pretty good to me because the people were in Tulsa; about 25 miles from my location. We agreed to meeet halfway between our locations at Panera Bread.  We ordered some drinks and discussed our RPG experience and what kind of gaming we enjoyed.  It seemed like a really good match so we decided to meet again and try to gather some more people.

The next meeting took place at their house.  I brought my cousin, Alex, with me as a recruit.  At this point, there were 4 of us - Alex, me, and the two players we met.  The guy - I'll call him "Dick" - was interested in being the DM. He had all sorts of ideas for a campaign world, some adventures, and even some house rules.  Dick mentioned that his girlfriend - I'll call her "Jane" - would be playing her first game with us so it might be slow going at first.  No problem there. Dick also mentioned that he was talking to 2 other players about joining the game.  At the end of that meeting, we had decided on the rules system (3.5E with some early Pathfinder stuff), made characters (Alex, Jane, & me), and decided to meet again in 2 weeks for our first game session.

Two weeks pass and we (Alex & I) show up at Dick & Jane's to play.  The other two players - I'll call them "Will" and "Wendy" - had showed up earlier so they could create characters with the house rules available to them during the process.  I remember that Will and Wendy had printed out some really cool character sheets from some website.  It was nice to see everyone was ready to start playing before the start of the game.  We introduced ourselves, had some idle chit chat, and then got ready to play.

The game session lasted for approximately 4 hours.  The length was just about right. It wasn't too short for the drive involved. It also wasn't too long and drawn out either.  The session was fun with no rules lawyering or any of that silliness.  Everyone appeared to have a great time.  We ended the session and then agreed to have another meeting in two weeks again. 

One week passed and I was looking forward to another game session.  I checked my email and received a message from Dick.  He explained that the group "just wasn't working out for him" and decided to tell Will and Wendy they would not be invited back.  I tried exchanging messages with him and getting a good reason but he wouldn't give one.  Eventually, I got pretty irritated because he didn't give a group of strangers a chance to gel and didn't even give the other 4 of us a chance to continue playing with a new DM or one of us taking over as DM.  I promptly unregistered from the D&D MEETUP group and have yet to take another chance on gaming outside my circle of friends.

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edit - some text got erased when posting - d'oh!