D&D 2E

 We picked up some more AD&D 2e  as well as some decades old Palladium Books supplements for the Palladium RPG. More expensive  Items are  in our ebay store while books priced $30 or less are on the shelf in the used game section.

Palladium Robotech Kickstarter

Palladium announced February 27 that it would not produce the second wave of Robotech products that it funded through Kickstarter back in 2013. Apparently a big part of the problem was that the funds generated were used to produce extra Wave 1 figures for sale through distribution and distribution bought far fewer of them than Palladium had expected, thus leaving money tied up in excess inventory instead of the expected capital that would have produced Wave 2 of the figures.

In fact, we passed on buying any of the figures for sale in the store because of the success of the Kickstarter. We figures that, given the massive numbers of people who bought into the campaign, anyone who wanted the figures would get them through the Kickstarter. We had no desire to risk our capital stocking a product that Palladium had already sold to its most avid customers.

Below is the email Palladium sent out to those contacting the company about non-fulfillment of the Kickstarter:

We share your frustration and apologize for the unfortunate delay. Palladium Books has been working tirelessly to bring Robotech® fans a superior product. Progress is being made and we are moving toward manufacturing of the First Wave of releases.

Please understand, as a Kickstarter backer, you have not purchased or pre-ordered a product. You have “supported a project” in exchange for a promise of a reward. That reward had an original estimated delivery date which has passed, but that date was always an estimate, not a guaranteed deadline.

By Kickstarter’s terms of service, we are obligated to deliver on the rewards we have promised, and we will do that. We are currently working toward doing just that.

As such, we cannot offer you a refund at this time. If the time should ever come that Palladium Books cannot fulfill the terms of our Kickstarter project, we will of course offer refunds, as we would be required to do by Kickstarter.

In the meantime, please be patient. We appreciate your support of the project, and your pledge will help us to produce a fantastic product that we think everyone will enjoy.

With Appreciation,
The Palladium Books Team"

RPG of the Week Rifts

Rifts has been around since the 1980s, starting out as the Palladium Fantasy RPG, then, as Palladium Games slowly put up more RPGs using the same basic system, gradually developed into the first, and longest lives, multi-genre RPG. Both GURPS and Torg attempted to do something similar but GURPS never managed to make a system that allowed you to take the same character, without modification, from one genre or universe to another, while Torg was an interesting experiment that failed to find an audience.

If you look closely at the underpinnings of Rifts, you can see its roots in the original D&D system, with its character classes and alignment systems, as the creator, Kevin Siembieda, had a hand in many of the early Judges Guild products. However, Rifts has transcended its roots and now stands as its own system, which has developed into a fantasy/high-tech cross over that still has a strong following all these years later.

Robotech Tactics Kickstarter

While I remember playing the Robotech RPG back in the 1980s when Palladium Games first released it, I have not followed more recent iterations of the game, but, back in 2013, Palladium launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund a miniatures combat game based on the series. Here in February 2017, those who funded the campaign, to the tune of around $1.4 million, still have not received the miniatures promised. This forum posting summarizes the events of the campaign as well as a lengthy response from Palladium head Kevin Siembieda.

New Palladium Books

Always good to see new Palladium books. Coming in March.

PLB886

Rifts: WB Black Market

$ 20.95 SRP

On Rifts® Earth, the Black Market is the most prevalent trader in weapons, contraband and magic items outlawed by the Coalition. Explore the day to day business of the market along with its smuggling routes, practices, policies and nefarious products. Encounter the five major Black Market factions in North America and foreign groups like the Yakuza, Green Scarf Sect and the Underground Railroads of Atlantis and the Vampire Kingdoms. -New O.C.C.s like the Con Man, Coyote and Venture -Black Market services, products, practices and customers. -Criminal jobs like the Enforcer, Hit Man and Defense Attorney. -Major smuggling corridors and routes through Coalition territory. -Smuggling methods, both magical and conventional. -The Five Factions of North America and other Black Market groups. -More equipment from Bandito Arms and specialized smuggling gear. -Tables for creating Traveling Merchants, Caravans, Market Outlets, Market Towns, Clubs and Bars, Body-Chop-Shops and more! -Information on the Coalition prison system and border security. -Written by Matthew Clements and Taylor White, with additional material by Kevin Siembieda and Alex Marciniszyn. 160 pages

