RIFTS RPG?

[Hexenritter Verlag]

I am a fan of the RIFTS RPG or at least I was, as it has become a bloated mess both system-wise and setting-wise. As I've grown older I've grown extremely wary of complex systems and settings that are over detailed. The only current exceptions to this rule is RuneQuest & Glorantha, as they are the only ones I am willing to try to learn and potentially run eventually. But back on topic, I loved the RIFTS setting growing up and own many of the books in print, but I'll never run it - or run it as is or with the Savage Worlds alternate system. 

My core issue is that PB kept adding more & more civilization to the mix thus leading to a bloated sci-fantasy setting with very little P-A content, where as the initial setting there were only a small collection of civilized high-tech city-states mainly set in the Great Lakes region but stretching into Texas and into Mexico; with wide expanses of wilderness. Now you have numerous kingdoms, weapon suppliers and there is very little true wilderness left to explore or create your own space. The Coalition States (CS) is a "Empire" of anti-magic Human Supremacists (your Nazi stand in) that eventual swelled to such a size that it beggers the imagination how they 1) can arm and feed their citizenry, 2) how come all humans in North America do not live in the region if only for survival reasons & 3) why the CS hasn't conquered the whole of the former USA & Canada with only pockets of wilderness near the magic soaked regions near Ley Line nexuses and area with extreme rift activity left outside their power. 

When RIFTS was first published the setting though gonzo and saw civilization and technology slowly creeping back but civilization was limited to certain regions because of mutants, dimensional beings & sorcerous cabals keeping civilization in check. Vampires control Mexico, Brodkill & giant demonic Gargoyles surround the New German Republic & Poland. You have dragons and whole tribes of inhuman dimensional beings controlling whole swathes of North America & the world but with how the CS is written it is like an unstoppable juggernaut that should be able to pacify much of North America. It got so bad PB actually created a meta-storyline in order to bring back the Post-apocalypse to the setting, but like in Star Wars the PCs are just bit players not the heroes in the official setting. 

I want the setting to get back to its Gonzo P-A roots but without the clunky rules that become a barrier to the game, so if I do convert it it'll have to be done so in a way that keeps play fast but still keeps the wonder of the original setting and game. I want to create my own Dimensional Beings (D-Bees) without the unnecessary work of building them using PB's rules which often means you need a page or two of stats and abilities with descriptions.   

So how many of you played or ran RIFTS?

What did you like and dislike about it?

If you liked the setting but didn't like the rules, what rules did you run it with? I have a Facebook "friend" who loves it but runs it with GURPS.

Has anyone tried to run it via any edition of D&D?

I am considering converting the core setting to D&D (either using OD&D+Supplements w/ OSR Sci-Fi additions or an OSR clone that has fantasy & sci-fi rules) and then only add stuff from the RIFTS supplements that fit my own vision of the setting. I love the implied setting but PB never realized it as it seemed to be meant to be.

[colinouchou]

I've never looked at it, but Gonzo P-A sounds very promising. I haven't run into anything that I wouldn't run using the OD&D rules tweaked for the genre.

[Hexenritter Verlag]

Aug 11, 2018 17:55:10 GMT -5 colinouchou said:

I've never looked at it, but Gonzo P-A sounds very promising. I haven't run into anything that I wouldn't run using the OD&D rules tweaked for the genre.

I have found this to be true, I ask myself now - "What can this system do for this genre that OD&D is not able to do". I have found by and large that there is nothing these systems can do that OD&D cannot replicate with ease.

[Q Man]

Can you tell us more about the RIFTS setting and the items that you want to keep? Have you considered just building your own version of RIFTS and keeping your own versions of the stuff that you like?

[Hexenritter Verlag]

Aug 12, 2018 16:02:03 GMT -5 Q Man said:

Can you tell us more about the RIFTS setting and the items that you want to keep? Have you considered just building your own version of RIFTS and keeping your own versions of the stuff that you like?

I will be doing so asap, I had been thinking about doing just that but had an errand to run. I'll type up an overview and quote sections of the setting overview to give as examples. I might post it tonight or tomorrow, just depends on the time I need to do it. 

[Hexenritter Verlag]

Q Man said: 

"Can you tell us more about the RIFTS setting and the items that you want to keep? Have you considered just building your own version of RIFTS and keeping your own versions of the stuff that you like?”

I’ll answer the second question first, frankly yes I could but I’d have to still deal with the system’s quirks; which is the main reason I haven’t run it outside half-arsed one-shots to shut up my brother. The problem with RIFTS and other Palladium Books RPGs is they are labor intensive to prep for; even Rolemaster has cheats to make things easier. Every Racial Character Class (RCC) and Occupational Character Class have two to six pages of stats and ability definitions, which is made worse when you combine the two when creating a OCC that has RCC elements. Then toss in the equipment of which some have a full page to multi-page spreads with stats for each aspect of the equipment in question. You then have to choose skills under three categories, the only real short cut is starting equipment which can be added to before play starts.



