Your Favorite Encounters, Adventures, And Plots

[LostOne]

Looking for inspiration for interesting random encounters and longer term plot or adventure ideas. What are your favorites (as a player or GM, either)?

[Rifter11]

Looking for inspiration for interesting random encounters and longer term plot or adventure ideas. What are your favorites (as a player or GM, either)?

Of all the Rifts campaigns I have run, this is one of my favorites:

Long before ever meeting the characters, when the Operator Hyperion was working as an apprentice in a salvage yard in the city of Char, a barbarian approached him with what he called salvage which was actually parts of some unfamiliar kind of EBA. It was only useful as scrap since it was badly damaged and was corroded from years of exposure to the swamps. Scrap is usually valued by the ton, so what the barbarian had wasn't really worth anything. The barbarian was crestfallen to learn this but Hyperion felt pity for him and offered him half (what was left) of a fifth of whiskey for it. The barbarian gleefully accepted and went on his way.
Hyperion noticed that the helmet of the armor had a built in camera and decided to see if it had any recorded images left on it. All he found was a few short seconds of a recording that showed a giant robot hand sticking out of the swamp water as though it were grasping for the sky. It only had three fingers instead of four which meant it was likely of an alien nature. Being a huge Robodome fan, he was very familiar with all North American and even some Triax robots and he did not recognize this as being a part of any of them. In fact, it was much larger than any robot he knew about. What intrigued him the most though was that if it's environmental systems were sealed, it might still be largely intact.
To a robot manufacturer such as Northern Gun or Titan Robotics, assuming the technology was on par with or better than their own, such a find would be worth millions of credits. His thoughts raced considering the possibilities and he could not sleep that night from thinking about it. The next morning, he went in search of the barbarian and found him, hung-over and sleeping in front of Roma's. When he was sobered up enough, the barbarian told him how he could find the giant hand. It then became Hyperion's mission to find and extract the giant robot.
However, he knew he would have to be patient. First he would have to finish his Operator's apprentice-ship. Then he would travel to Ishpeming and consult someone from their Technological Acquisitions Team to see if there was any interest in the robot, should he be able to get it to them.
This he did and although they couldn't give him a firm estimate based solely on a video of a robot hand, they could estimate based on its size and alien nature that it could be worth in the tens of millions.
More determined than ever, he decided to take out a loan in order to cover the expeditions costs. Unfortunately, loans through legitimate means weren't a possibility given his age, experience and the risk involved. Especially since he did not want to reveal his discovery to any more than was absolutely necessary.
So he took out a loan with the Black Market, bought a ATV truck, trailer and all the tools he would need to practice his craft on the go. Then he set out to travel to a place in Oklahoma in which he had already purchased some land with his earnings from his apprentice-ship. On the way there though, bandits struck and managed to get away with most of his remaining funds. Funds which he was going to hire armed guards with...and apparently should have done prior to leaving Ishpeming. Thankfully, they left the truck and his tools alone.
He finished his trip to Oklahoma and settled in. The land he had bought came with a junk yard where people had been stockpiling (what they thought was) useless junk for decades. He turned it into a salvage yard and garage and opened up shop. This served his immediate needs of having an income and he saved up what he could. It was apparent that he wouldn't have enough when his loan came due though and he was getting desperate when a customer brought in a skelebot. It's arms and legs had been blown off and even its head was in pieces but for some reason it's fail-safe explosive (which would normally obliterate the inner workings) had failed to detonate. The bots nuclear power supply was still intact and Hyperion (plus his brother Helios and a butter troll named Elvis, both of whom had signed on to help him) were able to salvage it. The customer was over joyed, considering it was worth 500,000 credits. After selling it, the customer cut him in on the deal.
This gave Hyperion an idea. The conflict with the Coalition and Tolkeen was over but he had heard that the Coalition had deployed hundreds of thousands of the skelebots over the course of the war. Supposedly, there were what had been dubbed 'Skelebot Graveyards' out there. If he could get his truck there and collect as many as possible, perhaps he could salvage a few more of the power supplies. Just one failed self destruct in a hundred meant there were dozens if not hundreds (though unlikely) of power supplies to be had! It would be dangerous though. He wouldn't make the mistake of leaving without armed support this time.
All of this happened before the players even sat at the table. Then, as luck would have it, four strangers (the PCs) appeared in the tiny town (named Sunrise) that he was located in. They consisted of a juicer, a gunfighter, an RPA pilot with a Delilah and a dragon hatchling. When one of the town's children went missing, they teamed up and rescued him from a Devil Unicorn. They were celebrated as heroes by the towns folk. These strangers, he thought, just might do.
He contrived an 'audition' of sorts. There were some ruins of a place once called 'Tulsa' about thirty miles away that had become infested with Grigleapers. He offered them free E-Clip recharges and armor repairs (but not replacements) and 500 credits per Grigleaper corpse that they could recover from the ruins. They agreed and set out.
The infestation was almost more than they could handle. No matter how many they killed, more soon replaced them. Eventually, they were able to get a break in the action long enough to cut off some heads and get out, which they did. Once again, they were welcomed in the town as heroes and Hyperion paid them their reward but then offered them an even better deal. He explained his plan to go to the Tolkeen battlegrounds to recover Skelebots and offered them free E-Clip recharges, armor repairs and a ten percent cut, apiece, of the profits. Another ten percent would go to his employees (Helios and Elvis) and the remainder would go to himself since he was footing the bill and it was his idea in the first place. They agreed.
