Is my review accurate?

[Baron mugwort]

Hi guys,

I have reviewed Palladium Fantasy 1st edition (its my fave, even though I love 2nd edition too I will never forget 1st edition as my introduction to RPG's).

Does the review get the message across that this game is awesome? I am asking you guys because well..... who would know better?

http://www.ding-irl.com/Palladium-Fantasy-Review.html

Thanks for your time.

Baron Mugwort

[Carl Gleba]

Well done It's very inspiring and your love of the game is evident. If I didn't already own it I'd go out and buy it based in this review.

[Baron mugwort]

Hey Carl,

Thanks so much for taking the time to look at the review and cast your vote

Am glad you like it as I plan on reviewing all of my palladium books. Next will probably be RIFTS.

Baron Mugwort

[zyanitevp]

It is definitely enthusiastic!

[Cinos]

I'm trying very hard to not offend or sound like a jerk, so I'm going to just be forward with it. There's a lot of room for improvement in many ways in the review, if you really want me to dissect this, I'm more than happy to, but you won't like me very much afterwards.

[Baron mugwort]

I'm trying very hard to not offend or sound like a jerk, so I'm going to just be forward with it. There's a lot of room for improvement in many ways in the review, if you really want me to dissect this, I'm more than happy to, but you won't like me very much afterwards.

How could I resist such an offer! Feel free to fire away. I wont dislike you cause I do these things for fun... until I get contributors that do the reviews better than me!

I just ask you to bear in mind the review is for people who have never played the game and so some descriptions may have been skirted over. This isn't a review for people already playing the game because they already know all about it

I really doubt you will like this Wednesdays RIFTS review then

[Baron mugwort]

Whoa I see a lot of people were "sick a bit in their mouth" Hahah, now there was a saying about not being able to please all of the people..... seems I need a saying that covers not pleasing anyone!

[Cinos]

I'm trying very hard to not offend or sound like a jerk, so I'm going to just be forward with it. There's a lot of room for improvement in many ways in the review, if you really want me to dissect this, I'm more than happy to, but you won't like me very much afterwards.

How could I resist such an offer! Feel free to fire away. I wont dislike you cause I do these things for fun... until I get contributors that do the reviews better than me!

I just ask you to bear in mind the review is for people who have never played the game and so some descriptions may have been skirted over. This isn't a review for people already playing the game because they already know all about it

I really doubt you will like this Wednesdays RIFTS review then

Well just say I didn't warn you I'll get to composing a review of the review if you will.

[Hotrod]

Nothing like a review of a review. This should be good.

[Baron mugwort]

Hehehe no worries amigo but be warned, when you put the beat down on me I may have to ask you to do a better job

At the end of the day I don't think writing is my forte I would much prefer it if you guys contributed as I think you would almost certainly do a better job!

The main aim of the site (and not the review which is just part of the bigger picture) is to get people interested in RPG's and to also get people off their arses and doing things that they do with their characters!

For example I just passed my archery course cause I used to have an Ogre longbow man. On Saturday I am going to climb (lol more like walk) Mount. Snowdon cause so many of my characters have climbed a mountain it's unreal yet my lazy bones have never climbed even one

Anyway I digress, fire away just do your best to not totally destroy me!!!

[Hotrod]

Yes, yes! A review of a review of a review! *Cue maniacal laughter*

[Baron mugwort]

Yes, yes! A review of a review of a review! *Cue maniacal laughter*

Hahaha

[Cinos]

So first things first; this is not a review you have wrote, though I'm sure it was your intent. What you've written is a sales pitch. A very odd one, given its for a game you can't buy anymore, and has fallen from public eye entirely. And before you jump out of your seat saying "Palladium is totally still relevant in the modern era of RPGs!" While I personally might argue even that, this is NOT a piece on Palladium RPG, it is one for Palladium Fantasy 1st Edition. An edition so old, most players have not even played it. Heck I know I started on 2nd Edition, and didn't get a chance to play 1st at all until I hunted down a copy (in the end being gifted one by a stranger in an odd turn of events).

