Palladium Greatest Hits

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acreRake
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Palladium Greatest Hits

Unread post by acreRake »

So I was thinking about getting a game together, probably Heroes Unlimited, but maybe Fantasy. I realized that I (and I think most of us) use rules and features from all across the megaverse, in terms of books anyway. If you do, what are the best pieces to use in any palladium game? Heck, any game for that matter. Two came right to mind for me:

Quick Character Attributes (from Dead Reign). For generating what are essentially future zombie chow, this method of attribute rolling actually produces the kind of heroic individuals that many Palladium core books claim the PCs are supposed to be. Before using these stats, my many, many characters had attributes ranging from 6-14, maybe one in 4 would naturally roll above 16. I like playing heroes, so dead reign quick roll attributes for me.

Healing rates that promote heroic play (Ninjas & Superspies). Often the description of SDC includes a little story of John Wayne (or similar) being shot, stabbed and beat to crap, then shrugging it off at the end of the day. In all the fiction that I like my games to feel like, the heroes DO get smacked around and torn up quite badly, sometimes nigh to death, but get back up and finish the mission, often repeating the process day after day within a relatively short amount of time. I like heroes that can patrol every night. And have an adventure every night! Most of the recovery times make this difficult. N&S rules are more fun I feel.

So what about you? What rules do you always use? And what kind of feel does that give your game?
Last edited by acreRake on Sun Jun 18, 2023 12:24 am, edited 2 times in total.
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eliakon
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Re: Palladium Greatest Hits

Unread post by eliakon »

acreRake wrote:So I was thinking about getting a game together, probably Heroes Unlimited, but maybe Fantasy. I realized that I (and I think most of us) use rules and features from all across the megaverse, in terms of books anyway. If you do, what are the best pieces to use in any palladium game? Heck, any game for that matter. Two came right to mind for me:

Quick Character Attributes (from Dead Reign). For generating what are essentially future zombie chow, this meathod of attribute rolling actually produces the kind of heroic individuals that many Palladium core books claim the PCs are supposed to be. Before using these stats, my many, many characters had attributes ranging from 6-14, maybe one in 4 would naturally roll above 16. I like playing heroes, so dead reign quick toll attributes for me.

Healing rates that promote heroic play (Ninjas & Superspies). Often the description of SDC includes a little story of John Wayne (or similar) being shot, stabbed and beat to crap, then shrugging it off at the end of the day. In all the fiction that I like my games to feel like, the heroes DO get smacked around and torn up quite badly, sometimes nigh to death, but get back up and finish the mission, often repeating the process day after day within a realatively short amount of time. I like heroes that can patrol every night. And have an adventure every night! Most of the recovery times make this difficult. N&S rules are more fun I feel.

So what about you? What rules do you always use? And what kind of feel does that give your game?

From Systems Failure I take the Advanced Mechanics and Advanced Electronics skills. This lets me have something between "basic" and "Engineer" which is nice since it lets me restrict engineer to engineers, and makes the actual engineers more special (I made advanced a perquisite for engineer)
Combined with the "Alien Technology" from AU, that allows you to replicate specialized training in exotic technologies like nanotech, chromium tech, bio-tech, robotechnology, et multiple cetera it allows for the tech characters to shine a bit more and for them to pull away from the more generic characters who just happen to take the same skills. Nothing annoys the tech more to find out that the mage can do their job, and do it better.
But this way, the Operator has Basic, Advanced, Engineer, and one free specialization... suddenly to match them you need to invest four skills, not just two.

I snagged the specialized stats from Robotech. This lets you have a character that will have great atributes in the areas you want, at a cost in areas you are willing to take the hit in. I like it and it hasn't been a problem yet.

Back when I used alignments in my games I always made sure that Taoist was on the table. It solved the issue of everyone playing Abberant/Anarchist all the time nicely and got heroic groups back in the games.
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Re: Palladium Greatest Hits

Unread post by dreicunan »

acreRake wrote:So I was thinking about getting a game together, probably Heroes Unlimited, but maybe Fantasy. I realized that I (and I think most of us) use rules and features from all across the megaverse, in terms of books anyway. If you do, what are the best pieces to use in any palladium game? Heck, any game for that matter. Two came right to mind for me:

Quick Character Attributes (from Dead Reign). For generating what are essentially future zombie chow, this meathod of attribute rolling actually produces the kind of heroic individuals that many Palladium core books claim the PCs are supposed to be. Before using these stats, my many, many characters had attributes ranging from 6-14, maybe one in 4 would naturally roll above 16. I like playing heroes, so dead reign quick toll attributes for me.

Healing rates that promote heroic play (Ninjas & Superspies). Often the description of SDC includes a little story of John Wayne (or similar) being shot, stabbed and beat to crap, then shrugging it off at the end of the day. In all the fiction that I like my games to feel like, the heroes DO get smacked around and torn up quite badly, sometimes nigh to death, but get back up and finish the mission, often repeating the process day after day within a realatively short amount of time. I like heroes that can patrol every night. And have an adventure every night! Most of the recovery times make this difficult. N&S rules are more fun I feel.

So what about you? What rules do you always use? And what kind of feel does that give your game?

Out of curiosity, do you give a boost to the Healing Factor power when you use a 5 SDC per hour healing rate for everyone?

I ask because normally Healing Factor makes you recover SDC 108x faster than a normal person (72x faster than with professional treatment), while at 5 sdc per hour you'd only be 3.6x faster!
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acreRake
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Re: Palladium Greatest Hits

Unread post by acreRake »

No, i don't change it. While not as 'powerful', it is still amazing (especially since you heal even when you aren't resting, and never get tired in the first place). The SUPER fast recovery of HP becomes the real focus of the power (it keeps you from dying).

Besides, i tend to think of minor powers as supplements to major ones. If you want regeneration to be your character's focus, there are major powers for that.
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