TheRPGSite

I think one of the biggest problems most gamers have with Rifts is the MegaDamage system. It kind of works, but in reality, at least for me, it sucks. Here are two thoughts I have on it:

1. There's too damn much of it. If megadamage was limited to mecha and major monsters, it would be fine. But when any average headhunter can go buy a set of megadamage armor, it just cheapens the effect. I have no problems with a tank or glitter boy having and dealing megadamage. I think it's just dumb when a guy wearing some plastisteel armor suddenly has it. Same with a pistol that deals megadamage. No reason for it. A rail gun, yes. A pistol you wear in a gunslinger holster? Heck no!

2. Purely for aesthetics, I'd love it if it was more like Savage Worlds!. Give the item a Heavy listing, so it can deal damage to big creatures, without having two sets of hit points. There is no reason to have MDC, SDC, and hit points in the same game. Really. Just give everything one stat. If it's something like a SAMAS suit, give it armor 50 (Heavy), etc.

I agree. I liked the MDC model from the original Robotech, where only military-grade armor was MDC. Even the Zentraedi were Hit Points/SDC at full size, and there were no MD small arms (except for a very expensive and experimental laser rifle that required a huge backpack/power source).

I strongly agree on both counts.

I take the SDC and damage of all mega-damage weapons, multiply by 10 (instead of 100), and use "mega-damage" exactly as you suggested, as a "tag" similar to Savage Worlds' Heavy Armor and Heavy Weapons.

As for reserving mega-damage capacity for huge armored vehicles and huger monsters, well, I don't know. I agree that the ubiquity of mega-damage arms and armor has crossed the treshold of absurdity right in the core rulebook (hell, Kevin Siembieda even broaches the subject right in Sourcebook One) and a lot of the drama of a gunfight goes away when you hit on a 4 in 1d20 and vaporize opponents instantly.

And yet, at the same time, having gangs of armed and armored criminals packing enough punch to level a house with a single shot roaming the streets of the 'Burbs is the sort of crazy over-the-top shit that Rifts is famous for. I sometimes want to heavily restrict the Mega-Damage Capacity but at the same time I'm afraid to rob the game of something that's central to its identity and deceptively important to our enjoyment of it.

Quote from: everloss;659682I agree. I liked the MDC model from the original Robotech, where only military-grade armor was MDC. Even the Zentraedi were Hit Points/SDC at full size, and there were no MD small arms (except for a very expensive and experimental laser rifle that required a huge backpack/power source).

That, right there? This is my real #1 beef with Rifts.

I can accept the supernatural stuff, in fact Rifts (and BTS, which originated the concepts) is one of the games that best explains supernatural stuff. Sure, it's mumbo jumbo, but it's remarkably consistent mumbo jumbo.

But the universal availability of magic, portable, non-deadly-radiation-spewing miniature nuclear reactors that provide infinite energy for a X number of years... yeah, that gets on my nerves. Sure, it's no biggie looking the other way, but wouldn't it be cool if energy/fuel for all the super-tech toys were another resource you had to manage? You could even cut down the repair bills a bit, to compensate.

Quote from: The Butcher;659685But the universal availability of magic, portable, non-deadly-radiation-spewing miniature nuclear reactors that provide infinite energy for a X number of years...

This is your biggest problem with Robotech?

Back on the issue of MDC, yeah, it's a lousy, overused, poorly implemented rule. There are a number of houserules floating around the intertubes, along with several different game systems that handle it better.

Quote from: Bobloblah;659688This is your biggest problem with Robotech?

With Rifts, actually (not a Robotech man).  But yeah, your point stands. I have nothing to say for myself. *hangs head in shame*

Quote from: The Butcher;659689With Rifts, actually

That's even funnier!

We've used the 10:1 MDC to SDC thing as well, works good (IMHO). Some of the classes get ridiculous SDC bonuses that if I were GMing I might think of toning down with that (e.g. juicer +d4x100), but it isn't really a big deal. It would also be fine to have MD weapons be rare and uber I guess, but I think house ruling that, sounds like a lot of effort to get the MD worms back into the can.

