#205 – Physical Skills and the Skill Tax

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Yeah.

This episode's discussion topic was recently inspired by forum. Discord user Josh, who had posted a question: What does everybody think about the boxing skill tags? And that, I felt, was a great encouragement to have a much longer discussion on the physical skills, their roles in the Palladium games, and our thoughts on how to better manage them and implement them, adjudicate them. To explain the original question, boxing is a skill in Palladium that characters can take during character creation or later as one of their electives, or shall we say OCC-related skills, if their class allows it, and many do. The boxing skill gives you one extra attack per melee, action point if we're using my own way to look at attacks. And it also gives you a bonus to strength, I think. So that's the only skill that does this. And it's, it's in the core book and it's freely available. And it's one of those things where people think that having an extra attack per melee is extremely valuable. Therefore, its presence almost exists as a sort of skill tax. Like, If you can afford it, you buy it. That's the premise behind the original question. So folks, what do you think of the original question before we go into the greater details on physical skills themselves?

As someone who's played a lot of characters that don't get access to boxing, I realized this has never been a thing in my head because I've played a lot of casters, some of the psychics. Those are my preferred OCCs. And they don't get access to boxing in any way. Explicitly, it's called out, except for boxing, acrobatics, gymnastics, you know, wrestling sometimes. And so I never looked at it that way. Now, running a 19-year-long MUX where people built characters, boxing showed up a lot with anyone who was playing a physical character.

So Buckley, when you do play a character that doesn't have that exclusion, I am one of the weird ones.

I don't always take it depending on what I'm doing with that character. I know, look at me funny.

I don't believe you. I will.

I'll bring my receipts and show them to you. I may take it later, but at character creation, because of just the way I play my characters, I don't often take it. Though again, it's rare for me to play a strictly physical character. I tend to play builders. I tend to play thinkers. And that extra action. I'm also like, I want mechanical engineering or I can take boxing. I can't take both.

Hmm.

I'm going to take mechanical engineering.

Why can't you take both? Do you only get one skill choice?

Well, depending on the skills that I have, right? Like when it comes down to it, uh, I really want to go look at previous character that I played with you and see if I took it. Cause I don't know if I did.

I, you might not. I don't know.

But, um, but that was a diff— that was, uh, the complete role-playing game of Chaos Earth. So it may not have even been consideration.

I, it depends which Palladium game we're playing. I, for instance, when I'm playing TMNT and other strangeness, I usually make a point of taking boxing for most characters. But that's the sort of game it is. When I played Heroes Unlimited, it literally depends on which sort of character I'm playing. Then we get into a huge side rant regarding boxing and ninjas and super spies that I am not even going to go down that rabbit hole, um, and why it makes zero sense. But—

But one extra attack per melee in an action game.

Yeah, a skill that should fundamentally not be there is the issue.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, the, you know, a lot of people classify it as a must-have skill, and, you know, it all depends. I mean, I would recommend anyone who is of the mindset that you absolutely positively have to take boxing Go back and listen to our episodes around Robotech with Kevin Zumbita and listen to how he approaches what he was thinking when he designed the game, the, the different roles in combat that different classes can take and that sort of thing.

Mm-hmm.

And open yourself up to at least thinking about that line of thinking Before you lock in hard on the, everybody should take it no matter what?

My viewpoint on it is personally, for me, it's not a character choice. It's a player thing because boxing gives you one extra opportunity to interact with the game that you're playing in action time mode. It's, it's as if you were playing a board game and that board game, you've got a thing that was like, you get an extra turn. That's what boxing does. It gives you an extra turn. Now, if you read it as written in the book, they call them attacks, and that is misleading. As at least as of Rifts, they're not just attacks. And most of the way that Palladium has been run by many people, including Kevin, is that your attacks per melee are also your actions per melee. You have to spend an attack to use the radio. You have to spend an attack to drive the car. You have to spend an attack to interact with the strange magical relic that might open the way while everyone else is shooting the bad guys. You have to spend an attack to cast a spell. You get a number of psionic actions based on your attacks per melee. Therefore, It's not just an attack. It is your ability to play the game. In my opinion, that's how I see it. If I have boxing available, I take it. Even if my character isn't a physical character, you don't have to be physical to make use of an extra action when time is crucial.

So I've taken this and gone further. than a lot of the players. In one of the Rifters, and I wish I could remember which one it was, they add a whole bunch of mental equivalent physical skills.

Oh yeah.