The next day they set out and began their journey. The first leg was to MercTown where Hyperion wanted to make arrangements ahead of time for buyers of the power supplies. They spent a couple days there, Hyperion made his arrangements and the PCs had an encounter with some thugs. Then they set out again. They had multiple encounters on the way, some with bandits and some with monsters. They had to stop and build small wooden bridges for the truck and trailer to cross ravines and rivers a couple of times plus there were other hazards to be overcome.
Finally, they arrived at the battlegrounds and got to work doing salvage. They specifically sought out Skelebot Graveyards, of which they only found a couple. However, they were able to find other items to salvage that more than made up for this. It wasn't just a matter of getting in, getting the stuff and getting out though. There were Retribution Squads (who considered them grave looters), rogue Iron Juggernaughts, bands of Brodkil, a Neuron Beast, bandits/claim jumpers plus the ever looming threat of Coalition patrols. Two of which they had to fight. Luckily, the abundance of ley lines and nexuses in the area interfered with radio communications and the CS forces were unable to call out for help.
Eventually, the truck and trailer were loaded down with salvage. Not the least of which was a dozen power supplies! They returned to MercTown but not without some more encounters with bandits and monsters. When they got there, some of Hyperion's buyers backed out and he had to spend a few days shopping them around. The PCs used the time to set up shop in the Bazaar to sell some of the other things they had managed to salvage. While they were there, a demon army attacked the city and the PCs managed to get a number of children and their teacher (who had all been on a class trip to see the Bazaar) to safety and then reunite with Hyperion. The demons soon discovered that attacking a town full of mercs is a bad idea and were driven off.
A few days later, everything was sold and Hyperion gave them their split. But he told them to come back with him to Sunrise if they wanted a shot at 'real' money. Intrigued, they went with him. It was a good thing too because the Black Market had arranged an ambush. They surrounded the PCs and Hyperion and offered to let them live in exchange for all his salvage, all they money he could scrounge up (they called it 'interest'.) and all their weaponry and armor.
Hyperion pulled out a credit card and said that all the money he owed was on that card and then he pointed out that should an altercation occur, the gunfighter, juicer, RPA pilot and dragon hatchling would all be gunning for the leader. The goons would likely win any fight, but the leader would die regardless. The leader opted for the money and his life and left.
That night, back at the salvage yard, they celebrated with drinks and good food and when it looked like the party was about to wind down, Hyperion hooked up that old helmet to a projector and played the image of the giant robot hand for them. Something he had done countless times by himself or with his brother. He told them about how he had acquired the helmet, his meeting with Northern Gun and offered them the same deal he gave them with the Tolkeen trip, Ten Percent apiece plus free repairs and recharges. He even explained his back up plan should the robot be a bust. Which was to turn the truck's trailer into a refrigerated car and ship dinosaur meat back to MercTown. Which would only net them thirty-ish thousand credits but would at least pay for the trip. They agreed.
More encounters with bandits and monsters ensued. They stopped by Char where he was reunited with the 'Old Goat', his former boss while he was serving his apprentice-ship. They had another encounter with a gang, then dodge and fought dinosaurs, barbarians and carnivorous plants before finally getting to the hand. There, his brother climbed into the palm of it, sat down and used his psychic powers (he was a Psi-Tech) to bond with the machine which he discovered was not only in good condition but was still 'on'. Its environmental systems were still fully sealed!
Fortunately, it was only laying on its back with its hand extending up out of the water because it turned out to be seventy feet tall. Helios mentally possessed it and got it moving with little problem. He had it first sit up and tons of muck and water were sloughed off of it. This got the attention of a Spinosaurus that considered the area its territory and it moved to attack. The characters fought it off though without casualties.
Helios got the life support operating again and then opened the access hatch. Inside they found half a dozen mummified alien corpses. The helmet Hyperion had recovered was the same kind they all had. Later on, they were able to determine that the aliens had been accidentally rifted to the dinosaur swamp about a decade beforehand. They wandered around the swamps looking for any sign of civilized life and only found Char (via an arial recon). They determined from that that this was a primitive jungle world and lamented that they had no way to get back to their home-world. Eventually, they ran out of food and opened their hatch to retrieve some fruit they found growing there. Even though they were only out of the robot for a few moments, that was enough let in a pathogen (disease, viruses, fungal spores, take your pick) that eventually killed them all.
They abandoned the hover bikes they had brought with them, climbed into the robot and flew (it could reach Mach 1 in an atmosphere) it to Char where they disembarked and had another party. More gangs, this time several banded together, attacked and tried to steal the robot but they fought it off. The RPA pilot joyously used the robots weapons to fight them off but during so she discovered an alarming fact. One of the robots weapons was a fully armed nuclear IBCM(much smaller than real IBCMs due to advanced technology) and they quickly realized that they had to get rid of it somehow. They surmised that Northern Gun (and they assumed Titan Robotics) wouldn't touch the robot as long as that was part of it and that the Coalition would stop at nothing to destroy at least the missile(since it was alien tech, they wouldn't cry over losing the robot as well...if need be) just to ensure that it wasn't used against them.
They decided on 'donating' the missile to Reid's Rangers but wound up having to go with the missile into a Vampire Intelligence lair to set it off since Hyperion and Helios were the only ones familiar with the alien tech. The dragon brought a teleportation scroll with him and everybody but the juicer was able to get away. The juicer stayed behind to guard it while it finished its countdown. He would have died but an inter-dimensional traveler who had been watching all of the situation with the Vampire Intelligence offered him a reprieve. He admired the commitment the juicer had to the cause and offered to take him to his home planet (my fantasy world and i.e. Pathfinder) as a reward where he got off the juice and became a bard. Lol.
The Robot, btw, was an alien version of the Battleram Attack Robot from Phase World.