Its interesting to look at some of the fiction for Rifts and compare how it looks compared to your usual Rifts game actually, I got Tales of the Chi Town burbs in an Xmas grab bag this year and that for the most part reads as low-powered horror rather than the usual "Cthulhu vs. the SDF-3" type scenario - lots of 'dissatisfied chi town clerk gets package from his dead rogue scholar uncle letting him burn his cheating wife and the guys at his annoying day job' or 'man gets cybereyes from chop-shop, goes mad from visions of cybersnatchers killing the original owner' (that'll teach you for taking Object Reading) or 'indistinguishable-from-human D-bees who've joined the coalition face tough moral dilemma'.
It was quite interesting since it suggested a style for Rifts quite different to the, er, public perception of how its supposed to be played.

Quote from: danbuter;6596691. There's too damn much of it.

In the main book, it's implied that the military (Coalition, NGR, Northern Gun) and random mercenaries have access to MDC weapons and armor. 99% of the people living in the wilderness (and even large cities) are stuck with knives and the odd SDC hunting rifle. This is why one MDC monster attacking a village is such a huge deal: it's literally invulnerable. In subsequent books, every fucking rube has an MDC rifle or railgun, and EVERY MONSTER is MDC. This escalates to the point where most of the OCCs are MDC; normal humans don't even exist. Coupled with the insanely ridiculously overpopulated wastelands (again, not what the main book implies), there's an arms race that gets really stupid. MDC itself isn't the problem, it's that subsequent books lost sight of the original intent.

If you stick with the notion that 1) MDC weapons are rare and 2) the population is small (almost non-existent with few exceptions for places like Chi-town or Lazlo), megadamage isn't a huge deal.

I ran a really good one off that took place in the 'Burbs and the lower levels of Chi-Town where the players were all part of a gang.  No RCC's allowed, no Juicers, no Borgs, not even a crazy in the mix.  And no MDC weapons, since those were scanned for and confiscated with extreme prejudice.

Dead Boys, however, were in common circulation (this was before the Coalition Splatbook came out), and while they were generally helpful and conscientious, if something started that threatened the population you could expect them to escalate to MDC as quickly as needed (NOT by default though, after all, they have those SDC settings on their rifles...)

There was a huge argument in the gang when the leader found a C-4 in a trash bin.. people thought he was insane for keeping it around when it clearly threatened all of them, sort of like how real people would react to someone showing up with a missile launcher.

I think that 1:100 MDC can work, in that kind of situation, and I definitely agree with Brad's take on things.  If I were going to run a Rifts game I'd probably just eliminate all the later stuff and start fresh from the main book.

As a note, and in retrospect, I recall that I did allow one borg, but he wound up having all his components made out of SDC materials, something like AR14.  And he was registered with the Dead Boys and had a tracker (that the cyber-doc made  removable so he could wear it or not).  The player was very good natured about it, and his back story was that he'd served as a line grunt and been 'retired' with a mind wipe (hence his low starting level (3)).

that's much how my group used to play Rifts.

All PCs were SDC, RCCs were allowed, but only if it was SDC and not completely stupid.

I don't think I ever played in a game of Rifts where anyone used a giant robot. We didn't fight demon lords or dragons. Those games were mostly about post-apocalyptic survival, with the occasional awesome thing thrown in. I recall one time pitting the PCs against a Titan combat robot because they screwed up and got caught somewhere where they shouldn't be, and they ran for their lives. And Titan's suuuuuuuck, as far as mecha go. So yeah, keeping power levels at the level of the RMB is my preferred style of play.

Now, when we played Phase World, on the other hand, the rule was that SDC beings weren't allowed. There wasn't much point to have one in Phase World. That was just gonzo space piracy, with very little story (we rotated GMs every session), and lots of big guns, big aliens, and big magic.

