A thought came to me: "Scum of The Wasted Earth": A RIFTS campaign where all the PCs are Vagabonds.
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Maybe add in some Wilderness Scouts, Rogue Scientists, and Rogue Scholars. Even so, I'd love to play in that kind of campaign.
Vagabonds are one of the best Rifts OCCs.
I think it's a great idea!
Not to step on any toes, but how about Vagabonds, Gamblers, Saloon Bums, and Saddle Tramps?
Although, I suppose a Saddle Tramp is pretty much the same as a Vagabond but with a horse.
And one Glitter Boy. But he's a total douche bag and all the Vagabonds hate him.
Human-level RIFTS can be a lot of fun. If you go with "MDC = rare" instead of the usual assumptions, then its nicely playable.
Quote from: RPGPundit;416174A thought came to me: "Scum of The Wasted Earth": A RIFTS campaign where all the PCs are Vagabonds.
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:cool:
Would love to play in that sort of campaign!
Quote from: everloss;416178Vagabonds are one of the best Rifts OCCs.
I think it's a great idea!
Not to step on any toes, but how about Vagabonds, Gamblers, Saloon Bums, and Saddle Tramps?
Although, I suppose a Saddle Tramp is pretty much the same as a Vagabond but with a horse.
good ideas here...I would add "professional escorts"(;)) as well..all ne'er do wells and dance hall loungers welcome
Quote from: Spinachcat;416189Human-level RIFTS can be a lot of fun. If you go with "MDC = rare" instead of the usual assumptions, then its nicely playable.
good point...with the limitations of being a "vagabond" type almost required, though the uber powerful can play a part.
:)
BEST IDEA EVER...no, Pundit. Because "Best Ideas Ever" ALWAYS include time travel. That is a given.
So it is indeed good for a RIFTS campaign.
Quote from: Settembrini;416193BEST IDEA EVER...no, Pundit. Because "Best Ideas Ever" ALWAYS include time travel. That is a given.
So it is indeed good for a RIFTS campaign.
There's no reason I can't see why this idea couldn't end up involving time travel...
RPGPundit
It is interesting to note that as the only characters with soap, at least they would be clean...
Sadly, their teeth would all be rotten, due to their "bit of candy".
The only RIFTS game I ever played in my character was a San Berdoo biker and nega-psychic surrounded by glitterboys and dragons . . .
I'd like to do an alternate reality game.
The Shining Silver Knights of the Coalition who save their world from true evil monstrosities. Magically bonded to supernatural armor.
Dragons in armor serve as their vehicles and Ley Line Walkers as artillery--a squad of the magical variants from a what if Rifts world. Where magic saves humans from the evils of infections technology--demons of cybernetic steel, and invading infovores. All lost on the other Rifts. Dealing with everything they love and dream of turned black and sour.
Quote from: Zachary The First;416298Sadly, their teeth would all be rotten, due to their "bit of candy".
Wooo good point. Maybe I've been stuck on their soap alone for too long.
Just for the record, though I don't think it'd really need saying, the point of the campaign would not be "your characters suck and will always suck", it would be "let's see how far a bunch of vagabonds in RIFTS can actually get". My bet would be that if the players were sufficiently good, they'd all be kitted out hardcore and taking on very significant foes in no time.
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Oh yeah, I'd love to fucking play this. My first act of aggression would be to find some people with expensive gear and stalk them until they have a hard fight, then kill them at their camp right afterwords. Then take their shit to a black market town like Cincinnati (is that just our old game or canon?) and sell it for some decent gear, then blow the rest on whores.
Quote from: Spinachcat;416189Human-level RIFTS can be a lot of fun. If you go with "MDC = rare" instead of the usual assumptions, then its nicely playable.
Agreed. I like RIFTS, but I start to hate the system once people start playing Dragons and shit. Low-powered, M.D.C. = rare, gritty RIFTS can be a lot of fun. Had a good group like this in high school until I made the mistake of allowing one guy to play a Changeling. Ugh. Campaign ruined. I could salvage it now, but at the time I was 15 and still new at GMing (played for a long time before I went to the other side of the screen).
-=Grim=-
That's the thing a lot of people don't get about RIFTS, its actually several different power levels of games all rolled into one. And you can play a "mixed power-level game" to success, but if you want to, you can also run a high-powered game full of Glitter Boys and Mecha Pilots, or you can run a gritty low-powered game where those kinds of classes are not in the running.
