Samantha Patri's Blog

 What is Says on the Tin. Amazingly, people will disagree, but the Palladium game engine is a hot mess. They make excellent settings - credit where it's due, but the game engine itself is the second worst rip I've ever seen of a D&D engine - the worst reserved for the one that's a rip of D&D and Palladium. A big part of it though, is how it waffles between being a d% system and a d20 system.  So, let's break this down. 1. Skills Skills need to stop being a d% system. First and foremost, make it an additive system that provides a strict + to a d20 skill check (why? Because combat runs on a d20 skill check, that's why. Keep it uniform). The fact all skills go up as you level is fine  - we liked Star Wars Saga, and had pushed for that when Pathfinder was discussing 1e. So, here's how we'd do it. Your OCC / RCC / MOC gives a list of skills. You pick which ones are tagged. All skills from your OCC/RCC/MOC go up +1/2 every level, and your tagged skills go ...

Picture It:  Calgary, 1984. (With apologies to Sophia) I was given the D&D Red Box for my 12th birthday in March.  In April, I got my first adventure, Palace of the Silver Princess , and the April 1984 edition of Dragon Magazine. I'd not run a game yet. I had no idea how to run a game, or even to play, since I'd never been in a game and nobody around me had access to game books. I didn't know what a power game was, or min-maxing, or being a munchkin. I didn't know what a Monty Haul campaign was until I saw the term in the Dragon Magazine - and even then all I knew was 'it's a powerful character'. Two years later, I was running games at school. There was a group who played AD&D, and I'd later dub it the illegal D&D group , because the characters had stats above 18, levels in the 100s, and access to Death Stars, laser weapons, and chromatic dragon familiars.  (Yeah, small, 5-headed dragon familiars of Tiamat). I didn't play with that group,...