H&H and Mekton Zeta before it used Kills, which are sort of like megadamage in that it's damage that only ship-class stuff deals and a single point is enough to vaporize a human.  

But only ships and mecha even have access to that kind of power, because, well, we're talking some serious power level here.  The closest a human-sized character in any of the H&H material gets are in the not-Daleks I wrote up for the blog, and even they can only do 1 Kill.  

I find the idea of a Kill-resistant armor at human scale pretty much ridiculous, and even most normal modern and even futuristic smaller scale vehicles shouldn't even be measured in Kills.

It is one of the silliest things about Rifts that we have people running around with pocket pistols that can vaporize a whole room full of people in full body armor (unless said armor is made of a completely unnamed unobtanium of course) and attack capital ships.  Shit, technically a 1d4 MDC pistol could take on modern tanks.  And win.

Every time I've either run or played Rifts, someone was in either a Glitter Boy suit or a SAMAS suit. Mainly because both are awesome.

Yeah, the sidearms that can blow up tanks is silly. I really can't see how Palladium let them slip through, unless they had just given up on the whole issue.

It would be great if Kevin had used the "Ultimate" reboot to go through and fix all of this stuff. Big missed opportunity, in my book.

One of the first things I did when I got back into Palladium stuff was to import Mekton Zeta's scaling scheme, with the numbers adjusted to fit and some hard caps imposed.  While horde-sized balls of riflemen mowing down starships flies with Starcraft 2, this is a RPG and some semblance of verisimlitude must prevail.

It's one of those things that makes it unique, but I agree that the splat really overdid it.

And that would be one of the things that makes it hard to repair.  You'd either have to come up with a conversion scale based on publication date, or junk a boatload of stats.

That's actually what makes converting the system appealing to me.  The opportunity to fix it...

Most of the splat books are terrible, so why use them at all?

I never understand the argument that because something is written in an obscure book, it HAS to be used.

Quote from: everloss;660187Most of the splat books are terrible, so why use them at all?

I never understand the argument that because something is written in an obscure book, it HAS to be used.

You ever play D&D 3.5? Seems like if it's "officially" published (i.e. WotC), someone will want to use it. I had one player in a game I ran get pissed because I wouldn't allow a bunch of overpowered Forgotten Realms prestige classes...

Mega damage worked well in early Robotech but I always thought that Heroes Unlimited had a much cleaner way of dealing with Vehicles & Robots.  As opposed to personal Armor absorbing SDC damage under AR instead of the character's SDC, only attacks above AR inflicted damage to the SDC of Vehicles & Robots while the rest did no damage.  I could foresee having to house rule that Vehicle & Robot weapons inflict damage directly to SDC to other Weapons & Robots for combat expediency though.

Quote from: Brad;660197You ever play D&D 3.5? Seems like if it's "officially" published (i.e. WotC), someone will want to use it. I had one player in a game I ran get pissed because I wouldn't allow a bunch of overpowered Forgotten Realms prestige classes...

Nope, never played 3.5. Almost did once, the last time I made the mistake of trying to join a game at the game shop. Dude had a laptop with some 300 pdfs and I was supposed to go through them, even though I had little control over what character I could be. It was either some sort of Fire Elf, or some sort of Fire Dwarf (because those are apparently the most powerful when min/maxed to full effect). Uh... no, thank you.

Most players of any game that I've played or know of, usually don't bother buying sourcebooks, so they never really know what's been published. Since I'm usually the GM, I'm perfectly fine with that.

I never had a problem with megadamage in RIFTS or Robotech. But I could see the interest in running a RIFTS game where only the big robots and ultrahigh tech were megadamage.

RPGPundit

I concur with RPGPundit.  I ran a 6 year campaign from level 1 to level 8 and never had an issue with the MDC/SDC component.  Honestly, every time I see this come up, its usually poor GMing or players that just want to shoot everything.  Its very easy to go crazy/gonzo gaming with RIFTS, but if you write a good story and pace it properly, having MDC/SDC shouldn't create an issue.  