[Killer Cyborg]

Looking for inspiration for interesting random encounters and longer term plot or adventure ideas. What are your favorites (as a player or GM, either)?

One of the more fun adventures I ran was based on an old WWII comic I once read.
I had everybody roll up new CS characters who could work together as a team for a special mission.
They were ordered on a special mission.
In this case, the mission was that a team of lizard men from South America had set up a base in the Dinosaur Swamps, and the team had to blow up three ships docked at the base, as well as sabotage the base communications, then leave the area and call in an airstrike, but the specifics didn't matter.

After the briefing, at different times while they prepared to leave for the mission, I handed each player a note that said "Ask to see me aside in the other room in a bit."

When the player and I went to the other room for a side conversation, I explained that their character found a hand-written note in their mission briefing, apparently slipped in covertly.
The notes each simply read "One of you is a traitor. Tell no one."

And with one chose player, also explained that they were an operative for the D-Bee Liberation Front--an anti-CS, non-human terrorist/freedom fighter organization--and they had orders to sabotage this mission any way they could, without getting caught.

I picked the player who I thought would be the most subtle, and least obvious choice.

Then I guided them through the adventure, watching paranoia run rampant as they tried to complete their mission while trying to figure out who the traitor was, while the traitor tried to screw things up for the party without getting caught.

[Killer Cyborg]

Looking for inspiration for interesting random encounters and longer term plot or adventure ideas. What are your favorites (as a player or GM, either)?

For random encounters, I always loved using the monster generation tables in the back of the original Rifts book, then just making up whatever appearance I thought fit the adventure/setting/situation.
It kept things pretty random, and kept the players who'd read the Conversion Book and other stuff from knowing exactly what I was throwing at them.

I also tended to roll up WAY more characters than I ever had a chance to play, so when I GMed I'd throw in those guys and gals as NPCs here or there. That way I'd get to use the characters I'd spent time making, and I'd be able to whip out NPCs and bad guys who were more than just cardboard cut-outs, who had real depths and motivations and such.
The trick was to make sure I didn't play favorites; if the character died, they died.
I had to use them to enhance the players' experience, not to overshadow the PCs, or take over the adventure with a GMPC.

When coming up with plot ideas for adventures and campaigns, I stole from all sorts of books, movies, TV shows, comics, and whatever.
Mike Resnick is a treasure-trove of plots that can be easily adapted to Rifts, from Walpurgis III, to Santiago, to the Soothsayer trilogy, to Paradise, Purgatory, and Inferno.
I HIGHLY recommend picking up his novels; they're easy reads with brilliant characters and fun, fascinating plots.

