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Palladium Systems: DIY Gaming

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Many role-playing games fall into the trap of deciding what you will do with them. D&D is one of these games, where the entire experience should be played one way. The equipment list is engineered for dungeon crawling; all abilities are focused on dungeon crawling; all classes are rigged to dungeon crawl; all spells are crafted for dungeon crawling; the experience system is built to reward dungeon crawling; and the monsters are even perfectly designed for the dungeon crawl. As a result, the game feels perfect for dungeon crawling. But little else. There was a time when game designers considered the world first, designing systems that encompassed the entirety of a realistic, dynamic world, with no thought of it being a game, and began the design from there. Palladium is one of those games, and its default ability to simulate an entire world in its lingua franca is why we love it. While it can be dungeon crawling, and Palladium can simulate that activity inside this world, the game a...
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GM's Toolbox: Random Monster Generator

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Here is an excellent tool for your GM's Toolbox, the Palladium Fantasy book Land of the Damned One Chaos Lands has one of the best random monster generators for any Palladium Game, sitting right there on pages 108-121. This can be used for both SDC and MDC games; just say it is, and it will quickly create a random monster for your game. These are primarily for Palladium Fantasy , but nothing is stopping you from using them for all your other games! These are mainly intended for the random things crawling around the Chaos Lands, but they work just as well for any random creature you may need crawling around a dungeon. Just roll it up, flavor it as an undead, slime creature, minor demon, impling, animal, creature of magic, chaos beast, or any other random monster you may need to fill out an encounter. This is especially useful for Beyond the Supernatural and for making random creatures, either as boss monsters or those random things that skitter through alleyways. You could use the...
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The 12 Days of Rifts-mas: Merry Rifts-mas!

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I hope you got everything you wanted under your Rifts-mas tree this year: all the excellent books and games in this system, the worlds we create, and, most importantly, the games we play together! This year, I got a bunch of Rifts books to complete my collection that I started back in 1990, and the people in the Palladium warehouse were probably overjoyed to ship these massive orders to me. I was just as happy to get them and finally have a complete collection of Rifts books (minus the Rifter, which I have in PDF). It feels good, and this is the best Riftsmas that I have ever had! And supporting such a great company, and one of the oldest non-D&D roleplaying games out there, is a plus too. Palladium is a treasure of the hobby and a pioneer in many areas. Please keep making great books, and I can do my part here on my blog to spread the joy of these great games. I started my journey with Palladium back in college, in the 1990s, when I worked in the university computer lab as a tutor...
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The 12 Days of Rifts-mas: Rifts-mas Eve!

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The first Rifts book was always a special part of my game collection. This is a book I could open that unlocks infinite possibilities and adventures. I have only felt that with a handful of games over the last few decades. The original BX red and cyan D&D books were one. Star Frontiers was another. The original Vampire: The Masquerade was another. These are special games where once you crack open the book, you enter another world. Rifts feels awesome. It is a cultural milestone and an equal of any comic-book universe. This carried science fiction gaming through the 1990s, with Star Wars d6 on the other side. Traveller was floundering with Megatraveller. Star Frontiers, Gamma World, Star Trek roleplaying, and Space Opera were mainly dead. Battletech held its own, but more as a tabletop game. Shadowrun and Cyberpunk were technically science fiction, but still very close to today. There was also Space Master, and GURPS did science fiction. But Rifts captured imaginations. I could open...
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The 12 Days of Rifts-mas: Day 10, Recon

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It is not a Palladium Megaverse game, but Recon won our hearts in the 1980s when Rambo was playing at the movie theater, Chuck Norris was saving the PoWs, Tour of Duty was on the television, and the Vietnam War was the stain on a country's consciousness, and the loss of innocence for a nation in the free love 1960s. The Vietnam War ended the science fiction future we were promised in the 1950s. It ended with a hedonistic, jaded, and drug-addled discotheque nation in the 1970s, lost in a malaise and gripped by inflation and an oil crisis. And a role-playing game trapped in the jungles of Southeast Asia about one of the darkest periods of modern history seems almost obscene and too controversial. Yet, here it is, honoring those who served. We got this game early, and while we never played a whole campaign, we played the system for a few one-shots and enjoyed the authenticity and design of this fantastic book. Recon is a true beer-and-pretzels RPG, one you crack open, design some char...
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The 12 Days of Rifts-mas: Day 9, Splicers

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It is like Terminator, but with a nano-metal plague that attaches itself to humans and infects all metal we touch, and turns it into killer robots. To fight it, humanity engineers bioengineered MDC weapons and armor from bone, flesh, coral, and organic materials. Humans cannot get rid of the nano-bots in their systems and the world; they need to exist around them. All metal is death to the touch. So it is humans in bio-war-suits versus nano-bots and giant robots. Do you want to play an armored suit jockey who rides around in a naga-shaped snake-like armored suit with two plasma cannons for arms? I can't think of another roleplaying game that lets you do this, and Splicers is the only one. This is one of the most imaginative non-Rifts settings Palladium Books has ever put out, and it is cool in ways I did not expect. You can be a flesh-meled supersoldier. You can be a samurai-like Dreadmaster in some of the most powerful bio-armor ever constructed. You can be a zombie-like Scarecrow...
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The 12 Days of Rifts-mas: Day 8, Rifts Chaos Earth

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It's like Rifts, but you play the good guys. Rifts Chaos Earth is a fascinating game. This is an alternate timeline game set way before the current year Rifts, yet still compatible with most of the game. You are the "Earth Defence Force" or NEMA, and you go around doing heroic things in a newly ruined world. You get to meet the Dee-Bees, users of magic, and aliens for the first time and decide how first contact goes. There is no Coalition to step all over you. You need to protect and serve the innocent SDC populations of the world. And there is no set timeline you need to follow; you can pull in things from Rifts, but nothing that depends on that timeline. For example, there is no Coalition, so you will never use those soldiers, mechs, suits, or tech. There could be places like Atlantis or Phase World. There are MDC demons. It is primarily up to you what you want to pull in, and this being Rifts, you could rift in something that is not supposed to be there, and cause a lo...
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