Palladium Books Going Out of Business

kainewynd2 writes to mention a public plea put out in the Palladium books forums by the company owner Kevin Siembada. He bemoans the Rifts publisher's poor financial outlook, and asks people to buy a $50 print to save the company. From the post: "The truly wonderful Rifts® videogame - Rifts® Promise of Power - was stillborn. The N-Gage platform never took off in North America. That meant the N-Gage and Rifts® Promise of Power would NOT be available on the mass market in the USA and Canada. Finding it anywhere in North America required an act of God. There would be no Nokia royalty-based revenue stream. Nor would there be a Nokia videogame sequel and the money that might come from it. Nokia treated me nothing short of GREAT. They lost truckloads of money on this venture. We're both the victims of marketing fallout. Please don't blame these wonderful people for Palladium's woes - circumstance just didn't make them part of our solution." Wow, they made a game for the N-Gage and then lost a bunch of money. Who ever could have forseen that?

Comments

Finally?

[revlayle]

Palladium made interesting and rich game worlds. Unfortunately, their game system is much to be desired, IMNSHO. Book formatting, editing and quality were always under par (I had trouble looking up most things in any of their books). Great ideas and poor execution. I'm personally suprised they lasted this long.

Palladium

[Tebriel]

Great settings, horrible game mechanics.

I am a huge fan of the Rifts setting and I love the Robotech material, but the character and combat systems are unwieldy. If they had better game mechanics, I'd start buying and playing their stuff again.

Re:Palladium

[HunterZ]

Same here. First pen-and-paper RPG I played was Heroes Unlimited. I found their rule system impossible to grasp as a first RPG, however, and even more frustrating was that they simply copied-and-pasted the core rules into every book they published, instead of revising them to be more coherent with each new book. Even better would have been to publish an independent core rule manual that would be required as a base for use with the individual setting books (Robotech, Rifts, TMNT, etc.), which they then could have revised over time.

Alternatively, they could/should have jumped on the d20 system when it became popular.

Re:Palladium

[cpt kangarooski]

I never cared for Rifts, but I enjoyed the Robotech setting. I agree about their game rules. They're just awful, awful crap. It should not take more than 15 minutes to make an awesome character, but with the wierd class system, the poor options for skills, and their combat mechanics, this is impossible in Palladium.

In any event, the pen and paper RPG companies have been declining for years. There's a small number of gamers who are big fans, but there's not a lot of them. And the books seem to cost a fortune, which is odd for how little you really get. Plus, the rule books are reference materials which are handier to have on the computer. When even actual customers often prefer to get pirated scans of the books, it doesn't take much for them to start wondering why they were buying the books at all.

Re:Palladium

[jeffasselin]

ICE (http://www.ironcrown.com/), makers of the Rolemaster system, started understanding this a while ago and have been selling PDF versions of their books online, with great success from what I've seen. I've bought a few myself.

The first "real" RPG I ever played was Palladium's RIFTS and Palladium worlds, I had most of their books. I agree that the system was somewhat unyieldy mostly due to the lack of clear-cut classifications and categories. Rolemaster is a lot more complex, yet has an inherent structure and standards applied throughout the system that make it elegant.

Re:Palladium

[cpt kangarooski]

The first RPG I played seriously was some early version of D&D. All we had was 3d or 4th generation xeroxes of about half of a couple of the books, so we added our own ideas and rules as needed, and played in a very freeform style. Eventually, though, I got into Palladium Robotech, and a couple of years later, GURPS. I've pretty much stuck with GURPS since then, though I still really haven't bothered with 4th ed. The 3d ed. works well enough if you trim out some of the slower rules (I hate combat in any system, since it just slows things down and is a lot of boring dice rolls; combat, when it happens, should be fast fast fast), avoid areas where it's weak (GURPS Cyberpunk is a joke), and I have a lot of the setting books for it already.

Haven't played Rolemaster. I'll have to look into it in my copious free time. Hopefully the PDFs are cheap, given the very low marginal cost.

I think it 's a little late

[eln]

If your company is resorting to pleading with people on the Internet to buy $50 prints in order to save the company, the company is already doomed. Sorry you had to hear about it this way, Kevin.

MMO Material

[Profcrab]

Rifts is a fantastic setting for an MMO. As other people have said, the game mechanics are attrocious. When making it into a computer game, however, all those mechanics can be trashed and just the world setting used. If they got a deal going, I would definitely be paying attention. I bought the Rifts rule book when it first came out.