I also ran a pretty good series of adventures based off the cannibal horror movie Ravenous, another bunch of adventures inspired by the song "Hotel California," one inspired by the Marty Robins song "El Paso" (okay, that was for BTS, not Rifts), and whatever else struck my fancy.

But there's also tons of great plot ideas just in the Rifts books.
As one person (Brandon Aten) has pointed out, any time there's an apparent conflict between Rifts books, that's fodder for new material.
If one book says a region has vampires in it, and another book says there's a CS base there, that perfectly sets up for an adventure where a CS base is under siege or infiltration by vampires.

Also, just other Palladium books. I'd swipe characters from Villains Unlimited, for example, and port them into Rifts, and it usually turned out really well. Or I'd roll up a bad guy from Ninjas & Superspies, and bring them into Rifts.
I had an entire campaign based the idea that the Foot Clan from TMNT & Other Strangeness continued to operate in America up through modern Rifts era, and I used this as an excuse to bring in a bunch of stuff from Rifts Japan (which I ignored as a setting, sticking with the original RMB description of Japan as basically destroyed/unpopulated).
The clan had fractured into a number of ninja groups, each with their own Shredder-like leader.
"The Mother's Children," for example was a group of Ninja Crazies. The leader's head implants stood out like spikes.
"The 10,000 Fold" were Borg Ninjas.
I forget the names, but of course there was a clan of juicer ninjas, TW Ninjas, traditional ninjas (they were still The Foot, and I might have had Shredder himself or a descendant as the leader).
And I was trying to use the Federation of Magic book's material, so basically each clan had infiltrated a different kingdom/city/whatever in The Magic Zone, and the campaign took the PCs to different places to face off against the different clans.

[Hotrod]

Looking for inspiration for interesting random encounters and longer term plot or adventure ideas. What are your favorites (as a player or GM, either)?

The Oregon Trail. The focus on this kind of campaign is accomplishing a major long-term goal while dealing with resource constraints. Tracking and managing resources becomes extra-important. Having a party "wagon" they can use to store and transport stuff helps with this; it could be a ship, an APC, a large hovercraft, a Behemoth Explorer, whatever fits for the kind of party they are. The party needs a unifying goal or mission motivating them to keep moving; it could be a hunt (with them pursuing or fleeing/hiding), a delivery/escort mission, a treasure-seeking expedition, or a simple journey of discovery/exploration/settlement.

Dilemma. This kind of adventure centers on a moral or ethical problem and how people deal with it. It could be order vs chaos, idealism vs pragmatism, safety vs freedom, justice vs forgiveness, truth vs kindness, whatever. The point is to have some central element of the campaign revolve around the dilemma itself, what choices people make about it, and how people deal with the subsequent consequences. These can make for interesting "bottle" adventures where the characters don't go much of anywhere, and the focus is more on non-combat skills and abilities than on fighting. These are especially fun for roleplaying-focused groups.

Gladiators. This kind of adventure/campaign is about battles in arenas and the struggles of gladiators outside the arenas. Atlantis is a great place for this kind of campaign/adventure, and it's one of those approaches that can plausibly allow for just about any character imaginable from across the Megaverse. See Rifter 69 for an article by yours truly on running this kind of campaign and some candidates for epic one-shot adventures involving over-the-top survival, glory, and eventually freedom.

Scavenger Hunt. This kind of adventure/campaign is all about assembling some collection of items for an important purpose. The best example I've ever heard of for this type is "A God Rebuilt," an epic Palladium Fantasy campaign run over several years where a group ultimately rebuilt and resurrected Osiris after recovering all his body parts.

Repackaged history/mythology. This kind of adventure/campaign uses some event or tale as inspiration for the characters to work through. Find some cool story of old, find analogous parts of Rifts, and let the characters work through it. Use the Battle of Thermopylae as inspiration for fighting off a horde of Xiticix coming through a Rift. Let your players take a ship on a world-encircling voyage of raiding and treasure-seeking like Sir Francis Drake. Take just about any famous Samurai story (the 47 Ronin, for instance) and build an adventure out of it. This can be especially useful if you repackage real-world geography and maps to suit the specifics of the adventure, cutting down on your preparation time.

[Zenviscaype]

Mine involves a little fort called Polk in Louisiana. I used the dinosaur swamp, vampire kingdoms, Rifts mercenaries as a base. The premise is the fort is neglected because of the minion war and every city state buckling down. D-Bees and man (namely the CS and mercenaries) have had to pull together A mysterious company has come to help the fort survive.

