Running a Megaverse Game?

[ExoKnight]

Anyone ever run a Megaverse game where you mixed all the Palladium settings? Maybe have a group of dimension hopping adventures? One days on RIFTS Earth, the next week in the Nightlands, etc.

If so, what books would you consider core to running a game like that? I would assume Conversion Book Revised and Dark Conversions would be important. Anything else?

Also, what type of weird party did you have?

[Johnathan]

Well... Lemme think. IT's been a few years since I was an active participant in the campaign that could be considered "Megaversal".

The core group has changed in and out throughout the years (As the game itself is, I think at this point, 15 years and still running) - However, when I played in it. It consisted of a semi-4D creature of magic gunslinger mercenary turned mercenary leader. A demi-god Manamal (A Creature of magic who is half-man and half-animal and shares traits from both) Arch-Mage. A Demi-God Natural Genius who sold his soul to a Dead Nightlord for the sake of power and was displaced through dimensions, he was the groups resident Mad Scientist. A Sea Titan Gunslinger turned Enlightened Immortal and Living Magic Sorcerer. The Godling-level daughter of the Natural Genius Demi-God (Long story on that one, he is both her mother and father at the same time, while the Goddess Freya is considered both her father and mother).

Obviously, the group has extremely powerful. We literally had a chance of using ANY given book at any given time. Obviously standard core books are required. GMG, BoM, RUE, Phase World 1, At least one Sourcebook of any genre and at least the core book of each Genre (PFRPG, Nightbane, etc.)

It can be pretty hectic... but unbelivably FUN!

[Snow Hawk]

Anyone ever run a Megaverse game where you mixed all the Palladium settings? Maybe have a group of dimension hopping adventures? One days on RIFTS Earth, the next week in the Nightlands, etc.

If so, what books would you consider core to running a game like that? I would assume Conversion Book Revised and Dark Conversions would be important. Anything else?

Also, what type of weird party did you have?

I like this idea. My games have a tendency to travel around the magaverse because I like to write and create new things but I would eventually lead the party back to RIFTS or the three galaxies.
Before I had Heroes Unlimited I once ran an "Exiles" game. If your not aware Exiles was a marvel comic and it revolved around a Sliders/Quantum leap premise each player had to hand make with me the guy they were going to play each one was unique.and had a complex comic book back ground. The players were aloud to be parallel versions, children of, or an amalgam of people from Marvel, DC or GIJOE. And the game went well you travailing between putting thins right that once went wrong in a plethora of parallel worlds until I let some other than myself GM and do to the nature of not having real books to go by the new GM sort of killed that game

[Mech-Viper Prime]

did a adventure of travelling the megaverse, players chasing a villian, they had fun

[DhAkael]

MOSTLY between Phaseworld & Rifts Terra, a little of 'Manhunter' thrown in for flavour, ninja's & supergoofs for a bit of Kung-Fu fightin' action, LOTS of Nightlands stuff (not as many NightSPAWN as you'd think), and long established UN-spacy / REF (not UEEF garbage) colony in North Am.

PLUS i've dumped the players in the Middle of Castlerock, Maine (as SDC dimension) for extra added horrifications

[Armorlord]

Anyone ever run a Megaverse game where you mixed all the Palladium settings? Maybe have a group of dimension hopping adventures? One days on RIFTS Earth, the next week in the Nightlands, etc.

If so, what books would you consider core to running a game like that? I would assume Conversion Book Revised and Dark Conversions would be important. Anything else?

Also, what type of weird party did you have?

"Megaversal" is pretty much my default setting for my games. Sadly, despite my love of dimension hopping games, I haven't managed to make that the central focus of any of my Palladium games so far, a lot of side trips and usage, but it would be nice to see some serious dimension hopping, but my players are more content to call one world/setting home at a time. There's some hope for some of the younger campaigns that are starting to slowly get rolling, but we'll have to see how things go.

[stankind]

I had a sadistic GM that started a HU campaign. My Hardware: Mechanical and cyborg buddy got dimensionally teleported when a dimensional traveler pc accidentally dropped in on our base.
We ended up getting slaughtered by a horde of skelebots (MD) with only our SDC armor and weapons to protect us.
I think it was about a 2-hour campaign.

Recently, I helped a player create a wikderness scout with powers from PU3 (beastmaster power and a couple of extraordinary stats, but mainly human) which is quite neat.

Otherwise, not much.

[Nether]

I have yet to have a long Rifts adventure or campaign stay only to Rifts Earth. They would go to various places, but I have made the Nightlands a permanent part of Rifts Earth and then things like Wormwood, Manhunter, Phaseworld ext have popped up many times. Rifts Earth is the main place that most of our adventures are and where players have thier homebase, but they travel alot.

