Back in 1983 when Kevin Siembieda from Detroit was trying to start-up a new game publishing company to bring to market his fantasy RPG, I was living in North Carolina with my buddy doing piece-work for a factory. We would work our hours repairing circuit boards that had failed testing and then get down to our real occupation, playing games, mostly RPGs. In those days we gamed almost every evening and most weekends that we didn't go to the beach. Life was good.
Our games of choice were RuneQuest and some form of The World's Most Popular RPG. I had started a few years prior with White Box while in college and I still refereed a version of White Box incorporating materials from the Advanced Game and Basic. We were both avid table-top gamers and when not engaged in role-playing we were likely to be playing Avalon Hill's Squad Leader or another hex-map wargame. We made frequent trips to a hobby shop in near-by Fayetteville which sold all kinds of games called The Hobbit. On one of those trips I purchased Kevin Siembieda's Palladium Role-Playing Game. The Palladium RPG is 274 pages of nicely illustrated rules, a world outline, bestiary and introductory adventure. It is a perfect bound paperback which has held up well for over 30 years. Whether The Palladium RPG is a revision of The Worlds Most Popular RPG or a whole new game has been debated. In 1983 I treated it like a new game. The combat and magic mechanics are original and yes, could be slotted into a White Box game, but why not use the whole Palladium package? The Palladium RPG is a class based system with skills added in. Character classes are referred to as Occupational Character Classes or O.C.C.s, but that is just a name change. Each O.C.C. does allow for individualization in the choice of skills. Combat involves different fighting styles, most allowing for multiple strikes during a round. Armor gets damaged as well as protecting the PC from damage. There are some similarities to RuneQuest in that attacks can be parried, therefore melees can be lengthy and monsters are statted much like PCs making it easy to play any race.
Only the briefest world material is included in the core rulebook, but even what is here is enough to spark my imagination. I find Mr. Siembieda's "known world" very engaging. It strikes a nice balance between the familiar and the new and unusual. The descriptions are filled with adventure hooks and after abandoning The Palladium RPG as a game system, I continue to go back to the known world as described in several volumes for adventure material.
The core book, at least in its initial publication, has material on the races, gods and monsters (dragons feature prominently) of the known world. Though fairly brief, these sections help flesh-out the known world and still seem fresh and imaginative even looking back at them now. Mr. Siembieda uses a light verses darkness, Egyptian inspired pantheon (with a twist) which seems to work well. The Tombs of Girsidi adventure at the end of the book is a vampire tale, again with familiar elements, but enough new ideas to make it interesting. It has remained a favorite of mine and I have adapted it for use with other systems I have run.
The Palladium Fantasy RPG was re-worked after Rifts made its appearance and in its current version is compatible with the rest of the Palladium Publishing games. I have Rifts and the newer edition of Palladium Fantasy as it is now called, but my affection is for the original. In 1983 I was looking for something to add to my gaming experience and The Palladium RPG served that purpose for a time. I enjoyed the new mechanics, the several new O.C.C.s and especially the known world which would be expanded upon with each new supplement (Books II and III were out before I ended my sojourn to North Carolina and return to Indiana for graduate school).
Having heard about some other gamer experiences with The Palladium RPG, I believe I benefited from having worked my way through White Box and was somewhat comfortable borrowing, mixing and making up what I liked when running an RPG. Serious rules study I left to the boardgames, RPGs were "rulings" on the fly as far as I was concerned. When viewed as a toolkit of ideas, The Palladium RPG can be seen as much like other early RPGs, needing some do-it-yourself to make it all work as you wish. I appreciate this approach and actually tend to treat all RPGs that way, regardless of how the author intends me to use the rules.
As a game I got excited about from the moment I saw the eye-catching black and red cover, soon made my own and had some fresh fun exploring a very interesting world, I have fond memories of The Palladium RPG. It can be a bit rough, especially if you want a polished package that answers all your questions, but like White Box, The Arduin Grimoire and a lot of other early RPG products, The Palladium RPG has the stuff of greatness in it, it just takes a referee willing to open the hood and get busy tweaking things. Reminding me of Dave Hargrave's Arduin, Kevin Siembieda's "known world" is a gonzo place where one's imagination is encouraged to run wild. I like that in a game.
No comments:
Post a Comment