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Re: What do you want in the Next Rifts:Dimension books?

Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2022 6:30 pm
by ZINO
What do you want in the Next Rifts:Dimension books?
A mercenary books from infantry to space ships or a P.M.C planet wide companies

Re: What do you want in the Next Rifts:Dimension books?

Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2022 1:43 am
by Shorty Lickens
Oh yeah there should be way more mercenary companies in the three galaxies. A LOT more.

And also lots more independent city-states, and planets. LOTS AND LOTS of completely independent planets with new races and cultures. Also I'm getting sick of planets all being mono-racial and homogenous.

Re: What do you want in the Next Rifts:Dimension books?

Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2022 2:08 am
by Warshield73
Shorty Lickens wrote:Oh yeah there should be way more mercenary companies in the three galaxies. A LOT more.

A merc book for the Three Galaxies would be cool but we do have one example in DB3 and with the Rifts Mercenary book they should be easy to make. The problem is we have only a few ships, all naruni and all UNBELIEVBLY expensive, that mercs can have. Much like the Rifts merc book that has a number of merc companies and NPCs a PW book would need a large number of vehicles especially spacecraft so that every single merc isn't just using a version of Warshileds and Berserkers.

Shorty Lickens wrote:And also lots more independent city-states, and planets.

I would love this but, and this is sort of like with Rifts Earth, it would be nice to actually develope the major powers first and then add in the little regional guys.

Unless they are in unexplored regions of the 3G these powers, much like the Splugorth UWW and the others we have, are going to be defined by there relationship to the CCW and TGE. Like wise there militaries are going to be in comparison to those so lets flesh those out a little more before we start piling on more incomplete information for new places.

Shorty Lickens wrote:LOTS AND LOTS of completely independent planets with new races and cultures. Also I'm getting sick of planets all being mono-racial and homogenous.

To be fair this is a major problem across the Sci-Fi genre but yes we need a set amount of information for each place to make it a little more living. It would also be nice if we started with the species we already have, sort of theme I guess. On the other hand as a GM I have to say this is the easy stuff for me. Creating different racial and cultural groups with different beliefs and practices is a heck of a lot easier than creating fleets and space stations from scratch.

Truthfully this is something that can be handled by a simple chart where you fill in what you want for a race if your PCs are going to have detailed contact with them.

Re: What do you want in the Next Rifts:Dimension books?

Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2022 12:01 am
by Shorty Lickens
OH I JUST THOUGHT OF ANOTHER ONE!

Wait, I forgot already. Was I thinking maybe an expansion to Wormwood?
Or maybe fleshed out settings that used the core ideas from the galaxy creator book.

Also I too would welcome both a cyberpunk and a steampunk setting in Palladium. I really would like to try it.

Re: What do you want in the Next Rifts:Dimension books?

Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2022 6:30 am
by ZINO
Shorty Lickens wrote:OH I JUST THOUGHT OF ANOTHER ONE!

Wait, I forgot already. Was I thinking maybe an expansion to Wormwood?
Or maybe fleshed out settings that used the core ideas from the galaxy creator book.

Also I too would welcome both a cyberpunk and a steampunk setting in Palladium. I really would like to try it.

I agree with you

Re: What do you want in the Next Rifts:Dimension books?

Posted: Mon Nov 28, 2022 9:31 pm
by EvaTheWarlock
i want a world with superheroes, like marvel and dc. that would be cool.

Re: What do you want in the Next Rifts:Dimension books?

Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2022 12:21 am
by glitterboy2098
EvaTheWarlock wrote:i want a world with superheroes, like marvel and dc. that would be cool.

megaverse builder established Heroes Unlimited as a seperate reality from the rifts earth timeline. Tolkeen tried to recruit both heroes and villains from there to fight the CS during the war.
alternately, you have Skraypers.

and i'd love to see an expansion to wormwood. not only could it include some of the stuff that got added on later to fix the first books problems (like wormwood natives doing MD to each other in melee), but you could also build on some of the stuff from that comic in the first book, which wasn't in the book proper. like the soul battery thing, the (apparently MD) Muskets and gunpowder weapons, etc.

Re: What do you want in the Next Rifts:Dimension books?

Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2022 6:03 am
by SolCannibal
EvaTheWarlock wrote:i want a world with superheroes, like marvel and dc. that would be cool.


As pointed out by Glitterboy2098, HU is a solid game to cover all one's needs on that subject, with a setting that is developed enough for one to riff off and yet at the same time still open and loose in a way for a GM to decide what applies or not to one's own superhero scenario. I for one have actually set up multiple separate "hero earths" out of different books, references and crossing them over with elements of my Rifts games.

HU is on itself a SDC-based game, but the Conversion Book in all its editions has had a chapter to cover up crossovers and adaptation, so no problem in my experience. Skraypers, being a dimension book made with HU and Rifts both in mind, might have some other bits of interest in that subject.

