Can Rifts not svck?

[virgil]

I love the setting for Rifts, but some of the finer numbers are written by a monkey (more powered suits than people in the Coalition), and the rules are horrible. Hell, the setting takes a bit of a nosedive as well as we get into the double digits of world book production (how many god-like entities are floating around with world domination in mind?). And to top it all off, the author/owner is a douche.

What I'm wondering is this. What makes Rifts the Rifts that people actually enjoy? Were we to cobble a set of rules together, what goals can we posit to create the atmosphere that would be recognizable Rifts AND not leave us with that barfy feeling?

[JonSetanta]

I didn't enjoy it, but if "Glitter Boys" could be ported to d20 Future, that's one thing worth keeping.

[Voss]

Does anyone enjoy Rifts? Seriously. I haven't seen or heard of it played in 15 years.

Solutions... um. Sort of keep the setting, rip out every last rule. You could try for a d20 Modern/Future replacement, but I have my doubts about that.

Frankly, there are so many issues between classes that it almost isn't worth dealing with
Things that are issues:
MDC vs. SDC. Sigh.
Magic sucks
Power armor pilots play a different game than everybody else.
So are some monsters/intelligences. But they aren't playing with the power armor guys, either.
It takes the worst aspects of a level based system and shoves it right up your ass.
Skills. Really. Suck.
Psionics. Guess what? most of it sucks.
Logic does not exist as a functional concept. In either the setting or rules.
Stats are worthless.
Its unclear why everyone isn't dead.

[JonSetanta]

Yes there might be a surviving d20 adaptation of Rifts but Kevin S. (the creator) was very Nazi about the 'violations' and campaigned to have them removed.

Still, the internet is like an ocean, and stuff always floats around somewhere..

[Rob_Knotts]

In some ways, the setting as presented in the main Rifts book works well as a post-apocalyptic setting. Aliens, magic, and precursor technology are all seen as dangerous by the dominant fascist city-states, but it also makes those elements more attractive to people wanting to play rebellious, heroic, or just plain self-sufficient characters.

And as much as the Coalition plagiarizes the Star Wars Empire from the original movies, Siembieda still managed to translate it pretty well into a source of ubiquitous bad guys, as well as a constant reminder of how civilization can go bad in hard times, encouraging PCs to look for a brighter future.

Beyond that, the only supplements I really see as having any worth are Juicer Uprising, Pantheons of the Megaverse, and to a lesser extent Rifts Japan. The common element here is C.J. Carella. While I'm not a fan of all his Rifts books*, the Juicer book has a lot of appeal as a general source for cyberpunk ideas, and the Pantheons book was a lot more successful as a themed superhero/villain** NPC book than as a Rifts supplement.

*The South America & Undersea books were particularly pungent cheese.

**Carella's no Jack Kirby, but he really gave it a great fanboy try.

Mechanically Rifts is a trainwreck, from the wildly unbalanced adventurer classes*, to straining beyond the breaking point what was essentially a heavily house-ruled version of AD&D 1st Edition. Oh, and let's not forget Kevin's highly dubious writing and editing skills:bored:

*Let's see, which would let me participate more, Glitter Boy, Dragon, or Scholar?

On top of that Rifts has ended up making Cyberpunk 2020 look reserved when it comes to "gun books". Back when I played 2020 most of the time, the first thing I or any other player would look for in a new supplement would be the stats for new guns or cybernetics, but that was nothing compared to equipment catalogs disguised as setting supplements like Triax and the NGR, Rifts Atlantis, Coalition War Campaign, the list goes on and on (Rifts Japan is guilty of it, too).

Between the irrelevant game system, wildly inconsistant power levels for characters, rampant plagiarism, tons of half-baked ideas, and the pages all sticking together from Kevin's ego stains, Rifts is such a bad example of mainstream gaming that we'd have to create it if it didn't already exist.