And after running games for a long time with the complaints that would show up, hey, I'm a mage, I'm not gonna know how to box you fast, but I should be able to figure out how to cast an extra spell or a round or whatever. Again, that action point economy that you're talking about And I, and I eventually agreed with them and we incorporated some of the mental skills. So you ended up with basically the mental version of boxing where it gives you an extra action. Now, did it, did we differentiate a physical versus mental? No, we just basically knew that the people who were playing casters or psionics were probably going to use a spell or a psionic with that extra action. Did they have to? No. Do you have to use that extra attack with boxing as a punch?

No.

No, it just gives you the ability to do more. So I kind of doubled down on it even more and gave other characters the opportunity to take these skills. And it actually extrapolated even further with mental skills that would give you bonuses to your mental attributes.

You could take it a step further and be like, you know, well, boxing gives you an extra action, but shouldn't chess or Go? Like, these are games. These are skills of the mind that keep you thinking multiple actions ahead. how best to represent that than just give you another action.

Maybe not chess, but speed chess. The speed chess skill, as opposed to the chess skill, might give you an extra action.

It is Palladium. There would be different skills for each.

Yes, there would. I will say that as someone who literally does not care about this argument at all, it's a personal choice thing. It's whatever. When I have had groups at the table who have strong feelings about it, My answer has always been, fine, we're locking down boxing. You get one additional hand-to-hand only attack per round. Bum, done. I'm done with this argument. Let's go.

That's the way that I do it when I run, is that boxing gives you a punch or a dodge. That's it. It doesn't give you a spell. It doesn't give you a psionic thing. It simply gives you one opportunity to left hook somebody or Or that's it because that it's, it's all physical motion. It's dodging and punching. That's what boxing is, dodging and punching. So that's what I let them do.

I'll even let you use your special kick attack because kickboxing is a thing.

Well, kickboxing is its own skill, mind you.

It depends on which area you want.

Well, you're starting to get on some of the other skills that give you special attacks as per part of the skill, you know, wrestling. Gives you a takedown pin. I have never seen it used in any game I've ever played.

Dude, I've never used it. I want to say takedown, body block, tackle is the most overused attack in our ongoing Rifts campaign.

Really?

Yeah. Oh my God.

Okay.

I will say like, it's busted, broken, and effective.

See, but you need a natural 18, 19, or 20 to do it.

You should reread the rules on body block and tackle and all of that stuff.

Oh, body block and tackle, but pin and incapacitate. Those are the ones that I've never seen used.

Sorry.

Body block. Okay.

And once you get body block tackle, technically the person's prone. Read the combat rules for prone, then look at pin incapacitate. Yep. Yeah. No, I— so here's the thing. Whereas I don't care two cents about the multi-decade meta-contextual conversation around boxing, wrestling's the one I always will take just because it's the only way in the Palladium system to actually tackle somebody. Which is far, far more important, I've found, than being able to punch one more time around.

Yeah. Body block tackle is, is OP. It's pretty broken. It's, it's, it is a wonderful move.

Yeah.

And the body slam, body block, the takedowns. Once you read them and you're like, oh, oh, oh. And then you realize, and then you read the rules on what losing the initiative actually means.

Oh yeah. Yeah.

It's a lot more heinous than just those words. Oh, they lose the initiative. You might think, oh, okay. I go, what? No, not just that, buddy.

Yeah. Losing initiative is sort of Big deal in Palladium. This is very true.

And someone who used to be involved in grappling sports and mixed martial arts and did all that, like, perhaps it's my own lived experience, but going like, wrestling's far more important because, you know, the reality is you punch somebody with a gun in the face, they will struggle, but if they're suddenly on the ground, things get a lot more difficult.

As somebody who has witnessed many many, many fights in high school mostly, but also on the streets of Atlanta. Uh, I've just witnessed— oh, in college, also in wrestling. This is how physical fights go. Somebody throws a jab and then they get tackled and then they lose.

Yeah.

Like, it almost always goes to whoever can tackle the other person first. Fights— so boxing matches happen that way. in a controlled environment in a ring where you are penalized if you do anything other than box. But in reality, if you're fighting somebody, even if it's a hand-to-hand fight, you're not going to just stand there face to face trading blows. No, someone's going for the gut and then they're going to take you down and then pound your face into the ground.

Like, that's—

so wrestling, 100% best physical skill.

Now admittedly, in, in Full reality, let's just lay it out there that the number of people I saw in real life who went for a takedown because they weren't aware of their environment and then proceeded to get curb stomped by the person's 2 buddies, not insignificant.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Strength in numbers. Yeah, it's—

let's just say that once you go beyond just that, I get an extra action and look at what other skills give you, There's ways to go that can get you off the chain fast, especially when Palladium started moving and adding more attribute bonuses to a lot of other physical skills.

