Rift-botech

[Kagashi]

Wow, now that we all stopped complaining about Marines, these boards became a ghost town.

I was putting together a new campaign that takes place in 2045, one year after Reflex Point and Chaos Earth basically happens to Robotech Earth. Rather than fighting technological aliens, human survivors must fight back hordes of Demons (Chaos Demons vs Hades vs Dyval) on Earth, while defending space from the Haydonites. This campaign would be part of the Minion War arc.

This means crude versions of psionics and magic starts manifesting on Earth survivors and the players can take this to a completely different direction than what is implied in tSC RPG. Heck, they can start their own city-state with their new found powers that do not rely on Protoculture and not even recognize the UEEF as the ruling power.

I was only going to allow "natural" or gifted magic and psionics, like Mystics, Warlocks, Elemental Fusionists, Blue Zone Wizards and Master Psionic classes. Witches might work too, but depending on how the group wants to see the theme of the game, might be restricted. Learned magic would be too far out in this timeline and the players would be discovering their new powers as the adventure goes on (like the TV show Heroes).

However, I would also allow folks with the appropriate skills (History, BtS Lores, Research, and so on) to be able to start the game with ancient artifacts that begun to show magical features (like non-TW items from Black Vault, PF potions, and so on). Id also expand the Civilian OCC to MOS's from Dead Reign and BtS for more versatility.

I would also allow certain characters to start and be able to manufacture things like Rifts Designer Drugs (Chemistry skills), Splugorth Parasites (Biology), Herb magic (Botany, Holistic Medicine), access to some Stone Magic (geology) and perhaps even some PF Alchemy traits (Chemistry, Lore Magic, Field Armorer, ect...- potion making, instilling magic boosts on armor and weapons and so on) This gives the Civilian OCCs a different advantage over the mecha wielding UEEF OCCs. These would be treated like natural abilities related to their skill sets, rather than knowledge they deliberately learned.

What do you think? What would you do different to make it more enjoyable for you? If you were to play this campaign, would you just play Rifts? Does it involve too much?

[Alpha 11]

Its your game, so go for it! As long as you don't get confused and all with all your putting in. And it does sound cool!

[drewkitty ~..~]

I was in a game with a rifts-rt connection, the gm called it rifttech, where the RoD caused the coming of the rifts.
It might be interesting to play an alternate version of a R-RT combination.

[jaymz]

Yeah that was likely Stan Bundy or someone using his material He ran it GenCon for several years too I think.

[Riftmaker]

Well this certainly fixes the proto culture supply issues most robotech rifts crossovers have kudos.

[neuronphaser]

Well this certainly fixes the proto culture supply issues most robotech rifts crossovers have kudos.

Certainly that!

Have you read (or read about, at least) the Robotech/Voltron crossover comic? Despite its flaws, it has an easy, ready-made little MacGuffin that sucks the SDF-1 into Voltron's universe and deposits the Lions on Robotech Earth. I bring it up solely because it's a neat way to think about Robotech connecting to other worlds.

Now, onto the matter at hand: I think your ideas are great. I'd question allowing too much mix-matching of Robotech and Rifts stuff among the players, partially for potential balance issues (usually not a problem in Palladium since there's little attempt at "balance" mechanically), but mostly because you may find it hard to keep characters focused on what makes them "special" if the scenarios they get involved with favor Rifts over Robotech gear/abilities, or vice versa.

Personally -- and this very much speaks to my own biases -- I'd play as a Robotech person and hope to deal with Robotech-style issues of personal conflict, enemy infiltrators, traitorous "simulagents," and pushing the envelope of species-relationships in war-time (like Max and Miriya falling in love), just with Rifts enemies. Sure, there'll be a place for some insane monsters rampaging here and there, but it should be more about sentient enemies and cultures colliding. That's just me, though. If you side more with Rifts stuff, just keep in mind that Robotech people are deadmeat outside of their mecha.

[Riftmaker]

Im aware of the comic never read it but yea i follow you

[Kagashi]

Well this certainly fixes the proto culture supply issues most robotech rifts crossovers have kudos.

Now, onto the matter at hand: I think your ideas are great. I'd question allowing too much mix-matching of Robotech and Rifts stuff among the players, partially for potential balance issues (usually not a problem in Palladium since there's little attempt at "balance" mechanically), but mostly because you may find it hard to keep characters focused on what makes them "special" if the scenarios they get involved with favor Rifts over Robotech gear/abilities, or vice versa.

Yeah, perhaps I keep it consistent with the theme of Robotech, which is augmenting via suits of armor/mecha. For example,

- A watered down version of Rainthenor symbiotic "suit" (can be explained by increased PPE melded with a Genesis Pit experiment)
- Splicers Host Armor
- Splicers living armor and bio weapons (again Genesis Pit experiments)
- Medieval armor (Black Vault)
- Rune Weapons
- MDC leather Armor (Black Vault)
- Dragon Gear (Black Vault)
- Talismans, Amulets, and other magic items as "stuff", but no psionics or spell casting (that lives with Perytonians and Invid)

Personally -- and this very much speaks to my own biases -- I'd play as a Robotech person and hope to deal with Robotech-style issues of personal conflict, enemy infiltrators, traitorous "simulagents," and pushing the envelope of species-relationships in war-time (like Max and Miriya falling in love), just with Rifts enemies. Sure, there'll be a place for some insane monsters rampaging here and there, but it should be more about sentient enemies and cultures colliding. That's just me, though. If you side more with Rifts stuff, just keep in mind that Robotech people are deadmeat outside of their mecha.

That certainly what I am going for. Most Robotech games usually end up going intot he same direction. I just want to try something different.

Id also put an emphasis on love and music (a theme of anime in general). Hopefully characters pick Play Musical Instruments, Sing, Dance, Performance, and so on.

[bobharly]

To the OP: How did this work out? I'm a big fan of mix-n-match campaigns.