Palladium Games

[Fellfrosch]

Aside from Gary Gygax, Kevin Siembieda is possibly the most well-known personality in RPG publishing...and the things he's most well-known for are control issues and unbending adoration of his own system. As 42 pointed out, he's the art director on most projects because everything has to be "his way." You never know, though. If you're serious about it, I'd say your best bet is to take an existing core book and completely re-edit yourself, and then take them the finished product. He'll probably still laugh in your face, but at least he'll see what a good design job can do to improve things.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Yeah, I've heard that about him. I'm not sure I want to completely re-work his book with no compensation.

Then again, the other criminal is Steve Jackson, and he's not exactly sane when it comes to this sort of thing either. <sigh>

Now we're back to making my OWN game....

[42]

Maybe this is rude but...Palladium deserves someone better than Kevin Siembieda. I think the Palladium world has grown beyond his initial vision to include those of its devoted fans. I think that Palladium could use some new business people and skills to allow it to expand into what it could be.

[Mr_Pleasington]

There was a great thread on the rpg.net forums a while back about this very thing...

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?s=818c9b92d50181303139a9f9c78cb33f&threadid=35956&highlight=Palladium


It's long, but has some good points.

[Fellfrosch]

Palladium deserves much better marketing and management, I agree, but the reason it's so good is Siembieda himself--he writes 90% of their stuff and is a legitimate creative whiz. I think the main problem right now is that the company is stable as-is, and Siembieda is afraid to rock the boat with any major changes. I don't see how to keep him doing what he does while giving the directorial reins to someone else.

One possible solution is the upcoming Rifts movie (which hasn't been announced officially, but hinted at vigorously). If they get as big of a surge in popularity as they're expecting, they could easly afford to hire some property managers (and Siembieda could be more easily persuaded to hire some). Their could be tie-in video games, action figures, happy meals, etc., plus the book quality could improve immeasurably.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Happy Meals, heh.

I don't think they need a better GAME designer than Kevin. They do, as I think we all recognize, need a better BOOK designer and EDITOR.  He has good concepts. He doesn't describe them well.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Ok, I gotta question

I'm not sure I like PFRPG enough to run it often. So the question is (besides the insufferable need he has to use "deevil" instead of "devil"), do I take back Monsters and Animals? I mean, how necessary is it? I'd feel much more comfortable making this decision if I knew the format that the book uses for entries. Then I'd know how easily I could make it up. The related questions is whether it's more worth it to have Monsters and Animals or to have Dragons and Gods. I like dragons. I'd love to have lots of dragons. Where can I see an example of how different dragons are from your average run of the mill monster? Is there anyway I can see a dragon listing and also see a "normal" monster listing? Someone got a scanned page they can show me?

[Spriggan]

dragons and gods is crap it's only got 40 pages on dragons.  how monsters are listed are esacly the same as in the back of the palladium FRPG book 1.  How powerful are dragons?  Varies, true dragons are rare and powerful so most GM's don't use them becasue a player has no chance against them.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Ok, This is definitely helpful. But I have a follow-up question. D&D has a standard sort of powers that dragons have. Is there something analogous in Palladium? Or do they just have really high stats?

[Spriggan]

um they're a mix of the two.  But Palladium Dragons get a lot of powers from haveing magic classes as well.  I'll get out my dragons and gods and try to post some of the things you'd want to know.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Cool, I'd appreciate that. I'm thinking that I can make most of this up, and that I'll be exchanging M&A for something else. I dunno. I think I have rule books for every game I want now, since I traded in a slough of Forgotten Realms books for lots of other stuff.