I've done both to considerable success. And some of the most memorable RIFTS characters I've seen in my campaigns have included Rogue Scholars and Vagabonds, not powerhouses in the least.
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I have to say having a group of Vagabonds running around in the ruins of a city would be a lot of fun. Convincing my friends to play this would not be easy, though. They get all glittery-eyed when Rifts comes out. ;)
Quote from: RPGPundit;417037That's the thing a lot of people don't get about RIFTS, its actually several different power levels of games all rolled into one. And you can play a "mixed power-level game" to success, but if you want to, you can also run a high-powered game full of Glitter Boys and Mecha Pilots, or you can run a gritty low-powered game where those kinds of classes are not in the running.
I've done both to considerable success. And some of the most memorable RIFTS characters I've seen in my campaigns have included Rogue Scholars and Vagabonds, not powerhouses in the least.
RPGPundit
Well said. The default of Rifts (if there is one) is a mixed-bag of power levels. It doesn't rely on inherent game balance for any sort of niche protection; it requires a strong, competent GM.
The Rogue Scholar is my favorite class in the game. Give me my extensive knowledge background, a digital recorder, a laser pistol, and send me out into the wide world.
Most of the characters in New West are essentially low powered humans, with varying amounts of 'cool gear', which could in theory be taken away from them at the start of a game.
That does lead to a practical question: Is a Gunslinger measurably more powerful than a Vagabond/Saddle Tramp/Rogue Scholar if you take away his starting equipment?
I won't disagree that he IS more powerful... a MDC pistol in his hands is objectively better than in the hands of someone without Sharpshooter, and in fact is objectively better than a non Gunslinger/Gunfighter even WITH Sharpshooter...
But campaign altering? *
The merit of restricting everyone to a single, simple class is that it forces players to distinguish themselves by Characterization rather than Class. On the other hand, you lose the interest of anyone who is not into exploring character.
* In the interest of Full Disclosure, my favoritest noodling in characters in Rifts always seem to come back to gunslinger characters, either by class or by type. Western trappings optional for bonus points.
You know, when I first read the New West books (and Arzno) I thought they were stupid and didn't think I'd ever end up using them. As it turns out, I needed to find a place for the SDF-3 to land in my campaign, and the place that made the best sense for me was in Colorado (south of the baronies), so I ended up referring to the New West and Arzno books extensively as the PCs' adventures often took place in that region. And I was completely wrong about it; those are some of the best RIFTS sourcebooks in terms of sheer adventure-potential material.
This campaign has really taught me to love RIFTS sourcebooks in new ways. Dinosaur Swamp was another one I'd originally mentally filed in the "fucking useless" section of my mind when it came out, and now, the PCs have just spent several weeks trudging through the ultimate hellhole thanks to Dinosaur Swamp and the Dinosaur Swamp adventures book, both were fucking awesome.
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Yeah: from a gearhead POV the New West book was a major blow, the inverse power-creep of the guns... bar none the weakest across the entire line by a clear margin... while an admirable effort to bring power creep in check was utterly doomed to failure... and the expansion of the skills set was haphazard at best.
But to focus on those complaints is to miss the bigger picture. New West is and has been one of my favorite supplements for Rifts for a long time (also: Australia, because I'm sure it peeves Jimbo... kidding!), though there are some runners up. It is a well done, well thought out book that, like so many other Rifts books, is jam packed with RPG awesome.
A lot of Rifts books are like that at first. Now, I always loved New West and Coalition War Campaign, but there was a time when I found books like Warlords of Russia/Mystic Russia completely worthless. Then, one day, the characters found themselves out on a job for the New German Republic, and....well, damn me if the whole massive cyborg warlord army bit didn't work like a charm.
I think the think with Rifts is, there's no part of it that doesn't seem retarded when taken by itself. But then you get all immersed in the craziness, and suddenly, having the Southeast U.S. a swampy bog full of barbarians and dinosaurs from the Jurassic fits somehow. It's a case of something being so much larger than the sum of its parts.
Rifts England, sadly, is still pretty horrific.
Quote from: Zachary The First;417287Rifts England, sadly, is still pretty horrific.
I would use Mutants in Avalon instead.
Quote from: Cole;417291I would use Mutants in Avalon instead.
Very good idea. Actually, a lot of of the ideas from TMNT/AtB are great when imported into Rifts.
