Save Palladium
polycounter lvl 20
http://forums.palladium-megaverse.com/viewtopic.php?t=57048
Figured some of you might have been familiar with these guys and may want to help them out.
Figured some of you might have been familiar with these guys and may want to help them out.
Replies
I still have the Ninja Turtles rule book somewhere.
I'm sorry to hear that Palladium is in such dire straits ... but not necessarily surprised. The "slump" that Kevin suggests for the RPG biz is in fact it's slow lingering death. The RPG biz essentially died about 10 years ago and has just been malingering, a shadow of it's former self.
But what really surprises me is that a smart guy like Kevin couldn't see past the hype of the N-Gage and see a product that wasn't going to go anywhere. C'mon ... a phone that is engineered in such a way that you have to remove the battery pack to change a game cartridge? Who couldn't see that as a flop in the making?
If you're a fan of Palladium, support the cause. But realistically, it may just be that it's time for Palladium to join TSR, GDW, FASA (which, in the process of becoming an MGS studio brand, died as an RPG company), West End Games and many others in RPG publishing heaven.
So all of the younger generation nerds are doing what these days ? Not playing RPG's ? I guess video games are killing everything from comic books to RPG's ?
C'mon ... a phone that is engineered in such a way that you have to remove the battery pack to change a game cartridge?
[/ QUOTE ]It amuses me that people still harp on about this and the side talking business veen several years after the mach 2 NGage fixed both of this problems. A lack of decent marketing on Nokia's part I guess.
Which perhaps is the problem with the old pen and paper RPG. Theres no real public awareness. No one saying "Hey kids, come play Dungeons and Dragons. Its like your video games but you have total freedom to do whatever the hell you want no matter how, nefarious, weird or downright insane. Someone needs to drive the P&P game back into the public eye on the back of a CRPG. Hell, nows the perfect time with Oblivion being the most popular XBox 360 game. Release Elder Scrolls P&P, market the hell out of it and watch the old school RPGs get a another chance.
Long live Glitterboys
My professional career began with P&P RPGs and could have ended with them had I not switched industries (again) when I joined id back in '97. The paper games had their hey day in the early 80s, primarily due to the tragedy of Dallas Egberts self-engineer disappearance from the Michigan State campus in 1979. I know that TSR (original publishers of Dungeons & Dragons) tried continually to bring young, pre-teen gamers into the market. I think they ultimately failed because RPGs are not a children's product. Children are NATURAL role-players. They don't need dice or rules to enjoy rich play experiences. Whatever changes adolescence cause also seem to bring about a need for rule-based play ... possibly because rules mean "game" an more or less self-acceptable term, whereas "play" (without rules) suggests childishness and immaturity. A developmental psych person probably could explain this much better ... but the point is kids don't need RPG rules to have fun ... but teens and up do.
In the early 90s, computer game experiences were still too crude to fully replace the RPG experience. What likely killed RPGs was not CRPGs, but collectible card games. They were a fad (like D&D in the early 80s) that brought vast amounts of cash into the industry, but pretty much only to Wizards of the Coast. It grew the industry, sure, but it was more of a zero sum situation ... money that was going into card collections was being taken away from RPG companies. GDW, TSR, FASA, West End, and numerous other "larger" publishers faded, died, or were subsumed into other companies (FASA at least was able to survive as a studio brand ... TSR was engulfed whole and their corporate branding died to be replaced by the brand of their primary IP).
P&P RPGs are not likely to resurge. It requires a lot of effort on the part of the players to have a good experience ... just learning the rules can be a daunting process, let alone designing or running game content. Like dinosaurs in the world of mammals, they will continue to exist, but with a much smaller presence. Their ecological niche in the entertainment world has been replaced by the MMORPG which provides a SIMILAR (but not the same) play experience. Perhaps, as technology develops, MMORPGs may provide the same opportunities for accessible user-made and run content. But for now, their success doesn't require it.
Steve Jackson games is a survivor because they can still thrive and do business within a reduced market. Go Steve!
The worst thing I've ever heard about Kevin is that it's not a good thing to both be his friend and be in a business relationship with him. It happened to me and while I think we remained at least friends in passing, I never worked or wanted to work for Palladium again. In my situation (back around 1989-90), he had the corporate lawyer write me regarding the late status of a design of a Turtles project I had fallen behind on (combo of bad health and overcommitment at the time) rather than contacting me directly to resolve the situation. It was a typical lawyer letter that bordered on the unpleasant and made vague threats applied in a situation where contact from a friend was have gained the same result with no bad feelings on my part. I made it a point not to deal with clients whose business practices annoyed me (a relatively short list which also included both Steve Jackson Games and Avalon Hill).