My players learned early on the pitfalls of using MDC weapons to deal with every scenario.

MDC weapons make a huge difference, especially if you use books like New West, where you have six-shooters with MDC damage. One shot can destroy a building. If the players don't have MDC weapons, they will be helpless against many enemies, unless the GM only uses a very limited pool of bad guys.

MDC weapons and armor everywhere reminds me of rune weapons in Palladium RPG.  In the main rulebook, rune weapons are incredibly powerful and extremely, extremely rare (only two hundred or so in existence!).....  yet in the supplements they are everywhere.  

My guess is that the writers get a bit carried away and no one reigns them in.

Quote from: J Arcane;660000Shit, technically a 1d4 MDC pistol could take on modern tanks.  And win.

Yeah but remember SDC tanks are modern for us - 2000CE.  Mega-damage tanks are like what is Rifts, 2150CE or something?  It is weird that mega-damage doesn't have an AR rating, so yeah a couple hundred MDC pistol shots could damage a MDC tank.

Quote from: danbuter;723768MDC weapons make a huge difference, especially if you use books like New West, where you have six-shooters with MDC damage. One shot can destroy a building. If the players don't have MDC weapons, they will be helpless against many enemies, unless the GM only uses a very limited pool of bad guys.

Mega damage weapons compared to SDC buildings I always had just make a hole, not blow up the building.  There's nothing about a MDC weapon that magically distributes its energy.  It's going to blow through, wasting most of the energy going through a few houses, like firing an AK in a residential neighborhood, only it would go through a lot more houses.

I used to be more confused by MD pistols until I read an early entry on "MDC creatures." I can't remember which book it was in. Maybe Conversion Guide?

Anyway, that gave me the impression that MDC creatures were the Rifts equivalent of older D&D's "can only be hit by a +1 or greater weapon." Things like golems and vampires, who are basically immune to normal weapons but can still be blown away with a magical weapon. Except that the magical weapons are described as smashing buildings and insta-killing normal people, and increasingly everyone seems to have them.

I really like the idea of MD and MDC gear as something the elite have, something that makes you a one-person army and lets a few Glitterboys take over a country in the early days (if not hold ground). It gives a nice haves and have-nots theme.

The problems I had were:

1: Everyone gets freakin' MD and MDC over time, and they seem to go from tools of the elite to something all but the smallest villages have.

2: The cool aesthetic effect of "I have this awesome handgun that can blow away a building" is ruined when the majority of opponents have MDC that requires like twelve direct hits to penetrate.

3: That bullshit justification for why you still might want SD weapons because of hunting and stuff. If I want to hunt, I'd carry a hunting rifle, not a military submachine gun that's useless for its intended purpose. It wouldn't be so bad if most people (and animals) didn't have MDC, though.

God I love this game (and BTS, and Palladium 1e - I need to get myself a copy of TMNT - DONE -, as I already have Robotech!). Didn't play it (yet), but this thread has me reading it again.

Quote from: The Butcher;659685That, right there? This is my real #1 beef with Rifts.

I can accept the supernatural stuff, in fact Rifts (and BTS, which originated the concepts) is one of the games that best explains supernatural stuff. Sure, it's mumbo jumbo, but it's remarkably consistent mumbo jumbo.

But the universal availability of magic, portable, non-deadly-radiation-spewing miniature nuclear reactors that provide infinite energy for a X number of years... yeah, that gets on my nerves. Sure, it's no biggie looking the other way, but wouldn't it be cool if energy/fuel for all the super-tech toys were another resource you had to manage? You could even cut down the repair bills a bit, to compensate.

In the original Macross and Mospeada that Robotech aglomerates from and by default the RPG draws from, the earth mecha ran off regular fuels and batteries. Not magic "protoculture".

And didnt the Mospeada/Invid part of the RPG cover fuel and resource problems? Not sure. Been a while.