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PLB887

Rifts: WB Northern Gun One

$ 20.95 SRP

The largest independent manufacturer of weapons, robots and adventure gear in North America is Northern Gun™. Located in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, they have been the premier outfitter of mercenaries and adventurers for decades, and are a major hub for hiring military contractors. With a whole new product line to offer their customers, the future looks bright for Northern Gun™. -The arms giant Northern Gun profiled for the first time! -The Kingdom of Ishpeming, a puppet-state propped up by NG. -Full 109 P.A. catalog of Northern Gun products! -New weapons, power armor, vehicles, robots and adventure gear. -The Ishpeming military, essentially a framework for hiring mercenaries and privateers. -The NG Bounty Board, the largest collection of bounties and mercenary contracts anywhere on Rifts® Earth. -Hover trains, supply ships and sales outlets. -Northern Gun’s relationship with the Coalition States, Triax Industries, the Black Market and others. -Written by Matthew Clements. -Interior Artwork by Nick Bradshaw, Chuck Walton and others. -160 pages

Family Games: The 100 Best

One of this week’s orders arrive yesterday and with it a book I’d wanted to look through, one that has been out for a year or better:  Family Games:  The 100 Best, published by Green Ronin Games back in January of 2010. 

Looking at Family Games , this is a wonderful book, 380 pages of commentary by some of the top minds in the game industry  (Richard Garfield, Steve Jackson, Kenneth Hite, James Ernest, Robin Laws) on what each feels is one of the most enjoyable and most cleverly designed games from the last one hundred years. Some of the choices are unsurprising.  Lewis Pulsipher picks Blockus and Will Hindmarch chooses Cranium.  However, there are a number of rather surprising choices as well.  James Ernest opts for Candy Land as a game that appeals to both 3 year olds and professional game designers, while Dale Donovan picks The Omega Virus, which Milton Bradley released in 1992 (and I remember seeing under the arm of every other attendee at that year’s GENCON) for a design that’s “so absorbing, so immersive, so well conceived that it gets right under a player’s skin”. Other games chosen include Clue, Great Dalmuti, Magi-Nation and Faery’s Tale Deluxe.  Even Monopoly has a fan in Steve Jackson, who lauds the game’s combination of skill and luck as well as the fact that it has one of the first official expansions for a board game, Stock Exchange, which released in 1936 and the first electron expansion for a boardgame, Monopoly Playmaster, released in 1982.

We did not bring Family Games in to sell though, we brought it in as a sales tool.  It now has “Sales Copy” written prominently across the cover and a store stamp inside and sits on the reading table with other materials for customers to browse through.  It’s the sort of book a customer can’t help but pick up and flip through, to both see what others have said about their own favorite games and to learn about games they never knew existed.  We plan to use it and the Hobby Games:  The 100 Best book as “silent salespeople”.  So far, we have already had two people flipping through Family Games and we only put the book out less than an hour ago.

New Stuff from Palladium

You know what must have frozen over because here's a press release from Palladium Books, announcing new releases:

Coming in November

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PLB802-E Rifts: WB1 Vampire Kingdoms Revised Ed. $24.95 SRP	PLB876 Rifts: Megaverse in Flames $24.95 SRP
Kevin Siembieda is reorganizing, tweaking, expanding and updating one of the most popular Rifts® World Books ever published: Vampire Kingdoms™. This will include some new artwork and an expanded page count. The book will be updated and expanded in much the same way as Kevin did with Rifts® Sourcebook One a few years ago. Best of all, it will be accompanied by the Rifts® Vampires Sourcebook.	The Minion War™ spills across Rifts Earth, and life will never be quite the same. Demons and infernals try to recruit allies and use the Rifts as dimensional gateways of destruction. Their influence shakes things up across the planet, especially at locations where demons and Devils already have a strong presence. More details to follow, but for now, ‘nuff said.! Soulmancer and Blood Magic.! The Seven Deadly Plagues.! The Demon Plagues across the globe.! Battleground: Earth – as demons and infernals amass their legions.! Rifts Calgary – also known as Hell’s Pit; the kingdom described. ! Ciudad de Diablo, Harpies’ Island and other notable Hell holes on Earth.! Lord Doom, Pain and other demonic leaders.! Horune treachery, Dimension Stormers and other villains.! Global chaos and the places most dramatically affected by the Demon Plagues.