[MADMANMIKE]

The Eminent Cohorts. I ran it on Thoth's website as a play by post, and had something like 24 players divided up into groups of 4 to 6. A BTS Arcanist who found his way to the rainbow bridge by way of a trailer park that had been partially destroyed by a tornado (run by an old lady and her red headed niece named Doe), a group of adventures from Palladium Fantasy, and a couple of different groups from RIFTS. Each was given status as defenders of light and a gateway to an Astral Realm (ala Between the Shadows) from which to run their missions).

Of course it was just too darned big and after a few months I ran out of steam..

[Razzinold]

My current game is set in HU but which they reach the mysterious island they've been hired to find, they are being rifted to Rifts Earth (obviously they don't know this yet) and 3 more players are joining the group. They have the option to pick from the HU books or Rifts, to keep things fair I plan on my two HU characters to be experimented on before being rifted to beef them up a bit so they don't get slaughtered. One player chose the Vigilante/Hunter OCC and all he has is SDC weapons and armour. The other player does have super powers (both were given the options to have powers) but she came up with a really cool character concept and as a result did not pick any powers that were offensive, or defensive for that matter, in nature.

I find these characters work well for how the game is progressing in HU but I think they will be too out classed in the world of Rifts, hence the tweaking being done to them by the same entity that is rifting them, all for his own devious reasons!

[Carl Gleba]

I ran a group of Megaversals who were slaves to a group of Sunaj. They were in effect Dimensional raiders based out of Phase World. Did a lot of playing in PW, went to Hades and started the Minion War, passed through Dyval and the Great Machine. Finally when they managed to escape from the thrall they ended up on Tolkeen fighting in the war.

I don't really have to worry about which books as all of my players pretty much have the complete PB library. I bring what I think I need with a few constants like RUE, Book of Magic and then books that relate to the current game.

[Nether]

I ran a group of Megaversals who were slaves to a group of Sunaj. They were in effect Dimensional raiders based out of Phase World. Did a lot of playing in PW, went to Hades and started the Minion War, passed through Dyval and the Great Machine. Finally when they managed to escape from the thrall they ended up on Tolkeen fighting in the war.

I don't really have to worry about which books as all of my players pretty much have the complete PB library. I bring what I think I need with a few constants like RUE, Book of Magic and then books that relate to the current game.

Mr. Carl that sounds like a pretty cool adventure set. I think I will have to 'borrow' some of that for games.

[Blue_Lion]

I have had a few charters that started out in other games and wond up in rifts, some from long Ninjas and super spies game, that gm moved to rifts. It took about 9 sessiosions before we started getting MDC armor and weapons.

[Carl Gleba]

I ran a group of Megaversals who were slaves to a group of Sunaj. They were in effect Dimensional raiders based out of Phase World. Did a lot of playing in PW, went to Hades and started the Minion War, passed through Dyval and the Great Machine. Finally when they managed to escape from the thrall they ended up on Tolkeen fighting in the war.

I don't really have to worry about which books as all of my players pretty much have the complete PB library. I bring what I think I need with a few constants like RUE, Book of Magic and then books that relate to the current game.

Mr. Carl that sounds like a pretty cool adventure set. I think I will have to 'borrow' some of that for games.

Please do

Here is some more background on the group: How my group started the Minion War.

[Carl Gleba]

I think you all might be on to something with limiting mdc and steering away from that ship. It certainly makes things more challenging

M.D.C. never bothered me. What it boils down to is this...

ME (GM): " You take XX M.D.C."

Player: "The destroys my armor...my player is dead!"

Me (GM): You're dead when I say your dead.

In two of my games here is what happened.

A player in a phase world game got nailed for a critical in the first battle of a con game I was running. Same thing above happened and he was ready to call it a game. Instead i allowed the group medic to get a chance to role play. I ended up blowing off the characters arm. The medic did some quick work stopped the bleeding and ended up strapping a weapon to the stump.

In another game a player took a laster to the gut. That character needed some immediate battlefield surgery. Got the character stabilized and ended up with some cybernetic organs.

It's the GM's job to get creative. It's also an opportunity to add a little drama to the game, allow characters with medical skills to use them.

[Akashic Soldier]

Me (GM): You're dead when I say your dead.

People are too quick to forget the "gi-joe rule" and the fact that even if someone shots you point blank in the face with a plasma cannon you've got minutes before you actually die and cannot be recovered (though I don't imagine its a pleasant experience and that table might end up costing you an arm or a heart). This is why as a general rule I secretly snicker at people who scoff at the Body Fixer O.C.C.--I've seen so many players say "Well, I'm dead" or "I'm healed but now what do I do without my arm?" when that easily could have been avoided if someone (anyone) played a Body-Fixer.

[flatline]

Me (GM): You're dead when I say your dead.

People are too quick to forget the "gi-joe rule" and the fact that even if someone shots you point blank in the face with a plasma cannon you've got minutes before you actually die and cannot be recovered (though I don't imagine its a pleasant experience and that table might end up costing you an arm or a heart). This is why as a general rule I secretly snicker at people who scoff at the Body Fixer O.C.C.--I've seen so many players say "Well, I'm dead" or "I'm healed but now what do I do without my arm?" when that easily could have been avoided if someone (anyone) played a Body-Fixer.

