Rifts -- Who's played it?
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Catavarie
First Post
SWEEET!!! I got some people's panties in a bind...thats cool but if you feel that Palladium Ripped off 1ed D&D thats fine, but from my point of veiw 1ed rules made next to no sense as to how they came up with them. 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...now I realize alot of people loved THAC0 and that some refuse to switch AC systems from that, and thats cool but to me thats just way too much work to keep track of. Secondly 1ed you could roll a d20, a d12, a d6, a d%, or just about any other di that you have depending upon the skill/action for different types of checks...Palladium said everything's a d20 for checks...easier to understand and easier on the dice bag, although you have to carry a crap load of dice for you weapons, but thats cool, give me lots of options to choose from in a fight, Magic systems are completely different where as D&D from 1ed up till present day sticks by its system of you get X spells per day and you have to prep them all and oh yeah if you want a different spell that you preped its gonna take you X amount of time to prep it (a little side note I absolutely detest this type of magic system)...Palladium said you have X amount of magical power to cast whatever you want, so long as your character knows it, so therefore a Healer could cast more than 3 heals a day (I've been healed more than 3 times in a single fight before in D&D, luckily we had 3 cleircs).
Hit points...I've got no problem here every system says roll a D? for hit points, stats...I've got no real problem here because most everyone says rall 3D6 [different systems handle extra dice if any differently]. So thus far the only similarities between the "basic" rules/mechanics are the Stat Rolls and the hit points.
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
Hit points...I've got no problem here every system says roll a D? for hit points, stats...I've got no real problem here because most everyone says rall 3D6 [different systems handle extra dice if any differently]. So thus far the only similarities between the "basic" rules/mechanics are the Stat Rolls and the hit points.
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
JoeGKushner
Adventurer
Setting is interesting.
Suffered massively from rules creep.
Every time I enjoyed an artists or author, they were fired. (Steve Long, whereforth are thou?)
Some interesting ideas, but due to the huge amount of books, a little much to keep track of. The prototype d20 in many ways, but all in one setting.
I grew a little annoyed when Coalition came out in Book 11 and they nevered updated the core book to reflect the baseline of Coalition technology. Seemed a little... backwards.
Suffered massively from rules creep.
Every time I enjoyed an artists or author, they were fired. (Steve Long, whereforth are thou?)
Some interesting ideas, but due to the huge amount of books, a little much to keep track of. The prototype d20 in many ways, but all in one setting.
I grew a little annoyed when Coalition came out in Book 11 and they nevered updated the core book to reflect the baseline of Coalition technology. Seemed a little... backwards.
haiiro
First Post
I played it when it first came out, and stopped after the second or third sourcebook. The rules are terrible, almost uniformly so, and many of the sourcebooks I've looked through are 75% guns/robots/widgets, 25% other material. I like equipment books, but not that much!
That said, there are some neat elements to the setting, and a lot of folks seem to love it (rules included). Flip through it first.
Did I mention that the rules are terrible?
That said, there are some neat elements to the setting, and a lot of folks seem to love it (rules included). Flip through it first.
Did I mention that the rules are terrible?
Storyteller01
First Post
Good story. DM needs to be able to maintain control. I like the overall balance philosophy: there isn't any. All folks are not created equally.
Still, it's fun to watch the Crazy argue with the dragon. The only reason the Crazy didn't die was because the Dragon ptied him...
Still, it's fun to watch the Crazy argue with the dragon. The only reason the Crazy didn't die was because the Dragon ptied him...
I like RIFTS, I really do...and no, I'm not going to compare it to a garbage scow.
I've played it & I've GMed it- as well as many other games (all versions of D&D, HERO, Traveller, Paranoia, and many more). People complain about the power differentials and compare classes like Glitterboys and Dogboys to illustrate it, and I think that misses the point.
To my mind, Palladium made no effort to balance the O.C.C's and R.C.Cs other than by differing their XP progression charts...AND THAT IS NOT A BAD THING.