I have to agree with England sucking, and I'm always at a complete loss to explain where, exactly, it went wrong... too much emphasis on druidy stuff and the wonky reworked Aurthurian legend stuff? Who knows?
Personally it goes in a very small catagory with Rifts Africa and (recently) Spirit West of Rifts Books I almost never pull off the shelf for any reason. Africa just feels like a poorly designed adventure and Spirit West, which I just got from a half price books, was just offensively stupid from the premise on.
Just saying that when I first read RIFTS the one OCC that junped out at me was the Vagabond. When I pointed out to the ref that is what I wanted to play, he refused. Played one session, hated it, and never played again. Thinking about running a game of it next year...
I must always admit to baffalation when I hear stories of GMs banning shit at the table... particularly things from the MAIN BOOK!.
Seriously: I've had GM's who banned any chaotic alignments, GM's who banned all races except humans, dwarves and half orcs... GMs who banned paladins.
Now, in RIFTS it is quite a bit more understandable. After all the Glitter Boy is measurably more powerful than the Coalition PA pilot, and the Dragon Halfling is more powerful than just about anything...
But why ban the WEAK shit? I ran a short Rifts game where the Vagabond player fucking dominated the fight between a mix of cautious tactics and simply being overlooked as unimportant by most of the bad guys (Gargoyles in this case) compared to the 12 foot tall golden statue with the God Gun and the dragon flying around... While the bad ass character types fought for their very lives he snuck around in the surrounding woods and picked off targets with plasma ejector shots, left right and inbetween!
The gun in question, as I recall, was a loaner from another character...
Quote from: Spike;417485Seriously: I've had GM's who banned any chaotic alignments, GM's who banned all races except humans, dwarves and half orcs... GMs who banned paladins.
Why's this baffling? Some campaigns are specific stories or specific settings. I've run D&D games where the only playable races were Humans and Dwarves - Elves were a dead race, there were no Halflings or Gnomes, and Half-Orcs were limited to one continent, far, far away from where the campaign was taking place.
Banning shit to be a douche is weak. Banning shit because it doesn't for the campaign you're running is understandable. The core rulebooks are just the toolkit from which you forge your campaign; and not all tools are needed.
Nah mean?
Back on topic, sorta, this thread has made me add the
New West book(s) to my Kwanza/Christmas/Whatever list. They sound like the type of RIFTS I like!
-=Grim=-
I suppose I can clarify between a blanket banning (where that shit is not allowed, ever, under any circumstances) and a more positive 'shaping the campaign' thing.
See: Pundit's OP wasn't a 'banning' of anything 'cooler' than the Vagabond but a request for people to actually PLAY vagabonds, where gonster's story was more reminscent of a GM who just.didn't.allow.vagabonds.
Which is silly. Because, you know, if you really want to play the ordinary guy who hangs out with demigods, and by extension are comfortable with not actually getting to do any cool demigod like shit? Why should I stop you!
I ran an Eberron campaign four years back that had a dude show up to play, along with his more obnoxious brother. He played a gnome. A garden gnome. For the life of me I can't recall a single time in the entire campaign where he did anything but establish where, exactly, his gnome was standing and pretending to be a statue at any given time. He MAY have cast a spell or two in combat once in a while.
So? that was his thing. He just grooved on sitting there watching everyone else have a good time. Should I ban gnomes or this player?
RIFTS england does fucking suck.
RPGPundit
He didn't really ban me playing a Vagabond. It was more like ," You can play anything you like..." but the feeling was I was going to become a grease spot during the first scene.
I ended up playing a juicer. It was insanely over the top. I quit the group -- I wanted something a little more down-to-earth and rougher.
You know, the thing is that while as someone pointed out the default of RIFTS is to play with potentially wildly varying power-levels, RIFTS is not a game like even D&D, where ostensibly everyone begins at a vaguely similar level of power. So to me it is totally viable in a game like RIFTS to declare entire swaths of "main book" OCCs or RCCs verboten for a given campaign, whether its because you plan to have a high action campaign (where certain classes would just be useless or outmatched hopelessly), or a "gritty campaign" (where certain classes would not fit or be overpowered).
Even in my current campaign, I've banned Dragon hatchlings from the list of starting characters (aside from that, I've allowed all the classes from Shadow Chronicles and all the other classes/RCCs from the RIFTS 1st edition main book).
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Quote from: Spike;417427I have to agree with England sucking, and I'm always at a complete loss to explain where, exactly, it went wrong... too much emphasis on druidy stuff and the wonky reworked Aurthurian legend stuff? Who knows?
