RIFTS Is Coming To SAVAGE WORLDS!

Palladium Books has licensed its Rifts roleplaying game to Pinnacle Entertainment Group in order to produce a Savage World version of the Rifts RPG. There's no date yet announced. Rifts is a multi-genre post-apocalyptic game which dates back to 1990.

Palladium's weekly update contained the first hints of this information:

Something new and exciting. In an effort to truly expand Rifts® across the Megaverse®, in cooperation with Palladium Books, another role-playing game company is currently adapting the Rifts® Earth setting to that company’s RPG system of rules, as well as producing adventure sourcebooks. This is only the second time in Palladium’s history that an outside company will create new game material under a different set of rules. Rumor Squashing: No, Palladium is NOT going to stop publishing Rifts®, nor change to a completely different set of rules. Far from it. In fact, Palladium expects to release six new Rifts® titles in 2015 and 98% of all Rifts® titles are in stock and available for purchase right now! The idea is that by offering Rifts® via another game company’s set of popular rules it creates a parallel dimension of gaming enjoyment. An expanding Megaverse®, if you will. This is a bit of an experiment, but we are excited to see how it all unfolds.
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And today PEG issued a press release:

News from Pinnacle Entertainment Group

For Immediate Release--April 21, 2015

Pinnacle Entertainment Group announced today the development of Rifts for Savage Worlds, their award-winning tabletop roleplaying game system.

Pinnacle released a mock cover, using art from Palladium’s 2005 Rifts Ultimate Edition with permission. The cover artist for the book was Scott Johnson.

“We are thrilled to follow up Kevin’s post with this announcement that we do, indeed, have the license to develop Rifts for Savage Worlds,” said Savage Worlds creator Shane Hensley. “We are early in the process, but anticipate having a core rulebook for the setting released in time for Christmas.”

The Palladium Books Weekly Update--April 19, 2015, written by Kevin Siembieda, recently made mention of a new roleplaying game system for the beloved setting:

“In an effort to truly expand Rifts® across the Megaverse®, in cooperation with Palladium Books, another role-playing game company is currently adapting the Rifts® Earth setting to that company’s RPG system of rules, as well as producing adventure sourcebooks.”

Rifts is an exciting multi-genre post-apocalypse game that began publishing in 1990. Featuring elements of everything from cyberpunk and fantasy to mecha and mythology, Rifts has always been Siembieda's vision of a game with everything for everyone, tied together with a strong narrative.

"I'm really excited to see what Rifts will look like in the Savage Worlds system," said Siembieda. "The Savage fans are great folks, and I think Rifts is going to be an amazing amount of fun for them, letting them explore all the possibilities of both the system and the setting."

Savage Worlds was created by Shane Lacy Hensley. Savage Worlds and the Pinnacle logo are all trademarks of Pinnacle Entertainment Group. For more information, visit www.peginc.com or contact Jodi Black, Marketing Manager for Pinnacle, at PEGJodi@gmail.com. More about Palladium and the Rifts setting can be found on their website here: http://www.palladiumbooks.com/.
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[timbannock]

One of my major concerns with Savage Worlds is that maybe things seem a little too cinematic and action-y. One of my favorite things about Rifts is that it tells you exactly how things work, keeping abstraction to a minimum.

I am tentatively looking forward to seeing how this works out. My big fear is that the old-school flavor won't shine through, and the simulation-y feel of Rifts will get buried under some new-age narrative-y agenda from Savage Worlds. (My hope is that it might produce a game of Rifts that remains true to the tone of the original mechanics, but is sufficiently stream-lined to be actually playable.)

Exact opposite here. I'm pretty sure SW is not near as granular as Palladium's system, and that, to me, is a very, very good thing. I want a Glitter Boy that "feels" like a mech with a giant gun, and a Juicer that feels like a psychopath on super-soldier adrenaline drugs, without a hundred different hit locations and MDC values for every moving (or stationary) part that doesn't even bother to include a die roll # so that I don't have to do all the legwork to determine random hit locations.

 

[Eminence_Grise]

I, for one, would appreciate that Savage World Rifts remains largerly classless.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I want a Glitter Boy that "feels" like a mech with a giant gun, and a Juicer that feels like a psychopath on super-soldier adrenaline drugs, without a hundred different hit locations and MDC values for every moving (or stationary) part that doesn't even bother to include a die roll # so that I don't have to do all the legwork to determine random hit locations.

I agree, that's probably an area where Rifts has a little bit too much detail.

Something I would consider as going too far would be, for example, if Hit Points (or SDC) are re-defined to include a vague luck or fatigue component. A hit should always be a hit which causes an impact and some amount of (temporary or lasting) physical damage. It's a physical, measurable part of how the world works.

Or my big fear is that there will be some sort of mechanical distinction between PCs and NPCs, in a matter that doesn't reflect the in-game reality of the world. If a Juicer PC is fundamentally different from a Juicer NPC, in terms of mechanics, then that's a problem. A Juicer should be awesome because Juicers are awesome, rather than because it's being played by a PC and PCs are supposed to be special.

