Life in the Megaverse

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...

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...

The idea of Palladium Books putting out a zombie RPG is a fascinating one. This one I have never played, but I love this game and its punk, street, grunge-infused, almost street-art style. The art in here is beautiful and hovers on the edge of counter-culture, mixed with the classic Palladium line art. Where other zombie RPGs tend go with boring zombies, Dead Reign treats zombies as a world of possibilities, offering a variety of walking, crawling, running, and talking dead that amazes me. These are the best zombie designs in gaming: imaginative, fresh, cool, and you never know what to expect next. This is also not a "zombie virus," so there is no infection mechanic for getting wounded. This is also not a "chemical zombie," so exposure to a toxin does not create them. The zombies seek life force, draining PPE and giving them a metaphysical element. This is another fresh take on the genre I like, and it makes zombies less dangerous as infectious agents and more harmf...

If Beyond the Supernatural is Palladium's answer to Call of Cthulhu, Nightbane is the answer to Vampire: The Masquerade and the White Wolf universe of the 1990s. Instead of being a vampire or werewolf, which were fun in their own right, you can be anything in this game. Anything wild, vampires and werewolves included, but you could have a typewriter for a head, guns for arms, a minotaur, a snake-erson, or be a fictional character, some pernament space man with a rodent head, anything. You have a human side to you, and then a nightmare form. It is never clear which side is the "real you" - your human (facade) side or your your morphus. Your origin is "just out of highschool or college" so your training is limited. Your morphus side has supernatural strength, and can likely punch through doors and do all sorts of cool feats. Psychics also walk in the worlds of Nightbane, so things are a bit mixed up. You could totally make vampires, werewolves, fae, demons, ghosts...

I never got into Beyond the Supernatural as deeply as I wanted, but I always loved this game. This is an X-Files meets Call of Cthulhu meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Ghostbusters sort of game, where the big bad guys are: Spirits, Ghosts, and Wicked Folklore Supernatural Monsters Demonic Servants Ancient Evils Alien Intelligences And the wickedness of humankind. This is a solid setup for supernatural investigators against the world. This was first published in 1988 and had a second edition in 2005, so, being rooted in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it feels right for the genre. Call of Cthulhu had "modern play options," but the monsters were, for the most part, Lovecraftian. They had classic horror monsters in CoC and supported those, but BtS leaned hard into the "everything else" category and brought that SDC and Palladium charm to the table. Unlike Call of Cthulhu, you have powerful psychics and psychic mechanics on your side, wielding a full array of psychi...

I still have my original TNMT books! When I saw they were bringing this game back, I jumped at it, and I am happy I did. The new books are full-color, beautiful, and exactly what I wanted. The rules are NOT updated to current Palladium 2017 standards, which I am fine with, since nostalgia and memories for games like this are more important than having everything perfectly up to date. This is precisely "how we played it," and if I wanted to update it using the new rules in Rifts Ultimate, it would be easy enough. The most significant difference is in the number of attacks per melee round, using the "two attacks for living" standard, as discussed in an earlier article. This results in fewer attacks overall, which is fine since the game feels closer to the original Palladium games of the time, and it is easier for younger players to grasp with fewer choices per turn. The book is full color, with all the art colored in, which is just fantastic. The paper quality is high...

We played Marvel Superheroes and DC Heroes in the 1980s, but we had this game and played it alongside TNMT. While all the Marvel heroes with character stats kept us in that game, Heroes Unlimited was the better superhero RPG. The powers could do more than just generic attacks; the descriptions were far better, and the system had this grit and street-level feeling that hit the "superhero sweet spot" we loved. The Palladium alignment system also makes this game soar. The comic-book codes of conduct and morality are definitely what is missing from many superhero role-playing games. The only difference between heroes and villains is alignment, and Palladium has the best alignment system in gaming, hands down. Other superhero games? They are basically "murder hobos with superpowers." Sadly, with newer fantasy games removing alignment, there are no limits to how terrible characters can act, and murder-hobo-ing is now a feature. Monsters are now victims. Everything is misu...