Well, when OCC started adding attribute bonuses and you start showing up, it helps balance out some of the, I have to go take physical skills in character creation or else I just don't get them. I will say I've only infrequently run into someone who's actually been trained in boxing, like truly a boxer. Now, I completely agree that if you have someone who's the equal level of, let's say, Brazilian jiu-jitsu or Brazilian jiu-jitsu and is a good grappler versus a boxer, the boxer has a very limited window that they will do bad things to that person. And then the boxer loses. So I agree from that. But in a real-world scenario, that's not necessarily what we're talking about. But real-world boxing isn't just kind of throwing some jabs. It's throwing really fast combos and really having some really good footwork.

But again, but again, you go down to the ground, it— there's rules.

Yeah. Yeah.

Honestly, the one thing I've always thought is if you really, really have an issue with boxing, strip out the extra +1 attack and add a pretty heinous roll with punch bonus to it. And you have something.

So they can take a hit basically really well. Yeah.

I would say take out the extra attack and instead just add like +3 to strike with unarmed attacks.

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, no, that's fine.

I mean, you do get a good size bonus to parry and dodge. Um, you get some SDC, you get some strength bonus. Uh, hold on. I have it right over here. Uh, and, oh, but only a +1 to roll with impact and punch, which has always seemed weird to me because boxers half of what they're doing is learning how to take a hit.

Oh yeah.

And so take that roll with punch. It's about physical impact and you can mitigate the physical impact with a roll from that. Although again, I don't see a lot of people using that in games, but it is there. So I kind of liked that idea if you wanted to tweak boxing.

Yeah, definitely. Uh, as someone who is with gloves and headwear, uh, taking a hit from a Golden Gloves boxer, That he had me dead to rights cold on the money. Uh, me and reality were not on speaking terms for a minute and a half. Uh, and then it was kind of a slow crawl back from there. So yeah, definitely.

Suddenly all makes sense.

The number of concussions I have had in my life is in the dozens.

So other physical skills, we've mentioned wrestling. Wrestling is another one of the big ones that can only be taken as, as a primary elective OCC-related skill. Neither boxing nor wrestling can be taken as secondary skills. Acrobatics and gymnastics, which I think by the numbers gymnastics is superior to acrobatics by what it gives you in the long term.

I agree. That's why there are classes that you can take only acrobatics and not gymnastics. I've always thought that the fact that they're separate is kind of silly. Well, but I understand what they're going for, right? Gymnastics is more your classical all-around gymnastics. Acrobatics is your tumbler, right? The person— yeah, exactly right. Um, if we're talking about revamping things, I would make them the same thing. I, I'd mush them in together and get rid of all those, those infuriating secondary abilities that you get that you never track. Parallel bars, parallel bars, uneven bars, you know. I would get rid of all of those. I understand again, that seems to me like someone looked at the Acrobat in the Unearthed Arcana in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and said, I want to make this in Palladium. I don't think that's what happened, but that kind of felt that way.

The first appearance of the Acrobat in Palladium, I believe, was in Adventures on the High Seas, which is Fantasy Book 3 in 1st edition. And in that you had the Acrobat/Tumbler OCC, which was technically 2 classes. But they use the same template. One of them got acrobatics and one of them got tumbling, which were functioned as different skills, but they both had some pretty heinous bonuses. But in that game, those were exclusive skills for those classes. No one else could take acrobatics or tumbling but the acrobat or the tumbler. And I thought that was pretty cool because really what it meant was this really isn't a physical skill. This is an OCC bonus. And I also get the skill that lets me do cool shit.

Yeah. And that makes a lot of sense in the 1st edition Palladium Fantasy game. There's a lot of it different, right? The other thing that comes along with acrobatics and gymnastics, it's the stealth way to pick up a 2nd skill called Prowl.

Well, to pick up a base ability, it doesn't go up.

It doesn't go up, but it's, if you're running out of skills and you want both and you want the bonuses, I, that I will say boxing.

And folks, remember you can take Prowl as a secondary skill though.

Yes, you can.

Yes. So if you have acrobatics and gymnastics, both of them give you a bonus to Prowl. So you take Prowl as a secondary skill and then you get the Prowl bonus.

That's right. So yeah, we want to stack it all up.

Yep.

And you could take it later.

Mm-hmm.

So there's smaller secondary skills like athletics or aerobic athletics. Outdoorsman, I think, has one. Uh, bodybuilding.

Bodybuilding.

They give you minor bonuses.

Yep.

Which again, you can take all of these skills as secondary skills. So it's strongly suggested when you're building a character, if that's the way you want to go, take those skills as secondary skills.

Yeah, absolutely. Don't waste them unless you get them for free. Don't waste them in OCC-related. You just—

opinions aside, physical skills are a fantastic way of taking a weak character Regardless of your character class and making them a little more survivable because that added SDC bonus that you get from them is not trivial, especially if you're playing in a game without MDC. So you in a Dead Rain game, Beyond the Supernatural, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Absolutely.