 

[Von Ether]

I really hope that the Magic and Psionics rules in this SW Rifts are not just a difference of trappings. They should have different subsystems of how they work, same for Super/Mutant powers. Using just trappings as some kind of descriptive flavoring is not Rifts.

That's actually one of my biggest problems with SW in gsneral.. It treats all power sources the same.

So this game better have Magic using PPE and Psionics ISP and they should be calculated differently and they better be different mechanically enough to provide really different feels.

Note: I do say all that not having really played SW before and only basing my opinion on reading the main rulebook. Trappings just left me cold when I last read it.

So on this topic I really hope the designer chimes in and let's us know how this will work.

If your a player, SW already has you covered.

As for your GM, they can pull up a seat here.

Our jobs as GMs and game designers are not really to be "movie directors" or "storytellers," but to be illusionists who never reveal our tricks to our audience. Kevin knew a long time ago that player perception is what really counts with an RPG. That's why his games have always had great art, awesome visuals and a low price tag, as he kept selling the same 50 pages of rules over and over. And if you think about it, even parts of those rules were really the same templates, just tweaked for flavor.

Perfect example, MDC damage. With one sentence and a new keyword, he created an overlay that makes players feel like they're piling on real damage when it's just structural damage. Also, magic vs Psionics. Really they are the same system with points and power tweaks to further create the illusion of a "difference."

These ideas were so good, that SvW incorporated similar concepts in the early days of the game.

SvW has Heavy Armor and Armor Piercing as a nod to levels of damage that hurt a tank while laughing at Glock, thus a MDC mode is already baked into the game. And in Rifts, "Psionics" is more like Akira and X-men than Babylon 5. So SvW's core Super Powers Arcane Background would be much better fit AND has a different enough template to say that it's actually more a different system than PPE vs P-ISP.

It would probably even be smart to give the Power Points from the two different Background different names so that players who want to be a Wizard Psi-Knight can't double dip. And Rift players love the double dip.

And here is where Game Mastering in the 21st Century is a big help to SvW.

I've tried in the past to use things like super hero game as universal systems, but those backfired. Not because the systems didn't work out, but because the players perceived a disconnect between a setting and the rules. A disconnect that d20 seemed to be immune from, but that's another long post.

As a SvW GM in a time where you can cut and paste from PDFs and print up Player Guides from home, having a GM create a custom power list is straight forward. For example, Zadar's Savage Spellbook Fan PDF shows that every power is actually 5 more powers once you use Trappings.

So if a player never sees the core list, most of them think they have radically different powers because Finnigan's Hot Fingers (Flame Bolt) sets things on fire while Swam Shaman's Summoning (Insect Bolt) does double damage to unarmored enemies.

SvW GMing "crime" is that it shows too much what's behind the curtain where players can see it. Though you can't fault PEG's logic, which is that by sticking to the brown wrapper versions in the published books, they can ensure a more cohesive game design across the board and let people who want to dimension hop do so with ease.

If SvW Rifts uses their magic tricks right, lots of new players will never know the difference either.

 

[Von Ether]

As a separate issue, I was wondering if SDC, Hit Points, and MDC would be an issue. Because if it's one thing a LOT of Rifts players love is showing off how their PCs can either chew through buckets of MDC points or how they can take tones of that crazy damage and not notice.

Then it occurred to me, that SvW Rifts is probably aimed at a different audience -- one that always loved the setting but had major issues with the rule set.

I mean if the original works for you AND you already own a metric ton of the books, why would you bother switching and buying the same fluff anyway?

 

[innerdude]

I've never bought, read, or played a single thing from the RIFTS product line, and I will be buying multiple books for the RIFTS Savage Worlds, due to the 1) the system, and 2) the previous work done on Shaintar by the author.

 

[Bugleyman]

Wow, that's both wholly unexpected and totally awesome. I love Savage Worlds, and I've always thought the setting of Rifts was interesting, but I could not *stand* the mechanics.

Will buy.

 

[amerigoV]

I've never bought, read, or played a single thing from the RIFTS product line, and I will be buying multiple books for the RIFTS Savage Worlds, due to the 1) the system, and 2) the previous work done on Shaintar by the author.

When I saw this announcement I thought to myself - "I need to switch to D&D 5e - their slower release schedule might fit my gaming budget better." Between Pinnacle and some Hellfrost stuff from Triple Ace Games, I just cannot keep up with them these days!

The RIFTS art in the past has always intrigued me - so perhaps I will check it out when the SW version comes along.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

Then it occurred to me, that SvW Rifts is probably aimed at a different audience -- one that always loved the setting but had major issues with the rule set.

I mean if the original works for you AND you already own a metric ton of the books, why would you bother switching and buying the same fluff anyway?

Yes, I think this is indeed the point. People who love the Rifts system will probably stick with that. More than any other RPG I can think of, there are many people I know who love the Rifts setting but not the system, and I'm pretty certain that this is who Savage Worlds Rifts is aimed at.

 

[Shayuri]

I am floored. I never thought I'd see Kevin Simbieda license Rifts out. Kudos!

I used to love just making characters in Rifts...but I almost never played because the system is such a paaaaaaaaain. Now I may have to re-examine that old pasttime.