The Joy of the SDC Palladium Games

c. 1983, 1996

So many have fond memories of any of the SDC-based Palladium games. Palladium FRP, Heroes Unlimited, Ninjas and Superspies, TNMT/AtB, Dead Reign, and many more. I am avoiding Rifts in this conversation as that is the obvious one to focus on, but my interest lies in the games without MDC, and the Palladium system working to its fullest on the low end. I am just looking at the SDC-games, with no mega damage, and the damage systems and character stats are still meaningful and working in the base rules.

c. 1984, 1998

Anyone who has given them a chance generally loves them. They reward creativity and inspire passion. Part of this lies in the high degree of character customization in the rules; even the Fantasy game lets you pick and choose so much, and Heroes Unlimited is still one of the best superhero games ever made.

Once you understand character creation, the game is a B/X level of simplicity and fast play. The characters take time to design because you are doing "game design" for the role you will play in the game. It is well worth it, and rules-light games fail to fill the investment you get after you finish Palladium character design.

Remember, do all physical skills FIRST! These often change your attributes. After that, weapon skills to figure out combat bonuses, and then everything else. Print out the physical skills page or find or make a summary. Do this, and your speed at character creation is faster and more straightforward.

The games utilize asymmetrical balance, with classes not on equal power levels, but the specialists excel in their area of expertise. This makes a game that naturally needs a group, where you get this "team of specialized experts" who are not each good at everything, but the individual members can shine at what they do best.

c. 1984

You have a system that builds a group like facets of a diamond. Everyone specializes and is the absolute best at what they love to do. They all have weaknesses and must rely on others. Because you are the best at what you do, you feel fantastic when you finally get to shine. Then, you step back and rely on others for everything else.

Games that design-in everyone's powers into everyone else are boring and anti-group. Why do I need anyone else if every class has self-healing, damage, stealth, magic, defense, social abilities, and so on? You aren't playing D&D with a group; you are playing with a group, alone.

This "playing with others, alone" design mentality has killed interaction in MMOs for years and is the death of many games. Nobody needs a group; everyone is a solo-er, and few play together. We live in an age of "me, not us," and we put influencers on pedestals, and everyone wants to be one. As a result, our games become "what I do" each turn instead of "what we do."

c. 1988, 2005

Palladium is an entirely different design rooted in classic party dynamics. In this model, everyone has a well-defined strength and a collection of weaknesses they must rely on others to fill. What happens in this model? There will always be a moment for every player where they "save the day by being the most awesome." The party cohesion will be powerful. The moments you were allowed to use your class's OP powers will be remembered for the rest of the player's days.

c. 2008

Unlike B/X or most D&D-style games, you aren't a wimp when you begin. 5E tried to up the starting power level to about 3rd level, but you are still weak, and you don't really shine in your role versus everyone else. Nobody needs your abilities in most situations; everyone can do almost everything. D&D also has this terrible thing where casters have all the powers of rogues, and they eventually do everything better than them.

c. 1995

The core seven SDC games, the ones Rifts pulls from for dimensional beings, are all amazing and stand up independently. You can make a "non-Rifts mega-verse" just out of these games, say "Rifts never happened," and have an amazing, multi-versal, cross-dimensional game with many options and diverse character types.

c. 1985, 2001

And they are worth playing on their own. The TNMT-inspired After the Bomb game can be a post-apocalyptic or gritty street-level heroes game. The TNMT RPG is also being reprinted this year, and you can still get a pre-order in. This is still the best "fighting humanoid animals" game ever designed, and it is the king of this niche, no matter how many animal-cracker "all the same" shapes D&D 5.5E wants to say it has. In AtB, you have it if you can dig, tunnel, use sonar, claws, tusks, hooves, fly, glide, or any other remarkable ability! It isn't just, "oh, a plus to a few ability scores and pick some feat" or some other weak-sauce, water-it-down, make-it-pedestrian, nobody-gets-anything-special mass-market game design D&D is so good at.

I can be a badger-man in AtB with digging claws, poison resistance, brute strength, extra mental and physical endurance, and night vision. I can get tunneling if I want. I can pick a few weaknesses, like musk glands, to balance my points. In D&D, if they had a badger race, I would allocate ability score points like everyone else and look like a badger, but do nothing like a badger. It would be pure cosplay, vapid and meaningless, with no powers given.

We live in this false age of pretend, where Wall Street companies tell us they are giving us something, peer pressure us into saying X is Y, and they deliver nothing. Palladium games are more complicated, but you always get the real thing.

And this badger would work in any of these seven worlds just fine. He could fight alongside superheroes, survive zombies, exist in a fantasy realm, fight ninja clans, be a suave super-spy, investigate mysteries, or have any other adventure you could imagine. The powers, tunneling, claws, and every other power would still work in any other sister-world.

You can do this in GURPS, too. But in Palladium, a lot of the work and base idea-crafting has been done for you, at least for character archetypes, and you are not starting from scratch. Palladium games have been played so much that the designers hone in on the best character options that provide the most fun and significant party synergies, and ship those with the game as the default options.

If people malign Palladium games, it is usually third-hand or later knowledge. People talk trash about these games to pretend they are an influencer with a popular opinion. Many who have played them still stand by them to this day. I find a deep sense of loyalty and love for these books that transcends even decades of being away from them, like they were a part of someone's life, and they still hold that close.

Even those who have moved on to other games remember these games fondly.

Yes, they are dated, but some of the best music ever made is dated, too. We just don't know what we had when it first came out, and the fact that we can still play these brings me back to a better time. The fact that they have not changed keeps them rooted in those better days, like an original recording of a song you love.

For many of these games, you can build a soundtrack for the year they were released, including a two or three-year period before. I put that soundtrack on, pick up the game, and am instantly taken back like a time machine.

Today's games don't do that for me. They play like highly processed "food in a box"—too slick, commercial, and full of salt and preservatives (anger and platform lock-in). They aren't "real food" to me. Are Palladium games perfect? No. The songs I love from those days are not perfect creations either.

With Palladium games, I have 40 years of time machines on my shelf.

I can go back.

I only have to open a book.