Four Occupations Walk Into a Room

I keep coming back to the same start for Palladium games.

Not a dungeon. Not a map with numbered rooms. Just a room, four people who should not be in it together, and some reason nobody can walk out yet.

That is usually enough.

Palladium Fantasy

Say you have a knight, a longbowman, a witch, and a thief.

On paper, that looks like a party somebody threw together because those were the books on the table. In play, it is a situation.

I like putting them in a border-keep hall after a raid that went badly. The knight owns the hall, or at least thinks he does. The longbowman was paid to keep the road open and did not. The witch has been in the village the whole time, and everyone has been pretending they did not know. The thief has the only map that shows where the raiders actually came from.

You do not have to roll initiative. Let them argue. Let them lie. Let them figure out who hangs if this gets back to the duke. If a fight happens, it is because somebody in that room decided it had to.

That is closer to how I remember Palladium Fantasy working than a five-room crawl with a loot table at the end.

Heroes Unlimited

Same idea, different coats.

A cop, a reporter, a gadgeteer, and a mutant who has been hiding since high school. Precinct interview that is not really an interview. The cop wants a statement. The reporter wants a name. The gadgeteer built the thing that made the news and now wants it back. The mutant is the only one who saw the flying thing land.

I still think Heroes Unlimited (and all of Palladium) has the best alignment system in superhero gaming. You do not need a subclass to tell you who these people are. Principled will not bury the story. Anarchist will sell it. Miscreant will torch the precinct if it takes that to stay unknown.

The powers are the fun part. The code is why the night goes anywhere.

These are not Marvel or DC characters. Nobody already wrote the next twelve issues. We have no idea if they live, die, get unmasked, or walk out of that precinct as something worse than they walked in. There is no future writer waiting to retcon the night if it all goes wrong. What happens in that room is what happened. That is the part I like.

Ninjas & Superspies

This one is even easier because the occupations already live in the real world.

Private eye. Martial artist. Gimmick agent. Corporate security consultant.

Hotel suite. One dead courier. A briefcase that is empty and should not be. The martial artist was hired as a bodyguard and is still breathing, which is now a problem. The gimmick agent put the tracker in the wrong bag. The consultant works for the company that owned the courier.

This is not a 40-foot corridor. It is a city. There are phones, cameras, union guys downstairs, and a second team that already paid the front desk. Skills matter because the world outside the room is still running.

Why I like this

A lot of newer designs want the character sheet to be a kit. Palladium is happier when the character is just a person who walked in with a job, a past, and some reason to care what happens after the fight.

The "trap class" talk only shows up if you already decided the night is a dungeon. A noble is a problem at a banquet. A scholar is a problem when the map is a lie. A performer is a problem when the room is full of people who can be turned. A thief is a problem when there is a door that is not supposed to open.

You do not have to balance the four occupations. You just give them a room that cares who they are.

If I sat down tonight

I would pick one line and stop building after that.

The road is closed, and the duke wants a name by morning.

The flying thing hit the river, and the cameras already have a face.

The courier is dead, the briefcase is empty, and the second team just paid the front desk.

Four characters. One room. A reason they cannot leave.

That is the game I want to play with the books I already own. I do not need the rest of the catalog for that. I need a focus and a door that will not stay shut.