I wish there was a big worldbook for Rifts, but with no stats in it. Just lots of text and lots of cool art. Keep the era near the beginning of the setting, before all the Tolkien metaplot garbage. I'd buy this book in a second.

I used to really like the Palladium system, as it was obviously based upon AD&D, but with guns and robots and magic and psychics and tons and tons of awesome stuff. It really is my favorite published setting (except for maybe gray box Forgotten Realms). It's a shame the rules are so mediocre (they are not horrible, but they are not great).

A book without rules baggage would be great, and I suspect it would be a good seller for Palladium. Sadly, I don't think Siembieda would ever consider it, as he really does believe his system is the best.

I don't have much against the Palladium rules. It's kinda like AD&D in that you've got lots of moving parts and subsystems, and kinda like Dangerous Journeys (for me, from my perspective right now discovering it for the first time) in that I have to learn a whole bunch of acronyms I never heard about and the like. But otherwise, ... I think I could find my own pace with this game. It's pretty cool, actually.

And yeah, the gonzo aspect of it all with giant robots and ninjas and psychics and shit makes it all worthwhile. The world is really, really cool.

I'd be all for a world book as well, the settings always had such awesome feeling ideas when I read through the books, I'm just not sure if I could teach/run that ruleset.

I never really understood the setting. Like what you were supposed to do in it.

Gamma World, you explored ruins and stuff. Not too far from D&D. Twilight 2000, you usually foiled schemes of nasty warlords and such. (Sort of like Mad Max)

See, to me, RIFTS is a prime example of a game system suffering from 20-25 years of "rules bloat".

It is infinitely easier to teach people to play, using the old grey softcover RMB, than it is to use the current blue hardbound RUE. Part of that is structure/layout of the book, but a lot of it is the fact there's a whole lot more moving parts to RIFTS in the RUE, that was a lot simpler in RMB.

And I really doubt there was very many people going "RIFTS is too simple!", even when it was released.

Personally, I see no need for a stats-less world book, just pick up core and maybe Sourcebook 1, plus the World Book for whatever region interests you.

Regarding the system, it's not really as bad as most people make it. It's just abysmally laid out and quite frankly, poorly written. Kevin Siembieda needs a real editor who isn't one of his gaming buddies going back 30+ year (sorry, Alex or Thom or whoever's doing this nowadays, but Kevin needs to be told that he's not exactly a great rules writer). Also, PFRPG 1e used tables, which are (1) clearer than and (2) not mutually exclusive of the current (confusing, to me, and time-consuming in character creation) presentation of skills, both combat (bonuses) and non-combat (starting levels and progression).

Also, MDC has been abused to death; not only PCs have immediate access to MDC arms and armor (and little reason not to use them), but no thought was given to the consequences of natural MDC d-bees running amidst our squishy SDC ecosystem. If I ever run Rifts again, I'm converting MDC to SDC on a 1:10 basis, and maybe using some sort of "damage reduction" (from d20) or "heavy armor" (from Savage Worlds) mechanic.

I fully agree that Rifts non-system Worldbook would be great.

The Palladium system can be tamed if you beat it with a stick and chop away anything that gets in your way, but you need a group of players who are cool with major house ruling.

Quote from: Benoist;649939It's kinda like AD&D in that you've got lots of moving parts and subsystems,

When I read this, I got an image of AD&D as a collection of whistles, bells, and gadgets nailed up to a chunk of plywood in rows, and an image of RIFTS as a tumbled cluster of heavy parts sagging out the bottom of a rumpled cardboard box, covered in a layer of excelsior.

It's like an AD&D 1e with an additional 20 years of stuff like Unearthed Arcana, Oriental Adventures, and Dungeoneer's Survival Guide piled onto it, with no revision, consolidation, or evaluation.

Quote from: danbuter;649936I wish there was a big worldbook for Rifts, but with no stats in it. Just lots of text and lots of cool art. Keep the era near the beginning of the setting, before all the Tolkien metaplot garbage.

Quote from: The Butcher;649969Personally, I see no need for a stats-less world book, just pick up core and maybe Sourcebook 1, plus the World Book for whatever region interests you.