Do they ever give any details on "bio-systems"? I know they're mentioned, but I don't remember ever seeing details on how much a cloned limb costs.

--flatline

[flatline]

yea but if you allow MDC, you run into the problem of....MDC equiped group rifts to an SDC world.....could be fun, or a real mess, or worse, player gets ahold of a mdc laser sword (techbased) and dont wanna leave it behind, goes to sdc world, meets a space pirat with a cool laser sword...cool battle to death...no, mdc sword rips through sdc tech lasersword....though lasers are lasers....????? and the fight you the gm and player thought was gonna be cool...is anticlimactically over due to a mechanic differance. I find it easyer to when playing cross genras/dimensions to decide on a damage convention, and stick to it, just make higtech weapons do more damage but the same, or be more sophisticated and efficiant, but mechanically the same, saves alot of headache.

This seems reasonable. If you plan to enter SDC-only settings, convert the MDC settings using whatever conversion you like and then you never have to deal with MDC ever for the whole campaign.

I happen to hate MDC for any setting except robotech, but that's my cross to bear.

--flatline

[Carl Gleba]

yea but if you allow MDC, you run into the problem of....MDC equiped group rifts to an SDC world.....could be fun, or a real mess, or worse, player gets ahold of a mdc laser sword (techbased) and dont wanna leave it behind, goes to sdc world, meets a space pirat with a cool laser sword...cool battle to death...no, mdc sword rips through sdc tech lasersword....though lasers are lasers....????? and the fight you the gm and player thought was gonna be cool...is anticlimactically over due to a mechanic differance. I find it easyer to when playing cross genras/dimensions to decide on a damage convention, and stick to it, just make higtech weapons do more damage but the same, or be more sophisticated and efficiant, but mechanically the same, saves alot of headache.

It's been a while but I think the conversion book does have rules for this. I have my own rules and run it how I find it the easiest. The best example I give is when I ran my megaversals through Hades. The rules as written make Hades a SDC world, but I just ran it as MDC since all the demons had MDC values I could use. I also don't care for supernatural strengh done in SDC games. For me its way over the top when your adding +xx value to all the dice roles.

If I have no MDC values to work with then I just convert the damage to SDC and try and figure out armor raitng and all. I try to focus more on the story and let the rules sort themselves out later.

[DhAkael]

I try to focus more on the story and let the rules sort themselves out later.

TRUTH!

[TechnoGothic]

"MEGAVERSAL" is the default of all my games actually. I use all the settings, all the OCCs, Dimensions, the Players want to use for characters. And of course whatever I myself as GM want to bring in durning the game.

Only had 3 or so games where the Players actually did Rift Travel to explore.

[Blue_Lion]

yea but if you allow MDC, you run into the problem of....MDC equiped group rifts to an SDC world.....could be fun, or a real mess, or worse, player gets ahold of a mdc laser sword (techbased) and dont wanna leave it behind, goes to sdc world, meets a space pirat with a cool laser sword...cool battle to death...no, mdc sword rips through sdc tech lasersword....though lasers are lasers....????? and the fight you the gm and player thought was gonna be cool...is anticlimactically over due to a mechanic differance. I find it easyer to when playing cross genras/dimensions to decide on a damage convention, and stick to it, just make higtech weapons do more damage but the same, or be more sophisticated and efficiant, but mechanically the same, saves alot of headache.

simple MDC only works in MDC worlds on SDC worlds it gets turned to SDC and in some casses toned down like half MDC as SDC the real issue is rebalancing heavy weapons or hey I got a Machine gun in PF lets go gun down some gaints.

[flatline]

yea but if you allow MDC, you run into the problem of....MDC equiped group rifts to an SDC world.....could be fun, or a real mess, or worse, player gets ahold of a mdc laser sword (techbased) and dont wanna leave it behind, goes to sdc world, meets a space pirat with a cool laser sword...cool battle to death...no, mdc sword rips through sdc tech lasersword....though lasers are lasers....????? and the fight you the gm and player thought was gonna be cool...is anticlimactically over due to a mechanic differance. I find it easyer to when playing cross genras/dimensions to decide on a damage convention, and stick to it, just make higtech weapons do more damage but the same, or be more sophisticated and efficiant, but mechanically the same, saves alot of headache.

simple MDC only works in MDC worlds on SDC worlds it gets turned to SDC and in some casses toned down like half MDC as SDC the real issue is rebalancing heavy weapons or hey I got a Machine gun in PF lets go gun down some gaints.

Why would you "rebalance" things? If you had a .50 machine gun in palladium fantasy, I would totally expect you to massacre giants or anything else that you got in your sights. That's the whole point of a weapon like that.

--flatline