I've been tempted to run a streamlined version of Rifts using Mekton or BESM, essentially a post-apocalyptic fantasy mecha game, but I've never had the nerve to suggest it to my players. I'll happily swipe stuff from Pantheons for a Champions or M&M game, or from Uprising and Japan for a homebrew cyberpunk setting. But the idea of using the Rifts setting as a whole, even with heavy rewrites, would just make me feel dirty:ugone2far:

[Prak]

1189911145[/unixtime]]I love the setting for Rifts, but some of the finer numbers are written by a monkey (more powered suits than people in the Coalition), and the rules are horrible. Hell, the setting takes a bit of a nosedive as well as we get into the double digits of world book production (how many god-like entities are floating around with world domination in mind?). And to top it all off, the author/owner is a douche.

What I'm wondering is this. What makes Rifts the Rifts that people actually enjoy? Were we to cobble a set of rules together, what goals can we posit to create the atmosphere that would be recognizable Rifts AND not leave us with that barfy feeling?

I think one of the things I enjoyed was being able to come in completely fresh, not knowing the system, and have a rather bad ass character that can do more than exterminate rats.

Does anyone enjoy Rifts? Seriously. I haven't seen or heard of it played in 15 years.

I played it every week in late 05/early 06 and really enjoyed it.

Solutions... um. Sort of keep the setting, rip out every last rule. You could try for a d20 Modern/Future replacement, but I have my doubts about that.

the system is something I rather liked...

Frankly, there are so many issues between classes that it almost isn't worth dealing with

don't know about this, I only ever played a Summoner variant that simulated an Endbringer, a Robot Soldier based off of Rampage from Beast Wars, and an anthropomorphic goat latent master psionicist Merc.

Things that are issues:
MDC vs. SDC. Sigh.

loved MDC, part of the reason it's entirely possible to play a Bad Ass from level one. Also the reason William(my summoner) ain't around anymore except as a fine pink mist.

Magic sucks
Power armor pilots play a different game than everybody else.
So are some monsters/intelligences. But they aren't playing with the power armor guys, either.
It takes the worst aspects of a level based system and shoves it right up your ass.

don't know about any of that.

Skills. Really. Suck.

how so?

Psionics. Guess what? most of it sucks.

really? I rather liked using Machine Ghost to break into a hospital where a bounty was, beating two guards and a receptionist over the head with crutches held by my ectoplasmic tendrils(while I was on the other side of the door) and then jamming a vibroknife into the heart of my already convalescing-from-pure nicotine target...

Logic does not exist as a functional concept. In either the setting or rules.

again, how so?

Stats are worthless.

which stats? didn't seem that way when my vibroblade/vibrosword weilding Goat killed three fully armoured coalition states scouts in a truck...

Its unclear why everyone isn't dead.

actually, that's very clear, it's tough to run a game where each and every pc and npc is a pile of bones six feat under the earth...

Yes there might be a surviving d20 adaptation of Rifts but Kevin S. (the creator) was very Nazi about the 'violations' and campaigned to have them removed.

Still, the internet is like an ocean, and stuff always floats around somewhere..

there is. it resides, for the most part, in my cd wallet... and the email of the creator resides in my address book...

*Let's see, which would let me participate more, Glitter Boy, Dragon, or Scholar?

how about summoner/bio-wizard, robot soldier or goat merc?

here, let me put it this way: "There may be flaws in a system, but that's one thing you can very safely turn a blind eye to, because if no one looks for the breaking points in a game, they won't cause a problem."

[Rob_Knotts]

1189928097[/unixtime]]here, let me put it this way: "There may be flaws in a system, but that's one thing you can very safely turn a blind eye to, because if no one looks for the breaking points in a game, they won't cause a problem."

Originally posted by Oberoni on the D&D general board July 23, 2002:
[QB]This my my take on the issue.

Let's say Bob the board member makes the assertion:

"There is an inconsistency/loophole/mechanics issue with Rule X."

Several correct replies can be given:

• "I agree, there is an inconsistency/loophole/mechanics issue with Rule X."
• "I agree, and it is easily solvable by changing the following part of Rule X."
• "I disagree, you've merely misinterpreted part of Rule X. If you reread this part of Rule X, you will see there is no inconsistency/loophole/mechanics issue."
  

Okay, I hope you're with me so far.
There is, however, an incorrect reply:

• "There is no inconsistency/loophole/mechanics issue with Rule X, because you can always Rule 0 the inconsistency/loophole/mechanics issue."
  

