Rifts -- Who's played it?

[painandgreed]

My OPINION: Don't care for the setting. Don't like the rules. Neither are really bad, and I will play under the right GM. Both are the subject of bad writing and no editing making for a montage of contradictory and disjointed elements where even the errata has errata. Play balance has never been a concern and various source books are of vastly different scales as are the various PC classes. My biggest gripe is that unless you have a rule book for each player and they are knowledgable with the rules, making characters or even leveling them up takes hours.

 

[interwyrm]

First time I played, I was a dogboy. With a vibroknife. One of my friends was a CS special ops or something who got fired because he was a jackass about his multioptic eye. Another was a glitterboy. We fought this big monster thing... I tried to jump on it and stab it with the vibroknife... doing like... 6 MD or something... and the glitterboy pulls out his boom cannon and does somewhere around 100 MD if I remember right. We stopped playing after that.

 

[Psion]

I've played it. They would have to really tune up the rules to make me want to play it again.

The setting itself is something of a hodgepodge with no real strong direction but some good ideas... a determined and creative GM could do some interesting stuff with it.

I use some of the books to mine ideas from.

D20 is a direct rip-off of the Paladium rule set,

Um. No.

 

[Bront]

From The Palladium Store

Rifts® RPG, Ultimate Edition – Ships August 2005
Rifts® is a multi-genre role-playing game that captures the imagination unlike any other. Elements of magic, horror, and the supernatural co-exist with science, high technology and the ordinary. The game spans countless dimensions, making anything and everything possible. Players are truly limited only by their imaginations!

Rifts® Ultimate Edition will be a completely rewritten and updated version of the original game played and enjoyed by an estimated 1.5 million gamers.

Not exactly a Second Edition, because most of the rules will remain unchanged, Rifts® Ultimate Edition is expanded and improved. There will be more world information, tips on how to use the time-line and World Books, rewrites on O.C.C.s, and in some cases, expansions of and more details on O.C.C.s such as the Headhunter, Mercenaries, the Techno-Wizard and Shifter, as well as a few new O.C.C.s. Our goal is to make Rifts® more exciting and compelling than ever, while at the same time making the rules better organized, clearer and easier to use. The wonder and infinite possibilities of Rifts® all brought to pulse-pounding life like never before. Of course, there will be a few fun changes and additions, but nothing so dramatic as to make the 40+ available sourcebooks obsolete.

August 2005 will be the release date! Appearing in stores and at Gen Con Indy around the same time, almost exactly 15 years to the day the original Rifts® RPG made its debut.

Collectors looking to snag a copy of Rifts® Ultimate Edition’s first printing should do so quickly, as we expect the demand to be heavy. Serious collectors may also want to get the signed and numbered Gold Limited Edition.

Approximately 30 unique Occupational and Racial Character Classes, including Cyber-Knights, cyborgs, Glitter Boys, Psi-Stalkers, Dog Boys (mutant humanoid dogs), Juicers, Crazies, Techno-Wizards, Ley Line Walkers, Mystics, Shifters, Elemental Fusionists, Mind Melters, and many others.
Supernatural and magical creatures, like dragons, available as player characters, others are horrifying menaces from the Rifts.
Bionics and cybernetics offer a vast range of mechanical augmentation, meanwhile chemical enhancement (Juicers) and brain implants (Crazies) can turn a human into a superman, though with tragic results.
Psychic powers are the source of the Burster, Mind Melter and Mystic’s abilities.
Strange forms of magic are at the command of characters like the Ley Line Walker, Shifter, Elemental Fusionist, Rifter and Techno-Wizard (who combine magic and technology).
Super-technology with Mega-Damage™ body armor, energy weapons, rail guns, power armor, and human augmentation.
The Coalition States. Humankind's salvation, or its own worst nightmare?
Character sheets.
Cover by Scott Johnson.
Color end sheets by John Zeleznik.
New artwork and color pages throughout.
Written and created by Kevin Siembieda.

Odd that it's a rewrite, but not of the rules but the setting and OCCs. I thought the setting was great, but the rules had some HUGE flaws.

 

[the Jester]

D20 is a direct rip-off of the Paladium rule set, so I guess you don't like D20 rules either then

Huh? What gives you this impression? The fact that a lot of the terminology in Palladium comes straight from 1e AD&D?

 

[Psion]

Not exactly a Second Edition, because most of the rules will remain unchanged,

Well, so much for that.

 

[Immak Antunel]

With good (preferably experienced) players an ambitious GM, Rifts ain't half bad. The rules are a hassle til you get used to them, and without total player cooperation, balance is nearly impossible. The game world is cool, but veers towards wonky at times.
For what it's worth, there's a Rifts movie in the works, so at least you can get a head start on that bandwagon-jumping.

 

[Ace]

I have suddenly found myself anticipating the Ultimate Edition of Rifts that is supposed to come out August 15th. Can you tell me your thoughts on the game, and if I should get it?

Last time I played I had a character whose handgun could destroy a village -- and I was the weak one (2d6MD IIRC)

RIFTS is much too high powered for my taste YMMV

 

[scourger]

My expereince was that it was OK to play when the GM kept the power levels of the various OCCs & RCCs in check. I did not like running it. The game engine is a bit wonky. I call making characters for Rifts a painful birthing process.

 

[SWBaxter]

Odd that it's a rewrite, but not of the rules but the setting and OCCs. I thought the setting was great, but the rules had some HUGE flaws.

I thought the rules did a pretty good job of handling the setting, all the power creep was in the OCCs, RCCs, and equipment. If they do a decent job of rebalancing those three then Rifts will be in pretty good shape. Of course, I'm not sure that balancing say, a Rogue Scholar with any of the more recent OCCs is particularly possible, but it's a nice dream.