Any of the games, Nightbane, any of the ones that don't have MDC. Every extra bit of SDC that you can get is, is a game changer. It, it is equalizer.

If you're in a melee game, every bit of extra PS means you're hitting more damage. You're hitting, you have a higher strike, you know.

Yep.

Or should we just— more damage.

And as a mage, that means one less chance of a bullet instantly killing you.

Yep. Uh, the finding PP bonuses Is quite lacking. There's only a couple of skills that give you any PP bonus, but physical prowess in Palladium system is an incredibly powerful attribute, right?

Yes, very much so.

Hands down. Um, running is actually one of my favorite ones.

4d4 to speed.

Because I, I roll like shit and I'm always sitting there looking at my 8 speed going, you know what? I at least, maybe I can break 10. I at least can break 10 by rolling 4d4.

4d4, that extra bonus. I've got that skill memorized, but I get it for every single character simply because that extra 4d4.

You get a PE, +1 PE, 4d4 speed, and a d6 SDC, right? Like, again, it's not a lot, but every little bit helps in a non-MDC world.

So I will make a note though. I haven't looked the spell up in a long time in 2nd edition or Rifts, but in 1st edition, Fantasy, there's a spell called Fleet Feet. Fleet Feet doubles your attacks per melee.

What?

So you take boxing, it's now 2 extra attacks per melee.

I do not think that this is a Rift spell.

It's probably not, but in 1st edition, that spell— most of the 1st edition spells, I must note, are broken. That's why it's so metal.

Okay, someone note it down. You have mentioned a spell that I have never heard of And it's because I've never played Palladium Fantasy and I've definitely never played 1st edition Palladium Fantasy. I now must go find this spell to break every game that I play afterwards.

Yep. So after this, we'll look it up and see if it's in 2nd edition. By the point that listeners are hearing this, we'll have already answered this question for ourselves, folks, but you are still free to join in the discussion in our Discord and be like, actually, no. We welcome it. Please bring that conversation right back around. It's cyclical.

Call us on our shenanigans.

So opinions on physical skills. Do you like them?

I like them and I will double down. I'll bring in the mental skills because just I, as someone who rolls horribly, regardless of dice, regardless of system, regardless of anything. I want the ability to at least try to offset that, those dice rolls a little bit at character creation. But then again, I'm also much more a point system. Like I'd love to redo Palladium with the point system, but that's why I like them. And for all their downsides, I can, I can accept them.

I am totally in favor of physical skills because one of the things I often hold against other game systems Is they make assumptions like things like rappelling or actually jumping long distances or a lot of other physical activities are far simpler to learn than they actually fucking are. And the fact that you have to make some really intentional choices to learn how to climb, which, guess what, it's reality. It's one thing if you're scaling a 12-foot-tall tree when you're a kid and have poor neuro-pain connection, becomes another when you're a teenager and an adult. I love the skill, the physical skill system in Palladium, especially the non-attribute, non-attack, non-mechanistic giving you things portions of that.

So what do you think about the other part of that? Because all the skills that you mentioned, 100%. Are the non-attribute skills, right? So what do you think about the concept of the physical skills being there to juke up your stats after creation?

I mean, and with that, first of all, it fundamentally makes sense to me. Mm-hmm. Period. Like, I— it's not a thing I have a huge issue wrapping my head around. It's like neurophysiological muscle-mind connection improves both. So skills that give attributes make all the sense in the world. And we can quibble over exactly how big a bonus some things are, like running being 4d4 might be a little on the high side for some people. But at the end of the day, I don't care. It's oftentimes the people who go deep in the physical skills are characters Who conceptually are people who would go deep in the physical skills. Like, the reality is, is that if I'm a goddamn electrical engineer, I am not gonna be anywhere near as physically capable as the Delta Force operator next to me who has boxing and acrobatics and running, and because that's literally what they've done with their life.

So there's this complaint that I hear a lot, and that is, Glitter Boy is just a one-trick pony. He just has his armor and he just shoots his gun. That's it. Yeah, that's because you spent all 7 of your starting skills on physical skills to boost your attacks. The reason your character has no personality is because you have no skills. You chose to have no skills. You chose to only focus on killing things. That one-trick pony only has one trick because you only bought one trick. That's my problem with physical skills. They encourage minimization, that laser focus that I feel cheapens characters and makes them less interesting. Fewer things for you to do. When a player comes and they sit down and they've brought this combat character and then I run a game and the game has a lot of things to do that aren't combat and that player is bored, I'm like, well, you built a character for combat and I don't blame you. The system allows it. It allows you to do this. It allows you to sacrifice 7 possible choices to make your character interesting. Instead, you chose to make your character kill better. Yeah.

