Differences (if any?) in the art used in 1E, 1E rev and 2E

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Gwarh
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Differences (if any?) in the art used in 1E, 1E rev and 2E

Unread post by Gwarh »

How different is the artwork in the different versions/releases of the Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing game.

I am looking at maybe buying copies of all 3, but want to know is there any point in getting a 1E as well as a 1E revised copy? And how different if at all is the artwork used in the 2nd edition?
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Boethermsbrukan
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Re: Differences (if any?) in the art used in 1E, 1E rev and

Unread post by Boethermsbrukan »

Gwarh, good afternoon!

Gwarh wrote:How different is the artwork in the different versions/releases of the Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing game.

I am looking at maybe buying copies of all 3, but want to know is there any point in getting a 1E as well as a 1E revised copy? And how different if at all is the artwork used in the 2nd edition?


I don't have a copy of the first-First Edition (as in the corebook with Kevin's red-on-black 'Hydra Fight' on the front); I've seen one (weirdly enough, owned by a student in the high-school library when I was a student in the first half of the 1990s) but have never had a peek inside one. As far as I understand it, it's one or both of two things, here in Toronto, anyway: 1) Very scarce and 2) (in good condition) Expensive. It's a collector's item amongst the few gamers I know IRL here; usually if someone has a copy they've had it for better than thirty years (as in bought brand-new in the early 1980s) or inherited it from someone in said position.

I do have a copy of the Revised 1st (with the Kevin Long dragon vs. Pegasus-riding knight on the cover), the printing of which I believe dates from 1991 or so...just checked. Yeah, June 1991, 9th Printing. It would've been new when I got it, and I'm pretty sure I remember when I picked it up (late 1991). The vast majority of the artwork was by Kevin Siembieda and a fellow by the name of Michael Kuchiarski, who went on to do nearly all of the interior artwork for Erick Wujcik's Phage-Press-produced Amber Diceless RPG. I have no idea what became of him after that, though. I don't believe Kevin Long's (who did the cover) work made it into a Palladium Fantasy RPG book outside of Book IV 'Adventures In The Northern Wilderness', which was out in 1989 (I think that was one of the first Palladium Books I'd ever bought, second, I think. The first one was the Revised 'Monsters & Animals' from the late 1980s.).

When Palladium Fantasy got its Second Edition in 1996 (have a copy of this one, too), a whole lot of artists who'd been doing work for Palladium in Rifts and in the Rifter whipped up a whole lot of new artwork for it. Even Kevin S. redid (in some cases) and drew new work for the book, alongside the writing duties. The cover art and several interior drawings were done by a British (I believe) artist named Mark McKenna, whose artwork I first saw in an English supernatural anthology called 'The Mammoth Book Of Werewolves' a couple of years before that. An artist whose work I first saw in the 'old' World Of Darkness books, Scott Johnson, did quite a few pieces of artwork in the PFRPG Second Edition, along with a number of pictures by Vince Martin and R.K. Post, both of whom at the time had done quite a bit of work in Rifts, and Post was one of the most significant contributors to Nightbane's visual inception. A good dozen pictures the aforementioned Michael Kuchiarski had done for Palladium's 1st Edition (Revised) made it in, along with several of Kevin Siembieda's pieces from 1st Ed. Revised, too.

I admit to being a bit jealous that you've got a lead on an original 1st Ed. corebook! ^_^ Cheers, ami, and I hope I've done some decent informing!

-Boe.
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kiralon
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Re: Differences (if any?) in the art used in 1E, 1E rev and

Unread post by kiralon »

Im pretty sure the red and black and Pegasus versions have the same pics, in fact a lot of them were recycled and used in second ed. Ill have a look later.
The rarest first ed book for me has been first ed adventures on the high seas, only got one of those.
https://www.amazon.com/Palladium-Role-P ... RHDN7VG5HX

However drive thru rpg has the first ed book as a pdf
http://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/ ... um-Fantasy
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Re: Differences (if any?) in the art used in 1E, 1E rev and

Unread post by drewkitty ~..~ »

the common Fairies have clothes
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Re: Differences (if any?) in the art used in 1E, 1E rev and

Unread post by Prysus »

Gwarh wrote:How different is the artwork in the different versions/releases of the Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing game.

I am looking at maybe buying copies of all 3, but want to know is there any point in getting a 1E as well as a 1E revised copy? And how different if at all is the artwork used in the 2nd edition?

Greetings and Salutations. While I've never read them from cover to cover, I'm fairly sure 1E and 1E Revised are effectively the same book. I know by 3rd Printing (still black and red cover) the word "Revised" had already appeared on the cover. I believe this started with the 2nd Printing, but I don't believe I've ever had a copy to confirm this theory. Effectively the "revised" on the cover indicates the made a change, but could be as small as fixing a typo or altering the layout ever so slightly. However, I can take my 1st Edition 1st Printing (black and red cover) and my Revised 12th Printing (knight riding a Pegasus), open them up to the same page number, and probably find the wording nearly identical (unless I happen to open it up to the Insanity table, though that's only going to be a small difference).