Quote from: Benoist;723902God I love this game (and BTS, and Palladium 1e - I need to get myself a copy of TMNT - DONE -, as I already have Robotech!). Didn't play it (yet), but this thread has me reading it again.

If you cant find TMNT then nab the After the Bomb book as it takes the TMNT/Road Hogs/After the Bomb set and merges it into one book, minus the TMNT refferences.

Quote from: CRKrueger;723842Yeah but remember SDC tanks are modern for us - 2000CE.  Mega-damage tanks are like what is Rifts, 2150CE or something?  It is weird that mega-damage doesn't have an AR rating, so yeah a couple hundred MDC pistol shots could damage a MDC tank.

Also there was a yooper(?) company that was still making SDC power armor and tanks and such, we used to call them mook industries, because only mooks used their stuff.

Quote from: dragoner;723982Also there was a yooper(?) company that was still making SDC power armor and tanks and such, we used to call them mook industries, because only mooks used their stuff.

Chipwell Armaments, aka Cheapo Arms & Armor, introduced in Rifts Mercenaries, and one of the best ideas to come out of a very good book.

Low-quality but very affordable weaponry and armor suits, ideally suited for the fledgling community in the wastes who wants to defend itself from MDC wildlife. Against real, Coalition or Northern Gun-grade weaponry, though? Not a chance.

Quote from: The Butcher;723997Chipwell Armaments, aka Cheapo Arms & Armor, introduced in Rifts Mercenaries, and one of the best ideas to come out of a very good book.

Low-quality but very affordable weaponry and armor suits, ideally suited for the fledgling community in the wastes who wants to defend itself from MDC wildlife. Against real, Coalition or Northern Gun-grade weaponry, though? Not a chance.

According to talks with the writer of Rifts Mercenaries - that book got him in trouble with Siembeida. Not sure what element though was the contention?

Quote from: Omega;724124According to talks with the writer of Rifts Mercenaries - that book got him in trouble with Siembeida. Not sure what element though was the contention?

C.J. Carella wrote that one, right? IIRC, his stats for arms and armor tended toward the overpowered. I don't know if that was the issue (actual or just perceived) with Mercenaries though.

Quote from: Omega;724124According to talks with the writer of Rifts Mercenaries - that book got him in trouble with Siembeida. Not sure what element though was the contention?

No idea. If Bill Coffin's classic old RPGnet post is anything to go by, KS can be quite the control freak. C. J. Carella did write some real stinkers for Rifts (the South America books), but Mercenaries is fantastic, and even the much-maligned Pantheons of the Megaverse is packed with adventure hooks.

Quote from: Dan Vincze;724145C.J. Carella wrote that one, right? IIRC, his stats for arms and armor tended toward the overpowered. I don't know if that was the issue (actual or just perceived) with Mercenaries though.

Mercs is an earlier book in terms of power level. There's definitely some serious firepower in there, but it hadn't quite reached ridiculous levels like MDC leaves and the phase weapons.

Mercenaries is one of the best Rifts books, by far. Yes, there are some powerful weapons, but the book is about dudes who are hired guns; it makes sense they'd have access to the good stuff. And they're also supposed to be small in number...there aren't millions of mercs in North America. Maybe closer to a few thousand? The power creep that happened in later books led me to stop buying them after South America 1. They just got dumb and made no sense when paired with the main book.

Rifts main book w/Atlantis for supernatural threats, mercs for military characters, and maybe the conversion book for a lot of weird shit like monsters, and that's really all you need.

It literally just now dawned on me that with published material alone, I now have enough stuff for H&H to run a house-ruled Rifts. Only thing I'm missing is mechs and they're on the docket for the H&H Companion series.

Quote from: J Arcane;724214It literally just now dawned on me that with published material alone, I now have enough stuff for H&H to run a house-ruled Rifts. Only thing I'm missing is mechs and they're on the docket for the H&H Companion series.

:eek:

That's a bold statement, sir.