I mean, that still leaves open a world of role-playing opportunities. I'm gonna hearken back to Ninjas and Super Spies and compare the dedicated martial artist to the worldly martial artist.

Original or revised?

Either one works for this comparison.

Does it?

Yes, it does, because even, even under the revised version, the dedicated martial artist still has access to far less skills.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The difference being, in Revised, the dedicated martial artist is the only martial artist who can take ninjutsu.

Yes.

And they're— but they— that means they can't do any of the other things that ninjas do, like disguise.

Yes.

Or interact with human beings other than punching them.

Yeah.

It's broken. There is the argument relative to ninjutsu regarding that, and I will grant that. But the reality is, is that if you have these 2 characters that look superficially very similar, both of them are martial artists, both of them are physical, one is just even better at a niche role than the other is, and you can play that very well. You're the person who spent all of their life in a goddamn temple learning the ins and outs of Jeet Kune Do or whatever.

Yeah.

Whereas the other person was running around on motorcycles and actually knows how to work a handgun.

Your point is valid, but again, you know that going into those characters. It's written right there. All you can do is kill. Like, that's the character. The Glitter Boy has 7 skills options. Oh yeah, the Glitter Boy has 7 opportunities to be good at other things than killing. And when you choose not to, when you buy boxing, acrobatics, wrestling. Well, guess what? You've now spent this. Okay. Well, you only have what, 4 secondary skills for the Glitter Boy? 3?

2?

2. Okay. Bodybuilding, athletics.

Great.

Now you're even less interesting. So the thing— so, okay. My whole point with this is that the physical skills to me encourage players to do nothing but interact with the combat system. Now they're there to let you juke up your stats. Cool. That's great. Suddenly your initial stats are less important. The stats that you rolled are no longer as special. When you rolled your stats and you got that 16 for physical strength, that's supposed to be special. But now through physical skills, it's a 27. Well, that's— you didn't earn that.

You bought it.

So it's, to me, it feels Yeah. It takes away from the spirit that I got into the game with first edition. Therefore, you know, I'm biased. You roll the stats, the stats are what you have, and then you make the best of that in this world. If I include physical skills, I also include the mental skills because to me, that's the only way to excuse them. If there's going to be physical skills that do nothing but give you Stat bonuses to killing things. And there has to be a balance of additional skills that make you smarter, that make you, you know, better at doing things other than just straight up murder or not being murdered. Personally, I just take them out. All except the ones that have the percentages. Those are valuable. Climbing, very useful. Even acrobatics and gymnastics, you can just reduce that to a single Percentage. I have gymnastics at 37%. Great. Let's go with that. But I realized that I'm a bit of a pariah with this.

I can see your point and I understand the standpoint that you're going from. I think that there might be a little bit of a gamer versus game issue, perhaps. I know those players as well. I'm going to play your glitter boy. You're already stronger than you're ever going to be in your armor. So why did you just spend 4 of your 7 skills on physical abilities?

Mm-hmm.

Well, in case I get out of my armor. Are you ever getting out of your armor? Well, you're going to force me to. Yeah, eventually at some point, but I'm not going to be a dick about it constantly. You never get to use your power, your glitter boy armor, because that's what you're playing, right?

Are you good at anything else?

Right?

Like, can you repair your armor?

Do you happen to have a strange knowledge of history? Right. Are you a good cook? Maybe you actually are a better singer than you think you are, even though you only sing in the shower.

Yeah, you've taken singing twice, and so you're a professional grade singer. Um, yeah, this is why I like to have those conversations in, you know, your session zero and warn people about what type of game I'm running. If it's gonna be a schlock hack and slash kill everything, I'm gonna expect the glitter boy to have taken 7 physical skills that bunch up every possible attack bonus.

I don't want to hear them complaining.

Then I don't. But if I tell them this is going to be a mixed game, there's going to be a lot of intellectual, there's a lot of interactions, you're going to have to think your way through things. And they go, well, I can't do anything else. And I'm going to say, okay, I'm sorry, you're a jarhead tank pilot who can't ever do anything besides jarhead tank piloting. You've made your bed. Here's where you get to lay in it. And I completely see what you're saying. And I could, I don't know if I'd do it the way you're describing it, but I can 100% see why you would want to do that and basically say, no, I'm just taking this off the table.

Or, or set an allowance for any character that is martial. Be like, this is your free skill point allowance for just physical skills.

Yeah.

Okay. Just do that. Here you go. Every physical, every martial character gets 4 points of physical skills every Adventurer could get 2 free points of physical skills and then every scholar or something could get 1. However, then you take the same thing with the mental skills and you do that 4, 2, 1 kind of thing and bam.