Now you may ask -why- would I classify this 'review' as a two page advertisement? It's nothing but glowing information, which means you're only trying to highlight it's good points. At no point are you critical of the piece, which is a critical part of any honest reviewer. People want to know faults as much as they want to know pro's of anything. "Well this car's a bit more expensive, but the gas mileage far outstrips the others." or "Well, the .357's got a lot more punch, but it's got less ammo and it kicks like a mule." This lets a person know the good side of something, but also the drawbacks. And there are always drawbacks. No product in anything ever is perfect, I don't care how much you love it, it has problems of some kind. And those problems are hugely important to anyone who is interested in buying it, and they're also important to you, the reviewer, because if all you do is paint a cherry picture, you'll either lead someone to buy something erroneously, ruining their experience with the subject matter, or they'll assume you're lying to them and just write you off.

With that out of the way, on to the meat of the subject blow by blow;

First layout; I'd add two lines between new groups (i.e, after the final line of your opener and Character Creation), it breaks up those points and makes it more readable. Following this up, avoid white backgrounds, they're very 90's, and they're just annoying to read. Go with a light grey or light blue, some off white that's not so painful to look at (I'd go with the light blue, since it's similar enough to the books cover colors).

Second, you talk about the art and layout of the books. First, I wouldn't actually call the art in Palladium Fantasy 1st to be all that good. Some is pretty good, and it exemplifies old school gaming without a doubt, but it's not like it did that on purpose. That was just the style at the time by and large. It also has some really random pictures, and all the art does not mesh well together. The picture of the thirteen races, for example, has a very comic book style to it, with drooling trolls and a vacant staring ogre. This gives a -radically- different feel to each race as the art shown in 2nd, the Troll who looks more calculating and brutal than cross-eyed and inbred, the orcs are better shown as the noble-yet-savage, in this they look like a stereotype. Aside from the elf and perhaps the wolfen, each race is drawn to just look unintelligent (I'll note that very few of them are actually less intelligent than humans). As I flip through the book, I'm actually reminded how little art is in the book, which isn't necessarily a determent, in fact you could flip that to be a pro. But you don't want to be all "The art is amazing!" when you can flip through thirty pages without a single piece. There's a spot from page 80 to 110 where there isn't a picture at all, that's 30 pages of text. That's 10% of the book without art at all. Now I understand -why- this happened, but that's completely irrelevant of this review. Most of the art in this book is not of that high of a quality, objectively speaking, The Creatures of Magic section just has quickly drawn silhouettes of the creature in question, a lot of the art has perspective issues and are very flat and unengaging. Take the Great Horned Dragon for example, this is a picture that could have defined the setting, dragons go with high fantasy, the cover understands that clearly, but the great horned, arguably the biggest boss in the setting at the time, is this weirdly drawn thing, with super defined wrists, a tail that borders on physically impossible by the way it's angled alongside the body, and a wing that defys physics by being bent and straight at the same time, while the other looks like it was crippled. All without a background or any action of any kind. It's just sort of standing there, looking blankly into the distance. The Basilisk is not much better, oddly sitting on its tail. Is it supposed to be fighting? The hanging tongue and eye suggests he's just tripping hard on something, even grabbing the air as if there was something there. Some art is even wasteful, such as the drawing of the Egyptian gods, while not illustrating the gods they created for their setting. Any player should either know, or be able to figure out, what these gods look like, more so in the modern era (libraries still existed back then). Meanwhile, they rely purely on words for the other gods. A picture for Yin-Sloth, or Tark would have been a much better idea, as players love pictures, it shows them, rather than telling them, what the world is. It's also why backgrounds are so important, as it shows not only the subject matter, but the world they exist in at the same time. So to say the art is good is misinformed at best. It's serviceable without a doubt, there are a few gems here and there, and the art tries its best not to get in the way, an issue WotC can have now and then with their massive art budgets. But also at times completely disengaging and poorly formatted (page 36 is a great example of that, a huge white bar under the picture which makes little sense in posing and reactions, I can't tell if the guy with the glass is frightened, or if he's laughing at this knife wielding dancer's outside thong).