Here's my personal test for whether a system can do Rifts:

You can have a Vagabond (a post-apocalyptic hobo, really) and a Dragon Hatchling (young, but physically very powerful and able to learn magic) in the same party.

Sounds simple enough, but most point-based systems can't do it. Unless you hand different point totals to different players and that's bullshit.

In H&H's case, I think the trick would be to cover all the different classes with H&H's nominally archetypal, but quirky classes; e.g. Rifts Rogue Scientists don't necessarily map to H&H Scientists because there really is no equivalent to the H&H multi-tool (and its spell-like "programs") in Rifts. It can be done, but it'll take some serious work.

In any case -- have you considered a lower-tech, Earth-bound, post-apocalyptic hack for H&H?

Quote from: The Butcher;724282:eek:

That's a bold statement, sir.

Here's my personal test for whether a system can do Rifts:

You can have a Vagabond (a post-apocalyptic hobo, really) and a Dragon Hatchling (young, but physically very powerful and able to learn magic) in the same party.

Sounds simple enough, but most point-based systems can't do it. Unless you hand different point totals to different players and that's bullshit.

In H&H's case, I think the trick would be to cover all the different classes with H&H's nominally archetypal, but quirky classes; e.g. Rifts Rogue Scientists don't necessarily map to H&H Scientists because there really is no equivalent to the H&H multi-tool (and its spell-like "programs") in Rifts. It can be done, but it'll take some serious work.

In any case -- have you considered a lower-tech, Earth-bound, post-apocalyptic hack for H&H?

I've had a couple ideas for possible seeds for a PA version of the rules, and as a setting near and dear to me, it's definitely something I'd like to do some day.

Before I decided to just do the Companion series I was actually working on resurrecting my old 'A Song in the Dark' setting, but I think it's just too dated an idea now.

If I do a PA game now it might just be an extrapolation of AR, or an original setting, but I'd need to find a twist. Unlike SF or Urban Fantasy, I actually have shoes to fill when it comes to a PA D&D, so I'd only do it if I found the right direction I think.

Quote from: J Arcane;724158Mercs is an earlier book in terms of power level. There's definitely some serious firepower in there, but it hadn't quite reached ridiculous levels like MDC leaves and the phase weapons.

Rifts Mercenaries arms and armor are generally on pair with core book stuff, except for Naruni armaments that are super-expensive and use specific ammo that's only available from their transdimensional purveyors.

Quote from: Brad;724210Rifts main book w/Atlantis for supernatural threats, mercs for military characters, and maybe the conversion book for a lot of weird shit like monsters, and that's really all you need.

Seconded. Though I'd throw in Federation of Magic, or the Rifts Book of Magic for additional spellcasting fun, and maybe Psyscape for some fun new psionic classes and powers.

And depending on where on Earth you're setting your game, I'd point you towards a World Book, or point out that you're better off coming up with your own ideas.

Quote from: The Butcher;724282Here's my personal test for whether a system can do Rifts:

You can have a Vagabond (a post-apocalyptic hobo, really) and a Dragon Hatchling (young, but physically very powerful and able to learn magic) in the same party.

Sounds simple enough, but most point-based systems can't do it. Unless you hand different point totals to different players and that's bullshit.

Well, that's because point-buy systems care about dope-smoking-freak concepts like "game balance." :D

JG

I love MD.

In the game I ran tonight, I was able to describe a city street, four vendor booths and 3 people who were set ablaze or cut in half by an MDC laser pistol. I was able to describe civilians turned to mist by an MDC rail rifle, and buildings set ablaze by plasma mini missiles.

The PC's SDC car was hit with an MDC laser pistol which burned through the door to hit the PC who was in mega damage armor. His armor heated up enough to start smoking the seat and the laser caught the engine and part of the frame on bright white / green fire.

The bad guy in a mega damage breast plate was hit with a plasma rife, where I was able to describe his neck and face blistering and his shirt and jacket burning off to expose a bright glowing, super hot vest.

I find the whole thing entertaining and hysterical.

