The SDC Cinematic Universe: Rifts & Other Supplemental Books

I am trying to keep my Palladium SDC worlds from being sucked into the Rifts universe. While I love Rifts and was a huge collector back in the day, it always overshadowed a ton of cool settings and places that I felt deserved a little more time in the sun.

Would I love to play a pure Palladium Fantasy game? Yes! Sure!

Rock around as a hero or villain in Heroes Unlimited? Wow! Never did that!

See what Beyond the Supernatural does differently from games like Call of Cthulhu? Wow! Yes!

See what the alternate universe of the 1990s would have been like if Nightbane had been popular instead of Vampire: The Masquerade? Of course!

Play in an alternate universe had we chosen Ninjas & Superspies instead of Top Secret? Yes!

Relive some of my TNMT fun with After the Bomb? Wow!

And check out the newer Dead Reign and see the different take on the zombie genre? Yes!

This already sounds like a Palladium advertisement. But the fact is, I collected the base books from all these worlds and used them as Rifts sourcebooks back in the day. I knew about the worlds and loved them, but never got to play in them to see what they were like before the Rifts. They were always my Rifts sourcebooks and never fun games on their own.

Rifts is a juggernaut. It will steamroll playtime and attention for any game linked to it. It is a great universe and game, but the base games deserve a non-Rifts universe of their own.

For now.

The 90s

Well, the question of "why play Palladium" came up when I started looking into these games again, and this all came up as a part of me reliving the AD&D 2e experience with For Gold & Glory, still a great AD&D 2e retro-clone. This was the 1990s, and I was collecting Rifts books. My brother and I moved our AD&D games into the 2nd edition, and we were having new adventures there in the (never touched by the novels) Forgotten Realms of our imaginations.

And I did have the Palladium Fantasy RPG book, and I always wanted to play that but we never had time. Never be that person who says, "We never had time." What happens is "we" becomes "I" and the regret sets in. So I want to make up for that a little and experience these games as they were meant to be played.

So I created my own SDC Cinematic Universe (SDC-CU), and I am currently not playing Rifts.

While I like the idea of replaying AD&D 2e, my feelings about it are mixed. For one, doing this in Castles & Crusades feels like a more faithful and modern approach to the experience, while also adding a lot of new stuff to my game. I am still feeling this out and doing a lot of thinking, but Palladium is a game I want to try regardless, and this may well change my plans entirely.

Splicers?

Wait, where does the game Splicers fit into all this? MDC game as I read! Nope! Sounds fun, but get over there with Rifts and Rifts: Chaos Earth. And I swear, Rifts: Chaos Earth is how they are going to get me back into Rifts. But I am putting that aside! I oppose introducing MDC-class weapons and magic into the SDC-CU, as I want everything to be on the same power level and scale.

The Splicers game deserves a look on its own, even as something apart from Rifts.

Inter SDC-CU Travel?

I don't know if I will do crossovers between these universes without the MDC world of the Rifts. I have enough here to last me decades, but if it comes up, it will happen under the rules governing inter-dimensional activity. The PFRPG fantasy world and the superhero one may drive this, but it may happen.

There are superpowers, mutant powers, magic, Nightbane powers, and ley lines and rifts all over these worlds, so in theory, the groundwork is laid for "non-Rifts rifts," but we shall see.

Rifts Books?

Okay, now that we have established the ground rules, what Rifts books are allowable? There is an easy one as my first choice: Rifts Conversion Book Two: Pantheons of the Megaverse. Why? More gods for the Palladium FRPG fantasy world, and we get some good ones here, like the Greeks, Romans, and Norse. We also have SDC stats, so these fit right in perfectly (once you get rid of all of their power armor and high-tech gear). These can be dropped right i,n and if you want more gods, this is an easy choice.

Rifts Conversion Book One is more for the rules updates than any really great SDC content or additions. There are rules for higher ability scores, pain modifiers, and dodging modern weapons that are worth having. The monster, spell, and conversion lists have SDC values, but they are primarily helpful in going into Rifts (or as a summary list). There is a third Dark Conversions book that summarizes monsters from other games, so to me it is not as helpful, since I will be playing and collecting the games covered here and will already have those.

If you want more demons for the fantasy world, two good pickup books are Rifts Dimension Books 10 & 11 for Hades and Dyval. Like Pantheons of the Megaverse, you can strip out the high-tech items, SDC values are provided, and these all drop into the Palladium FRPG seamlessly.

There are a few more Rifts books I could borrow from, like the Vampires, but I would like to keep a lot of these in Rifts as part of that lore and world. The gods and demons are cross-world, so they are technically "from" the fantasy world, so they should be a part of the PFRPG world.

Other Books?

Another notable book (not Rifts) is the 90s-era Compendium of Contemporary Weapons, which should be helpful for my 80s- and 90s-based games.

The generic Weapons & Armor and Weapons & Castles books are good references and provide a lot of context and detail, should you want to dive into what a particular piece of armor is called, get information on castles, or find names and styles of exotic and historical weapons.

These are my top seven books, with the Pantheons book being my top pick for Fantasy, followed by the Hades/Dyval guides. For weapons, the Contemporary Weapons Compendium is a nice-to-have for any modern game. The Weapons/Armor/Castles books come in behind those, followed by the Rifts compendiums one and three.

Originally published 4/2/22, on the SBRPG blog.