Now I've seen, there are OCCs that do that, that tell you what you— there are not a lot of them, but there are ones you get 2 mechanical and 2 physical and then 3 whatever you want or whatever. Those are really interesting to me where they specify very specifically. It's inconsistent. I'm sure we could go through a very large analysis and figure out which writers do that more than other writers.

Buckley, I want to see the spreadsheets by next month.

No, I don't have that time. Maybe someone else has done it. But, and I can very much see what you're talking about. And I would go the whole hog. And like, okay, here's your mental skills as well.

Yeah.

But don't complain to me if you can't do anything else. You could also revamp the physical skills that they are more percentage-based, and perhaps all of them give you some sort of bonus or something like that, and tone them down more evenly. Because as we've talked about, wrestling, boxing, gymnastics, acrobatics, Those are your big 4 that are, if you are the mindset, I have to be better physically, you want all 4 of those.

I'm pretty sure I saw a rifter that turned boxing into its own hand-to-hand combat skill.

Oh, I'm sure there is one. Yeah.

That makes way more sense to me.

Like, honestly, when it comes down to the one point where I actually put more than casual thought into this. It is the point that like, why the heck do we have boxing when basically it's functionally hand-to-hand expert?

Or kickboxing. Why is that a physical skill and not a full 15-level combat skill?

Right, right. I mean, that's—

Well, and why doesn't kickboxing give you an extra attack? It's boxing with kicking. Right, right.

Legs slow you down, dude.

I'm going to introduce you to a few Muay Thai fighters and they will inform you otherwise.

Um, I, regarding the whole, and this often revolves around Glitter Boys, the whole discussion.

Well, I think the Glitter Boy is the example of character in the main Rifts book that is like the damage dealer.

Exactly. Uh, there was a guy I used to co-GM with a lot. who was even more uncharitable on the issue than I am. Uh, Brian, this is a shout out to you. I know you actually listen. Um, and his takeaway was, uh, if you're whining about the need to take those physical skills, maybe sit down and have a hard look at yourself on your roleplaying because literature, film, whatever, is filled with these what on the surface appears to be one-faceted Killmonger characters who bring so much to the game because of their ability to roleplay.

Mm-hmm.

And maybe look at expanding your abilities and skill set at that if you really, really feel that you're being forced into only taking physical skills.

Dolph Lundgren.

Uh-huh. The man who, like, looks like a goddamn meathead but has a master's in organic chemistry and is a master at subtle body language acting.

Yeah, he spent one of his skills on chemistry.

Yeah, exactly. So, and again, I think this really does come down to The gamer versus the game. How is the gamer going to be playing that game? And does the game stop you from making bad decisions?

It doesn't.

It doesn't.

And it shouldn't. It shouldn't.

I agree. Absolutely. Palladium also, Palladium has a list of horrible decisions that you can select.

Oh yeah.

And it, and it, it pretty much says, hey, hey, hey, pick me, pick me. It won't ever go wrong. I'm boxing. Boxing's awesome. Boxing will always make you better. Yeah, until you have to talk your way out of dying, and then boxing does not make you better in any way, shape, or form.

You know, I— and don't get me wrong here, the existence of the political— of the political skills— of the physical skills doesn't actually bother me. I like that they're there. I like that Palladium was— Palladium, I think, was the first game that did that, that I know of, that made it so that you could like get stat juking things. And I remember as a teenager when I first saw it in Rifts, it's like This shit's fucking cool. But then I also just wanted to stab and blow things up when I was a teenager. So it worked out just fine. I just really wish they had also included the physical skills or not the physical, the mental skills. It just makes sense. You know?

Absolutely. I agree.

Yeah.

So I'm sure we'll have lots of continued conversations on physical skills. on the Discord, in forums, everywhere. I don't know if there is a definitive answer for Palladium. There's a— there's an answer though for your table.

Yeah.

And the table that you're going to run in the game you're going to run and just be consistent with how you're going to do it. And at the beginning of your session zero—

Session zero.

Tell the players, I hate physical skills. I love physical skills. I want to make these changes with physical skills and just be consistent and make sure all the players know upfront. And have that hard conversation with the one person. Hey Joe, I know you like to make Killmongers, but just to remind you, if you make the Killmonger, I run games that have talking in them. So that may not work for you if you're all Killmonger.

Yep.

You've been warned. And then move on.

There's a difference between Platoon and True Lies.

Uh, yes. Yes. My game is more True Lies than Platoon.

Yeah.

Yeah. There's even a difference between Platoon and Tigerland. For those of you who, like me, are deep in the Vietnam film genre, it's— there's ways to run the same general concept of game but have a more combat Slash Killmonger style versus a more dramatic interpersonal tension.

