Rifts -- Who's played it?

[Colonelpuddinhead]

SWEEET!!! I got some people's panties in a bind...thats cool

Thats cool? Trolling is not cool. You want to make a blanket statement, and then pull this? NOT cool.

I mane come on THAC0...it took me nearly 2 years to grasp that concept...what kind of weed were they smoking to say that 0 is the "average" AC and the higher the number the easier it is to hit? THAC0 was the worst concept I've ever seen in any game...

Took you 2 years? I knows its poor system, and one of the things about 2e I definitely don't miss, but if it took you two years to get your mind around that, then I wonder about your capacity to think at all.

Now compared with D20 (Which by the way was released 20 years after the Paladium system & Copyrights are good for 20 years{very convient there don't you think, I know I do}) you will see that all the "basic" rules/mechanics are the same expect that D20 has done away with bonus dice added to stat rolls, and the afor mentioned magic system.

And if anyone else would like to querstion me on this, or question the amount of experinece I have gaming/GMing, feel free, I have my 1ed Books on my right, and my Palladium's on my Left and all the rest on the shelves behind me

I have a number of questions:

1) did the the fact that TSR stomped the living you know what outta Palladium in court leave you with bad taste in your mouth? Perhaps you didn't realize that Palladium has had several version of Rifts before the widely popular 1988 books? Are any of those on your shelf?
2)Are you a conspiracy theorist? Actually the copyrights are good for longer than 20 years and that they are frequently renewed by Kevin
3) which d20 books do you own that are basically the same as Palladium rules? And are they just paper workbooks with "D20" in crayon?
4) are you really Kevin Sembieda? c'mon tell you're just trolling for a flame war.... huh? are you?

If you truly like Palladium, then you'll realize that ALL roleplaying games are cool, as they can be easily incorpated into the "megaverse" - or did you not read that part in your copy of Rifts? I know its in mine.

If anyone else is upset with my tongue-in-cheek and fervent response, I'm sorry in advance.

CP

 

[Wombat]

ANY game system with a GOOD dm is a good game, and thats the truth.

These are true words.

 

[danbuter]

I heart Rifts. At least until the Coalition turned good guy and stomped Tolkien. Then I gave up on it.

 

[Storyteller01]

ANY game system with a GOOD dm is a good game, and thats the truth.

CP

AMEN!! even V:tM works with a good DM.

 

[dvvega]

Personally GM-ed RIFTS for a couple of years, but I didn't like the system at all. It was quite haphazzard at best. The setting was interesting, my favourite source books were South America since it had some good bug hunting material in it as well as the Monster Hunter O.C.C. which was played really coolly by one of my players, accent and all.

In reference to the person claiming Palladium is the grand-daddy of d20. That's a mistake of megadamage proportions.

d20 is much more similiar to 1st/2nd edition with a rolemaster/runequest chaser where skills were percentile based. They still are but d20 only worries about +/- 5% as opposed to the 1% granularity.

Firstly, THAC0 wasn't required to be understood in 1st Edition. So if after 2 years you didn't understand it then you obviously missed the tables in the 1st Edition DMG. There were lookup tables in the DMG to compare your roll against the target armour class based on your class or your monster type. Most of my players had copies of those tables to speed things up.

This system was derived from the old wargames that existed where it was complicated to get results from rolls with modifiers and so forth since most of the calculations were logarithmic in nature. So the games included lookup tables for battles.

2nd Edition was the edition whereby you would have to mentally roll your attack on d20 add your modifiers and then subtract your THAC0 to work out the AC you hit. If that took you two years to work out then it is a wonder you could calculate Rifts combat unless you used a calculator or something.

For the rest of the silliness:
1. Rifts uses calculated abilities, d20 doesn't.
2. The Rifts skill system isn't the same as d20's since most of the skills in Rifts modify your starting abilities/hit points/etc without being useful for anything else.
3. Where did Feats come from if d20 copied Rifts?
4. Magic systems are entirely different, in fact d20 still has the same system as 1st/2nd ed.
5. Combat is entirely different as well, right from initiative.
6. Prestige Classes were copied from which Rifts book?

D

 

[Psion]

ANY game system with a GOOD dm is a good game, and thats the truth.

Hmmm. I am having a hard time seeing a good game of THE GAME THAT SHALL NOT BE NAMED from anyone. You can't spit shine a turd, y'know.

But RIFTS can work, with effort.

 

[Crothian]

Hmmm. I am having a hard time seeing a good game of THE GAME THAT SHALL NOT BE NAMED from anyone. You can't spit shine a turd, y'know.

Sure they can. PC could do it. A good DM can lessen the eaknesses and emphasize the strengths of any game. Even if that makes the game into something slightly different then it appears.

 

[haiiro]

THE GAME THAT SHALL NOT BE NAMED

World of Synnibarr?

 

[shadowbloodmoon]

Love the setting, and even the rules aren't that bad.... Except for the fact that ALL bonuses stack... But anyway. I wasn't too fond of a skill check that as soon as you reached an early level (5th-8th) most of your major skills were at 98%. That and you had to have a skill to do anything, so there are tons of skills. And of course, there was very little in the way of level increase except that your skills go up and your HPs go up. Then there is MDC. I won't even go into that one except to say that I don't care what your car/tank/robot is made of, one hundred AK-47s at point blank range is going to do a lot more than scratch the paint. Damage/ AR maybe. MDC, not so much. That and I have a hard time dealing with a Wilk's 300 hold out laser pistol that can vaporize a car. But I digress. *

Rifts is a great world in my opinion and as stated previously, with the right DM and some inginuity, can make for an awesome campaign by using the setting as a general guideline. Most people, like previously stated, have converted Rifts to their own fave system. I myself have done Gurps and am working on d20. Just don't tell Kevin (by publishing it online), Palladium will shut you down quickly.

*Note: Though I say this about MDC, there is something inherently satisfying about vaporizing a Sky Cycle pilot with a called shot from a Glitter Boy Boom Gun....

 

[Storyteller01]

Hmmm. I am having a hard time seeing a good game of THE GAME THAT SHALL NOT BE NAMED from anyone. You can't spit shine a turd, y'know.

But RIFTS can work, with effort.

What game is this? Is there a link I can follow?