Now, this incorrect reply does not in truth agree with or dispute the original statement in any way, shape, or form.

It actually contradicts itself--the first part of the statement says there is no problem, while the last part proposes a generic fix to the "non-problem."

It doesn't follow the rules of debate and discussion, and thus should never be used.

Simple enough.[/QB]

[Prak]

1189929338[/unixtime]]

1189928097[/unixtime]]here, let me put it this way: "There may be flaws in a system, but that's one thing you can very safely turn a blind eye to, because if no one looks for the breaking points in a game, they won't cause a problem."

Originally posted by Oberoni on the D&D general board July 23, 2002:
[QB]This my my take on the issue.

Let's say Bob the board member makes the assertion:

"There is an inconsistency/loophole/mechanics issue with Rule X."

Several correct replies can be given:

• "I agree, there is an inconsistency/loophole/mechanics issue with Rule X."
• "I agree, and it is easily solvable by changing the following part of Rule X."
• "I disagree, you've merely misinterpreted part of Rule X. If you reread this part of Rule X, you will see there is no inconsistency/loophole/mechanics issue."
  

Okay, I hope you're with me so far.
There is, however, an incorrect reply:

• "There is no inconsistency/loophole/mechanics issue with Rule X, because you can always Rule 0 the inconsistency/loophole/mechanics issue."
  

Now, this incorrect reply does not in truth agree with or dispute the original statement in any way, shape, or form.

It actually contradicts itself--the first part of the statement says there is no problem, while the last part proposes a generic fix to the "non-problem."

It doesn't follow the rules of debate and discussion, and thus should never be used.

Simple enough.[/QB]

I'm not positing an oberoni falacy. I'm merely saying that there are some problems that won't be problems if you don't bring them up. Like the wish economy. It is not a problem unless you drag the monster into daylight and try to enslave it. I will agree there is some stuff that will always be a problem, whether one tries to exploit it or not, like the core monk, simply because it already has a light shone on it, and people will want to use it. MDC is only a problem if one sees it as such. I've had characters die from MDC and I've had characters make entire tribes his bitch with MDC. I've even had characters relegated to about 2d4 MDC/rnd take out opponents in full heavy MDC armour. MDC isn't a problem unless you make it one, for example.

[erik]

In this case the game all but forces you to make MDC a problem. If you aren't on comparable MDC terms with the enemy (and enemies vary *widely*) then things are fubar. Glitterboy vs. Vagabond isn't even funny. MDC is only a problem if... you use it. My fix was to change MDC to DecaDamage. It reigns in much of the insanity, but mind you, there is still a big difference.

The skills I didn't have much of a problem with... because I rarely used them. I can't recall ever requiring a use radio skill check, figured that was just for repairs and extreme radio skills (whatever those could be). Driving checks I only called for when doing crazy stunts and the like. I'm not claiming the skill system worked, my fix was simply that I rarely ever called for the checks.

Attributes are so random that unless you cheat or make up some point buy rules, they are likely to be meaningless. It makes the one character who has an awesome stat all the more unfair compared to compadres who are merely lame. If I were still playing, I would have likely instituted a point-buy, and fixing the attribute bonuses to be on some scale that made sense.

Psionics being random (when not an RCC) is again an unfair imbalance which can spread things out even more. Odds are, characters won't have it. If characters wanted psionics I usually let them have it. I'd rather everyone running around with 6th Sense as a band of psionic misfits than nobody having any psionic joy.

I know I wrote up a huge list of changes for Rifts, but that was 10 years ago. Many included getting rid of stupid vampire rules and totally shredding and rehashing rules. They might still be on my olde computer.

As a young DM I did make the mistake of allowing an interpretation of the Burster's damage doubling ability on fire to be applicable to a fire he just used it on. Destroying an MDC vampire intelligence with fire was just stupid.

Having read complaints written by people who worked with K.S. in addition to forum posts by Simbieda it has been made readily apparent that he is a pretentious ass, an incredibly incompetent editor and manager, and he doesn't even understand his own crappy rule set. I wasn't aware of the priest jabs against his wife, but that totally fits with what I know of him. Comedy gold.

