Teenaged Mutant Ninja TUrtles and Other STrangeness: Any good?

[turkishproverb]

I have the opportunity to buy the Pallidum Ninja turtles game at the moment, and was wondering if I could get anyone's opinion of it before I did. Is it worth playing?

[Bhu]

Palladium has some system issues, but overall its fun. For example you can fire an Uzi full auto into a car windshield and not break it because it has too much SDC. And depending on how your PC's make their characters they could gimp themselves.

Also keep in mind its based on the more serious comics than the kiddie tv show/movies.

But all that aside you can play mutant bunnies. It's worth putting up with stuff for that

[turkishproverb]

Palladium has some system issues, but overall its fun. For example you can fire an Uzi full auto into a car windshield and not break it because it has too much SDC. And depending on how your PC's make their characters they could gimp themselves.

Also keep in mind its based on the more serious comics than the kiddie tv show/movies.

But all that aside you can play mutant bunnies. It's worth putting up with stuff for that

I've read most of the origional series, and I'm well aware of the differences.


I didn't know Palladium was that bad, any other opinions?

[Riffington]

I played it and enjoyed it.
The system is terrible. The ideas are fun.
If you like to play your games "as is", then you'll find it broken. If you like to gloss over the dumb rules or to graft bits and pieces of different games together, then this one contains some neat ideas. Mix with "Ninjas and Superspies" (similar* system) for extra goodness.


*Yes, this is the series of games where they'll tweak the success rate of even the "climb" skill between books for no apparent reason.

[bosssmiley]

The Bio-E character species generation system is a minor work of genius. The rest of the mechanics...not so much.

System ropiness (the same that afflicts Palladium FRPG & Rifts) can be forgiven for any game that has murderous psionic Care Bears and alien space Triceratops villains.

[Vortling]

The character creation system is awesome. The rest of it works alright, but you need a DM who won't follow the rules to the letter. Personally I've had a lot of fun with it.

[Jayabalard]

The Bio-E character species generation system is a minor work of genius. The rest of the mechanics...not so much.

I agree; I've always liked the TMNT&OS character generation.

[Ralfarius]

I discovered I (inexplicably) had this book in my possession one day. Though I don't have any opportunity to play it, I shall treasure it always. TMNT was one of my first, and greatest obsessions in this life.

Also, I'll have to +1 everything being said about character creation and the shortcomings of the system. All things considered, I'd say it comes out ahead in sheer awesomeness.

[LibraryOgre]

TMNT&OS is a fantastic game. Many of the problems that arose later in the system aren't there yet.

And, yes, he's not kidding about the homicidal psychic Care Bears!

[turkishproverb]

TMNT&OS is a fantastic game. Many of the problems that arose later in the system aren't there yet.

And, yes, he's not kidding about the homicidal psychic Care Bears!

I think I saw mini's of those once.

[Badgerish]

It's on decent system, but old. It needs an open mind when playing it and interpreting the rules. I've got lots of good memories of TMNT&OS and After-the-bomb (TMNT+Mad Max)


Make sure all the players are on the same level in viewpoint (if one want the challenge of fitting into society with a snout, and another just wants to beat up monsters, then you will have a problem. The system can do both styles though)

Make sure all the players are on the same level stats/random rolls. There are a lot of random rolls in char-gen, it's possible to roll up two characters from the same mutant base, getting an utter combat-badass on one side and a feeble child on the other.

BIO-E is a nice and simple system, they even give you instructions on how it works so you can make your own animals. natural armor = utter awesome, watch out if you have a mixed group of mutants, some with natural armor and some without.

SDC/hitpoints is an ok model for damage, apart from how no single-hit will kill anyone (even sniper rifles) although bursts from automatic weapons can gut anything with good rolls

the palladium skills system... well, less said about that the better. also, leveling up advances your skills a little and your combat skills a little... that's all. A 1st lvl with high stats will destroy a 5th lvl with medium stats or a 10th lvl with low stats

[Crazy_Uncle_Doug]

I'd snatch that puppy up in a blink of an eye. I used to play this game all the time when I was younger.

