Tell me about RIFTS

[Crothian]

Another thing, Rifts is really what I call and "advanced" setting. It is not for newbies to run. There are too many cvool things and neat toys and the balance issue on everything is not always apparent. Alos, the rules are cumbersome, but a good and experienced DM can deal with them. I played for 10 years without need of many houserules becasue I knew what worked for our group and what didn't, so I was able to work around many problems by just steering and nudging the players away from them.

Even though I really have no intention of playing the game agin any time soon, Rifts is one game I also don't have any intention of getting rid of. In truth if I had the extra money I would still be picking up books for it becasue I do like the setting, I like the advancing time line, I like and enjoyed many things about it. And that's what frustrates me so much, the potential and ideas can be better then almost anything else out there byut at the smae time the ruiles and some of the ideas and use of those ideas are some of the worst I've seen from a mjor publishers. Rifts is the single most Hit and miss game I have ever seen. The highs and lows are even greater there then in d20, which is really saying something.

 

[KaosDevice]

I like the advancing time line, I like and enjoyed many things about it. And that's what frustrates me so much, the potential and ideas can be better then almost anything else out there byut at the smae time the ruiles and some of the ideas and use of those ideas are some of the worst I've seen from a mjor publishers. Rifts is the single most Hit and miss game I have ever seen. The highs and lows are even greater there then in d20, which is really saying something.

Dude you hit on something I both love and hate about some RPG lines. I like the idea of advancing timelines, anyone who has played in the RPGA knows that one, it makes your characters feel like part of something bigger. But as White Wolf proved, somewhat to their demise (of the previous WoD timeline anyway) is that sometimes it makes characters (and by extention players) feel helpless in the rush of that tide. Characters can only contribute so much you know in the face of that. Some settings it works, the inevitable fate of mankind in Call of Cthulhu springs to mind, but in others it seems to side line characters in the face of "name" NPCs that are the actual movers and changers of the world.

A balance somewhere between is what would truely RAWK!

 

[Zoatebix]

Yeah for Second World Sourcebook love! I second anything good (and probably anything bad, too) Psion has ever said about it. It's based on the draft versions of the 3.0 and Modern SRDs and it still rocks. Not only does it have an interesting setting and a lot of interesting mechanics, but it also contains a healthy dose of rules analysis and theory to help you chose the rules that are right for you and your worlds.

 

[Crothian]

Dude you hit on something I both love and hate about some RPG lines. I like the idea of advancing timelines, anyone who has played in the RPGA knows that one, it makes your characters feel like part of something bigger.

Well, the big advancement of time line and of events is the Siege On Tolkeen which I really liked and thought it was done well. Okay, not really as they had to really invent new magic for Tolkeen to work, and franly I thought most of the things they said Tolkeen was able to o was a joke. But still, the books were written so the PCs could do some interesting things, but the fall of the city was inevitible.

 

[Gundark]

I was a long time Rifts player. I second what everybody has said about the rules. The rules as someone already put it is a "steaming pile of dog poo". The rules will frustrate you beyond belief. Having said I think that the setting is a good idea IF you focus only on the first couple of books that came out. As futher books came out they got hokier and dumber....for example I was looking of their soon to be released part of their website and there is Rifts® World Book 27: Adventures in Dinosaur Swamp™......(gag me with a spoon). This sounds like a 50s B-movie. The mixing of all these genres in Rifts turned it from a dark grity scifi to a cheesy circus that just got dumber and dumber....

If you stick to what Rifts was suppost to be when it first came out and use something like d20 future or savage worlds or something you should have a pretty good game.

 

[Psion]

Yeah, Second World Sourcebook is a great prouct. I had a lot of fun with it and it makes a great break from traditional fantasy. It's not exactly sci-fi, but I used Arsenal and extrapolated the notes the book had on japan to make a science-fantasy japan.

 

[Sir Elton]

I did read a couple of comments on RIFTS on these boards lately. This aroused my curiosity. However, there is very little (if any at all) material about RIFT available on the Internet. So, everyone who knows about this game, could you speak about it? What it is about exactly? (Seems to me a mix of everything fantasy and sci-fi thrown together) What's nice about this game? (And what's clunky too...)

Thanks.

I heard both sides. One side says it's completely unbalanced. The other side says that they like it that way because of class psychology.

My take? Great idea, bad layout, clunky rules for our day, and a power trip if you're not careful. It would be great to change and alter the rules, but the person who controls them is being a total jerk to everyone else (I would get rid of megadamage and use damage reduction, for instance). It would save everyone heartache if he slaps just the Open Game License on Rifts and then let everyone be.

In a nutshell, the Palladium people are full of great ideas, but their rules set is outdated for the times. But, like most every roleplaying game, it exercises simple math skills, so it's not a total loss. I use BESM d20 and Mecha d20 for Rifts. The three just seem to go together.

 

[Turanil]

I use BESM d20 and Mecha d20 for Rifts. The three just seem to go together.

This looks like a good idea.

Now, after reading all the posts to this thread I understand that what's cool about RIFTS is the setting mixing a post-apocalyptic sci-fi world with intrusion of the supernatural from other dimensions. D20 Modern/Future game mechanics with stuff added from here and there (FX classes from Urban Arcana, third party publishers' PDFs about cyborgs and whatnot, etc.) would do the trick perfectly well. It seems to me that what's required is to come up with nice concepts and names (Glitter Boy for a metallic android who advances in the cyborg advanced class?)...

 

[Sir Elton]

This looks like a good idea.

Now, after reading all the posts to this thread I understand that what's cool about RIFTS is the setting mixing a post-apocalyptic sci-fi world with intrusion of the supernatural from other dimensions. D20 Modern/Future game mechanics with stuff added from here and there (FX classes from Urban Arcana, third party publishers' PDFs about cyborgs and whatnot, etc.) would do the trick perfectly well. It seems to me that what's required is to come up with nice concepts and names (Glitter Boy for a metallic android who advances in the cyborg advanced class?)...

A Glitterboy is a Mecha Pilot.

 

[Felon]

Of course, there's not much to the character without the armor, so it might as well be a borg or robot.