A Rifts Balance Discussion for Roguewriter & Buzzard

[Aristotle]

I have The Primal Order books. I would have really liked to have seen more books in that line... Although I doubt it was Palladium's law suit that killed that line of books. More likely it was the success the publisher had with *other* ventures.

 

[coyote6]

ISTR reading that the Palladium lawsuit nearly put WotC out of business. Then they did that card game, and things worked out okay for 'em.

Never did do GURPS Talislanta, though.

 

[Gundark]

Palladium has never been happy about conversions, either to or from their system. A long time ago they sued (or threatened to, I can't recall which) a little tiny game company that was putting out a book called The Primal Order, just because the book had conversions in the back from TPO's system to Palladium.

Considering who that company was, I'd imagine Simbieda is feeling a bit bitter at their current success, and even less likely to want to see d20 conversions for his stuff.

J

Wasn't that company WoTC? Yeah I think it was. Yeah KS hates the d20 system...in fact for a while there Palladium was calling themselves "the original d20 system" in an ad.This is not true and it's also a crappy d20 system. I think that KS was insinuating that WoTC ripped off Palladium. I think it's the other way around (they ripped off TSR). Man I h8 palladium.

 

[Remathilis]

Never played RIFTs per se, but did play other Palladium games...

TMNT: 90% of the fun was creating the character, 10% playing him. Mutant Wild Praire dogs killed it for me, but After the Bomb was sweet.

Palladium Fantasy: Rolled up a character, then decided to play D&D instead. That said, some of the concepts were cool...

Heroes Unlimited: played this one the longest. Combat took an hour routinely at FIRST LEVEL, (mutliple PCs @ 9 atks/rnd, a round felt like a combat in and of itself) and balance was in the eye of the beholder (mages killed everything, and there was an NPC fairly rolled that could kill all of us in a punch each.)

Beyond the Supernatural: Loved this game. Then I found Dark*Matter...

All in all, I am reminded of what a friend said to me about Palladium. "If you can imagine it, you can do it in Rifts. I imagine I win."

 

[Remathilis]

Wasn't that company WoTC? Yeah I think it was. Yeah KS hates the d20 system...in fact for a while there Palladium was calling themselves "the original d20 system" in an ad.This is not true and it's also a crappy d20 system. I think that KS was insinuating that WoTC ripped off Palladium. I think it's the other way around (they ripped off TSR). Man I h8 palladium.

All WotC took from Palladium was thier way of rolling initative...

 

[reiella]

Palladium has never been happy about conversions, either to or from their system. A long time ago they sued (or threatened to, I can't recall which) a little tiny game company that was putting out a book called The Primal Order, just because the book had conversions in the back from TPO's system to Palladium.

Considering who that company was, I'd imagine Simbieda is feeling a bit bitter at their current success, and even less likely to want to see d20 conversions for his stuff.

J

Actually, they used to link TO pages that converted from others systems to Palladium on their fan links page... Was even included in the bloody page title. Same pages were using art from the original source too. Was a bit ... bleh.

On topic, well.
Rifts isn't balanced. It's hard to play in a balanced manner. I wouldn't worry so much about the City Rat v Juicer issue so much as one can see the City Rat as sorta being intended as a NPC class (akin to Expert in D&D, no?). But the Juicer v Glitterboy v CyberKnight. And the supplements just made it worse and worse.

Some attempts at balance via rp did occur (CosmoKnight) although sometimes they were very sorely misplaced (CyberKnight).

If I were to run a Rifts game, I'd quite simply try to restrict the relative power level AND character focus to be amiable to a party situation [ie, no scientist researcher loons if we're doing a NGR Military campaign]. Possibly a fun idea to consider is something from 2e Dark Sun. Have everyone make three characters, one to fit a different given role (ie, one Mecha-Type character, one Mono-e-Mono, and one researcher type) so that if the adventure does go a certain way where one given character would be ineffective (ie, a cave or Indoors for a Mecha-type), they still have options and can participate.

 

[Gundark]

All WotC took from Palladium was thier way of rolling initative...

yeah I agree....palladium and KS are full of crap!!! Boy I h8 palladium

 

[Calico_Jack73]

As for the discussion on a whole, Rifts was defintely unbalanced. Even as a little kid (which I was when I first found Rifts) I could tell the difference in power between, say, a City Rat and a Dragon Hatchling. I honestly wondered who would want to play a City Rat instead of a Hatchling honestly.