Re:MMO Material

[BDZ]

I never GMed a Rifts campaign, but I played in one that ran on and off (switching off w/ my own Shadowrun campaign) for years.

While I agree, putting different archtypes up against one another could be a slaughterfest, I never found this to be a detriment to the game. Or, at least to how my group played it. We stuck pretty close to the combat rules, but the game was a lot more about role playing and exploring the incredible world of the game.

My characters always tended to be "squishy" -- a technomancer, a dog boy and such -- while my group also included a juicer, tatooed person, dragon, cyborgs, and a glitter boy (glitter gal in this case) to name a few of the heavy hitters. While I couldn't stand side by side in combat directly with the dragon for instance I never found it a problem. And most importantly, I had fun.

My GM always had things for all characters in his game to do. Including in combat. While I wasn't facing the incoming fire that the dragon and glitter gal were getting I could do other things in combat. Things that required more in the way of stealth or cunning for instance. In other words, I and the other easily killed always had things to do even as combat raged.

I do agree with other posters that the system wasn't always as clear or streamlined as it could be. However, for me and my group, the rules were useable. More importantly, the world of the game was incredible and that was what we were there for. To live for a while each week in such an amazing reality. Not dice dynamics.

One final note, I think the art work for the books has always been above board and added to the atmosphere the rules/setting info was trying to get across.

I didn't know who they were

[GearType2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palladium_Books

Honestly, I thought myself an avid RPer, being a fan of cyberpunk and D&D for the past few years. I've been to many a game store, but somehow never noticed *any* of their books:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palladium_Books
^Information on who they are, and what they sell^

Rifts

[labcoat]

I played Rifts for a few years after it came out. True, the mechanics were fairly complicated, but that was half of the fun. The setting is something that would fit great in a MMORPG: a post-apocalyptic, dystopian, cyberpunk, western, fantasy setting.

BTW: Jerry Bruckheimer was also in talks to make a movie set in the Rifts universe at one point.

Please update the post with important information

[fruitbane]

Two things we needed to see in the post that make this Slashdot post misleading, all important items in the full article, are that:

1.) Palladium is close to going out of business, but not out just yet.

2.) Their primary reason for being on the brink appears to be embezzlement, or some related crime. Their real business isn't enough to overcome the loss incurred due to that legal trouble.

I'm not a big RIFTS fan, but I'm all for responsible reporting.

Bad Things about Paladium Products.

[RexRhino]

1. They are cheap and ugly. They are not hardcover bound books with full color pages. Look at a Paladium book, then look at a new D&D book, or at a White Wolf book, or whatever. The non-Paladium books are cool even if you don't play the game. If I am going to buy a product, I want the product to be high quality, and have an instant "cool" value. Printing a web page on your printer will give you as good production values as Paladium books. They didn't even lay out the books on computer. They used the old fashion past things to cardboard, take a photograph, make a plate from the photograph method of printing.

2. The books would reprint lots of information. At least a third of the info in any book you could find in just about every other book. They definitly liked to recycle as much content as possible.

3. All the settings were lame. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Yeah, OK. Rifts? "It is like D&D, but with Cyberpunk thrown in, but with Cthulhu thrown in, but with Vampires thrown in, but with Sci-Fi thrown in.."... no thank you. Ninjas and Super Spys? Uh.

4. They had a terrible, hard to use game system.

Sorry, a company making products that no-one likes will go out of buisness. Role playing games are already an extremly small niche product as it is... so there is no longer any room in the industry for people making crappy product. They could cut it in the 1980s, when expectations weren't that hight, and we were all 9 years old and didn't know any better. But the market is more competitive today, the expectations and production values are higher, and no-one is going to pay for that crap.

Re:Bad Things about Paladium Products.

[dsraistlin]

What are you talking about with the reprinting? Have you looked at D&D and White Wolf Lately??? The reprint much more content for nothing than Rifts ever did. Not to mention all the fluff books that get released by both game lines. Add on top of that the fact that both lines have released completely new verions of thier worlds some twice while Rifts has been constant. I would much rather pay 35.00 for a book that is meaty and worth while than the 40.00 for the pretty fluffy waste that is most White Wold and Wizards publishing anymore.

