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Why the fuck even call it "Star Wars" then? Because you bought the rights to it and a combination of plot elements, etc? Is it illegal for other fictional works to reference another? No. So, why even call it "Star Wars"? Name Recognition, ugh.

We solved the Rifts issue of namespace-time decades ago with GURPS.

Creators exist within a culture and leverage the entirety of existence by reworking the tiniest layers atop it all. Without the culture they are irrelevant.
All your Metaverse are belong to us.

DM: What class is your character?

Noob: Vulcan! Spock is wicked cool.

Irritated? Dungeon Master, heh, yeah. What a bore. A Game Master would be Overjoyed. Halflings and Wizards can work with Spock, (hell, he'd be mistaken for an Elf in Shadowrun), and in games like Rifts, or super-rule-sets like GURPS, the more worlds collide the better!

You'd actually be irritated instead of imagining a Star Trek 'away team' going off course on The Voyage Home and winding up amidst There and Back Again? You can't fathom the fun of Starfleet's finest crash landing on Bag End, and being guilt tripped into helping Gandalf take back the Lonely Mountain from a dragon that's been conspiring with dimensional shamblers to bring an evil cyBorg race to Middle Earth?

Closed minds are the biggest reason the medium is in such a state.

From http://palladiumbooks.com/

Played that game from when it first came out all through the 90s. Always loved the art and would almost think the art on this link would fit seamlessly in with it.

Then, why not just make a Rifts MMORPG and call it a day?

I find it rather strange that in a community so bent on not being mainstream, only the prime mainstream RPG is discussed.
Having played well over 20 RPG systems myself, I can safely say that D&D (no matter which edition) is one of the worst I've ever played. But that's just my impression. From a passionate RPG player, here are some alternatives to D&D Fantasy Roleplay:

Palladium & Rifts
Exalted
Runequest
Harnmaster
GURPS
Torg

If you haven't played at least one of the above besides D&D, you should do it ASAP.

And of course I need to check my links before posting. Damnit bobby.

I play Rifts, not what-ever-the-fuck that website I accidentally linked to is (although I'm sure they'll enjoy the /.ing they might get).

I had no idea it was such a useful metal.

I knew that Palladium had the ability to absorb a month's worth of attention span in just a slim book, but I hadn't heard about the hydrogen thing. Thanks!

According to a press release, the theft was only part of the picture.

" Palladium suffered a crippling blow last year involving employee theft and embezzlement. We thought we could weather the storm, but the damage was deeper and more severe than we ever imagined.

Estimated damage and losses are at least one million dollars. It has been a struggle to stay afloat. "

This from http://www.palladiumbooks.com/press/press2006-04.h tml

It appears that they were just the victim of theft of some inventory and a lot of collectables, like someone robbed a warehouse or their offices. Insurance? I guess not.

Palladium Books http://www.palladiumbooks.com/ had the same problem long ago when they went to make a superhero rpg... hence the reason the title, "Heroes Unlimited"...

I remeber a role playing game called Rifts that had a class known as the Jucier that had this very technology. They were typlically amped to the maximium body potential, but this cut their average life expectancy to around 5-10 years after getting "jucied"

See more here Palladium Books

Darn, now I have to go sell my palladium stash that I have put away just in case someone actually made it work the old fashioned way.

you're still playing Palladium?

Second best system award goes to Cyberpunk 2020, though the books are looking sadly dated.

I have to put Interlock (the system used in Cyberpunk and Mekton) at the top of things due to its speed and flexibility. Ten seconds of action can be taken care of in a few minutes, even with five or six principles involved. Admittedly, though, I've not gotten too much into GURPS, because while it's extensible, it's always looked like it carries baggage with it. The source material has always been some of the finest anywhere, and I've frequently used it in other games. Perhaps I need to have a look at the new edition.

