How would you sell someone on Rifts?

[coffeeman]

Not much of an introduction I'm afraid. I'm just curious about this old-school system from yesteryear. I saw the rule book in my FLGS and it caught my eye.

I'm here to ask: what do you like about Rifts, and what keeps you playing it? Would you recommend it to a new group of players in 2023?

[Grazzik]

Welcome!

In short:
Would I recommend Rifts to people who have never roleplayed before? No.
Would I recommend to players looking for a change? Definitely.

What's it like playing Rifts? I don't know about other people, but for me it's like the Muse music video "Knights of Cydonia".

On the face of it, Rifts comes across as a juvenile pastiche of extreme good vs extreme evil, flashy lasers and spells and loot piñatas, a tossed salad of clichés and tropes. But it is only what you make of it. The stories, drama, and dilemmas to overcome is what really drives this and any good RP experience.

Top 5 Selling Points:
1. You can be anything you want and do anything you want, as long as it also works for the GM and other players. It's the ultimate open world/sandbox TTRPG game.
2. Anything you don't like you can leave out and it still works.
3. Sessions can be any power level you can imagine.
4. Magic-wielding undead alien cyborgs from interdimensional space with guns that fire nanobot goo!!!!
5. The game has over three decades of players working out the kinks - this forum has an immeasurable amount of info to draw on.

There are a few things that new players need to overcome in order to get the most out of Rifts.

Information overload:
One of the biggest hurdles for new players is that Rifts has a TON of content from many many books. Lore, rules and mechanics have been changed from the Rules Main Book (RMB) to the Rifts Ultimate Edition (RUE) which causes some confusion if the source books, world books, dimension books, conversion books or _______ books being used haven't been updated from RMB to RUE. Some of these books have their own quirky rules or lore. I've been playing Rifts for 30+ years and I forget stuff all the time as I couldn't be bothered to look them up in the heat of a good session. (I have not played and have no interest in Savage Rifts, so can't comment on it)

So, new GMs and players need to just relax and pick and choose what works for them to maintain a good flow. Most sessions I've played have relied on a steady diet of house rules and handwavium supplements. Players might like the ability to pull in gonzo content from other Palladium product lines to give campaigns unique flavors, but that comes with its own challenges.

Balance, where art thou?
Players and the GM need to be in sync as to what balance they are going to bring to the table, because power creep and munchkinism is rife, which is all good if everyone in a session is cool with that. It's hard to play a low powered wilderness session when a simple laser pistol can blow up a log cabin or a small mutant alien toad can kill a squishy human with a single flick of its tongue. And don't bother trying to apply science to explain stuff because that simply leads to madness.

Analysis Paralysis:
There are so many choices, options, stats and things to keep track off. The crunchy minutia can be off the charts if you let it. This can be off-putting at first until you realize that if you gloss over most of it, it all seems to work out. That said, I've learned more than is probably healthy about how to use spreadsheets, pivot tables, and cell formulas when I switched from old school paper to Excel.

In fact, if you can master these three aspects, you may gain a great sense of accomplishment.

Bottom line: Give it a try. Don't get overwhelmed or put off by any content you find offensive or insensitive (and boy can some of it be offensive! Yeah, Spirit West and Rifts Africa, I'm calling you out!). And just have fun.

[foilfodder]

My take, if you want a system with tons of non-fantasy material, or a system to write your own material for it can be a blast. You probably want to stick with players who aren't obessed with min/maxing characters, game balance or rules-lawyering as each setting rulebook written by Palladium, Rifts, Dead Reign, Heroes Unlimited, usually has subtle differences from the other rulebooks.

You also have the choice of the traditional Rifts rulebook by Palladium Books or the Savage Worlds rpg adaptations which will avoid many of the rule conflicts and game-balance issues of the original books but does not have as many supplements to choose from. Savage Worlds vs Palladium game mechanic rules are significantly different and greatly affect game flow for actions, both combat and non-combat Some players may have a strong preference for one system over the other.

For flavor with Rifts you can introduce player characters as D-bees who just arrived by Rift. This can be fun since they have no idea/knowledge of the Coalition (pro-humanity facists), splurgoth (alien slavers) and a mix of supernatural creatures occupying the world; the players learn about the world as their characters learn about the world. Augmented humans like crazies cyborgs & juicers fight alongside spellcasters, psychics, mutants, dragons and giant robot vehicle pilots to save the world, (or just survive) along with anything else you want to invent as the gamemaster since Rifts-Earth is a interdimensional nexus, anything can show up!

In short:
Would I recommend Rifts to people who have never roleplayed before? No.
Would I recommend to players looking for a change? Definitely.
...
So, new GMs and players need to just relax and pick and choose what works for them to maintain a good flow. Most sessions I've played have relied on a steady diet of house rules and handwavium supplements. Players might like the ability to pull in gonzo content from other Palladium product lines to give campaigns unique flavors, but that comes with its own challenges.

Balance, where art thou?
Players and the GM need to be in sync as to what balance they are going to bring to the table, because power creep and munchkinism is rife, which is all good if everyone in a session is cool with that. It's hard to play a low powered wilderness session when a simple laser pistol can blow up a log cabin or a small mutant alien toad can kill a squishy human with a single flick of its tongue. And don't bother trying to apply science to explain stuff because that simply leads to madness.
...
And just have fun.

Grazzik has some great points about Rifts and Palladium rpg sytems in general.

[Sambot]

Not much of an introduction I'm afraid. I'm just curious about this old-school system from yesteryear. I saw the rule book in my FLGS and it caught my eye.