The Arthurian crap was one of two things that killed Rifts: England for me. The other thing was - England was essentially completely destroyed. Not like North America or the NGR where industry could be rebuilt; England was wiped the fuck out. It's explained that much MD stuff is bought from the NGR, but only in the last 20 years or so. This leads to the question: how the hell did humans survive in England for 200 years? Especially since the Knight OCC starts with SDC weapons!!!
Take out the Arthurian bullshit (any remake of Arthur or Dracula automatically sucks balls except Mutants in Avalon) and I don't mind the fluff in England; the Formorians, Celtic gods, and the various insects and giant mushroom houses are all cool and should have been expanded on. Actually, that's probably why England failed; it spent way too much space on a stupid Arthurian crap-fest when it should have been about the mystical and weird stuff that populates the islands. It's always stated that Rifts England is one of the most magical places on the planet, yet there was virtually no mention of magic.
The Druids had potential to be sweet, but failed because the explanation of how they are magic-users was... oh yeah! NONEXISTENT. Of course, the Scathach was further ruined when it got perverted into the Mystic Kuznya crap in Mystic Russia (one of my favorite Rifts books, btw)
I've always denied certain OCC's and RCC's for my players in Rifts. I've never had a player who complained about it or anything once I explained why. I've played in Coalition-only games, and ran games where player's could only be SDC beings, players could only be low-MD beings (from a list I made), and even reptile-only characters traveling from Canada to South America.
Quote from: everloss;419672I've always denied certain OCC's and RCC's for my players in Rifts. I've never had a player who complained about it or anything once I explained why. I've played in Coalition-only games, and ran games where player's could only be SDC beings, players could only be low-MD beings (from a list I made), and even reptile-only characters traveling from Canada to South America.
Reptile-only? Why?
RPGPundit
Wow, that's a big post.
It's great to log in and see a bunch of Rifts threads in the first page!
Quote from: RPGPundit;416174A thought came to me: "Scum of The Wasted Earth": A RIFTS campaign where all the PCs are Vagabonds.
"Gritty, low power Rifts" is always a great call. "All Vagabonds, all the time" might get a tad restrictive, though; I'd suggest "all Adventurer OCCs from the Main Book" (i.e. everything other than Men-At-Arms, Practitioners of Magic, Master Psionics or Dragons).
Quote from: RPGPundit;417037That's the thing a lot of people don't get about RIFTS, its actually several different power levels of games all rolled into one. And you can play a "mixed power-level game" to success, but if you want to, you can also run a high-powered game full of Glitter Boys and Mecha Pilots, or you can run a gritty low-powered game where those kinds of classes are not in the running.
"Mixed power level", to me, is the Rifts default. That's how all my games have ever been, with Dragons and Power Armor Commandos and True Atlantean Undead Slayers rubbing shoulders with City Rats and Rogue Scholars and Vagabonds. And this is why no conversion to traditional point-buy systems ever feels right.
Quote from: Zachary The First;417063The Rogue Scholar is my favorite class in the game. Give me my extensive knowledge background, a digital recorder, a laser pistol, and send me out into the wide world.
Same here. The Rogue Scholar is my favorite class, bar none. Kevin Long's illo of a badass-looking scholar with a desk full of books, pistol in hand, looking over his shoulder... excites my imagination in ways Glitter Boys and Dragons don't come even close.
Quote from: RPGPundit;417603RIFTS england does fucking suck.
Rifts England is kind of sucky but I hold on it, if only for the Temporal Magic, which I love.
I'm a Triax & The NGR kind of guy myself. I am actually curious to see the TRiax & The NGR II book, and I may yet break down and order my first Rifts book in 12 years...
Quote from: RPGPundit;417865Even in my current campaign, I've banned Dragon hatchlings from the list of starting characters
Call me crazy, but I don't find Dragon Hatchlings all that unbalancing. The genius here is that the GM demands the PC to play them as innocent and childlike (NOT stupid), and that they might initially have a hard time passing for human (even under metamorphosis), and this partly counterbalances the "spellcasting regenerating teleporting giant robot" syndrome.
It's easy to imagine several non-combat scenarios in which a Vagabond would be far, far more useful than a Dragon Hatchling could ever dream of being.