Now to the setting part of the first question, the general concept that the setting is built upon is that of survival & rebuilding Earth after three hundred years after the fall and the coming of the RIFTS. Magic has flooded the world making Earth a nexus point in the Megaverse, with RIFTS opening and closing along Ley Lines and Ley Lines Nexus points spewing forth often very dangerous and powerful beings, many have natural Mega-Damage armor (basically resistance to standard weaponry) and weapons or abilities that cause Megadamage (1pt of MD = 100pts of Structural Damage Capacity {SDC}). If a normal person that is not wearing MDC armor is hit by a MD weapon/attack they are toast. Poof! You are turned into a pink and red mist, something I never cared for myself.



So the earth was nearly a high tech Utopia for a brief period until a world war caused the utopia to crumble, then a decade later the cataclysm occurred as I said above, the world plunged into a new Dark Age and the remnants of Humanity struggled on the brink of extinction for a hundred years. The RIFTS and magic had changed the face of Earth in sometimes very literal ways. The Coalition States rose to prominence in the region near Chicago as did a few other independent high tech city-states or Kingdoms. In the region once known as the USA & Canada only thirteen sizable civilized communities, most are aligned to or a member of the Coalition States – aka the Empire of Humanity. CS Iron Heart & CS Free Quebec are the northern most bastions of humanity, while CS Lone Star lies to the south, it is bordered by a lawless region called the Pecos Empire home to marauding bands of raiders. Lazlo, New Lazlo, Tolkeen and the vile Magic Zone (and the Federation of Magic) are home to human and D-Bee magic-users. Outside the CS aligned states you have Ishpeming (Northern Gun) & Mantistique Imperium are rivals and loose allies to the CS, they do not share the Coalition’s distain of magic but are highly suspicious of it, MI allows D-Bee citizens where as the CS states do not.



Mexico is controlled by Vampire Intelligences (think Lovecraftian Old ones) who create vampirism in those they can infect and control. There is several other kind of Alien Intelligences that have an influence upon RIFTS Earth. You have a secret AI that controls an army of robots and Androids, who has plans for the future as well. All of this is fine, but the various metaplots that forced PCs to background players and setting bloat that made it less wild.



I could just create my own Magic & High Tech infused Post-Apocalyptic Science Fantasy setting that is a pastiche of RIFTS, but why? Especially since I could just convert RIFTS to OD&D instead & mine all my supplements in my library to give me years of campaign play.



Another gripe I have is in the bloat they robbed most of the OCCs & RCCs of their specialness – creating multiple variants making the original redundant adding more and more abilities to make each one special. I have zero problem adding variants unless they make the core race or class basically undesirable. RIFTS reminds me of what TSR are did with 2e AD&D & the Forgotten Realms, they kept adding things that robbed both of their character. Most RIFTS fans are okay with it, some like me have grown weary of the bloat and clunky system. I had to ask myself what can the Palladium Megaversal or Savage Worlds rules do that OD&D can’t? My answer nothing, so I’d prefer to take my time & convert RIFTS to OD&D if I can than mess with the official game or its Savage Worlds counterpart.

[Q Man]

That sounds really interesting.  I might recast those vampires as the drug cartels.

[Hexenritter Verlag]

Aug 16, 2018 23:27:45 GMT -5 Q Man said:

That sounds really interesting.  I might recast those vampires as the drug cartels.

It would not fit the setting, if this was a standard post-apocalyptic setting I'd agree but it is one plagued by dimensional RIFTS and the supernatural, so the developer oddly chose to have Vampires dominate Mexico - I don't understand the logic but I am fine with it. Since if I do a conversion for this setting I want to keep the core elements to the setting from the original core book so any players familiar with the setting will feel at home in it even though I'd be running it with a different rules system. Now if I had created a P-A setting set closer to our time period, Mexico would be dominated by warlords derived from those Drug Cartels and the former military. 

[Hexenritter Verlag]

IF i do this project it'll be long term as there is a lot to convert and I want the OD&D version to still have the RIFTS vibe just less clunky and thus easier for me to prepare for and run. 

[Hexenritter Verlag]

Some of you here in this thread & others in which P-A roleplaying has come up have suggested that if I choose to convert RIFTS to OD&D, I should also fuse Gamma World & Metamorphosis Alpha into it. With Gamma World this is easy as much of what is in Gamma World is either already covered in RIFTS or easily incorporated (such as mutations & the Cryptic Alliances) as there is very little setting material.

Now Metamorphosis Alpha would be harder as it is based on a huge space ship and because of the weird setting reasoning you cannot get to or from earth via space travel... but you could incorporate it into the RIFTS Phaseworld sub-setting. That said, that will not likely occur as I want to keep my setting earth based. That said, I could mine elements from it, but it'll take time to go through my MA PDF first.

