An Appreciation of Savage Rifts

[wingsandsword]

The Savage World version of Rifts is official and was endorsed by Siembieda, so no danger there. It was quite a sensation when it was announced.

I haven't followed Rifts in about 15 years and have only been an occasional visitor to ENWorld in the last decade, so I must have missed that announcement.

Very vnteresting to see that he allowed it. It's certainly more progressive than the mindset he showed in the early 2000's.

 

[Derren]

I haven't followed Rifts in about 15 years and have only been an occasional visitor to ENWorld in the last decade, so I must have missed that announcement.

Very vnteresting to see that he allowed it. It's certainly more progressive than the mindset he showed in the early 2000's.

As Savage World received a new edition recently so to speak (Adventure Edition) Savage Rifts was also updated and also expanded. It now spans the coalition and federation of magic territory (not sure if they also cover Psiscape).
Does someone know if they have the license to also take stuff from the other world books (Mexico, Canada, Far West, Merctown etc. or even stuff outside America)? I think I read that the contract they had with Palladium does not include Phase World or Chaos Earth.

The Savage Rift books also do not include the most recent events of Rifts and play right after the fall of Tolkeen.

 

[Retreater]

As Savage World received a new edition recently so to speak (Adventure Edition) Savage Rifts was also updated and also expanded. It now spans the coalition and federation of magic territory (not sure if they also cover Psiscape).
Does someone know if they have the license to also take stuff from the other world books (Mexico, Canada, Far West, Merctown etc. or even stuff outside America)? I think I read that the contract they had with Palladium does not include Phase World or Chaos Earth.

The Savage Rift books also do not include the most recent events of Rifts and play right after the fall of Tolkeen.

Yes. Psyscape is in there.
Last rumors I heard from the author is that Atlantis is getting the Savage treatment next.

 

[Derren]

Yes. Psyscape is in there.
Last rumors I heard from the author is that Atlantis is getting the Savage treatment next.

I wonder how that will look like as Atlantis is not exactly PC friendly.

 

[Retreater]

I wonder how that will look like as Atlantis is not exactly PC friendly.

I don't know a lot about it from the Palladium books. However, Pinnacle (who publishes Savage Worlds and their Rifts line) have recently demonstrated that they are willing to change existing campaign settings to avoid problematic content (as they did recently with Deadlands).
I think the creation of the Tomorrow Legion might have also been a nod to that same design philosophy (so characters don't have to align with the two repugnant power players in North America).

 

[Derren]

I don't know a lot about it from the Palladium books. However, Pinnacle (who publishes Savage Worlds and their Rifts line) have recently demonstrated that they are willing to change existing campaign settings to avoid problematic content (as they did recently with Deadlands).
I think the creation of the Tomorrow Legion might have also been a nod to that same design philosophy (so characters don't have to align with the two repugnant power players in North America).

Siembieda still retains full creative control and I doubt he will ok radical changes to Atlantis.
And lets be honest, you can't remove slavery and the hostility towards humans from Atlantis without radically changing it and I would be very disappointed when in the Savage version of Atlantis a human could walk the streets of Atlantis without constant danger and some serious bluffing skill that he is either ultra powerful or a slave in service of something else.

Basically Atlantis is a gigantic retail store and humans are akain to dogs (more or less). Unless they are held on a leash they are considered strays and killed on sight, sold in pet shops or turned into food.

 

[Azuresun]

Doesn't having a dragon automatically mean you get into "numbers break down" territory?

That was how I learned it. In the end, anything that could really challenge the dragon would have made short work of the other two PC's and while there are workarounds for that level of power imbalance, it would probably be easier to at least avoid a skew that severe.

Siembieda still retains full creative control and I doubt he will ok radical changes to Atlantis.
And lets be honest, you can't remove slavery and the hostility towards humans from Atlantis without radically changing it and I would be very disappointed when in the Savage version of Atlantis a human could walk the streets of Atlantis without constant danger and some serious bluffing skill that he is either ultra powerful or a slave in service of something else.

Basically Atlantis is a gigantic retail store and humans are akain to dogs (more or less). Unless they are held on a leash they are considered strays and killed on sight, sold in pet shops or turned into food.

It's not quite that bad IIRC--Atlantis is first and foremost a giant marketplace, so people who have stuff to sell generally get left alone, since the owners of the place don't want to scare off good business--the second sourcebook detailed some human or humanoid-owned venues that had enough respect or clout, or a powerful enough patron that they could generally operate unmolested. Plus, there's a lot of humanoid-designed equipment sold on the open market by the Kittani, who must be selling it to somebody. However, humanoids are very much second-class citizens, the law will favour monsters over them if there's ever a conflict, and they should generally be looking over their shoulders to avoid getting robbed, press-ganged or generally abused. Plus, there's a lot of horrible stuff going on there, like the slavery, man-eating monsters or bloodsports. It wouldn't ever be a place PC's should feel comfortable going to, but it's survivable.

Atlantis was actually the first ever RPG sourcebook I read after the Rifts corebook, and it really blew my mind in terms of how it was presented--a place that was both wondrous and advanced, but also alien and horrifying. A super-powerful alien monster arrived on a ravaged earth and rather than conquering it, decided to set up a trade hub there. That's weirdly brilliant.

 

[Retreater]

Concerning the Dragon (and Glitterboys, etc) - yes, there are wildly varying levels of power available for characters. It is probably best to keep your characters at the same power level. If someone really wants to be a dragon, then have the other characters be Glitterboys, or if using MARS classes, start them even higher rank. But if you are not playing a long-term campaign, a one shot with one character as a dragon for the evening should be a hella good time.

 

[Derren]

Concerning the Dragon (and Glitterboys, etc) - yes, there are wildly varying levels of power available for characters. It is probably best to keep your characters at the same power level. If someone really wants to be a dragon, then have the other characters be Glitterboys, or if using MARS classes, start them even higher rank. But if you are not playing a long-term campaign, a one shot with one character as a dragon for the evening should be a hella good time.

Well that is a must in Palladium Rifts, too. Probably even more so than in Savage Rifts.
But when the math breaks down a dragon hatchling power level it means that the ceiling of what you can run is a lot lower in Savage Rifts than in Palladium Rifts. In the latter you could easily run having giant robots wrestle dragons and it worked fine in the end.

 

[Azuresun]

Well that is a must in Palladium Rifts, too. Probably even more so than in Savage Rifts.
But when the math breaks down a dragon hatchling power level it means that the ceiling of what you can run is a lot lower in Savage Rifts than in Palladium Rifts. In the latter you could easily run having giant robots wrestle dragons and it worked fine in the end.

I think the only reason the higher values break down is the open-ended damage dice in Savage Worlds. The "chain of 6's on a damage roll, someone randomly explodes" problem is there at the default power level, but it's less noticeable because of the lower numbers. Once Toughness + Armour gets into the thirties but the threshold of "roll 12 over that to kill them" remains unchanged, those damage spikes mean combat between big things with big weapons can go from "slap fight" to "instant death" with little warning. oRifts had the exact opposite problem. Hit points (MDC) outstripped damage very quickly unless you were bringing heavy railguns to every fight and damage capacity had some serious inflation over the lifespan of the line, so a lot of combat could just be boringly scraping away damage points a little at a time, round after round.

I think one advantage SR has is that combat is considerably quicker, so if you play a character who stays out of combat and lets the cyborgs or giant robots do the heavy lifting, then you're not sitting out hours at a time--and Savage Worlds is much better at giving characters ways to contribute in combat other than damage.