Re:Bad Things about Paladium Products.

[idontgno]

I have to cry shenanigans on some of your commentary.

They are cheap and ugly....If I am going to buy a product, I want the product to be high quality, and have an instant "cool" value.

No gamer, you are. "Cool" is in the product, not the packaging. Sheesh. If you have to have "Ooooh, shiny" to appreciate it, well... i guess that's why "cool" rhymes with "tool".

The books would reprint lots of information.

Like every D20 game ever written.

Rifts? "It is like D&D, but with Cyberpunk thrown in, but with Cthulhu thrown in, but with Vampires thrown in, but with Sci-Fi thrown in.."...

Gosh, that sounds like Shadowrun, the coolest product TSR ever came out with. I don't see the problem here.

They had a terrible, hard to use game system.

OK, fair cop there. The mechanics always seemed too fidgety to me, and balance was always terrible in most every game they wrote.

You're right in your summary, though: it is a shrinking market, and between the legendary weakness of their paper-n-pencil games and their evident lack of marketing savvy, Paladium seems to have doomed itself. Still, I feel bad watching one of the pioneers going under.

Re:Bad Things about Paladium Products.

[tatonca]

If your trying to look cool buying RPG, your going to have to try a lot harder, no matter how nicely illustrated the book's cover is...

I grew up role playing with TMNT - the rules were pretty complicated to the point that we had no idea what we were doing. In one instance we had characters where the stat bonuses were added directly to the stat to acheive some ugly numbers (80 STR on a first lvl character!!) But we figured out enough to make characters, resolve conflicts, use skills and have fun. The campaigns were vast and highly detailed, because coming across source material was fairly sketchy and we were left to our own devices. This isn't a negative - the rulebooks gave you a framework from which to evolve, leaving limitless possibilities. I came away a much better player and GM learning to rely on myself as interpretter and creative designer than by being a slave to the 800 book library that is DnD. I also was way more likely to embrace other types and genres of games than my strictly DnD compatriots. All in all it is a phase of my life I look back on fondly, and I credit those beginnings for the number of RP awards myself and my gaming crew won over the years at DnD tourneys in our area...

Personally I have found that the Paladium games had more intrinsically in common with modern d20 games than even the originally DnD. All joking aside, main stream gamers obviously require a little glitz to get them out of their comfort zone. I would like to see them embrace d20 completely and reissue the games with a beefed up marketing plan - add some hardcovers and pretty pictures for the easily distracted. That's what will save the company if indeed it needs saving. I own almost all the games and and most source material. I've gone through 3 copies of TMNT and Heroes Unlimited myself. I'd pay for some hardcover books to put up beside my 800 DnD books...

In the meantime, I'll pay 50$ to keep them around a little longer...

Re:MISLEADING HEADLINE!

[gowen]

Kevin is asking for help to keep them afloat

Dude. If your company needs help to be kept afloat, then it is going out of business.

However you want to spin it: Not afloat = out of business.

Re:MISLEADING HEADLINE!

[Zonk]

A plea for their fans to bail them out of several thousand dollars worth of debt sounds like a 'going out of business' sign to me. I understand your objection, but the content of the post is pretty clear.

I have very, very little sympathy for Palladium. They're a business. They may be selling fantasy, but they work in the real world. In the real world, if you want to call yourself a business, you don't go screaming to the people who have been propping you up all these years because you have some financial troubles.

That's what Chapter 11 is for.

Re:Palladium Fantasy RPG

[revlayle]

"Dragons - Not just for Experience Points anymore!"

Palladium...

[aapold]

I bought a lot of their stuff over the years. I ran a palladium fantasy RPG game in the early 90s, then Rifts later on, as well as some Robotech, TMNT and so on. The settings were cool. The differnt types of magic (especially circles and wards) were very cool. HOwever, as many have noted, the mechanics were not. They were on par with 2nd edition D&D, but 3rd edition was clearly superior. I did like their XP system, and still use some facets of that in other games i run. At some point the Rifts world books (of which there are a ton) seemed like each one was trying to top the previous, to the point of extremes. I think when Atlantis came out they described a creature that lives at the bottom of the sea in the Pacific with tentatcles long enough to reach around south america, up the atlantic, and slap someone in england, I knew it was getting out of control. I haven't bought one of their books in half a dozen years, but didn't see anything to suggest that trend hadn't continued... In just about every case I found other game systems and mechanics I preferred to Palladium's, and have moved on. Still, I have some fondness for the good times I had with their games, and hope they pull through. I still remember their sourcebook that had homosexuality as a possible result on the "insanity" chart. (that's right, due to a failed saving throw, you are now....) Later prints had a sticker covering that up and replacing it with another insanity, and later reprintings finally changed it. sigh... can't help but chuckle...