I tried hard to salvage the game by mostly utterly scrapping the rules and editing out all the stupid that cropped up in the setting in later books. This was because I really did like the notion of a post-apocalyptic setting where bets were off and you could be almost anything. An oppressive regime as humanity's last hope in the Americas? Sign me up. In actuality, Rifts would probably work better under ShadowRun rules. I just didn't know about ShadowRun 10-13 years ago.

[Koumei]

A lot of people changed Mega Damage to 10:1 instead of 100:1. It WAS that big a problem. If it was in the game, then everyone needed it.

It's a shame some of my favourite things in it are so goddamn weak, too. Because as it is, choices are generally "Dragon" and "Mega-Juicer" (or one of the few other Supernatural Juicers).

Though a straight Juicer Uprising campaign without Mega Damage (or just 10:1) would be pretty sweet. Include a bit of Juicer Sports in it for fun, maybe allow a few "we're practically juicers" like Crazies, Tattooed Men and some beefed up Juicers and Dog Boys, let them all go nuts.

And I think the skills were *meant* to only be used in special circumstances. Otherwise you'd need to make a "Speak American" check every time you ever opened your mouth (assuming you were speaking American, of course). In general, you only make a Pilot check if you're in a chase scene or driving over a minefield or a kid leaps in front of the vehicle or something, likewise you only make a Basic Math check if you're buying something from the shifty guy with an abacus and it's several items, all counted up quickly, and you think he's lying about the cost.

[Prak]

1189950758[/unixtime]]In this case the game all but forces you to make MDC a problem. If you aren't on comparable MDC terms with the enemy (and enemies vary *widely*) then things are fubar. Glitterboy vs. Vagabond isn't even funny. MDC is only a problem if... you use it. My fix was to change MDC to DecaDamage. It reigns in much of the insanity, but mind you, there is still a big difference.

ok, good point, I guess I'm just not as cognizent of these kind of problems because I never really saw them... They never came up and I like MDC, especially when it allowed my goat to basically re-enact a scene from Idiana Jones. I learned early that the best profession to have in Tolkeen is Bounty Hunter, so Baphomet was hired to take care of some ass wipe in the section of town where all the necromancers and other amoral hard-asses hung out. This target spawns two flaming whips from tattoos and spends his first turn being fancy. I draw my recently won MDC rifle and shoot him in the head. One of the best fucking things I ever got to do. Some of the shit I did with rampage is up there too...

so maybe that's why I like MDC, fond memories.



also, last night I was just kinda pissed off, specifically about game balance, so my apologies if I ranted a bit more than was appropriate.

[Sir Neil]

I've been tempted to run a streamlined version of Rifts using Mekton or BESM, essentially a post-apocalyptic fantasy mecha game, but I've never had the nerve to suggest it to my players.

I've run Rifts one-shots with D&D (the weapons from the DMG and OA Nezumi as dogboys) and even Marvel SAGA.

I'm pretty sure you can run Rifts in any system and get good results. Also, my NGR (New Gnomish Republic) is cooler than K-Dawg's NGR (New German Republic).

[JonSetanta]

1189982789[/unixtime]]
I'm pretty sure you can run Rifts in any system and get good results. Also, my NGR (New Gnomish Republic) is cooler than K-Dawg's NGR (New German Republic).

Nice one.

[RandomCasualty]

I haven't ever played rifts, but all I can say is that the game looks completely crazy and unbalanced. The entire point of the game was that you needed powered armor to survive, otherwise you got destroyed by basically anything. I mean, if somebody makes a glitterboy, how do you even play anything else? The power gap makes the monk against cleric archer look trivial.

[CalibronXXX]

This is how you make Rifts not suck.

[shau]

The thing to remember is that Rifts does not accidentally have imbalanced classes (like DnD). The system completely rejects the very idea of class balance. Possible first level characters include a scholor, a hobo, a drugged up killing machine, and a guy with THE MOST POWERFUL PIECE OF MILITARY EQUIPMENT IN THE UNIVARSE!!!

