This probably pisses me off so much because Palladium was one of my initial introductions to roleplaying in my young teens, and seeing that it still has the exact same problems now as it did then is really frustrating. The settings are great, but I just don't have the motivation to completely retool game mechanics when there are other games out there I can play out of the book.
This.
It's the system I've spend basically all of my gaming career on, but it's just a bear. Things move so slow, some thing don't make sense (though others do) etc. I mainly played Palladium Fantasy rather than Rifts (though played essentially all of their settings at one point or another), but it is just frustrating to work with. Plus, since Kevin basically insists on writing all of the world info himself (aside from Bill Coffin's great body of work), the basic world will never actually be finished being fleshed out (it's coming up on 30 years, with MAJOR areas of the world left undescribed).
Really? They had plenty of books to cover the whole world:
Just off the top of my head:
Rifts/Chi-Town covered North America
Triax covered Europe
England
Atlantis
Vampire Kingdoms/South America
Japan
Russia
Africa
Austrailia
I think there was one for Canada/Quebec too...
How much more of the world did you need?
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rucdocCrazy guy in the cornerClassifiedRegistered Userregular
Mega-Damage was really the downfall of the Palladium games. The ones without it (Ninjas and Superspies, TMNT, Heroes Unlimited, etc) were clunky and restricting, and at times frustrating, but they weren't actively broken.
Even things like Robotech where SDC and MDC existed in what were almost entirely separate arenas worked ok if you were patient enough.
Of course this could all be rose colored glasses.
TMNT was the first RPG system I ever bought, and continued along with the franchise with After the Bomb and Mutants Down Under. I remember the system having a elaborate character generator. Most details of character creation could be generated randomly, and I always found that process exciting. I had a vague sense that choosing one's original animal and powers to be cheating. While compellingly broad and deep, the character generation process even in those early publications seems to have been unconcerned with balance. Stat modifiers, skill modifiers, natural weapons, armour, and SDC modifiers, and numbers of attacks could vary quite a bit from one to another. The seed, perhaps, that would blossom into a monstrous flower.
Ah, TMNT. BIO-E points. Those were the days.
I remember that you got a bonus for convincing everyone else in the party to play almost the exact character you did (same animal species, same mutations, same background).
We did a lot of TMNT/Ninjas and Superspies crossovers. In fact, one of my few stints as a player was an escaped cybernetic tiger-man experiment trained in ninjutsu.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds.2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
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KayWhat we need...Is a little bit of PANIC.Registered Userregular
edited November 2010
I remember totally bucking the trend once in TMNT and I made a shotgun-rocking Armadillo on a motorbike who smoked cigars continuously. He was fun.
Then there was the time we did the random-roll thing and made a team, and we ended up with a group of three super-speeder stealth-killer weasels with Hand to Hand - Assassin training and insane metabolism. We had to steal so much MEAT to stay alive, you had to eat like twice your body weight per day or something stupid. (The bonus for having a team of all the same background/species was that you got a skill bonus - three people meant you counted as level 3 for all skills, I think.)
Really? They had plenty of books to cover the whole world:
...
How much more of the world did you need?
Sorry, I meant Palladium Fantasy was missing vast swathes of the world (specifically, the massive, massive area in between everything... it's like you're teaching US Geography, and you never mention the area between the Rockies and the Appalachians, aside from "well, some people live here I guess").
Rifts was pretty fleshed out, because for that world, Kevin eased up his grip enough to really allow for contributors, even though they went buck wild with the relative power level.
I do have a gripe, though, about Rift world books totally leaving out the west coast, to the best of my knowledge. It may be that I have a bias towards the Pacific Northwest, but Oregon/Washington/Idaho/BC would probably have a good ability to survive cataclysm pretty intact, and we're packed to the gills with high tech stuff (Boeing, Microsoft, decommissioned Hanford reactor, tons of military installations [including a large amount of nuclear arms in bunkers near Bremerton, WA {shhh!}]) But, it may just be the chip on my shoulder about most of the west coast, Seattle especially, getting mis/underrepresented in American media. Eh.
The thing that stands out in my memories of Rifts, is how the sourcebooks insisted that everyone from 'Great Britain' had the Boxing skill. Everyone. We all box.
Power gaming as it may have been, Boxing was a nigh-required skill for everybody. It gave an extra attack per melee. For one fucking skill selection, that's pretty pimp in that system. Especially when you consider that we started off not using the "2 attacks for being alive, plus 2 or more for having a Hand to Hand skills". Going from 2 to 3, or 3 to 4 for 1 OCC related skill (I don't think Boxing can be taken as a Secondary Skill) was absolutely badass.
God damnit. I'm going to do it. This thread shall make me go out and start hunting Triax and the NGR 2. Because the first book was among my all time favourites, and I must know what else shows up.
And yet when I look at my "reduced collection of favourites", there's probably another half dozen I could ebay off for some cash.
... though as people talk about it, the idea of rebuilding the collection holds appeal as well, though that's just insanity, as I haven't played with that system in over a decade, and can't see a group forming easily (especially with my crew's current 4th Edition kick going strong, Paragon is a fun tier).