Incidentally, while not touted as such, Nightbane could be another great alternative, IMHO.

glitterboy2098 wrote:and i'd love to see an expansion to wormwood. not only could it include some of the stuff that got added on later to fix the first books problems (like wormwood natives doing MD to each other in melee), but you could also build on some of the stuff from that comic in the first book, which wasn't in the book proper. like the soul battery thing, the (apparently MD) Muskets and gunpowder weapons, etc.


Yes, Phaseworld/3Gs has had love aplenty - let's dedicate a dimension book or two to updating and expanding other settings.

Damn, new individual dimension books might be a great way to stealth-update a number of other game lines like PF or Beyond the Supernatural, now that i think about it.

Re: What do you want in the Next Rifts:Dimension books?

Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2022 2:45 pm
by Shorty Lickens
EvaTheWarlock wrote:i want a world with superheroes, like marvel and dc. that would be cool.

Do you not own Skraypers?

Re: What do you want in the Next Rifts:Dimension books?

Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2022 2:57 pm
by Warshield73
SolCannibal wrote:
EvaTheWarlock wrote:i want a world with superheroes, like marvel and dc. that would be cool.


As pointed out by Glitterboy2098, HU is a solid game to cover all one's needs on that subject, with a setting that is developed enough for one to riff off and yet at the same time still open and loose in a way for a GM to decide what applies or not to one's own superhero scenario. I for one have actually set up multiple separate "hero earths" out of different books, references and crossing them over with elements of my Rifts games.

HU is on itself a SDC-based game, but the Conversion Book in all its editions has had a chapter to cover up crossovers and adaptation, so no problem in my experience. Skraypers, being a dimension book made with HU and Rifts both in mind, might have some other bits of interest in that subject.

Incidentally, while not touted as such, Nightbane could be another great alternative, IMHO.

I agree that HU and Skraypers are both good options for a super heroes dimension, but I would also like to point out that in the original vision for Phase World it was supposed to be "magic, technology and super powers combining to make a volatile mixture". You can see this with things like the invincible guardsmen in the second book and even the cosmo-knights. In adition you have the two Aliens Unlimited books that give you lots of alien worlds that are dominated by super beings, any or all of which could do what you want.

On Nightbane I would like to point out if you take the world of Nightbane and just add in super heroes (really any of the classes from HU) you have a lot of fun. When I run convention games Rifts is always the big draw but my NB/HU combo game always gets the highest ratings from the players.[/quote]

SolCannibal wrote:
glitterboy2098 wrote:and i'd love to see an expansion to wormwood. not only could it include some of the stuff that got added on later to fix the first books problems (like wormwood natives doing MD to each other in melee), but you could also build on some of the stuff from that comic in the first book, which wasn't in the book proper. like the soul battery thing, the (apparently MD) Muskets and gunpowder weapons, etc.


Yes, Phaseworld/3Gs has had love aplenty - let's dedicate a dimension book or two to updating and expanding other settings.

As I stated in earlier posts I really want PB to, at the very least, write a series of DBs that cover already existing but undescribed dimensions, and certainly Wormwood could use a lot more resources to make it more interesting. The problem with Wormwood though is that it is an insular dimension. Most of the OCCs and even most of the bad guys are not useable outside of Wormwood itself which makes it an interesting place to visit but if you want a campaign that goes anywhere else you can't run a Wormwood character.

More information, especial for places like Worldgate, would be great so that it can be more interesting for visitors from Rifts Earth or Phase World but Wormwood will always be limited by the setting.

Now as for Phase World having enough, no not even close. In the 28 years since PW was published we have gotten 7 books by 4 authors, 1 of which is a Minion War book. 7 books for 3 galaxies with several trillion beings. By comparison Europe for Rifts Earth has 7 books and Northern Gun, all on its own, has more power armor options than we have spacecraft (fighters to dreadnoughts) for the entire Three Galaxies and in all the books there is no star system or planet that is described in detail and the only city that is described at all is Center.

We need lots more information on the Three Galaxies but more than anything else it needs to be better organized and a long-term plan would be nice.

SolCannibal wrote:Damn, new individual dimension books might be a great way to stealth-update a number of other game lines like PF or Beyond the Supernatural, now that i think about it.

Please don't give PB any more bad ideas. We need support for these lines, especially BTS, not just blurbs in other books. PF still gets a new release every now and then, Garden of the Gods is fairly new by PB standards, and there are at least two more books coming and BTS just got Creature Feature as well so hopefully we will get more here.

Edited to fix quoting error.

Re: What do you want in the Next Rifts:Dimension books?

Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2022 4:17 pm
by SolCannibal
Warshield73 wrote:
SolCannibal wrote:
EvaTheWarlock wrote:i want a world with superheroes, like marvel and dc. that would be cool.


As pointed out by Glitterboy2098, HU is a solid game to cover all one's needs on that subject, with a setting that is developed enough for one to riff off and yet at the same time still open and loose in a way for a GM to decide what applies or not to one's own superhero scenario. I for one have actually set up multiple separate "hero earths" out of different books, references and crossing them over with elements of my Rifts games.

HU is on itself a SDC-based game, but the Conversion Book in all its editions has had a chapter to cover up crossovers and adaptation, so no problem in my experience. Skraypers, being a dimension book made with HU and Rifts both in mind, might have some other bits of interest in that subject.

