Heroes of the Palladium Megaverse, Unite!

Sometime in Earth's future, after a Golden Age of peace and technological advancement, the face of the planet is decimated by the return of magic and the Coming of the Rifts. Cities fall, civilization collapses, billions of people perish, and portals to a thousand alien worlds open across the face of the planet...

For nearly 20 years, the fine folks at Palladium have brought us tales from the land of the Rifts Megaverse that crosses and combines every genre—science fiction, fantasy, horror, the supernatural, superheroes, dimensional travel, magic, monsters, and more!

If you've never explored the Rifts roleplaying world, now's the perfect time! Hundreds of books, miniatures, novels, art collections, Rifter magazines, and more are in stock and ready to expand your gaming experience. The mind reels at the sheer volume and scope of the available titles and subject matter: anything and everything you'd ever want to play in a post-apocalyptic world is right here!

Ahh...fond memories of cyber-docs, juicers, dog boys, ley line walkers and Coalition snipers for me. I still want a Death's Head Transport so I can go to work in style...

Dig the artwork on the "Ultimate" edition, though!

I've heard Palladium is on the rocks now, that there's been serious problems and they're having a hard time keeping heads above water. I've always liked Rifts and a bunch of the other games Palladium has produced, but have always balked at their nearly unusable...no strike that, their ACTUALLY unusable rules set.

The evil side of me sorta hopes the heroes at WotC swing in on a vine and make off with the rights to some of the great games (and the cover artists) working for the guys at Palladium so they could gain new life as D20 products and I could actually play them without having to eat my pencil in frustration. Hey, they could even use Vitality and Wounds as SDC/MDC and HP.

I would buy that game in a second! The retooling the guys could give that game could make it into a masterwork game of legend instead of a really wonderful idea with really lousy stink-butt rules.

The evil side of me sorta hopes the heroes at WotC swing in on a vine and make off with the rights to some of the great games (and the cover artists) working for the guys at Palladium so they could gain new life as D20 products and I could actually play them without having to eat my pencil in frustration.

I would love to see a d20 version of Rifts (and Robotech and TMNT for that matter), but I don't see Kevin Siembieda going for it. The man despises WotC and d20 with a passion. I believe he accused WotC of attempting to steal his IP back when they were tiny (pre-MTG) and has never let go of the grudge. Moreover he believes his system is superior to all others, especially d20. It was an OK system in the THAC0 era, but there has been no innovation.

I think he'd rather go down in flames than "give in." Too bad, his ideas really are great.

I fully agree with Grimcleaver, I have never enjoyed the "Palladium" megaverse rules and it doesn't surprise me that they are about to go under..

up to 2004 I owned every Rifts, Rifter, Nightspawn/bane and Heros Unlimited book...and played just as often in the Palladium 'verse as I did in D&D but as I got more and more sick of the rules and tired of having to implement my own house rules to make the game go smoothly the whole RPG got stale...but it was the fact that every "new" book they produced was less than 25% new content and 75% reprint of past books..and I mean everything..weapons, monsters, classes..it was really discouraging...and then reprinting most of their books in "2nd" edition rules...but what REALLY P.O.ed me was the Rifter, which IMHO filled their quota of new material and gave them no incentive to actually do anything new so I saw even less material being produced after than fanboy pseudo-magazine went out...so it's no wonder that they are having a hard time keeping heads above water

I once loved Rifts (and still love Nightspawn/bane), it was once the cutting edge game, very imaginative and innovated (it's quite the feeling to be in a giant robot blowing demons away over the ruins of your home town!) and looked forward to play it...but Mr. S. and his crew really let their game go down the toilet..I would love to see another company turn the game into a d20 system...

Kalin

P.S. in 2004 I sold 80% of my Palladium books online and used the $$$ to buy the complete sets of 2nd ed. Dark Sun and Al'Quadim :)

I thought Palladium was dead. I remeber playing Robotech and Hero's Unlimited. In those days the only thing that mattered was physical prowess dexterity, it was such a one dimensional game. The only thing I remember is that Emperor Siembida was lawsuit happy.

No offense but I volunteer to put this old horse down for good.

Rifts fraggin rules! Juicers rule! Dogboys? They drool and rule! The movie will rule, I can't wait for the action figures. Good thing I have a son, so I won't look like a dork going to Toy's R Us and trying to buy G. I. Joes, Star Wars, and Coalition Deadboys..."Yeah, do you have the Ultimax power armor playset? Uh...yeah, it's for my son."
And I don't want to start an argument with nobody, but in modern combat with guns, physical prowess is waaaay more important than other abilities, esp physical strength. So take your gymnastics, lil neophyte juicer.

So take your gymnastics, lil neophyte juicer.

I always took Boxing - good for that extra attack!

Actually, I took all that running, acrobatics, football I could, but I don't want to cop to it cos I might get a rep as a munchkin minmaxer. I had always lettered in 5 Sports
at Chi Town High School. Oh, yeah, weightlifting.