Because sometimes a roleplaying game isn't about personal character power but is about role development. Yes, Rifts pushes combat on to the players as almost every book contains progressively bigger and badder weapons and monsters BUT... look at the XP awards chart. You get more experience for coming up with ideas and doing heroic things than getting into combat. It also depends on the setting... A Glitterboy pilot is going to posess his armor for all of 2 seconds if I am the DM and I've told the players from the beginning that the campaign is taking place in the lower levels of Chi-Town. If I want to run a Cyberpunk-ish game in that kind of setting having DB's and Robot/PA pilots isn't going to help much... having a broad range of skills is. A City Rat would shine in such a game. Not every class is appropriate to every campaign.

 

[Green Knight]

TMNT: 90% of the fun was creating the character

Not for me. Character creation was the worst. This skill modified that stat, this OCC bonus modified another stat, that stat modified your hit points, etc. What a pain in the butt. It was like doing long division, trying to keep track of where all the bonuses came from, and what bonuses those abilities which just receieved bonuses gave to OTHER abilities. It was so hopelessly complex. I swear, it feels like you're doing your taxes more then it does character creation.

Palladium Fantasy: Rolled up a character, then decided to play D&D instead. That said, some of the concepts were cool...

Yeah, the Palladium Fantasy setting is really nice. I like the thought of the Wolfen Empire. Would've liked it if the elves and dwarves had their own nations, though. I was trying to convert Palladium Fantasy to D&D a while back but I never finished.

BUT... look at the XP awards chart. You get more experience for coming up with ideas and doing heroic things than getting into combat

I've already pointed this out, but in actual practice, speaking as someone who played in a LONG-LASTING Rifts game, that XP chart isn't worth zip. Not only does it take forever and a day to level, but you NEVER end up with characters who're more then one level apart. And as I've pointed out repeatedly, one level, 15 levels, either way it doesn't mean squat to a Dragon Hatchling how many more levels the City Rat has then it. The Dragon Hatchling is still INFINITELY better then the City Rat in nearly every way.

A Glitterboy pilot is going to posess his armor for all of 2 seconds if I am the DM and I've told the players from the beginning that the campaign is taking place in the lower levels of Chi-Town.

As someone already pointed out, that's an issue of flavor, not balance. But even in that case, the situation wouldn't stop someone from playing a Heroes Unlimited type super. They don't have much of any PPE, so the Dog Boys and Psi-Stalkers won't pick them up. If they end up with the right set of powers then you could essentially end up with a super-human Glitter Boy whose fist packs as much punch as a Boom Gun. So even in your tightly constrained campaign, you can still fit in an insanely powerful character. You could say no, but once again, the system is putting the weight of the problem on you.

Yeah KS hates the d20 system...in fact for a while there Palladium was calling themselves "the original d20 system" in an ad.This is not true and it's also a crappy d20 system. I think that KS was insinuating that WoTC ripped off Palladium. I think it's the other way around (they ripped off TSR). Man I h8 palladium.

They did this? Man, talk about petty! Nevermind that the systems are NOTHING alike! You gotta be pretty egotistical to think that WoTC ripped off the Palladium setting. As for the "original d20 system", what does Siembieda think, that nobody used d20's before Palladium came along?

 

[Calico_Jack73]

As someone already pointed out, that's an issue of flavor, not balance. But even in that case, the situation wouldn't stop someone from playing a Heroes Unlimited type super. They don't have much of any PPE, so the Dog Boys and Psi-Stalkers won't pick them up. If they end up with the right set of powers then you could essentially end up with a super-human Glitter Boy whose fist packs as much punch as a Boom Gun. So even in your tightly constrained campaign, you can still fit in an insanely powerful character. You could say no, but once again, the system is putting the weight of the problem on you.

I never allowed HU characters in any of my Rifts games and if I still ran it I still wouldn't. Matter of fact the only other Palladium books that I allowed characters from was Robotech and Palladium FRPG. Nobody bothered with TMNT... as someone else said 90% of the fun with that was character creation. Even then, only one player in the party was allowed to have a Robotech character which was almost always either a Cyclone Rider or Veritech Hover Tank. I did ,however, run a campaign once where ALL the players were Robotech characters who were stationed on a Ikazuchi Command Carrier that crash landed on Rifts earth after a space fold went awry. I was actually a great campaign... the Robotech REF forces started a guerilla war against the Coalition due to the Coalition's campaign of human supremacy. It REALLY got interesting when the Invid of the Rifts universe detected protoculture on Rifts earth and came to investigate.

Good times... Good times...

Edit: By the way, by bringing up HU it seems like you have the impression that just because the Rifts setting supports every type of character from every Palladium game that a GM has to allow it. Not so... how many DMs refuse to use the Psionics handbook in their campaigns?