If you want to play Rifts, the first thing you have to do is dump the entire system. Yeah, seriously the whole thing. Start with your favorite generic system like Gurps or SAME. Then convert your favorite character types from the Rifts. You can try to balance them if you want. I actually recommend that you don't. Then you reintroduce your favorite setting elements.

[virgil]

Hmm, let's try to get this back on track. My intent wasn't to go into detail over the issues of the system for Rifts. And while suggesting systems to use is nice, it's jumping the gun a bit.

My purpose is to figure out what makes Rifts so enticing, what actually gets people wanting to convert the rules into something more sane, rather than tossing baby and bathwater to play Shadowrun. Actually understanding what kind of game you want to simulate goes a long way towards making the right choices.

What kind of behavior do you want to encourage? How effective should certain choices be (how many rifle shots does it take to get the center of a tootsie SAMAS, and similar)? What kind of guidelines should there be towards intra-party balance while still maintaining an enjoyable Rifts atmosphere (besides the obvious Dragon vs. Rogue Scholar, no need to waste breath on that)?

[Voss]

Not to rain on your parade, but you've got me stumped on the idea that Rifts is enticing at all. Its Mad Max with literally everything from everywhere and everywhen dumped in. Filtered through the mind of a pretentious ass, who doesn't understand jack about the cultures he's stuffing into his system at random.

But OK, what kind of game do you want to simulate? Do you want the pure humans of the CS against the hodgepodge rabble of the Kingdom of Magic. Do you want to struggle for survival in the 'Burbs? It isn't worth trying to get a consensus opinion of what people want in Rifts, because you'll get a different answer from almost everybody.

If you turn your question around and define what you want, you may get some helpful suggestions out of people. Opening it to everybody throwing in their personal preferences is the way to insanity.

[JonSetanta]

So far I noticed the following common statements, which I agree with too:

1. Rifts rules suck.
2. Rifts setting is OK, but only if you use a different system.


Calibron: That sound clip rocks. *save*

"LARPers are the crazy ex-girlfriends of gaming."
Katanas = ornamental only.. interesting..

And me = Collateral Dan. yow that's a close match.

[erik]

1190016195[/unixtime]]
2. Rifts setting is OK, but only if you use a different system.

"2." Should probably be amended to that the initial setting was great, wherein the world was mostly an unknown wasteland with a few fringes of humanity trying to survive.

As the later world books came out the setting got totally stupid, and went downhill from there. There being a quantity of power armors equivalent to every possible citizen of the coalition (produced mostly in just a few years... wtf?). Countries brimming with shit, flying smack in the face of the setting where lands are unclaimed, unorganized territories where there be monsters. That's only the tip of the iceberg. Vampires were utterly retarded (squirtguns and flashlights making cross shadows hurt them... wtf?). There being no compelling reason why a moderately powerful being couldn't just pop into the heart of Coalition headquarters and assassinate anyone of importance, including the Emperor. An evil ancient nigh-immortal clan of Atlantean super men whose cunning secret for their clan name is to spell a name backwards in English. It goes on and on. You could probably pick one or two things from each book to keep, but adding all their material to the world would be beyond stupid. For example, take one or two of the South American kingdoms and include them, but don't clutter the whole damn continent with all the crap from the 2 South America World books and have every damn border be contested.


But yeah, the first book had all the promise one could hope for in a setting.

[Hey_I_Can_Chan]

What kind of behavior do you want to encourage? How effective should certain choices be (how many rifle shots does it take to get the center of a tootsie SAMAS, and similar)? What kind of guidelines should there be towards intra-party balance while still maintaining an enjoyable Rifts atmosphere (besides the obvious Dragon vs. Rogue Scholar, no need to waste breath on that)?

Although I've a shelf full of Rifts books, I've only played the game a few times. However, I've mined it for ideas lots. I liked the South Americas, too, and wanted to set a campaign there, as it had just enough wacky crap going on, and I didn't have to play with the Nazis.

My assumption on game balance, though, was that the game assumed skills were super-fucking oh-my-God valuable. Remember, the rules are such that if you don't have the skill you can't do it. This is what, supposedly, makes the rogue scholar and the dragon even. The dragon can breathe fire and regenerate and is possessed of 100s of MDC, but he doesn't know shit.

