Life in the Megaverse

Can Rifts be played as a space opera-style game? Let's ignore Earth for now, and just focus on intergalactic adventures, star hopping, getting into trouble in deep space, fighting space pirates, and battling all types of space monsters on missions across the galaxy. Surprisingly, the answer is yes. And not only a weak yes, but a very strong yes. Let's start with the Dimension Book Two: Phase World, and this is the nexus of any space opera-style campaign for Rifts, since this thematically replaces Earth and acts as our intergalactic hub that connects everything together. This place connects infinite dimensions across a massive planet and city, serving as a transit point for travel from anywhere to anywhere. You are likely playing a strict MDC game here, and it will be a lot safer to deck out in MDC armor (even light MDC) when going anywhere, and carrying MDC weapons. There may be the occasional SDC encounter and need for weapons, but due to the high power level of everything in ...

Many role-playing games fall into the trap of deciding what you will do with them. D&D is one of these games, where the entire experience should be played one way. The equipment list is engineered for dungeon crawling; all abilities are focused on dungeon crawling; all classes are rigged to dungeon crawl; all spells are crafted for dungeon crawling; the experience system is built to reward dungeon crawling; and the monsters are even perfectly designed for the dungeon crawl. As a result, the game feels perfect for dungeon crawling. But little else. There was a time when game designers considered the world first, designing systems that encompassed the entirety of a realistic, dynamic world, with no thought of it being a game, and began the design from there. Palladium is one of those games, and its default ability to simulate an entire world in its lingua franca is why we love it. While it can be dungeon crawling, and Palladium can simulate that activity inside this world, the game a...

Here is an excellent tool for your GM's Toolbox, the Palladium Fantasy book Land of the Damned One Chaos Lands has one of the best random monster generators for any Palladium Game, sitting right there on pages 108-121. This can be used for both SDC and MDC games; just say it is, and it will quickly create a random monster for your game. These are primarily for Palladium Fantasy , but nothing is stopping you from using them for all your other games! These are mainly intended for the random things crawling around the Chaos Lands, but they work just as well for any random creature you may need crawling around a dungeon. Just roll it up, flavor it as an undead, slime creature, minor demon, impling, animal, creature of magic, chaos beast, or any other random monster you may need to fill out an encounter. This is especially useful for Beyond the Supernatural and for making random creatures, either as boss monsters or those random things that skitter through alleyways. You could use the...

I hope you got everything you wanted under your Rifts-mas tree this year: all the excellent books and games in this system, the worlds we create, and, most importantly, the games we play together! This year, I got a bunch of Rifts books to complete my collection that I started back in 1990, and the people in the Palladium warehouse were probably overjoyed to ship these massive orders to me. I was just as happy to get them and finally have a complete collection of Rifts books (minus the Rifter, which I have in PDF). It feels good, and this is the best Riftsmas that I have ever had! And supporting such a great company, and one of the oldest non-D&D roleplaying games out there, is a plus too. Palladium is a treasure of the hobby and a pioneer in many areas. Please keep making great books, and I can do my part here on my blog to spread the joy of these great games. I started my journey with Palladium back in college, in the 1990s, when I worked in the university computer lab as a tutor...

The first Rifts book was always a special part of my game collection. This is a book I could open that unlocks infinite possibilities and adventures. I have only felt that with a handful of games over the last few decades. The original BX red and cyan D&D books were one. Star Frontiers was another. The original Vampire: The Masquerade was another. These are special games where once you crack open the book, you enter another world. Rifts feels awesome. It is a cultural milestone and an equal of any comic-book universe. This carried science fiction gaming through the 1990s, with Star Wars d6 on the other side. Traveller was floundering with Megatraveller. Star Frontiers, Gamma World, Star Trek roleplaying, and Space Opera were mainly dead. Battletech held its own, but more as a tabletop game. Shadowrun and Cyberpunk were technically science fiction, but still very close to today. There was also Space Master, and GURPS did science fiction. But Rifts captured imaginations. I could open...

It is not a Palladium Megaverse game, but Recon won our hearts in the 1980s when Rambo was playing at the movie theater, Chuck Norris was saving the PoWs, Tour of Duty was on the television, and the Vietnam War was the stain on a country's consciousness, and the loss of innocence for a nation in the free love 1960s. The Vietnam War ended the science fiction future we were promised in the 1950s. It ended with a hedonistic, jaded, and drug-addled discotheque nation in the 1970s, lost in a malaise and gripped by inflation and an oil crisis. And a role-playing game trapped in the jungles of Southeast Asia about one of the darkest periods of modern history seems almost obscene and too controversial. Yet, here it is, honoring those who served. We got this game early, and while we never played a whole campaign, we played the system for a few one-shots and enjoyed the authenticity and design of this fantastic book. Recon is a true beer-and-pretzels RPG, one you crack open, design some char...