I'm looking forward to Cybperpunk V3. R. Talsorian made mention last week that not only is it due in six weeks or so (a decade late), but that they know this because it's actually at the printer. (Though after looking at the excerpt published on the main page, I'm not sure whether they need a graphic artist or a spellchecker more.)

But using it as some kind of universal rules system is a pure marketing move, it makes about as much sense as the tired Palladium rule system that was dragged from game to game, ruining potentially excellent settings like Rifts.

What makes this worse is that Palladium explicitly forbids conversions to other systems, and actively pursues those that disobey this rule. They say that they have no choice but to do this or risk their trademarks and copyrights, though plenty of other companies have been far more flexible in this regard and managed to stay in business -- intellectual property intact. I find it frustrating that I can't work with others to come up with a much-improved system without having to worry about Palladium breathing down my back for it. It's aggravating that a mere fifteen seconds of action with four or five principles can take that many minutes (or more) to filter through.

all dorks need to dork up on Palladium and Rifts, http://www.palladiumbooks.com/
go ahead, dork it up
not an ad, really, i just really enjoy the Palladium world and i never see it mentioned anywhere, but as some others have posted already, getting x number of people together for a night is more difficult when you are in your 30's and don't have the time while it is so much easier to jump online and track down people with xfire and play whatever they are playing.

1st of all WotC aren't the creators of D&D. TSR was and was bought by WotC after they took down the entire RPG market with the invention of modern trading card games (TCG), read: Magic. Thus the wise saying: "Save gaming! Kill a Magic player today!"

2nd:
The only likeness of RPG gaming and programming I can come up with is that both try to emulate/simulate certain aspects of the real world. You can have endless discussions on the pro's and con's about different RPG rulesets just as you can have endless debates about different Appserver Frameworks and PLs. Usually you can even have them with the same people. Probably even draw comparsions.
D&D rules == Brainfuck, World of Darkness == PHP, GURPS == Perl, Torg == Ruby ... or something like that.
And you can blow huge amounts of time explaining a D&D player that the rules are crap just as you can blow the same amount of explaining an MS user why Windows sucks :-) . (Posters please cue Old-School Fidonet RPG rule debate / flamewar below)

The other thing they have in common is a meta attribute of both: Both are praticed by uncool people who are low on sex and like to stay indoors. :-)

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Slightly off topic trivia: A few weeks ago I went surfing for some RPG tidbits and found the old folks of Palladiumbooks. They are still around and publish stuff! I find it amazing that a company sticks purely to RPGs (even during the excessive TCG hype) and still is alive and kicking after more that two decades. And their RPG "Rifts" is the last large multi-genre RPG still around, surviving all others. Very interessting indeed. Check out their site, they have all the cool stuff still there.

Check out the Glitter Boy from Rifts, an RPG by Palladium Books. I'm pretty sure a chromed missile would reflect the laser.

this, this, this, this, this, this, or many others.

One of the major issues that I have with CRPGs is that ultimately, regardless of how good the AI in a game is, you are still fundamentally limited in the possibilities for game play. It's like a big "Choose Your Own Adventure Book". Maybe every so often you flip a coin to choose the next page, or maybe there are so many paths that you can't enumerate them all before you just get bored, but your still limited.

I contrast this to pen and paper games like D&D or Palladium (my fav fantasy). You are limited by the creativity of the GM, and the limits of your belief in human free will (and how long the pizza lasts). It's always been the unexpected turns of other players that makes these games fun to play.

the obvious answer to this is Palladium's system. Seeing as how they were the publishers of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle RPG as well as the Palladium Fantasy Role Playing Game. They had a fairly nice system and strove to keep rules compatible across genres, similar to GURPS. I was a huge fan of Palladium's stuff. Particularly their weapon, armor, modern weapon, and castle compendiums which made great source material for any ruleset.

Anyone else see this story title and immediatly think of a giant Palladium RPG session inside microsoft? Who knows, maybe it's just me. :)

Palladium Books, maker of fine pen-and-paper role-playing games.

If you are talking about this Palladium system then you are smoking crack...