Heathansson is right about the physical prowess and guns, but if you look at all the Palladium worlds/campaigns (Palladium Fantasy, TMNT, Nightspawn/bane, Ninjas and Superspies, Hero's Unlimited, Beyond the Supernatural, etc.) thats when it got REALLY cheesy...PP always was the most important ability score...

and yes, thats pretty munchkin maxing...did you ever use the Beyond the Supernatural physical skills (if I remember right) or the Ninja and Superspies Hand-to-Hand martial arts? It's amazing how many Glitterboy pilots are well versed in vague oriental martial arts-Chi skills *smirk*

Yeah, but, in the dangersome world of Rifts you need every edge you can get. Ya got juicers, brodkil, all these M.D.C. havin maniax, mind melters, man a little squishy oyster glitterboy NEEDS mad kung fu to keep himself out from under the R.I.P. stone.
You know what, I'm gonna quit while everybody's ahead (not me, I'm a different body part) because I really love palladium, and if I don't quit I'm gonna drum up a shooting war I really don't want to drum up.
So Palladium rocks, Rifts is fun, I know for a fact many others disagree; it's almost like a meeting of different religions.

Sorry if this is a little long, its something I've thought alot about since hearing the bad news. I have to agree that I would love to see a D20 Rifts (though also accept that it will never happen). I loved Rifts and played it for about 8 years (during the D&D 2nd edition days) steadily. But there were certain things about the mechanics of the game that made me (as the GM) tear my hair out.
I loved the variety of different types of characters you could make, but I hated how imablanced it was (how is a vagabond or a rogue scholar balanced when compared to a Chiang-Ku temporal Wizard?). This was only made worse by the fact that Palladium fell victim to the 'arms race' mentality when it came to their books - the classes, and equipment in every book got progessively more powerful. As soon as my group got the Mercenaries and Juicer Uprising book, I don't think they ever bought another gun from the main book ever again. This is all besides an unwieldly combat and skill system.
All this was forgiveable (I did give the game 8 years after all) until D&D 3 came out and seemed to answer all my woes as a GM - playable monster races that are balanced (via level adjustment), extremely well balanced classes (1 experince table), increased importance of all the attributes (even Charisma, yeah), and skills you can use untrained (I don't know how many times I heard "what do you mean I can't even try to do _").
Ultimately Siembeida created a vivid and amazing world to play in that will always have a place in my heart. Unfortunately that setting has languished in a stale game system whose creator refuses to see its shortcomings. I feel badly for Palladium and hope they pull through, but hope even more that they would take this opportunity to change and adapt.

I own and have played, for short stints, most of the games in the Palladium line. Beyond The Supernatural and Nightbane are probably my two favorites, but Rifts deserves special mention as 'most ambitious rpg concept'. My biggest personal grudge against the entire Palladium line-up is this: no published adventures (or so few that it's insignificant). Even 'The Siege of Tolkeen' was more a connected set of adventure hooks than a true, detailed adventure.

As a DM/GM, I need published material. Real world time constraints keep me from sitting behind the word processor and creating thrilling Rifts adventures from scratch. The Palladium philosophy, so far as I can tell, was to use 'adventure hooks', wherein they would provide a couple of paragraphs of adventure synopsis and the rest was up to the GM. When the Rifter first came out, it was heralded as containing Palladium adventures and I thought 'Hallelujah!' (sp). But, it was not to be. There might have been a rare few adventures, but nothing like what I wanted.

As I stated above, in my opinion Rifts was (is) the most ambitious roleplaying game ever produced, with the possible exception of GURPS, which also tried to provide rules for gaming in all rpg genres. The D20 system is trying to fill the 'one system fits all' category, but I give props to the Palladium guys as the kings of this field for two reasons:

1. They were doing it LONG before D20 came along.
2. They created an absolutely amazing setting in which to support all the action. Rifts-Earth is such an utterly fascinating place that I buy the supplements to this day, not because I use them in any gaming sense, but because I love READING about Rifts-Earth!

I have bought nearly every supplement ever created for the Rifts campaign setting knowing that I will likely NEVER use them in an actual gaming session ever again (the guys that I used to play Rifts with have all moved onto D&D 3.5, myself included). I love sitting in a chair and just reading about what the heck is going with Rifts Earth! A.R.C.H.I.E., the Star Forge (gotta love the Cosmic Knights :) ), Atlantis, Chi-Town, Lazlo, the Vampire Kingdoms, the New German Republic, etc. There is some really innovative material threaded throughout this setting!

I guess, if I were to sum up my feelings about the potential demise of Palladium Games, it would come down to this:

1. I wish that they (Palladium) had provided monthly adventures ala Dungeon Magazine so that new Rifts GMs didn't feel so overwhelmed; they probably would have doubled their customer base had they done this.
2. I am saddened that they didn't take the opportunity to remove the majority of the existing game rules and come up with a completely revised system when they released Ultimate Rifts. I realize this would have invalidated 20+ years of supplements, but the system was almost universally shunned as being incomplete and not user friendly.
3. The constant reprinting of material between campaign settings. Produce one master system core rule book and just reference it in each of the new settings books. I started to feel cheated by all the reprinted information.
4. I will be greatly saddened should Palladium go out of business for the simple fact that, as anyone who has ever read Kevin Siembieda's forewords in many of the Palladium supplements can tell, the man truly loves his company and this industry in general, and to see all that fall apart should be very disheartening to all gamers, no matter what the circumstances are.

