Rifts

[questionmark693]

What do you think about it?

[ArcturusV]

Perfectly fun system as long as you're being reasonable with it. Like several systems. I mean it can get broken REAAAAAL fast. Really, really fast. But I don't let that sort of thing really stop my enjoyment of the game. It's like say, Old White Wolf stuff. I've seen that get ridiculously broken really fast too. But it was still a fun game to play as long as you just were reasonable about it as the ST.

So it requires a bit more wrangling from the GM. You have to be willing to look at a first level character and go, "okay... you have 14 attacks per melee? Not even counting your mech training? No. Just... no."

Once you curb stomp that sort of stuff? It becomes a really fun game. Magic and Psionics are both interesting but aren't going to break the game over it's knee. You have a very universal idea to the system. Your players can easily in setting be doing everything from stopping a daring daylight raid by Vampire Mutants one day, and the next day be fighting dinosaurs, to having laser sword duels the day after that, to finding a cyberdoc to get some illegal bionics the next. And it all just... makes sense in the system. It's pulpy, it's cheesy a bit. It's still a lot of fun though.

Plus the ease of use and the fact it was really easy and encouraged in the rules means I did have some Robotech-Rifts crossover adventures. As I got into that system through Robotech originally, which I loved. And the campaigns for it were a whole hell of a lot of fun.

[LibraryOgre]

Something of a relic. While there tends to be a lot of neat ideas in any given book, there's also a lot of dross and repeated themes... a technological nation that's a bit fascist against a magic-using nation that's outright evil, with another magic-using nation that is reasonably good. Sometimes the evil magic-users aren't really a nation; other times they are.

While people like to bash Rifts for being overpowered, that is not strictly true. Rather, Palladium doesn't have any real balance measures installed into the system (the closest they have is varying XP tables, but that's more or less useless as a balance measure, since most of them are simply too damn high). You want to play a wizard, he wants to play a cyborg, and a third guy wants to play a vagabond (whose special power was, for the first 15 years or so, "I'm the only guy with soap"?). Sure, no problem. Soap-guy knows what he's getting into.

It's also married to a system that has some good ideas but is in serious need of reconsideration at parts. While it works adequately for humans, it tends to strain around anything supernatural or odd (e.g.: If you have a hand to hand skill, chances are that your 3rd level benefit will be a number of kick attacks... even if they're completely unsuited to your physiology, or you have better kick attacks due to some other aspect of your nature). Skills tend to be a strict either/or, and damage output doesn't really keep up with armoring options without going into missiles.

Professionally, Palladium tends to treat its writers very poorly, and is somewhat reluctant to engage in electronic publishing, preferring to instead to reprint physical books and sit on them. They're hostile to derivative works, especially any that mingle their IP with those of others, meaning that they tend to alienate people who are fans of other things, and want to bring them into their love of Rifts. They promise big and deliver seldom, and there's been a shift over the past decade and a half (dating to either Maryann's departure or the "Crisis of Treachery", depending on who you ask) to centralized control; very little gets through that hasn't had Kevin's direct and significant influence.

For a while, Palladium was one of the big names in the industry. They weren't D&D or White Wolf, but they were a pretty consistent third to those, with a more gonzo attitude than D&D's largely Tolkien-inspired medieval fantasy, or White Wolf's more social-driven games. For a lot of people, Rifts was your first or second game... you may mostly play (D&D/White Wolf), but when you were in the mood for something different, you went with Rifts. But Palladium has failed to adapt to the times, leaving them lagging in popularity and sales, especially as they drive talent to other publishers.

[questionmark693]

I played for the first time today, after reading about sixty percent of the main book. It seems needlessly complicated, and the GM is...stupid. Contradicting explicit rules in the book because they're confusing...like for instance 'you CANNOT make more than one attack of any kind (melee/ranged/magic/psionic/etc.) in any given round for any reason'. I was pretty ticked about that rule XD Also...the thing about Kevin righting in first person like this was a pet project and made arbitrary decisions...it weirds me out :/

[scurv]

It is a fun system to use, I have played it before but it is a good idea for your players to have a few extra chars made when you play.

[Beelzebub1111]

I have one complaint. And it's more of a fluff thing. How the hell do vampires EXIST when there are water warlocks? All it would take is one to reach 9th level and he could at least clear out the Pecos Empire. Even make good headway into mexico if he manages to summon a Major Water Elemental. Makes no god damned sense.

[LibraryOgre]

I have one complaint. And it's more of a fluff thing. How the hell do vampires EXIST when there are water warlocks? All it would take is one to reach 9th level and he could at least clear out the Pecos Empire. Even make good headway into mexico if he manages to summon a Major Water Elemental. Makes no god damned sense.

This is not a new complaint. I'm not slamming you for this... just saying that, yes, people have noticed this.

[Beelzebub1111]

I can only conclude that no water warlocks above second level have ever reached the southwest. And possibly that Vampire Kingdoms was Written before Conversion Book 1. But that's neither here nor there.

As for my general oppinion of Rifts, It's terrible but I love it. It is the Showgirls of Tabletop RPGs. It's so bad, and yet at the same time it's kind of amazing.

[Hunter Noventa]

It can be fun, though when our group plays it out biggest beef is always with the skill system. Where a level 1 pilot has a 30% of flying straight, with the implication that yes, you are a trained pilot.

It manages to have pretty fun mecha rules though, we used it for our Macross-based campaign and good times were had.

[Beelzebub1111]

It can be fun, though when our group plays it out biggest beef is always with the skill system. Where a level 1 pilot has a 30% of flying straight, with the implication that yes, you are a trained pilot.

It manages to have pretty fun mecha rules though, we used it for our Macross-based campaign and good times were had.

I treat pilot and drive skills only in Stressful situations. A more experienced pilot won't crack under pressure of enemy fire or being chased by a dragon. And it's important to not the difference between a Merc who can fly a plane, and a trained pilot, and a genetically modified, steroid-injected, super pilot. As evidenced by the OCC skill bonuses and Related bonuses. 45%-ish is reasonable for somebody just out of flight-school.