Second Edition changed a lot of rules, and there's a fair bit of art difference as well. While some might be the same (I'm guessing the World Map, for example, is probably the same, but I didn't double check), I think a majority is different. The images in the racial write-ups come to mind as being mostly different, as well as the various artwork in the O.C.C. sections that I can recall. Hope some of that helps. Farewell and safe journeys for now.
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Boethermsbrukan
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Re: Differences (if any?) in the art used in 1E, 1E rev and

Unread post by Boethermsbrukan »

Kiralon, good afternoon!

kiralon wrote:...The rarest first ed book for me has been first ed adventures on the high seas, only got one of those.
https://www.amazon.com/Palladium-Role-P ... RHDN7VG5HX


No kidding? Dude, that's kind of cool; I haven't a copy of either Book II (Old Ones) or III for the 2nd Edition, but I do have both the 1st Ed of each. I think Book III (1st Edition) was the first time I'd seen a Stephen Hickman cover (aside from a whole mess of fantasy and sci-fi novel covers, he's done almost every Man-Kzin Wars novel cover I have, as well as a couple of other novels out in the 'library hallway'), period; I don't know if he's done much in the way of RPG book covers at all outside of Adventures On The High Seas, 1st Edition. I had no idea how prolific the fellow's work was (and had been for some time, even twenty years back and beforehand) when I bought Book III, until and after I started buying a lot of science-fiction novels in the early 1990s.

-Boe.
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Boethermsbrukan
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Re: Differences (if any?) in the art used in 1E, 1E rev and

Unread post by Boethermsbrukan »

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:the common Fairies have clothes


"Wash day tomorrow! Nothing clean, right?" Hee, Terminator 1 quote. Back on topic, tho': do you mean in later editions of the PFRPG, various Faerie Races were depicted wearing clothing, but not in the 1st Edition? I'm reasonably sure that most of those races with anything approaching anthropoid, er, equipment, were clothed in the copy of 1st Edition Revised I have (a pair of striped shorts for the Brownie, full human-wise clothing for the Spriggan, if my memory serves for those two). I think the Toadstool (the rather unpleasant toadstool-and-poison-plant eating faerie who also enjoys devouring more attractive fellow faeries) was depicted as wearing no clothing, but I think that was mostly for effect: they really weren't the sort of creature to be accomodating to anyone else's sensibilities or comfort.

-Boe.
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kiralon
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Re: Differences (if any?) in the art used in 1E, 1E rev and

Unread post by kiralon »

Well I haven't read any of those except maybe treasure planet, and I had no idea who the artist was for the pic on the front. I was more of a keith Parkinson, Larry Elmore Jeff Easley, and Clyde Caldwell fan. (Still am I guess).

Out here the palladium books were never easy to get, and it only got harder.

In the black and red first ed book most of the fairies have clothes but the page with the wind puff and tree sprite the pics there have the fairies naked, and the Pegasus rider cover has the same pic.
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Boethermsbrukan
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Re: Differences (if any?) in the art used in 1E, 1E rev and

Unread post by Boethermsbrukan »

Kiralon, good morning!

kiralon wrote:Well I haven't read any of those except maybe treasure planet, and I had no idea who the artist was for the pic on the front. I was more of a keith Parkinson, Larry Elmore, Jeff Easley, and Clyde Caldwell fan. (Still am I guess).


It's all good, ami. Treasure Planet AFAIK was the latest Man-Kzin Wars offering (unless they've gotten to Book XV (Fifteen) of the main anthology since) and I'm reasonably sure the cover, sadly, was not by Stephen Hickman (it doesn't look anything like his style). BTW, Clyde Caldwell did do at least one piece of work for a Palladium RPG: the cover to Palladium Fantasy Book VI: Island At The Edge Of The World. ^_^

kiralon wrote:In the black and red first ed book most of the fairies have clothes but the page with the wind puff and tree sprite the pics there have the fairies naked, and the Pegasus rider cover has the same pic.


I had a feeling that's what Drewkitty meant; and it's not surprising given the timespan Palladium Fantasy covered from the 1980s to now. A lot of the first couple of editions of Dungeons & Dragons books included artwork with nudity (though nothing intentionally explicit or sexual, and I expect the 1st Ed. Palladium Fantasy corebook was likewise if such nudity was present), like 'Deities and Demigods' (the modern analogue in D&D is 'Legends & Lore').

-Boe.
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Re: Differences (if any?) in the art used in 1E, 1E rev and

Unread post by Gwarh »

Thanks for all the good info folks. I'll probably just go ahead and by a copy of 1E and 2E so i have both versions and sets of artwork.
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