I do think certain classes attract problem players in Rifts. In just my experience, guys playing Rogue Scholars, Grunts, Vagabonds, Operators, aren't much of a problem. It's the Dragon Hatchlings, non-standard Juicers (Titan, Dragon, Hyperion), Secondary Vampires, and, yes, Dog Boys, that attract trouble. I'm sure it's different for each group, though.
This thread gave me another burst of energy to work on my "Kitchen-Sink Post-Apocalyptic" setting for MiniSix.
Quote from: Zachary The First;419982I do think certain classes attract problem players in Rifts. In just my experience, guys playing Rogue Scholars, Grunts, Vagabonds, Operators, aren't much of a problem. It's the Dragon Hatchlings, non-standard Juicers (Titan, Dragon, Hyperion), Secondary Vampires, and, yes, Dog Boys, that attract trouble. I'm sure it's different for each group, though.
This thread gave me another burst of energy to work on my "Kitchen-Sink Post-Apocalyptic" setting for MiniSix.
I don't see what's so wrong with Dog Boys, they are like ants hunting caribou. It's all most cute.
Quote from: Cranewings;420087I don't see what's so wrong with Dog Boys, they are like ants hunting caribou. It's all most cute.
Yeah, I have nothing personally against 'em. It's just in my games--and my experience--for some reason, we've had a string of over-the-top, disruptive, and one-shot gimmicky, unfunny players riffing off the dog aspect of the character. You know:
Rogue Scholar: OK, since we're in town, I want to see if the Sheriff has heard anything regarding vampire activity in the region.
Gunfighter: I'm going to see if I can't find somewhere to get these e-clips recharged.
Operator: I'll work on the APC, then I'm going to sleep off that knife wound.
Dog Boy: I LOOK FOR A FIRE HYDRANT LOLOLOLOLOL
....
I'm sure this isn't the case in everyone's games; I'm just cursed.
I've had people play Dog boys basically fine; though I could see how they could end up doing what you describe if in the hands of certain types of players.
Dragon Hatchlings, on the other hand, are a recipe for disaster. The Butcher's suggestion would only make things even worse! If you play them "childlike" then what you are left with is essentially a Kender with Cosmic Power. Jesus fuck.
Speaking of Triax II; does anyone have this book? I don't and would be interesting to know if its worth it.
I think that the right kind of European RIFTS campaign for me would require Triax and Mindwerks. They compliment each other nicely.
RPGPundit
You know, kender have a bad rap. Some of my players best characters were kender. I think certain players just love the chaotic neutral alignment.
Quote from: RPGPundit;420219Dragon Hatchlings, on the other hand, are a recipe for disaster. The Butcher's suggestion would only make things even worse! If you play them "childlike" then what you are left with is essentially a Kender with Cosmic Power. Jesus fuck.
Admittedly I've only had a Dragon Hatchling PC once, and the player was a good RPer and played the character as an innocent, if inhuman being, without being disruptive.
Quote from: RPGPundit;420219Speaking of Triax II; does anyone have this book? I don't and would be interesting to know if its worth it.
I'm curious too. The original Triax book was long on new toys and short on world info, but what little world info there was, was really good.
Quote from: RPGPundit;420219I think that the right kind of European RIFTS campaign for me would require Triax and Mindwerks. They compliment each other nicely.
Those were the two mainstays for my European Rifts game, plus Vampire Kingdoms (I had vampire kingdoms in Romenia and the Balkans; trite, maybe, but it worked) and England (for some OCCs), and, later down the line, Warlords of Russia.
Today, I'd tack on Mystic Russia and Federation of Magic (for more magic) and Psyscape (for more psionics and psi-implants, should mesh in nicely with Mindwerks).
I haven't picked up Triax II, or really, any of the newer stuff for at least 18 months or so. I'm not sure, and I can't find a qualified review on it.
Quote from: The Butcher;420305Today, I'd tack on Mystic Russia and Federation of Magic (for more magic) and Psyscape (for more psionics and psi-implants, should mesh in nicely with Mindwerks).
Mystic Russia is a great book, one of my favorites. I also agree that if your game is in eastern Europe or Russia, you need this book.
Quote from: danbuter;420377Mystic Russia is a great book, one of my favorites. I also agree that if your game is in eastern Europe or Russia, you need this book.
I've never had Mystic Russia, what makes it so good?
RPGPundit
It has lots of new russian demons and nature spirits, a really good Witch OCC, the Necromancer OCC and associated bone magic, some other mystical OCCs, a large chapter on gypsies, and some Soviet vehicles. I just really like the flavor.