Original TMNT actually predates the SDC rules, so you don't deal with that as much. I first remember SDC from playing the Robotech game, where rules were needed to determine whether that soldier's handheld pistol could do anything to your veritech fighter or not. (Simple rule: It won't.)

It's not the smoothest of systems, but overall in theme and gameplay we enjoyed it.

[alexi]

Mr. Doug,
I think you are confusing sdc/mdc

[Wolf53226]

I'm actually a big fan of the Palladium games, I find that they can fit just about any play style with out much issue, although as others say, there are part you just make up as go because the rules are either broken or idiotic. TMNT&OS was a game I played a ton as a teen with my friends, we added in Heroes Unlimited, and Ninja's and Superspies since they are, for all intent, the same rule set, but adding in anything with MDC like Robotech or Rifts quickly breaks the game down.

My one warning is just like what others have said, you need a GM/DM that is willing and able to make rulings and house rules on the fly, because you can very easily try to do some things that just are covered well in the rules, but make perfect sense to do.

[Fhaolan]

I found that chargen was good, but it needs a bit of a boost from other Paladium rule-sets, especially Ninja and Superspies, but a bit of Heroes Unlimited can be useful.

The actual running of the game is a bit... odd. There are funky little glitches all over the place, and if your gaming group is the kind to get bogged down in loopholes and rule exploits, you'll have problems. You're better off if your group likes glossing over stuff like that.

The last time I played this game, we called it 'Teenage Mutant Army Cats', as our group decided to use a base roll for backgrounds and species, and then build individual characters from that basis. It's one of the options for chargen, I think. We got cats, and a military background. My character was built as a 'reporter' (paperwork specialist), martial artist, and as the official leader of the group. We had a mechanical expert, a heavy weapons expert, and a close-combat expert as the other three characters, but all characters were trained and currently employed military. They were an experimental special forces anti-terrorist group being run out of a decomissioned missile silo complex somewhere in the midwest US.

Unfortunately, the game fell apart, but it was very fun at the time.

[joe]

I would say its worth picking up, but the rules are indeed hard to follow. I've played in it once (which was a fun time) annd attempted to run a game (though I gave up after trying to figure out the rules system.)

As said above, the Bio-E system for character generation is amazing.

I'd say it's worth picking up, though if you have difficulty with the rules, you might want to convert to another system before playing, just to save you headache. (GURPS or d20 Modern comes to mind.)

[turkishproverb]

I would say its worth picking up, but the rules are indeed hard to follow. I've played in it once (which was a fun time) annd attempted to run a game (though I gave up after trying to figure out the rules system.)

As said above, the Bio-E system for character generation is amazing.

I'd say it's worth picking up, though if you have difficulty with the rules, you might want to convert to another system before playing, just to save you headache. (GURPS or d20 Modern comes to mind.)

Doesn't pallidum sue over that?

[Jayabalard]

I don't see how they could; it's not like you're going to be publishing the game that you're playing.

As far as GURPS goes... it is generally pretty simple to use source books from other games as long as you're mostly using them for fairly broad concepts... so it's not so much conversion as just becoming a fluff sourcebook.

[turkishproverb]

I don't see how they could; it's not like you're going to be publishing the game that you're playing.

As far as GURPS goes... it is generally pretty simple to use source books from other games as long as you're mostly using them for fairly broad concepts... so it's not so much conversion as just becoming a fluff sourcebook.

good point. besides, it occurs to me that Pallidum did lose the turtles lisence anyway.

[LibraryOgre]

Palladium asks people not to convert their games to another system, and not to convert other's IPs to their system. It's part of their Internet Policy, which is fairly clearly stated. And they didn't lose the Turtles license... they chose not to renew it.