Yep.

And even your Killmongers can get in on the dramatic interpersonal tension action if they embrace it.

Yep. We'll make a note, at least from a mechanical standpoint, all of those bonuses to parry, dodge, and strike, you don't really need them. You only need to roll a 5 or higher to punch someone. You only need to roll an 8 or higher to shoot someone. And those strike bonuses don't even apply to your guns anyway. You only need to roll a 5 or higher to hit someone. That you've— come on. You don't need to constantly get more skills to make it. Yeah. You're already badass is what I'm saying here. Yeah.

Palladium Rifts characters specifically, you are front loaded and you're awesome. Right. So you're adding 5 to 10%. If you go whole hog, just for people that don't know the math, it's a d20 is your randomizer. So every +1 is a 5% bonus. If at most you're giving yourself a 20%, that's a +4 bonus.

Yeah.

Plus, yeah, uh, +5 bonus, excuse me. And it's hard to get a +5 bonus in anything, even if you stack up all your physical skills and you just wasted 4 or 5 physical choices for other things that could make your character a bit more interesting.

Yeah. And give you more things to do.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Take boxing though, that extra attack per melee. It's going to, going to help you out regardless of your class. Just saying.

And he undoes everything we were just talking about.

Because remember, Palladium, it's like Pearl. There's more than one way to do it.

Yes. Yes. But boxing is the only way.

I mean, so that was a whole lot of different opinions and I don't think we even answered the question. But I don't think the question can be answered.

Right. That's my point. This is a question that is incredibly highly individualized. Uh, it involves nuance, which game master, which group of players, which game, a hundred things. You know, this is one where it comes down to Kevin's rule of make it fit the table is 100% accurate.

100%.

Yep.

Make it fit the table. Do it your own way. Have fun with it. Make sure that you do it. Make sure that you lay that shit on the ground in session zero. Put it on the table and let everyone see your dirty baggage of house rules.

And for those that are running a convention game, a one-off, when you're the GM running your convention game, just put it in the character sheet. They're not going to question it because they're going to go, oh, I got 6 attacks or I got 5 attacks or whatever. They may notice that they have boxing. And bodybuilding and wrestling, but they probably won't.

Yeah.

And, and they just want to know what the end of stat block is, right? And then when you don't give anyone Radio Basic and then make them have to make Radio Basic rolls.

Oh man, you just reminded me of something that the first GM I ever played with who ran Rifts did. The first GM I ever played with who ran Rifts I had played Palladium Fantasy, so I knew how the game worked, but he was like, okay, we're gonna play Rifts. So he told us how to play, make our characters. It's like, it's okay. It's not like Palladium Fantasy, very similar, same stats. We're gonna do things a little bit differently. So here's how stats are rolled in Rifts: 3d4.

What?

I would have attributes of 4, 5, 6. That's all my attributes.

He, he did 3d4, but he wouldn't let anybody read the book.

What?

We were broke-ass gamers, so none of us had the book, right? So 3d4 and we all, oh my God, I got an 11. I'm awesome. And then we find out how shitty we are. And he wanted us to start like all like at the bottom of the barrel and work our ways up.

But you can't. Oh, yep.

Because there are no low stat penalties in the original Rifts. This was 1992. Yeah.

And in some way, This is a whole other conversation, and I'm hurting for you 20, 30 years, 40 years later.

I'm hurting for you so hard.

Oh my God. Yeah, yeah. I— there would be words. Yeah, I think the phrase is, and that's when I shot him, Your Honor.

Uh, he had it coming.

Exactly. Anyway, boxing's awesome, uh, and you should always take it.

No, boxing sucks, people. Don't take it.

And at this time we have broken Jacob again.

It's at least this— at least once per night we have to break Jacob.

Yeah.

Oh God.

I may have just gotten us a new episode idea.

Oh no.

I hope it's Cell Block Tango done in Palladium. So anyway, folks, we're going to go ahead and end things here. This has gone on for quite a long time. Join us on Discord.

Join us on Discord. Swing by our Patreon. Look up, look up our stuff at Redbubble.

Redbubble. Yeah. Get some sweet merch. Something like that blanket.

If you want to support us, you can hit us up on Ko-fi, which is a great way to help support us and, you know, buy more books basically. And right now Palladium is doing their Christmas grab bag, which is an incredible way to get all the things you never knew you wanted. And you can ask for pretty much anything. They may not give it to you, but in the past I have gotten way more than the cost of the grab bag. I think it's $65 with or without shipping, something like that.

Yeah, something. It's like $60, $65 or something. I think it's a great deal.