One of the big problems with converting RIFTS or any other Megaversal based system is what to emulate and what to simply ignore. If you emulate something how can you do it without sacrificing 1) speed of play & 2) the character of the system and setting? Skills? You can just ignore them. Damage? RIFTS has THREE damage you need to deal with - Armor (either SDC or MDC), personal SDC and Hit Points. You could emulate those but why? Personal SDC should be ignored, it was a stupid addition to the basic PB rules in the first place. SDC armor should be treated just as normal armor in OD&D. MDC is special whether it is personal or granted via armor or magic it will likely need to be treated as a resistance (Only magic & MD weapons can harm it). Armor in RIFTS is basically a big damage soak, you have to destroy the armor or robot to damage the person or people inside it. Thus it'll S-L-O-W down the game if ported over. You could divide the MDC by two thus making things tough to hurt but not a complete slog fest. I don't know yet - it is something I need to think about more. Magic could be tweaked to fit the OD&D Vancian style or ported over to replace it. Outside combat/damage converting the conversion of the OCCs & RCCs will be the trickiest, as there are a lot of stats that need to be worked through to see best how to convert them to OD&D. 

[El Borak]

Aug 27, 2018 14:30:22 GMT -5 Hexenritter Verlag said:

Some of you here in this thread & others in which P-A roleplaying has come up have suggested that if I choose to convert RIFTS to OD&D, I should also fuse Gamma World & Metamorphosis Alpha into it. With Gamma World this is easy as much of what is in Gamma World is either already covered in RIFTS or easily incorporated (such as mutations & the Cryptic Alliances) as there is very little setting material.

Now Metamorphosis Alpha would be harder as it is based on a huge space ship and because of the weird setting reasoning you cannot get to or from earth via space travel... but you could incorporate it into the RIFTS Phaseworld sub-setting. That said, that will not likely occur as I want to keep my setting earth based. That said, I could mine elements from it, but it'll take time to go through my MA PDF first.

One of the big problems with converting RIFTS or any other Megaversal based system is what to emulate and what to simply ignore. If you emulate something how can you do it without sacrificing 1) speed of play & 2) the character of the system and setting? Skills? You can just ignore them. Damage? RIFTS has THREE damage you need to deal with - Armor (either SDC or MDC), personal SDC and Hit Points. You could emulate those but why? Personal SDC should be ignored, it was a stupid addition to the basic PB rules in the first place. SDC armor should be treated just as normal armor in OD&D. MDC is special whether it is personal or granted via armor or magic it will likely need to be treated as a resistance (Only magic & MD weapons can harm it). Armor in RIFTS is basically a big damage soak, you have to destroy the armor or robot to damage the person or people inside it. Thus it'll S-L-O-W down the game if ported over. You could divide the MDC by two thus making things tough to hurt but not a complete slog fest. I don't know yet - it is something I need to think about more. Magic could be tweaked to fit the OD&D Vancian style or ported over to replace it. Outside combat/damage converting the conversion of the OCCs & RCCs will be the trickiest, as there are a lot of stats that need to be worked through to see best how to convert them to OD&D. 

I would run with the D&D AC and create unique one of a kind magic swords to deal with the Rift delivered critters.

[Hexenritter Verlag]

I had considered doing away with the Power Armor & Giant Robots - even though iconic for RIFTS and just rule that in order to damage a MegaDamage D-Bee or person in MDC armor you must either have magic or MD weapons. Basically like demons & some other critters in D&D, you can't harm them with standard weapons and standard armor cannot resist MD damage which does 10xd6 dmg to those types of armored and non-armored peoples.

[El Borak]

Aug 28, 2018 0:07:47 GMT -5 Hexenritter Verlag said:

I had considered doing away with the Power Armor & Giant Robots - even though iconic for RIFTS and just rule that in order to damage a MegaDamage D-Bee or person in MDC armor you must either have magic or MD weapons. Basically like demons & some other critters in D&D, you can't harm them with standard weapons and standard armor cannot resist MD damage which does 10xd6 dmg to those types of armored and non-armored peoples.

Yeah, I think redo it and do away with any thing that you don't either really love or doesn't really fit your concept.

[Hexenritter Verlag]

It might be just easier to take the core RIFTS concept - a gonzo science fantasy futuristic Post-Apocalyptic with magic, rifts & dimensional beings. Then fuse bits of Gamma World, Fallout & Metamorphosis Alpha with it, plus it'd keep things easier to run than have to try to convert the various OCCs & RCCS, plus the technology.

[El Borak]

Aug 30, 2018 19:20:33 GMT -5 Hexenritter Verlag said:

It might be just easier to take the core RIFTS concept - a gonzo science fantasy futuristic Post-Apocalyptic with magic, rifts & dimensional beings. Then fuse bits of Gamma World, Fallout & Metamorphosis Alpha with it, plus it'd keep things easier to run than have to try to convert the various OCCs & RCCS, plus the technology.

Fallout is a video game isn't it or are you talking about Gurps Fallout (free pdf) or Savage Worlds Fallout. Also RETROCALYPSE and Exodus.  

[Hexenritter Verlag]

The videogame, i never played the Pen N Paper Fallout game. I used to have the old PC game and had Brotherhood of Steel PS2 game. I'll have to check out the other ones you linked El Borak.