RIFTS is one of the few games in which you can have a starting party with wildly different levels of power between characters. (Hell, you can play a vagabond!) This means your players have to think because sometimes 1 PC can solve the whole encounter, and others times, he'll be the lone survivor of a TPK...maybe. Unlike most RPG encounters, RIFTS is full of encounters that must be avoided or tactically analyzed and planned for, rather than just go in, attack and heal up later.
In a sense, instead of a typical RPG party which is like a squad of infantry, a RIFTS party is often much more like a group of infantry supporting a Tank. In that, its more like playing a Superheroic game than a hard SF or Fantasy RPG.
Note, however, I'm not enamoured of all of the rules. Some are quite clunky and unwieldy.
But it was the setting that attracted me to RIFTS. I bought RIFTS at the same time I bought TORG and Shadowrun because I wanted a game that fused fantastic and SF elements. Other than homebrewed HERO, I haven't found a better fusion of those elements (though I also hold Shadowrun in high esteem).
And, to be perfectly honest, I'm probably going to use aspects of it in a D20 Modern Fantasy campaign.
Were I to start buying RIFTS today, I'd buy the Core Rulebook, Atlantis, Mercenaries, Juicer Uprising, Coalition, Bionics, the Book of Magic compendium, Sourcebook 1...and leave most of the rest on the shelves until it went on deep discount. If you have other Palladium stuff, like the Palladium RPG or Heroes Unlimited, I'd also buy the RIFTS conversion book. Not that there's not good stuff in there, but as was mentioned before, there's a lot of stuff that simply isn't essential.
I've played it & I've GMed it- as well as many other games (all versions of D&D, HERO, Traveller, Paranoia, and many more). People complain about the power differentials and compare classes like Glitterboys and Dogboys to illustrate it, and I think that misses the point.
To my mind, Palladium made no effort to balance the O.C.C's and R.C.Cs other than by differing their XP progression charts...AND THAT IS NOT A BAD THING.
RIFTS is one of the few games in which you can have a starting party with wildly different levels of power between characters. (Hell, you can play a vagabond!) This means your players have to think because sometimes 1 PC can solve the whole encounter, and others times, he'll be the lone survivor of a TPK...maybe. Unlike most RPG encounters, RIFTS is full of encounters that must be avoided or tactically analyzed and planned for, rather than just go in, attack and heal up later.
In a sense, instead of a typical RPG party which is like a squad of infantry, a RIFTS party is often much more like a group of infantry supporting a Tank. In that, its more like playing a Superheroic game than a hard SF or Fantasy RPG.
Note, however, I'm not enamoured of all of the rules. Some are quite clunky and unwieldy.
But it was the setting that attracted me to RIFTS. I bought RIFTS at the same time I bought TORG and Shadowrun because I wanted a game that fused fantastic and SF elements. Other than homebrewed HERO, I haven't found a better fusion of those elements (though I also hold Shadowrun in high esteem).
And, to be perfectly honest, I'm probably going to use aspects of it in a D20 Modern Fantasy campaign.
Were I to start buying RIFTS today, I'd buy the Core Rulebook, Atlantis, Mercenaries, Juicer Uprising, Coalition, Bionics, the Book of Magic compendium, Sourcebook 1...and leave most of the rest on the shelves until it went on deep discount. If you have other Palladium stuff, like the Palladium RPG or Heroes Unlimited, I'd also buy the RIFTS conversion book. Not that there's not good stuff in there, but as was mentioned before, there's a lot of stuff that simply isn't essential.
Last edited:
IcyCool
First Post
Rifts is a fantastic setting, but the rules are horrifyingly bad. And what's worse, any fan attempt at collaboration on a conversion over at the Palladium boards is met with swift condemnation by Kevin and cronies. Add to that the fact that pretty much every writer they've employed who shows the slightest bit of talent is fired shortly after ...
Yeah. Great setting. Terrible rules. Bad company politics.
This is a troll, right? You can't honestly believe this. (And you do know that Rifts uses a D20 for attacks, various dice for damage, and d% for skills, right?)
Yeah. Great setting. Terrible rules. Bad company politics.
Catavarie said:<snipped a lot of crud>
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
This is a troll, right? You can't honestly believe this. (And you do know that Rifts uses a D20 for attacks, various dice for damage, and d% for skills, right?)