Quote from: James Gillen;724460Well, that's because point-buy systems care about dope-smoking-freak concepts like "game balance." :D

JG

and that is why they fail.

Quote from: ForumScavenger;724728I love MD.

In the game I ran tonight, I was able to describe a city street, four vendor booths and 3 people who were set ablaze or cut in half by an MDC laser pistol. I was able to describe civilians turned to mist by an MDC rail rifle, and buildings set ablaze by plasma mini missiles.

The PC's SDC car was hit with an MDC laser pistol which burned through the door to hit the PC who was in mega damage armor. His armor heated up enough to start smoking the seat and the laser caught the engine and part of the frame on bright white / green fire.

The bad guy in a mega damage breast plate was hit with a plasma rife, where I was able to describe his neck and face blistering and his shirt and jacket burning off to expose a bright glowing, super hot vest.

I find the whole thing entertaining and hysterical.

Exactly. The whole thing has a somewhat adolescent mentality to it; but that's the entire fucking point. There's a reason why RIFTS became so immensely popular, and the whole "explosion in another explosion" stupid-action-film combat that gets generated by things like the MDC rules are part of that.

RPGPundit

Quote from: James Gillen;726335

RIFTS
a Michael Bay Production

Exactly. Only cooler.

RE: This subject - I had a review of RIFTS Ultimate Edition that I had previously sent to The Banning Place several years ago, and I think my critiques are relevant to the current conversation, but I don't want to give those guys more web traffic.  Would it be possible to repost it in the Reviews section here?

JG

Quote from: James Gillen;724460Well, that's because point-buy systems care about dope-smoking-freak concepts like "game balance." :D

JG

I like Rifts; I GMed it a lot in highschool. I’m a little old school, so I’m of the thinking that game balance is up to the GM: No matter what!  

You could do a point buying system for Rifts-but this would involve (I take it) all players starting with the same amount of points; hence, you example is the extreme of something you wouldn’t do if you had a point buying system.

Dragons and Demi-gods OK-

Dragons and (human I assume) Vagabonds?-you’re right, this would be unbalanced.

My opinion is that life is unbalanced-I’ve run games like this-and found that sometimes it works (for Rifts) sometimes it doesn’t. It’s often the classic problem of role playing vs roll playing; as a gaming group dynamic. Balance is more of an issue of roll playing; where people really need to have about the same level of power-or else some in the gaming group will be unhappy with how much damage they can’t do vs what the other players can do. Also this occurs with experienced players-where they do everything they can do to max out a character within the rules.

I never ever-ever tried to buck the system I created, if my group was a bunch of roll players (BTW: I don’t mean this in a negative light, just what the players would have the most fun with) I made sure everyone had about the same power level. If I had a group of role-players we could have/create an imbalanced group-and still everyone would have a good time.

Quote from: RPGPundit;727295Exactly. [Michael Bay] Only cooler.

I've got to disagree. I find Rifts is best as exaggerated and over the top black comedy.

Quote from: James Gillen;727660RE: This subject - I had a review of RIFTS Ultimate Edition that I had previously sent to The Banning Place several years ago, and I think my critiques are relevant to the current conversation, but I don't want to give those guys more web traffic.  Would it be possible to repost it in the Reviews section here?

JG

I reposted all my reviews here. You might as well.

Quote from: danbuter;727743I reposted all my reviews here. You might as well.

Well, if someone from there wants to object it would be problematic in that it would demonstrate that somebody is reading this site. ;)

JG

Quote from: The Butcher;724282Here's my personal test for whether a system can do Rifts:

You can have a Vagabond (a post-apocalyptic hobo, really) and a Dragon Hatchling (young, but physically very powerful and able to learn magic) in the same party.

Sounds simple enough, but most point-based systems can't do it. Unless you hand different point totals to different players and that's bullshit.

You might be surprised. . . . As an experienced rules-rapist, I can tell you that some of us can make a few points go a very long way. ;)

This stupid thread forced me to re-read some of my Rifts books last night. Two things I noticed when skimming the main book:

1) This game is made to be played, not over-analyzed in a vacuum.