[Zenviscaype]

I am putting together a Nightbane Cyberpunk story. Nightbane and allies are trying to figure out why children are going into a catatonic state after playing a wildly popular game (BTW, this happens in 2016, I put more Nightlords, politics, corporations, internal fights between the various factions as a background and solidify the rules for cyberspace and the beings there). The heroes have two battlefronts, one is cyberspace and the other is the physical plane. (I wasn't sure if I should add Nightlands or the Astral Plane or Dreamstream.) Night princes are using corporations to undermine some of the Nightlords and new battlefronts are appearing now in the Nightbane universe.

The two battles are sneaking into fortress level secure buildings and facing Night princes and Hench, then going into cyberspace and saving lost souls.

[Zenviscaype]

A Rifts Australia game involves a election that goes wrong and one of the politicians is assassinated. The heroes are sent to get the killer who is on the run.

[Zenviscaype]

Sovereign Seven New West game. The game has vampires and gunslingers.

[Zenviscaype]

HU2 game, Lost and Forgotten.
The heroes are "lesser" heroes and were overlooked when the villain takes over the city. Heroes have minor or quirky abilities and have to take back the town.

[Zenviscaype]

Break out
HU2 game for Gramercy Island. Heroes are supposed to find out who is attempting a massive break.

[Zenviscaype]

Search for Relief
This could be a Chaos Earth or Dead Reign. The idea is a trip from, say, Georgia to Michigan to avoid the demons or zombies.

[Zenviscaype]

One more...

I did a game for HU2 where a alien robot immune to psionic powers with super natural strength and invulnerable went on a city destroying binge. Eye beams and flight helped too. The heroes had to find him. Contain him. Then figure out his story. Fun times.

[Grazzik]

A rogue Hound Master's outfit were trying to slowly take over a small town soon after Dark Day by smuggling an exotic magical mind-controlling drug via a lake that local legend said was bottomless (actually linked to the Nightlands). The team was sent by a concerned NPC to investigate the town and strange behavior around the arrest of the mayor by the police chief on suspected false charges. Led the team to learn of the Nightlands and set up a broader Nightbane campaign.

Could be adapted for Rifts with a Burbs setting for Psi-Net operatives or just a run of the mill assignment for mercs to check out a border town in any mid to large kingdom.

[Grazzik]

Blending elements from different sources can be interesting - I've mixed adventure modules from MERP and Twilight 2K to get a weird blend of fantasy post-apoc that fits well in the Rifts setting. E.g. you are a tank crew retreating from a bad beat and you're on your own as it was a total rout. Your crew has to avoid the main paths home and strays into a valley dominated by what looks like a large derelict medieval fortress. Is it a place to seek refuge? Is there anyone at home that is friendly or a threat? What if you ignore it and keep going on through the valley? Could it be a firing position to take on any pursuers?

If the interest of the group is to do a quick hack n slash for loot since they may be low on supplies or need funds for repairs to the tank, orcs (possibly High Orcs from Rifter 13 for a bit more of a challenge) or other squishy dbees can be good loot pinatas. For a mecha / tech centric play group, this could alternatively be a way to introduce more magical elements via the mad mage in the castle trope. The fortress could lead underground into a cave system and who knows what's down there, forcing the team out of the presumed safety of their tank to rely on different skills and tactics.

[Zenviscaype]

Blending elements from different sources can be interesting - I've mixed adventure modules from MERP and Twilight 2K to get a weird blend of fantasy post-apoc that fits well in the Rifts setting. E.g. you are a tank crew retreating from a bad beat and you're on your own as it was a total rout. Your crew has to avoid the main paths home and strays into a valley dominated by what looks like a large derelict medieval fortress. Is it a place to seek refuge? Is there anyone at home that is friendly or a threat? What if you ignore it and keep going on through the valley? Could it be a firing position to take on any pursuers?

If the interest of the group is to do a quick hack n slash for loot since they may be low on supplies or need funds for repairs to the tank, orcs (possibly High Orcs from Rifter 13 for a bit more of a challenge) or other squishy dbees can be good loot pinatas. For a mecha / tech centric play group, this could alternatively be a way to introduce more magical elements via the mad mage in the castle trope. The fortress could lead underground into a cave system and who knows what's down there, forcing the team out of the presumed safety of their tank to rely on different skills and tactics.

Rifter 13 is so cool.

[LostOne]

Thanks, everyone. I'm getting some great ideas here. I'm open to more if people have more to share.