Ive heard nothing but bad things about Kevin. Everything from just being an egostistical a-hole
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I was all fired up to be sympathetic about this, remembering my TMNT days with an almost painful fondness, until I noticed he used the word "treachery" four times in an 11,000 word post. Maybe I'm not showing great psychological insight so much as I'm being elitist and nitpicky, but he sounds a tad insanely paranoid to me.
Children are NATURAL role-players. They don't need dice or rules to enjoy rich play experiences. Whatever changes adolescence cause also seem to bring about a need for rule-based play ... possibly because rules mean "game" an more or less self-acceptable term, whereas "play" (without rules) suggests childishness and immaturity. A developmental psych person probably could explain this much better ... but the point is kids don't need RPG rules to have fun ... but teens and up do.
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Without rules you can't have any real victory or loss. Children, especially when playing against each other, love to change the rules to prevent themselves from losing. You need a consistent ruleset so people don't suddently claim they have armor implanted under their skin when someone else lands a fatal hit.
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jackablade ... I just did a search for N Gage 2. First thing I noticed was no USA website ...
[/ QUOTE ]The redesigned N-Gage, called the QD, is the only one supported these days and is what the main N-Gage.com website deals with. Not that it really matters. The only reason I care at all is I've got a game (Payload) coming out on the console in the next month or so.
Anyway back on topic, I don't think theres any reason why a new P&P fad couldn't be generated with some clever marketing. Perhaps an audio-visual componant needs to be introduced, at least to begin with. Something that will Decrease the contrast between the video game and the P&P RPG for a start to coax the impressionable youths over. A nice simple, intuitive ruleset would also be necessary - somethign you can more or less pick up an play after a couple of minutes of reading the rules/somone explaining. Once they've got a bunch of kids interested again it shouldn't be too hard a task to show them all the other possible RPGs out there that they could be trying out.
It probably won't ever get back to the level of its hey-day but I don't see any real reason why, with perhaps a bit of rethinking of the workings, P&P couldn't do well enough for these companies not to disappear of fthe map.
Damn though. Rifts owned, and this past year I bought the new version of After the Bomb (it was reformatted to be a stand alone game - which it rocks.. [I think I might be a in the closet furry]).
Anyhow.. Cant they come out with a virtual machine to run the Rifts Nokia game on a PC? I would still buy it even if it was low rez.
Cant they come out with a virtual machine to run the Rifts Nokia game on a PC?
[/ QUOTE ]Theres a Symbian emulator available that plays NGage games very nicely on the PC.
If it came out, it was by a different author than me.
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Err.. It did (if you meant the After the Bomb TMNT extension).. Kevin stabbed you again.
If its any consolation, it wasn't as engaging as the others.
P&P existed in a fluke of time from the early 70's until, I'd say about 1996 orr 1998, when computer processing and the ease of use of the internet killed it. P&P RPG's existed in that historical cusp where there was a lot of leisure time, but no technological network, and a time of expensive telephone service. RPG's were never a "kids" game, because it involved too much math, and required imagination borne of some life experience, or at least research. So it became the passtime of the cerebral, and unathletic, but still social.
Now adays, none of the young have the patience, for the slow pace of P&P RPG's, and it's not going to come back. Great source of IP and ideas, but as a passtime it's gone.
Scott
Echoing Scott ... I think most of today's P&P role players are either guys in their 30s and 40s (and older) or perhaps their children. I know my son (early 20s now) has still been getting together with his college buddies (just like I did nearly 30 years ago) to play ... but it has been slowly winding down. One of my co-workers ... designer Sandy Petersen ... regularly runs an RPG campaign ... but most of his players are late 30s through early 50s in age.
It is my belief that the style of play of the P&P RPG will come back as software RPGs become easier to mod.
I suppose one could do something of the sort on "Second Life" as well, if you felt productive.
But then what would be the GM's goals? How much control? how to handle the Dice question? Right towards the end of the era, there were all sorts of interesting stylistic arguements going on in rec.games.frp.advocacy, but then who reads newsgroups any more? :-) They keep trying to revive P&P RPG's with more and more abstracted, and "Cinematic or Storytelling" systems, which with my worship of realism and verisimilitude, rubbed me the wrong way, but other folks have liked Dogs in the Vinyards, and other goodies.
Scott
Scott