2) Clunky rules, but really, it's just D&D with laser guns. For all the knocks on the system, I never once had any issues with it in actual play. Robotech or Palladium Fantasy or Rifts or TMNT or Heroes Unlimited or Ninjas and Superspies or even Beyond the Supernatural. Just make your fucking character and play, stop complaining about balance or whatever.

Quote from: Brad;728474This stupid thread forced me to re-read some of my Rifts books last night. Two things I noticed when skimming the main book:

1) This game is made to be played, not over-analyzed in a vacuum.

Yes.

Quote from: Brad;7284742) Clunky rules, but really, it's just D&D with laser guns. For all the knocks on the system, I never once had any issues with it in actual play. Robotech or Palladium Fantasy or Rifts or TMNT or Heroes Unlimited or Ninjas and Superspies or even Beyond the Supernatural. Just make your fucking character and play, stop complaining about balance or whatever.

The idea of "balance" as conceived even by TSR-era D&D is foreign to Rifts and introjecting it (e.g. with a point-buy system) will rob the game of at least a bit of its magic.

The rules are poorly written, but the system, being a D&D hack, is very amenable to rulings.

Quote from: The Butcher;728525The idea of "balance" as conceived even by TSR-era D&D is foreign to Rifts and introjecting it (e.g. with a point-buy system) will rob the game of at least a bit of its magic.

Balance doesn't even occur in point-buy systems; I think a lot of people miss that fact. They are great for making characters to fit within a certain paradigm (supers especially), but if you read the HERO or GURPS boards for any length of time it's pretty obvious you can gently abuse and rape those systems beyond belief. I've probably said this before, but my best Rifts character ever was a mundane vagabond. His ability to go unnoticed and undetected in a variety of situations far outweighed his lack of powers, magic and cybernetics; he could easily blend in anywhere. Points can never make up for good roleplaying or using a character in creative ways.

QuoteThe rules are poorly written, but the system, being a D&D hack, is very amenable to rulings.

I wouldn't necessarily say poorly written, but definitely poorly organized. It's a lot easier to understand the megadamage combat rules if you just use Robotech and ignore everything Siembida ever wrote in his numerous rules "clarifications".

Quote from: Brad;728553Balance doesn't even occur in point-buy systems; I think a lot of people miss that fact. They are great for making characters to fit within a certain paradigm (supers especially), but if you read the HERO or GURPS boards for any length of time it's pretty obvious you can gently abuse and rape those systems beyond belief.

There is at least an attempt at such, while a lot of the same people who bitch about "balance being a myth" are the same ones who bitch about how Pathfinder or some other D&D spawn breaks down at higher levels or makes casters overpowered.  
Another aspect of the point-buy approach (which especially applies to Champions, which is where HERO started) is that more traditional systems that start with effect first can't "improvise" well enough to create the various powers that superhero comics invent all the time.  You can try, but that basically requires extrapolating from the existing material and hoping your players don't take your new power and rape the system beyond belief.  ;)

QuoteI've probably said this before, but my best Rifts character ever was a mundane vagabond. His ability to go unnoticed and undetected in a variety of situations far outweighed his lack of powers, magic and cybernetics; he could easily blend in anywhere.

You'd have to, because if he stuck his neck out he'd be squashed like a roach in the Mega-Damage universe.  Not that cockroaches don't survive and thrive, but there's a reason they don't follow the spotlight.

QuoteI wouldn't necessarily (RIFTS is) say poorly written, but definitely poorly organized.

"Editor's Note: I don't exist."

JG

Quote from: James Gillen;728048Well, if someone from there wants to object it would be problematic in that it would demonstrate that somebody is reading this site. ;)

JG

Unless you signed something saying that what you wrote belongs to them now, they have no basis to object.   In fact, you should have a right to object to your writing continuing to be on their forum generating them money (in theory).