Ultimate Rifts. Improvement or Same Old Stuff?

[Krypter]

I think I'll pass on this book, in favor of the more balanced Rifts rulebook that's also coming out this fall. Granted, that one doesn't have any setting information, and is labeled "Mutants and Masterminds 2nd edition", but it has all the rules I need to run a smooth Rifts game.

Hah! That's funny. "M&M. The un-Rifts cola!"


I'd buy a d20 Rifts book, but I think something like BESM would be best suited for that kind of patchwork, high-powered game world.

 

[scourger]

Well, I'm glad to know that Rifts Ultimate Edition isn't my ticket to ride that train again.

We played a lot of Rifts about 15 years ago (hard to believe it's been that long). It was fun, but probably mostly beacuse of the GM's style. A couple of years ago, I ran it and "converted" it to d20 (using DragonStar and then Omega World). It failed in the end--spectacularly. There were a number of factors, but one I think factored largely was conversion-itis. Players don't like it when their characters have to be converted. I also got to see it as player when converting a 2e character to d20 (and I certainly was not the worst offender)--basically wrecked that campaign, too. No matter what the PCs gain, the players will bemoan what the PCs "lost". An explanation that they still interact at the same "level" with the campaign world may quell some fears, but I won't convert another game again. I would rather see it just fade away unplayed than kill it with a conversion.

I think Rifts would suffer a similar fate if converted to d20. For example, Deadlands was a great game. Deadlands d20 didn't enjoy the same success. I'd still love to see Rifts d20 (or Savaged Rifts), but I just don't think it will happen.

 

[Krypter]

So for those of you who have experimented with converting Rifts, what system seems to work best?

d20 Modern
d20 Future
d20 Mecha
Mutants & Masterminds
Spycraft
BESM
Something else? All of them?

 

[Kanegrundar]

I use D20 Modern, but I don't do a conversion so much as I take what I like flavor-wise and modify what I have and convert bits and pieces from the rest. I like the Modern system, and once you tack on Future and Apocalypse and add in various monster books from all sort of D20 lines, you've got a fairly serviceable Riftsish system. For a straight conversion, I'd likely use M&M.

Kane

 

[wingsandsword]

I think Rifts would suffer a similar fate if converted to d20. For example, Deadlands was a great game. Deadlands d20 didn't enjoy the same success. I'd still love to see Rifts d20 (or Savaged Rifts), but I just don't think it will happen.

Rifts d20 isn't going to happen because Kevin Sembieda is the one-man-show of Palladium Books, the Palladium system is his personal baby which her percieves as perfect, he considers requests for a d20 version to be insulting, has spoken out against a "d20 bandwagon" in RPG's, and has gone on record as saying that if they make a d20 version they're afraid that WotC will own all their IP. Given that they've threatened to sue, in the old TSR style, fans who do so much as discuss the details of how to convert things (message boards that have had significant conversion notes posted on them have even gotten nasty letters to remove the posts or be sued for copyright/trademark infringement). Every Rifts fan I know IRL has long since stopped using the Palladium system and runs with their own homebrew d20 concoction, and hates Palladium for their hostility towards fans and head-in-the-sand attitude about updates and progress in the gaming industry.

Now, as for Deadlands d20, that was just a bad game, it would have been bad without the original version, d20 didn't make it bad, it was that way on it's own. Games/settings have improved from the transition to d20.

 

[scourger]

So for those of you who have experimented with converting Rifts, what system seems to work best?

Something else? All of them?

\

I loved Omega World for Rifts d20 conversion. But then, I love Omega World. It's such a great little game. You can get it here:

http://paizo.com/dungeon/products/issues/2002/94

 

[scourger]

Rifts d20 isn't going to happen...Games/settings have improved from the transition to d20.

We agree on both of these points in general. I still wouldn't try to convert an existing Rifts game to d20. I wouldn't even want to convert my 3.0 game to 3.5.