Onto Character creation; First, there are 14 Character Classes, because I'll be damned if Farmer counts. In addition even with the optional, it's still 19 Classes, because Alchemist just isn't a class. And even WITH that your number is just flat wrong (something a review can never afford to be, because now you've invalidated your entire paper, and other ones, because your reader can't trust you any more). This is fairly close to D&D's standard, though it is a little higher, but not so much that it's mind blowing (IKRPG's Career system springs to mind with about 30 Careers, which you mix and match any two, to create a dizzying array of possible start ups, even West Ends old Star Wars D6 didn't even have classes, and you could just build what you want). Now it's important to note the core books starting classes and races for sure, but you're up selling that very heavily (you know, like you where trying to sell them a product, rather than trying to tell them about a product). The same can be said of your explanation of your troll. Talk a bit about his weak attributes (or call to the point that you rolled amazingly for stats and he generally didn't have a lot of faults. Faults are simply more interesting). You also bring up the group, and attributes, but you don't actually explain what any of it means, so to the uninformed, that entire bit is meaningless deadweight. Either just remove it or expand upon it so it makes sense to a new player.

So onto the system; Don't tell people what they've experienced before, it's borderline insulting, and more so when you're aiming at new players. How do you know if they've seen more than a D6 during their monopoly years? Are they aware that dice come in 4 to 100 sided, and that you will use all of them to play this game? And you're calling a spells per day system that does not recognize the difference between Ventriloquism and Resurrection good? I'm a bit opponent of spells per day in general, but at least D&D had the foresight to split spells per day into each level (i.e 10 level 1 spells, 6 Level 2 spells, 4 level 3's and so on). the spells are also so frustratingly filled with save or dies. Failed to save that 1st level Paralysis bolt? Dead target. Even alone a wizard should be able to kill a target given 6 melee rounds of uninterrupted stabs to throat. It's hard to wade through the spell selections without bumping into something so insanely unbalanced I have no idea how it made it into printed material. Magic is verifiable too powerful in 1st ed. Your description of how multi-classing works in Palladium is also a bit misleading, mostly because it's always been awful to multi-class in Palladium (any of their titles). It's straight awful and not really a viable choice from a mechanical stand point. It also makes very little logical sense most of the time. You go onto explain (well, not really explain, but point out) that the system encourages role playing, this is half true, it encourages it by there not really being a lot else to do. The game engine doesn't handle much well, so that's all that's left for it to do. You also point out that it doesn't slow game play down for things like this. Using only the book you are reviewing (i.e the core rule book which in theory should have this stuff) I want you to tell me the following;

I fall from a 15 foot ledge. How much damage do I suffer, and what can I do to prevent that damage?

My character has been unable to sleep for 36 Hours. What effects do I suffer?

I'm knocked out and under water. Do I suffer damage? How long until I drown?

I have a speed of 10, and there is a person 40 Meters away from me. Can I move to him, and then attack with a melee weapon? Can I move away from him and make a Ranged attack or cast a spell?

What exactly is the difference between using Charm / Impress from a high PB and Trust / Intimidate from M.A? Can I use a skill to get people to Trust me?

This is some what rhetorical of course, but until you can answer these questions without using a GM ruling (which will be different by every group, and generally suck up twenty minutes of hunting through the book looking for a real answer, since none of these are really 'out there' situations and are extremely likely to come up in many sessions.


Onto the next part, combat. You're correct that it can be some what brutal, but at the same time its not really, depending on how the user interprets it. "You get slashed by a sword and suffer 6 Damage". "Well I've got 34 HP left, so I'm super fine." (Note that 6 Damage is about the highest expected damage one is going to get hit by outside of a 5% outlayer). So, really unless you're taking blows from 4-5 people and have no armor (or are at the point in the game when armor is not very relevant), combat is pretty predictable. Now if you're not designed as a fighter, it can get mean fast, your lower HP pool and bad parry bonus will quickly see you dead unless you're a caster. In which case unless they passed their save, you should be fine. Now you do at least qualify this statement as your opinion, so that's something. But you follow it up with just a markedly not true statement. There is very little statistical difference between a 1st and 4th level character in terms of fighters. Casters may, but it really will just come down to gearing. There's about a +2 Difference favoring the higher leveled Character, meaning the difference in rolls is only about 7 to 10% in their favor, which is relatively narrow margin in this case, the additional attack makes a big difference, and you'll be pretty assured to have your 2nd attack by 4th level. It is that one trait that gives you a large edge, and that's only if you're still fighting 1 action opponents. Skills will see a relatively large jump because they're designed to advance much faster at low levels, generally gaining 10 to 15% bonuses (a relative increase generally of around 25 to 50%) in the first level alone, the biggest design change between 1st and 2nd edition.

