Does anyone have any advice for GMing Palladium's Rifts or can point me in the direction of a site with it?

Try the Palladium forums, there are a ton of threads over there.

Quote from: Dumarest;986471Try the Palladium forums, there are a ton of threads over there.

I took a look, lot to sort through so I was hoping to find something more consolidated.

Sorry, I've never played Rifts so the only fora I have sifted through over there were for Ninjas & Superspies and Heroes Unlimited.

Edit: and Recon and Robotech.

What do you want to know? I run PB (Mechanoids, Rifts, Chaos Earth, Nightbane, Splicers and years ago Palladium Fantasy 1e).

The RIFTS GM forums are good for info.

RPGPundit's forum has his house rules posted. Worth a look.

Just any general tips, war stories, warning, etc. I ran a brief game many years ago and it was kind of fun but dried very quickly. But I was feeling nostalgic lately and thinking of getting another one started.

My advice: don't play Rifts.

Are there any hacks out there with actually functional mechanics?  There was a Savage Worlds release a while ago right, any others?

Its alot like Gurps. You have to sit down and prune the tree down to something managable. Say "Im allowing this and this only." The rest is fairly simple.

Quote from: Nexus;986464Does anyone have any advice for GMing Palladium's Rifts or can point me in the direction of a site with it?

Act like anything listed or what is read as a rule, is a guideline...
Assuming that you are running a game and more than one session, let your players know you are doing this...
Decide the scope (power level) of the game before starting; if running it for the first time, limit the character to the original main book (no dragons)
Avoid Rifts Ultimate Edition, but if you must... Leave it till after your familiar with the system.
First session should be making characters (the old fashioned way) together. Bring snacks.
Shake, to not stir...
Utilize what makes the most "sense" to you...
Nip rules lawyers at the bud.
Make sure you know a spell, before you give it.
Have fun! (if you must)

Quote from: Nexus;986464Does anyone have any advice for GMing Palladium's Rifts or can point me in the direction of a site with it?

Drop some acid before running the game.

Quote from: jeff37923;986549Drop some acid before running the game.

LMAO! That's what I like reading... Optimism in it's purest (and most cynical) format.

I can't say I'm the biggest Rifts fan but I did play it a lot. The one thing is I'd try to keep it relatively simple. By that I mean, you don't have to have everything in there like the sourcebooks would have you believe.

Keep the good bits and throw out the rest.

Mega Damage can get out of hand pretty quickly. So, think about the party's balance. That is to say, if one guy is a cyborg and the other a juicer. Then the juicer is pretty useless. But don't be afraid to tinker with the armor balance and balance the game as you want.

Quote from: jeff37923;986549Drop some acid before running the game.

I once played in a Rifts sessions were everyone was on acid. It was fucked up.

This is exactly what I would do if I were going to run RIFTS.

I would get the first edition of the Rifts Core book and the first edition of Rifts Conversions. Then I would pick up a sliver of a section in the Rifts Rulebook that I would like to run. For example: Chi Town Burbs, Rogue Scholars, Cyber Rats, Vagabonds, GO!

I would,run it SDC using the conversion in the Conversion Book...

Quote from: J.L. Duncan;986547Act like anything listed or what is read as a rule, is a guideline...

Think of Rifts Palladium system as Kevin Siembieda's list of house rules.