Historically, you've always gotten at least $100 worth of material. It's an excellent way. If you have someone that you want to get them into Palladium, you buy this for them for Christmas. You say in the notes, Hey, this is a new— this is for a new player. Give them their starter kit and they'll load them up with stuff and ask if you want it signed. I know the pain that they all go through this time of year. They're all sitting there in assembly line fashion and signing all of the books and getting them all signed.

Yeah, you will get all of your shit signed by Kevin and whoever is standing next to him at the time. Yep.

It's really kind of amazing. And sometimes If you ask for weird stuff, recon, and it shows up, you'll have signatures from people who aren't with us anymore because they'll go into their old inventory and you'll go, wait, how did this person sign this? They've been gone for 15 years. Yeah. Right. And it can be really surprising.

And given the time of year it is, and I don't really know exactly when this episode's going to launch. We might be able to ask for some Ninja Turtle stuff.

You might, absolutely.

Think about that.

That might be all you get anyway, depending on when this launches.

Yeah, see if they'll sneak in some TMNT stuff. Ask for anything, just don't be a dick about it. And let them, you know, say, hey, the Glitter Boy sent me.

I totally forgot about this.

If you—

one way to untap some of the weird and wonderful stuff you can get out of the grab bag is say, feel free to send me misprints.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

I have gotten some wonderful stuff, like proof sheets that were misprinted. I've got like, my copy of Riff's Chaos Earth is a misprint that has several pages repeated in it.

Oh wow.

But came signed.

That's where the Complete Roleplaying Game pages went.

Yes, exactly. Uh, let me tell you, it's the same 16 pages back to back to back. But I've gotten some other things that have just been fabulous that you look at them and you know they're misprints.

Also, things you might not think to ask about. Remember, Palladium does game books. They also do the Rifters, but they also do novels. They've done Machinations of Doom. They've done Tales from the Chaitown Burbs. If you haven't read those and you don't have them in your collection, because again, they're a little bit off the beaten course of Four Palladium, get those. Ask for those. Those would be great ones to get.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I can't remember— I can't recommend the Christmas Grab Bag more.

And see if, see if you can get a copy of Duty's Edge. Duty's Edge was, I think, the most recent of the novels. I forget the author's name, but he's the same guy who does the cartography in the Palladium Fantasy more recent books. He's amazing. Yeah. The earlier Palladium novels are all right. The problem is the print run was the unedited version without all of the proofreading. So there was a copy paste that went through that lost a lot of stuff.

Yeah.

And unfortunately, that's what got sent to the printers.

Oh, wow.

I think the stories are pretty good if you can overlook the editing. Yeah, they're fun, I think. Anyway, ask for some off-the-beaten-path stuff. Ask for Amber. I know he's got a stack of Amber books around there, and you might get something signed by the late, great Eric.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, I think we should start an, uh, underground campaign and ask for early tickets to the next Palladium Open House. Oh, and we get all the Glitter Boys, everyone who's listening to this podcast. When you order your grab bag, first order your grab bag and ask for early tickets to the next Palladium Open House. It hasn't been announced yet, but maybe we can. Yeah.

Yeah. No, that's— we should do that. Yep.

Yep.

Folks, if you do this, let us know because we want to keep track of how this goes. Goes down.

And if Kevin ever will do another interview with us.

I, I working on it, working on it. Uh, okay. Yeah. Let's close this out. Catch you next time, folks. Starships, magic, mystic martial arts, romance.

All of these can be found in A Cloak of Blades by Isaac Sher. You might have heard my name before.

I've done a lot of voiceover work for Breakfast Puppies. And I've recently released my first novel.

It's available on Amazon as an ebook and paperback. And you can get it for free if you have a Kindle Unlimited subscription. I do hope you'll support my work as you're supporting Breakfast Puppies. And it's been a pleasure talking with you today. Have a good one.

You've been listening to the Glitter Boys, a Palladium Books fan podcast. Glitter Boys, Rifts, the Megaverse, and all other such topics are the property of Kevin Sambita and Palladium Books.

Books.

Please buy all their stuff and help keep them in print and making more games! You can order directly at palladiumbooks.com, and their entire catalog is available digitally at DriveThruRPG as well. Our opening music is 8-Bit Bass and Lead by Furbyguy from freesound.org. This closing music is Caravana by Philip Grass, available at freemusicarchive.org. All sound effects used are self-made or acquired via Creative Commons Zero license. If you like what you have heard, find us on Twitter and Facebook as The Glitter Boys— that's B-O-I-S— and check us out online at breakfastpuppies.com/glitterboys. And also join us on the Breakfast Puppies Network Discord at breakfastpuppies.com/discord. And if you want to help us out, please spread the word and help us build a community. Thanks again for listening. We'll catch you next time. Bye.