Colonelpuddinhead
First Post
Immak Antunel said:
ANY game system with a GOOD dm is a good game, and thats the truth.
CP
wingsandsword
Legend
Palladium's mechanics are a blatant ripoff of 1st edition AD&D, mixed with Runequest while he was at it, all of it poorly explained and radically unbalanced. It might have been a vaguely passable system 20 years ago, but now it's a mostly forgotten relic on the scrapheap of gaming history.
By the way Catavarie, copyrights don't last for 20 years, that's a patent, copyright lasts for 95 years at present, and it's virtually impossible to patent a roleplaying game mechanic or system (the prior art claims would be abundant). If copyright lasted 20 years, every movie made before 1985 would be public domain, for example.
I hear occasionally from Palladium fanboys that d20 is a ripoff of Palladium, and I laugh every time. Palladium didn't invent rolling a d20 to determine if you hit or miss, the concept of a "saving throw", the idea of character classes or spell levels. The only game mechanical concept that was somewhat unique and not borrowed from somewhere else was the megadamage concept, and that was a game balance train-wreck that every GM I ever knew who used the Palladium system house ruled down to a 10:1 ratio instead of 100:1.
I have played Palladium, and even at the time (back in the late 90's, before d20) I thought the system was a train wreck, a cobbled together disaster that smelled like somebodys bad homebrew where they tried to blend AD&D with some bits of other games they liked. When d20 came out, I didn't think back to Palladium, it was more like AD&D with some influence from Alternity and a few things from Rolemaster while it was at it, and to be honest, I haven't seen any Palladium system game played in the last 5 years since nobody I know thought the system was worth playing after d20 came out.
The actual Rifts setting is actually interesting, but the system it's fused to is a disaster of legendary proportions.
By the way Catavarie, copyrights don't last for 20 years, that's a patent, copyright lasts for 95 years at present, and it's virtually impossible to patent a roleplaying game mechanic or system (the prior art claims would be abundant). If copyright lasted 20 years, every movie made before 1985 would be public domain, for example.
I hear occasionally from Palladium fanboys that d20 is a ripoff of Palladium, and I laugh every time. Palladium didn't invent rolling a d20 to determine if you hit or miss, the concept of a "saving throw", the idea of character classes or spell levels. The only game mechanical concept that was somewhat unique and not borrowed from somewhere else was the megadamage concept, and that was a game balance train-wreck that every GM I ever knew who used the Palladium system house ruled down to a 10:1 ratio instead of 100:1.
I have played Palladium, and even at the time (back in the late 90's, before d20) I thought the system was a train wreck, a cobbled together disaster that smelled like somebodys bad homebrew where they tried to blend AD&D with some bits of other games they liked. When d20 came out, I didn't think back to Palladium, it was more like AD&D with some influence from Alternity and a few things from Rolemaster while it was at it, and to be honest, I haven't seen any Palladium system game played in the last 5 years since nobody I know thought the system was worth playing after d20 came out.
The actual Rifts setting is actually interesting, but the system it's fused to is a disaster of legendary proportions.
Psion
Adventurer
Catavarie said:
I bet you are very proud of yourself... but trolling is generally not considered a good thing 'round these parts.
Curious that you seem oblivious to the 90% of shared attributes between d20 and Palladium that were done in *D&D first (classes, levels, xp by progressive XP charts, increasing damage capacity by HD, etc) but are curiously obsessed with the one thing that Palladium did first.
And D&D came to it in a roundabout way. Dice+mods applied to a wide berth of tasks across the system had slowly established itself in several places across the hobby. D&D just followed this evolution.
Palladium OTOH, never moved beyond using percentile for skills (another 1e-ism) and different dice for combat. That palladium acheived as something of an abberation one thing D&D did as part of a logical evolution is not an especially compelling argument that Palladium is some bastion of inspiration when it comes to RPG materials. It's a bit like crowing that your clock, which has stopped, is correct twice a day.
Fact check -- copyrights are NOT good for 20 years. Quite a bit longer, actually.
But as long as you are comparing copyright dates, look on those 1e (& earlier) books and observe that primacy.
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
Now there's an impressive appeal to authority.
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