Sometimes it feels like if you took out all the random numbers for all of the guns, tanks, power armor, spells, psionic powers, etc., there wouldn't really be that much left.  Still, there are something like a hundred books.  Which parts would you want to summarize?  Most of the stuff that people still talk about is in books that are old enough, and have been printed so many times, that you can get them on eBay for $5 or $10.  You can get pretty much everything worth having for less than the cost of a new book.

Seriously, though, which elements of RIFTS would be candidates for inclusion in this world book?  What's the scope?

Quote from: The Butcher;649969Regarding the system, it's not really as bad as most people make it. It's just abysmally laid out and quite frankly, poorly written. Kevin Siembieda needs a real editor who isn't one of his gaming buddies going back 30+ year (sorry, Alex or Thom or whoever's doing this nowadays, but Kevin needs to be told that he's not exactly a great rules writer).

I don't have any particular problem with the Palladium game, so far as I'm able to understand it, and I'd sure enough accept an invitation to a RIFTS game with the right people, but those books are so hopelessly fucked up (as rule books) that it's hard to even identify individual problems.  The thing needs a reboot, or at least a distilled core rule book. That business that got linked here a few days ago, where the guy was crowing about his mastery of the Palladium system after spending his life reading thousands of pages of that mess, and fielding questions about the ejector seat rule, had me shaking my head.  If it takes a guy like that to grok it, I'm pretty sure Siembieda himself doesn't know how it's meant to work.

My go-to answer for RIFTS 'what to do' has always been 'sandbox'.   Just a flip through a given book would spark ideas of what might happen to my PCs in that same place/situation.

As for the system, it was and is way too easy to break. Each book made it worse, but really the same gaps were right there in the main book. Stuff like 'why take anything other than X martial art'?   'Why does everyone know how to box?'  And my favorite, 'Why be a Vagabond at all?'  The latter one was the roughest because you could easily roll up just about anything else and add a homelessness background...

I have tried a number of times to rip and replace the system, without luck so far. Yourself the gonzo, and with it a lot of the appeal.

For me RIFTS requires a lack of cynicism about the system to really enjoy the setting. And unfortunately I find that once you start seeing the cheese for what it is, you can't go back.

The Vagabond is one of the best OCCs to play.

The problem, I think, with Rifts for many people is that instead of having a resolution mechanic for everything, the players have to actually role play stuff. On the GM side, you have to be able to make adventures/scenerios/whatever be more than just blowing up dinosaur-riding were-panthers with dozens of missiles.

Quote from: everloss;650424On the GM side, you have to be able to make adventures/scenerios/whatever be more than just blowing up dinosaur-riding were-panthers with dozens of missiles.

Well, yeah...eventually.  

Quote from: danbuter;649936I wish there was a big worldbook for Rifts, but with no stats in it. Just lots of text and lots of cool art. Keep the era near the beginning of the setting, before all the Tolkien metaplot garbage. I'd buy this book in a second.

have you looked at AFTERMATH? it's a wide-angle worldbook, admittedly advancing the timeline, but unburdened by too much stats crap. just pure setting madness.

Quote from: CRKrueger;650426Well, yeah...eventually.  

Oh, I'm not knocking the thrill of blasting dinosaur-riding were-panthers to smithereens... but there is more to the game than just that!


like blasting hot blind warrior women wearing armored bikinis in the face with dimensional goo.

Aftermath, the final book in the Tolkeen saga, is quite good. Its mostly fluff and does a good job setting the stage for a post-Tolkeen campaign that will give lots of info about the world.

I am a fan of Chaos Earth - much more the concept than the game. Its very fun to play the heroes during the Apocalypse and all the insanity as the world burns. Unfortunately, the published game does not sing like the premise.

I feel bad for stinking up this thread with a bunch of frustrated whining about Palladium editing, when that was totally not the topic.

If a rules-free worldbook were afoot, with the aim of capturing the appeal of the setting without the decades of metaplot, how much stuff would go in it?

Let's say it's a 250 page book. I have no doubt that a book just about coalition armaments could hit 250 pages.  How broad could the book be, and still be fun/useful?  Would it cover only North America?  Earth?  The Megaverse™?

If it's not going to include spells/O.C.C.s/weapons, what is essential?