But if it's good enough I could see a new book being added in the coming days all the same.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
See, as much as we might mock the mechanics, we all agree that the fluff was awesome. There was something so amiable and enjoyable about the batshit insane crossovers; total schlock, and it was all the better for it.
While there have been dozens (if not hundreds) of better designed and better balanced games out there, background material that inspires the same level of childish glee is a lot harder to come by...
Totally. The basic stuff of Rifts is pretty cool, it's just bundled with a bulky and awkward rule set. I'm pretty sure the first 4e character I worked out on paper, with no CB software, took about as much time as it does for me to make a Rifts/Palladium Fantasy/etc character, with 15 years experience.
Without question. I recall taking the airship rules from Mutants Down Under and the stats from a coalition APC and putting the two together. The party had a couple of sky cycles and a psi-stalker in SAMAS power armour flying CAP. It was magical.
See, as much as we might mock the mechanics, we all agree that the fluff was awesome. There was something so amiable and enjoyable about the batshit insane crossovers; total schlock, and it was all the better for it.
While there have been dozens (if not hundreds) of better designed and better balanced games out there, background material that inspires the same level of childish glee is a lot harder to come by...
This is why I've converted it into virtually every system I've had extended experience with. It's gotten bad enough that it's one of my first thoughts about a new set of mechanics; "how would Rifts play under this?".
There's just nothing like the setting out there. I can see parallels to WH40K, Shadowrun and even Star Wars, but none of them are willing to go balls to the wall crazy like Rifts. Lucky for them, they're all better systems.
Of course, if I could find a game of Ninjas and Superspies today I'd jump right in without a moment's hesitation. :P
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His stack of Rifts and White Wolf books are what got me into gaming with my own nerd herd even though I was 5 years younger.
This.
It's the system I've spend basically all of my gaming career on, but it's just a bear. Things move so slow, some thing don't make sense (though others do) etc. I mainly played Palladium Fantasy rather than Rifts (though played essentially all of their settings at one point or another), but it is just frustrating to work with. Plus, since Kevin basically insists on writing all of the world info himself (aside from Bill Coffin's great body of work), the basic world will never actually be finished being fleshed out (it's coming up on 30 years, with MAJOR areas of the world left undescribed).
Just off the top of my head:
Rifts/Chi-Town covered North America
Triax covered Europe
England
Atlantis
Vampire Kingdoms/South America
Japan
Russia
Africa
Austrailia
I think there was one for Canada/Quebec too...
How much more of the world did you need?
http://www.dust514stats.com
I remember that you got a bonus for convincing everyone else in the party to play almost the exact character you did (same animal species, same mutations, same background).
We did a lot of TMNT/Ninjas and Superspies crossovers. In fact, one of my few stints as a player was an escaped cybernetic tiger-man experiment trained in ninjutsu.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Then there was the time we did the random-roll thing and made a team, and we ended up with a group of three super-speeder stealth-killer weasels with Hand to Hand - Assassin training and insane metabolism. We had to steal so much MEAT to stay alive, you had to eat like twice your body weight per day or something stupid. (The bonus for having a team of all the same background/species was that you got a skill bonus - three people meant you counted as level 3 for all skills, I think.)
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
Sorry, I meant Palladium Fantasy was missing vast swathes of the world (specifically, the massive, massive area in between everything... it's like you're teaching US Geography, and you never mention the area between the Rockies and the Appalachians, aside from "well, some people live here I guess").
Rifts was pretty fleshed out, because for that world, Kevin eased up his grip enough to really allow for contributors, even though they went buck wild with the relative power level.
I do have a gripe, though, about Rift world books totally leaving out the west coast, to the best of my knowledge. It may be that I have a bias towards the Pacific Northwest, but Oregon/Washington/Idaho/BC would probably have a good ability to survive cataclysm pretty intact, and we're packed to the gills with high tech stuff (Boeing, Microsoft, decommissioned Hanford reactor, tons of military installations [including a large amount of nuclear arms in bunkers near Bremerton, WA {shhh!}]) But, it may just be the chip on my shoulder about most of the west coast, Seattle especially, getting mis/underrepresented in American media. Eh.
But if you feel bad about the west coast, you can always look to Shadowrun for your west coast love.
Britain was covered in leylines and druidic stuff and had the World Tree that had massive leaves you could turn into MDC armour.
Oh and...
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
God damnit. I'm going to do it. This thread shall make me go out and start hunting Triax and the NGR 2. Because the first book was among my all time favourites, and I must know what else shows up.
And yet when I look at my "reduced collection of favourites", there's probably another half dozen I could ebay off for some cash.
... though as people talk about it, the idea of rebuilding the collection holds appeal as well, though that's just insanity, as I haven't played with that system in over a decade, and can't see a group forming easily (especially with my crew's current 4th Edition kick going strong, Paragon is a fun tier).
But if it's good enough I could see a new book being added in the coming days all the same.
While there have been dozens (if not hundreds) of better designed and better balanced games out there, background material that inspires the same level of childish glee is a lot harder to come by...
There's just nothing like the setting out there. I can see parallels to WH40K, Shadowrun and even Star Wars, but none of them are willing to go balls to the wall crazy like Rifts. Lucky for them, they're all better systems.
Of course, if I could find a game of Ninjas and Superspies today I'd jump right in without a moment's hesitation. :P
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.