Now when you talk about magic, is where things really break down, and this being a sales pitch, not a review become painfully clear. Magic is often the silver bullet that mortally wounds any system, and it's been doubly true in Palladium games (Rifts, ironically, is the one game of their's I feel strikes a moderate balance between casters and non-casters). Wizards are simply better than anyone else, at pretty much their desired forte. They are better thieves than thieves, better charmers than anyone else, and generally a better fighters than fighters. More so, casters are generally more -interesting- to play from a mechanical stand point. They have every option open to them fighters do (from "I Hit it" to "I do something weird"), as well as their spell options (which as mentioned are about as balanced as an Eva pilot). And what's more is they can't really do the 'Sword and spells' Motif that's pretty popular, despite your suggestion that they can. They can sorta get away with it in the early levels (levels 1 to 3), but their extreme limitation on both weapon selection (You literally can't make a gandaulf, as he uses a large sword, which wizard cannot get), and the limitations on armor are -extremely- restrictive (-2 to Strike / Parry / Dodge can be a deal breaker). In addition, you barely even talk about anything else in the system. You don't really bring up any highlights of anything else beyond wizard. This is likely because they're the one class in the game that can really open up and have a true feeling of individuality, through skills, spells and style, while every other class tries to stand their chair on only two of those legs.

Last but not least, you bring up monsters. I don't know why this is part of your conclusion and you didn't feel that such a major part of a system warranted it's own section, rather than just a closing footnote, it's just a flat lie. I've seen gamers get through the D&D monster books fast enough, because of a limited spectrum, and Palladium is so narrow in it's monsters it's not funny. It has Evil demons, evil demons, evil monsters of a narrow stripe, a few not evil monsters, and some dragons. And some fay folk thrown in the mix. What's more is the descriptions are -extremely- limited. You can hardly get a feel for them, they're just a tightly packed number set that doesn't tell even a little bit of a story, or their place in the setting. Rather than giving me a actual dice value for their damage or HP, they give me a spread of min to max for their damage and HP (I realize the rest of the book does this too, but this is where I'm talking about it). That alone should have been called out as an anachronism of how things where done back in the 80's. I'll also note that a Kodiak is among the most dangerous fighters outside of magical creatures (and competes with some of them). Seriously a bear is more dangerous than some of the elemental, and more physically dangerous than a Seraph. I think I'd worry about a Kodiak's attacks more than many of the dragons for that matter. That's not what I call good enemy design. Furthermore, tell me what a Pandemonium is (without using another book). Is it that cloaked figure below? (It's not). The Monsters here are just that. Blank monsters with basic, and generally uninteresting or just unimpressive, stat blocks and nothing else. For a game that has come to pride itself on setting, these are near disgraceful entries, and it's a bold face lie to tell people it's amazing or even that it would provide a deep pool of enemies. Most are pretty hard to tell from one another in the first place. A Harpy and a Fenry are basically the same thing.

[Baron mugwort]

You can buy the game on drivethruRPG so its still for sale (kinda lol) and if it sounds like a sales pitch it kind of is... I want people to play and enjoy RPG's.... then again I didn't want to come across as a sales person haha.

I appreciate the time you have took to write this review review I will put the spaces in where you said to make it easier reading. Will also use a white smoke background, am getting a new site banner this week so will sort that out then

I am sorry if you find my review insulting and full of lies. I honestly didn't want it to come across like that. I also didn't wish to insult people by telling them what dice they may or may not have seen before.

I like the monster section (although yeah you are right about the flaws there lol) but compared to other games e.g. the White Wolf games, there are lots of monsters.

Anyways again I thank you for your time and thanks so much for opening my eyes to some very serious flaws in my writing style. Cinos I bow before thee a humbled man.