But maybe, most of all, if Palladium goes out business, I will miss sitting down on my couch with the latest Rifts supplement and reading about some amazing aspect or outrageous goings-ons of the world of Rifts-Earth.

I really like the Palladium universe. I own many of the books though I have never run a game; played in several; love my temperal wizard. The sea and shipping rules in D&D were always extremely weak; as well as stuff for any water campaign so I used to use the second fantasy book, I think it is called High Seas, for ships and rules on speed and stuff, though Dragon eventually had a really good article written by a boat designer engineer about speed of vessels and keel length that was excellent.

The rifts world is just plain cool; very detailed and well thought out and is a great supplement for D&D if you want to play D&D in any of those worlds; their stuff is good to play also, but players and gm's are harder to find. It is very true that they didnt support it well with supplements or modules which is sad for those who are lazy or have little time to craft an adventure. This is sort of the same situation as Marvel Super Heroes rpg and Champions; we used to run our Champions Heroes through Marvel modules as Champions has far superior rules and game balance.

Even if you dont play Rifts or any of thier other games; I recommend you pick up some Rifts or Palladium books and buy or at least flip through them; they are great sources of material for rpg's; the third fantasy book, I think, which has the minotaur and the cuthulu thing on the front and the place of magic map on the back is a must for dming campaigns. This book is full of outposts; forts; and such built for rpgs and has some really nice adventure scenarios in it. I can honestly say that Palladuim and those game books have been my biggest influence in designing and running my game bar none. I realize that for many people, resource money for gaming is limited and you have a plethora of stuff to choose from now-a-days, but this stuff is really worth checking out.

Dude, The High Seas brings back memories. Mithas Valicar the Changeling Pirate Captain. A city of cyclops and giants. Good stuff. An island run by a gynarchy of warlocks.
It's really not that hard to run, once you get used to the system.

Lol; care to have a heart attack? check out how much a warhorse costs in Palladium as compared to AD&D 1st ed. that was the big killer; 4k or more for a horse. The economy in that game is so very different from D&D that most dm to game master that game give so little money that pc's walk around their whole lives or just steal the darn horses. I know the game system well and have no issues with it, but that is the single most difficult adjustment for peeps who play D&D and get into Palladuim. **Valegrim conjures up a large bottle of wine and passes it to the changeling with a smile**

What's your favorite adventure? I think the best was Forest of Broken Wings.

I really like the series of adventures in the third book of the places of magic; I liked them all which at the time where very fresh; delivering the magic parcel; all the way to finding out about the old ones; I have expanded the Geseridii family to pretty much being a great house and power in my games Greek/Roman area also, the Dragon Cult will always survive in my game and so will all the fairy foods like green beens; sinn a mon sticks, muscles, beets, lots of fun to be had here and a big market :)

Beets is cool. When someone says, "I'm gonna open up a canfull of asswuppin" I get this cool visual of them opening a can of beets, nibbling some, turning purple, and going, "gaaaaaaaaah!"

Never really played the Gersidi thing out, but I gave a p.c. Deathkiss in the treasure of a vampire church priest in France. Then I proceeded to have Deathkiss kill all his girlfriends. He had to go on an epic adventure to Czechoslovakia to rid himself of that Sword of Damocles.
You have to understand I was a wee bit of a monty haul gm in those days, with a sick sense of humor.

yep; my worlds grandmaster of assassins has Deathkiss and the party has the sword of chaos, nice items from the Palladium legacy. The whole thought behind Deathkiss is cool and inovative, a weapon concept I never would have thought of, ah, the sweet kiss of death, save or beg to be hit again. Most weapons are just basic do damage or blow you up things. This weapons shows just how good the guys over at Palladium were are cool and innovative stuff like Liliths example of the Deathshead transport. No other game lets you fly around in a giant armed Darth Vader looking head. That thing is pleanty tuff too for daily commutes. And Fairy food, hehe my party druid used the blue berries, as they were fresh, as good berries; get healed; turn blue; hehe the party looked like a bunch of smurfs; good fun. The sword of choas; random bonus to hit and damage on a doubling die; my pc ran home to raid his bakgammon set. As the pc got more and more dedicated to raw chaos the sword has demonstrated a few new abilities; the the basic premise was all theirs. Good stuff

So how many of us went to the Palladium website to check out the news and do the helpful thing an Purchase the "A Megaverse(r) United" special edition print that Palladium is offering as a special thing to help them out of this Crisis? Please do so, it is only $50.00; heck that is just beer and snacks for a week for me.