Re:Palladium lawsuit-happy prehistory.

[Martin Blank]

They still are like this. They have a good crew, and the writing overall is good (though everytime I bought a book I felt like getting a red pen to tag all of the errors and sending it to them for corrections in the next printing), but Kevin's insistence on keeping 100% control over everything really hurt. Want to make a character generator? Sorry. Can't do that. Want to mention core characters (Erin Tarn, Emperor Prosek, etc)? You're treading a fine line. Want to even discuss a method to port to another system (D20, GURPS, Interlock)? Expect a nasty letter. Meanwhile, the one character generator that they did release was crappy and limited (based on Microsoft Access), and while they did eventually kick it out to the public, releasing new files for it was a risky business at best, IIRC. Their website has always been a storefront, with token game support at best.

The Palladium combat system was his baby, and it worked well enough in the SDC/AR days, but when it came to MDC, it started to lose something. (Mind you, I continued playing Rifts up until a couple of years ago, when player schedules just got too inconsistent, but it was hard to run a game and keep it balanced and fun.) But he couldn't let it go and modernize the system. It took more than a decade just to get a "final" and unified set of combat rules out the door.

If it comes to it, Palladium will need to do what Talsorian Games did -- pack everything into boxes, rent some storage/warehouse space, and continue as a mom and pop shop until they can get something better together. There's no sense, in my mind, of Kevin sacrificing everything he owns in order to stave off what may be inevitable. I realize that this has been his dream for the better part of three decades, but it doesn't often make sense to have a dream kill you.

Re:Don't Harsh on KSiembieda

[Bieeanda]

Okay, I'll harsh on him for being a martinet, an incorrigible asshole, and being absolutely unsuited to the industry that he's been a limpet on for years.

Take a good look at the core rules-- you know, the ones that change with every book, despite the claims that all of them use the same rulebase. Compare it to the D&D rewrites that you did when you were fifteen (everyone did it, so don't deny it). Notice any similarities? How about the sidelong rants about 'neutral alignments are stupid!' or the two page rant about people complaining that the obtuse magic system in the Federation of Magic sourcebook.

Consider multiple reports from people that have had the misfortune of working with or under KS: he can't take criticism and simply cannot abide the idea that someone has done something better than he has. Just look at the insane rants that preface half the Palladium library, and spatter the rest like gobbets of Elder Geek spit.

And last but not least, let's take a long, hard look at his idiotic attempts to go multimedia. Long, long ago, there was a piece of software that purported to be a RIFTS game master's assistant. It was officially sanctioned, praised and all the rest... and was a godawful pile of dung. It was entirely possible to accidentally remove entries for equipment, spells or the like from the program's internal database... but utterly impossible to actually add new data. The interface was abysmal, and support was nonexistent from the coders or from Palladium; inquiries regarding fan-patches were rebuffed very coldly. And now, look at this: a video game, on the Ngage. The platform was dead in the water from the beginning, and they still went ahead with development. Did Siembieda expect the RIFTS name to draw the thousands that still buy his cut and paste crap out of their basements and out to their local cellular stores, to buy a shitty title and an even worse device to run it on?

So now he's resorted to 'buy my prints!' Not that he had anything to do with the prints, unless he's returned to awkwardly aping Kevin Long's art style. Why doesn't he just do what he usually does, and copy and paste whole sections of rulebooks into new source, instead?

Re:Sorry, but...

[Ratbert42]

They didn't put all their eggs in one basket. There's a possible movie deal out there and it'll be exclusively available on PSP UMD.

Re:Please update the post with important informati

[Ratbert42]

Their primary reason for being on the brink appears to be embezzlement, or some related crime. Their real business isn't enough to overcome the loss incurred due to that legal trouble.

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.

Wizards of the Coast should buy Palladium

[rubberbando]

Then they could re-release all those great books / worlds to be compatable with 3rd edition AD&D thus giving us the best of both worlds. :D