P.S. you really will hate Wednesdays RIFTS review! Although I have pointed out some of the flaws with that game. Perhaps I am just too 1st edition fanboy for my own good! I can't help it, it's my favourite game of all time

[Cinos]

P.S. you really will hate Wednesdays RIFTS review! Although I have pointed out some of the flaws with that game. Perhaps I am just too 1st edition fanboy for my own good! I can't help it, it's my favourite game of all time

Hopefully some of this bleeds through to it to make it a little better. And fans always make the worst reviewers because they tend to be too close to something or have just gotten used to its faults. It's important as gamers (and in my opinion as people) to remember to find fault in things, to help reinforce that thing and make it better over time and better for those times. But it's important you try not to sell your readers something, because it's much more likely they will end up with something they didn't expect or don't want, if you give an honest review of the good and the bad, then you can try and get people to be interested and develop the same passion you do. Far be it for me to judge someone for liking Palladium or any thing full of faults, I love the books as a whole even with their many faults. But if I started a game being told all these things are possible and there are no faults, then find nothing but, I'm not going to like the game at all regardless of its merits, because I didn't get what I was expecting. I have this same issue with a lot of modern trailers for movies as well. I liked Chronicles of Riddick a lot less because it sold itself like the first movie did, when it's a completely different genre really. It told me it was one kind of movie, when it wasn't at all.

Another thing to keep in mind is parallel experiences and comparative writing. While it can be some what of a writers crutch, there's no issue in using them if you know you're not a ground breaking writer (I use them a -ton-). Most people who will be reading will have a passing familiarity with the big dog, which in this case is D&D, meaning drawing some parallels and highlighting differences isn't a bad idea. The more flexible skill system 1st Ed had (kinda sorta), a much more colorful set of casting classes out of the core book, a much more manageable collection size, and so on. This lets people get a better idea of -what- you're selling, so they can make a choice about what's a better game for them.

[Baron mugwort]

Well there is a 50/50 split on mouth vomit! I am so proud lol.

So Cinos I thank you once more for your input and will look to apply your advice in future.

Now as you have done such a good job I would really appreciate it if you would write a 1st edition review for my site. Mainly because it will be better then mine but part to offset the fact that I have clearly give the book too much praise.

If you don't wish to contribute thats cool I thank you for your time anyways.

P.S. look out for my (not so) fantastic RIFTS review tomorrow afternoon lol.

[Kilgs]

Wandering around the internet and I come across this...

First of all, I agree with Cinos that your review is nothing of the sort. Sorry, it's a pitch.

Second, I don't know what kind of home Cinos is living in but s/he's so fricking harsh and nasty, taking potshots that weren't necessary that it completely defeats the point of his/her review. It's astounding that someone who is berating another for having a personal connection to a product they are reviewing spends time telling us how s/he hates certain aspects of the system and therefore they cannot be reviewed in a positive light. Ignore him/her. They are clearly unhappy with stuff that has nothing to do with your review.

It's an old game. It was one of the original Palladium games and it has much to say for it compared to games released contemporaneously. I loved it when I discovered Palladium. I haven't played it in almost twenty years for a number of reasons but I loved it in high school, my group loved it. It was incredible. The art was completely different than other books released at the same time. The magic system was far more interesting than Vancian (D&D) style systems other than the per day rule. But it faltered, as Cino pointed out, in not differentiating between power levels.

The classes were very cool until you figured out that no one was special. That was supposed to be fixed in 2nd edition but never was. Still hasn't been.

The game is not/was not gritty in terms of combat. It was "you hit, I parry, I hit, you parry" and is quite dull compared to modern systems. But it was a very fun break at the time. But it was never a very dangerous game in that everyone progressed at d6 per level plus PE. 2nd edition just made it worse with the SDC concept. I don't even want to know who thought that was a good idea. I'd be amazed if anyone even played with that rule... ever.

In essence, I'm only posting here because Cino wrote a really nasty response that could have been a page or two shorter. Frankly, s/he summed it in the first paragraph and should have left it at that. Cino clearly has issues with the system. Hey, that's cool, I have issues with the system and honestly think that Palladium Books is a joke for not updating their system... but that's no reason to take it out on someone for whom the system still works. And who is clearly still excited about it.

I remember being excited about it. It was awesome.

Wrock on, troll-brother, wrock-on.

[Baron mugwort]

Hey Kilgs, thanks for your comments.

I suppose it does look like a sale pitch, I am sorry it comes across like that. I just love the game and want others to play it too.

I guess what I am trying to say is "This games great, give it a go!"..... doesn't make up enough words though to qualify as a review lol