While the dragon certainly can kick the crap out of the scholar (as can any high wind), the scholar actually knows how to use a radio or fix a nuclear battery.

In other words, I thought the basic assumption of Rifts was that knowledge is power, which is an assumption I, in general, like.

Note that, once again, Spycraft 2.0 can, with its immensely detailed skill system, do this--in that system, if you've no skills, you're boned.

[JonSetanta]

I have the first book and something about England/Atlantis, but that's it. And good thing too, for reasons mentioned previously.

I think the main reason why I bought Rifts was because it wasn't just fantasy, it was scifi fantasyyy!!
Compared to D&D (at the time) it seemed like such a better deal. I mean, here is D&D with the sucky artwork and weird charts, and heres Rifts. It looks simple, I thought.
I asked the hobby store owner how to play an RPG and he gave examples with my dad standing there (the latter, with confused look on his face and some chuckles, but he didn't say 'that's just stupid'... he thought it, but hey...)

But in the car, I got a papercut on the ability scores page, smearing blood across one corner. It's still there, dark reddish-brown, like a portent that I'll be a geek for life.

That was the omen that I shouldn't have even tried Rifts, though.
Any book that hurts you physically can't be good.

So far D&D has treated me well, only minor papercuts, no bleeders (and damn that was a deep cut from Rifts... fuck..):sick:

edit: typos

[Koumei]

Similarly, when I first opened a friend's copy of "Book of Vile Body Piercings", a cockroach crawled out. That shouldhave provided a big hint.

No papercuts yet, though.

I like Atlantis. Granted, there's a whole heap of weird shit, but in general I like it. Like North America, except instead of "If you are not human without any trace of supernatural stuff, please step into the disintegration booth" it's "You need at least this many limbs to not be a slave".

Apparently it takes literally hundreds (possibly thousands) of direct hits with nuclear missiles to kill one Splugorth (the guys who rule Atlantis). That's dumb, but that's a system thing.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

1190018895[/unixtime]]
In other words, I thought the basic assumption of Rifts was that knowledge is power, which is an assumption I, in general, like.

Well, sure. But in actual play this doesn't bear out. A dragon doesn't care much about radios and doesn't need a nuclear battery. It can toast most of what it encounters and if it realizes it quick enough, can get away from anything it can't.

No, what annoyed me greatly about Rifts was the game I played where I had a cyberknight. Cyberknights have cybernetic armor, but it's not full body armor. So every time I got hit with MDC, I had to roll a d20 and if I rolled an 18 or higher, I died on the spot, no save no nuthin.

Also, leveling did jack shit for you... unless you happened to have one of the few super-awesome hand-to-hand combat systems. Every level or two Santa Claus would come down from the north pole and give people with the right HTH special attacks and extra attacks and lots of groovy shit, while the rest were presented with a sackful of coal, which Jolly Ol' St. Nick then proceeded to beat them with.

-Desdan

[Hey_I_Can_Chan]

Well, sure. But in actual play this doesn't bear out. A dragon doesn't care much about radios and doesn't need a nuclear battery. It can toast most of what it encounters and if it realizes it quick enough, can get away from anything it can't.

See, and I say that's the GM's fault, not the system's fault. Like I said, the balance assumption that I always thought was being made in baseline Rifts was that skills were teh awsome. If the plot can't be advanced without the Radio: Basic skill or whatever, then the dragon's screwed--or he's gotta protect the rogue scholar while the scholar uses the radio.

But, yeah, later books kinda hosed that by making up new skills, which is bullshit. If you're a rogue scholar whose background is knowing all kinds of funky lore, the game damn well better provide a list of all those lores off the top, 'cause, in Palladium, if you don't have the skill, you can't even roll. And a rogue scholar without skills is just a fat-filled snack for a dragon.

I'm not even saying that it's balanced--your combat schtick should be as boss as your noncombat schtick, we know that--but Rifts looks like that's how it was internally balanced--by handing out awesome cosmic power and nearly nothin' for skills or making you extremely squishy yet uber-skilled. Bad balance, but balance nonetheless.