Back when I was a kid I loved the Robotech TV series and I loved AD&D. You can imagine my shock to visit my cousins and be invited to play a role playing game based on the series that I loved. I saved up my allowance from that moment on to get the money to buy the book. My dad even bought me dice to play which i have kept precious to this day.
Back then my cousins and I went crazy for Palladium books. We had so many of their titles and they were all super easy to start playing, as they all use the same underlying system. So if you knew Robotch you knew TMNT, fantasy and Heroes Unlimited. Also the system just hit well for us in our youth. Its a very simple system to learn, I have long though Palladium was the best system to introduce new role players too. But also its very appealing to the mondo nature of younger players.
Getting older I have to say Palladiums appeal waned a bit. Other games showed up that seemed to offer a more adult setting and there was that feeling that Palladium was sort for kids. I am guilty of dismissing them off hand. As friends told their gaming stories some mentioned Rifts and they often seemed goofy and Monty haul over powered. With new games and systems I really didn't think much of Palladium.
My own role playing project finally brought me back to Palladium, well some nostalgia too. I am very interested in Scifi that focuses on living technology. Living machines and the use of symbiots as technology. Finding that in the roleplaying world will take you back to Palladium Books. Sure there are some one off books here and there from other publishers but it's sprinkled everywhere in Rifts. Then there was the near collapse of Palladium and their struggle to stay afloat. In that process they republished new Robotch material. I ordered it and waited excitedly as I had when I was a kid.
In looking at Palladiumbooks.com during my wait, I learned they really were not a huge company as I had expected. With Rifts they had seemed big and their CEO had seemed a bit of jerk. But now they seemed just a few people trying to keep a business they loved going after many years in business and some difficult problems. I was down with that, regular people just getting by are my kind of people.
In looking at the books I have bought, I realized they were not what I expected. For all the mondo crunch there is a lot of source material there. They have characters and backgrounds thoroughly fleshed out. Their source books cover worlds of play that are as inventive as many full role playing games. And when you look at their back catalog you realized damn these are some really imaginative people to have all these books.
While I think the system needs another edition to update it to more modern rules, its playable. Especially if you are looking for a light game. I'm not much a fan of survival horror so I am not going to play in any campaigns but a quick game would be fun, Palladium's Dead Reign may be just the thing for me.
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