I'm here to ask: what do you like about Rifts, and what keeps you playing it? Would you recommend it to a new group of players in 2023?

I like that Rifts can be any type of game. Fantasy, Scifi, Zombie/Horror, Spy vs Spy, Mystery, Superhero, a combination, anything. I also like that it's fairly compatible with other Palladium books so I can barrow from one game to use in another. It can also be anything I want. I'm free to use what I want and ignore the rest. I don't have to stick with canon.

I would recommend it to new players. Compared to some other games, Palladium's system is easy to learn. It's got it's quirks and differences between editions and games but it isn't too hard to go from one to another.

Rifts does have a lot of lore but I wouldn't worry about it. You don't need to learn it all at once. The main RPG has enough to get you going. Or you could ignore the lore and do your own thing. The point is to have fun. I think Rifts and the rest of Palladium's books are fun.

[Killer Cyborg]

Not much of an introduction I'm afraid. I'm just curious about this old-school system from yesteryear. I saw the rule book in my FLGS and it caught my eye.

I'm here to ask: what do you like about Rifts, and what keeps you playing it? Would you recommend it to a new group of players in 2023?

One of the best things about Rifts is that you can play pretty much any character you can imagine.
You can have a party made up of a 1940s private detective, a samurai weasel, an intergalactic bounty-hunter, a dragon, a cyborg, an elven archer, and a super hero, and it wouldn't even be weird.
You'd have to have the right combo of books, some of them being from other Palladium game settings, but my group did stuff like that pretty regularly.

Beyond that, I'd need to know more about what kind of games and stories the people involved like, and what their play styles are, to make a more specific pitch.

The thing is, Rifts is a mishmash of stuff. Some good, some bad, but there's SO much stuff it's like a buffet; you can take what you like, and leave the rest.
It can be a Thinking Man's Game (and was designed to be such, with XP tables rewarding playing in character, avoiding unnecessary combat, quick thinking, clever plans, and so forth, more than it rewards straight combat.
It can also be a hack & slash bloodfest for murder hoboes, if that's your taste. A lot of people ignore the XP tables anyway, and just level everybody up at the same time, and there's plenty of combat opportunities.

Rifts can be pretty much anything you like.

[hup7]

"What do you like about Rifts"

KillerCyborg (and others) probably covered many of the same things I like: The system is simple enough to start pretty quick, while complete enough to have quite few nuanced rules as you dig into it. Play ANYTHING - and I mean pretty much anything. If you think of a character - just ask on the boards and you will get a number of options - that will suit that character. The mix of sci-fi, fantasy, martial arts, superheroes and "others" gives you an amazing breadth of play options and story options.

"What keeps you playing it?"

From day one of Rifts (early 90s) - I have had characters in mind that I have yet to play. Honestly, there are so many great options. So many story arcs to play out as GM. Think of any video game, movie or TV series - you can play anything from a 1930s Cthulhu style investigation to giant stompy robots wrestling with dragons and EVERYTHING in between.

"Would you recommend it to a new group of players in 2023?"

Yes. I would recommend playing multiple RPGs just to see what the non-DnD is like. But, would I recommend it to those who have NEVER played an RPG? Still a yes - but start simple, don't get too carried away the first time playing.

[narcissus]

How would you sell someone on Rifts?

I'd probably take them to Splynn. Easy to sell someone in one of their slave markets.

[Sambot]

How would you sell someone on Rifts?

I'd probably take them to Splynn. Easy to sell someone in one of their slave markets.

[narcissus]

I copy/pasted this into my house rules from somewhere, probably these forums, but unfortunately I don't have a link for credit. But this is the paragraph I always present to new players:

I've played in games where you can play anything. Using build points/etc, you can make whatever weird **** you like and it sorta balances. The thing that sets Rifts apart is that 1. Game balance only matters within class/race groups. Your vampire is going to be balanced with another vampire, but not with the power armor or dragon. 2. Everything has a setting and background. Want to play a Catholic priest cursed by Baba Yaga on a quest to rid Calgary of demons with the help of a Newfie fairy, and alien weapons dealer and a vampire from Tijuana? Cool. They all exist and have back stories and hometowns where they are not the only one. Want to play a god? What pantheon? Want to be Captain America? Fine, but you're in a battalion of supersoldiers. You can be a bunch of drunks in some wild west saloon or a group of elite cyberneticly enhanced hackers in the bowels of a megacity. You can play yourself time displaced in a magical Rift trying to find your way home, wondering why everyone who sees you drinking a Coke thinks you're a psychic junkie.

[Shorty Lickens]

I agree with the others here, main advantage is also the most obvious and the one we bring up all the time: Its so widespread and flexible you can do damn near anything you want to do, with the material they already have. You dont even need to add anything yourself.
Its a BIG game, with big potential. Probably more play potential here than any other single system ever made.

BUT, its not easy.
In fact its a big gosh darn mess. And most experienced players get frustrated and go back to their favorite system. Some forget they ever played Rifts. Its too much for them.

[Mlp7029]

I love the setting but like many have a lot of house rules, note ably around magic. I am working on a couple of my favorite Rifts short stories linking the Rifts specific terms to explanations and graphics if available of the terms. I showed my GM the linked Wizards Duel from the Treacherous Awakenings novel pdf and he thinks it will make a good start on a Rifts primer so to speak. I need to get Palladium’s permission to give to anyone which I am not sure how to get. My offer to add indexes and links to PDFs for nothing never even got a response.