Incidentally, while not touted as such, Nightbane could be another great alternative, IMHO.

I agree that HU and Skraypers are both good options for a super heroes dimension, but I would also like to point out that in the original vision for Phase World it was supposed to be "magic, technology and super powers combining to make a volatile mixture". You can see this with things like the invincible guardsmen in the second book and even the cosmo-knights. In adition you have the two Aliens Unlimited books that give you lots of alien worlds that are dominated by super beings, any or all of which could do what you want.

On Nightbane I would like to point out if you take the world of Nightbane and just add in super heroes (really any of the classes from HU) you have a lot of fun. When I run convention games Rifts is always the big draw but my NB/HU combo game always gets the highest ratings from the players.


Considering how many times one of my players has used Nightbane as an excuse to do some variant of Kamen Rider, Garo, or some other tokusatsu or transforming hero to strike their fancy, i suspect one doesn't even need the HU addition to play it like that. :wink:

And while i didn't delve on that, i have a deep love for the AU:GG books and they have in some ways influenced my Rifts games much more than Phaseworld.

Warshield73 wrote:Please don't give PB any more bad ideas. We need support for these lines, especially BTS, not just blurbs in other books. PF still gets a new release every now and then, Garden of the Gods is fairly new by PB standards, and there are at least two more books coming and BTS just got Creature Feature as well so hopefully we will get more here.


I honestly don't know where you got "blurbs in other books" from when my whole point was "ok, nothing against Phaseworld, but almost half of all the dimension books ever published are connected to the 3 Galaxies setting - how about one or two for expanding Wormwood or some other old settings? South America has two worldbooks, so giving the Living Planet a whole dimension book dedicated to its update and expansion is only fair. Or maybe redoing BtS, NSS or AtB, settings that PB has given little to no attention since the '90s, as a whole dimension book of its own each. Could be nice, certainly more care than any of them has seen in decades" but i'll concede, it's fair that we don't need the rythm of book publication of any of the existing lines, specially the ones that have seen some occasional love like PF or HU, to turn into an even more glacial crawl than it already is.

Re: What do you want in the Next Rifts:Dimension books?

Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2022 6:51 pm
by Warshield73
SolCannibal wrote:I honestly don't know where you got "blurbs in other books" from...

Sorry to snip this so short but you launched so quickly into another point that I kind of had too. I left the entire quote intact below so as not to mischaracterize it.
Warshield73 wrote:
SolCannibal wrote:Damn, new individual dimension books might be a great way to stealth-update a number of other game lines like PF or Beyond the Supernatural, now that i think about it.

Please don't give PB any more bad ideas. We need support for these lines, especially BTS, not just blurbs in other books. PF still gets a new release every now and then, Garden of the Gods is fairly new by PB standards, and there are at least two more books coming and BTS just got Creature Feature as well so hopefully we will get more here.

Your use of "stealth update" is what lead me to blurbs. To my knowledge this only applies to two things:
1) Changes in a recent printing of a book that is not technically a revised or second edition, which in the context of your statement makes no sense.
2) Small descriptions, blurbs, in otherwise unrelated books that change or advance the story in a previous book.

If you meant something different than sorry but not sure what it could be.

SolCannibal wrote:I honestly don't know where you got "blurbs in other books" from when my whole point was "ok, nothing against Phaseworld, but almost half of all the dimension books ever published are connected to the 3 Galaxies setting - how about one or two for expanding Wormwood or some other old settings? South America has two worldbooks, so giving the Living Planet a whole dimension book dedicated to its update and expansion is only fair. Or maybe redoing BtS, NSS or AtB, settings that PB has given little to no attention since the '90s, as a whole dimension book of its own each. Could be nice, certainly more care than any of them has seen in decades" but i'll concede, it's fair that we don't need the rythm of book publication of any of the existing lines to turn into an even more glacial crawl than it already is.

There are 15 DBs. 7 are directly 3G but Naruni, Skraypers and Heroes are partially 3G and everything else is at least partly in 3G or the minion war. The only DB that is not connected to 3G is Wormwood so your point is valid and I agreed with your underlying sentiment that we need non-3G DBs. In fact, I said it before you did...months before.

I simply disagreed with your assertion that we have enough for the 3G because objectively we don't. I love PW and the 3G, I have been running it since the first book came out and for a long time I ran it more than Rifts itself but In the last decade I have largely given up on running it.
- The OCCs are dated and boring
- The world information is a contradictory mess
- I have to spend most of my prep time creating ships and equipment or modifying Rifts stuff to avoid every bad guy using the same 5 guns, 4 power armors, 3 tanks or 2 robots.
- The Corkscrew galaxy hasn't even been described in meager detail we see with Thundercloud and Anvil

The 3G are a mess which is why I said:
Warshield73 wrote:We need lots more information on the Three Galaxies but more than anything else it needs to be better organized and a long-term plan would be nice.


Now as I said I have no problem with more Wormwood books, in fact I want them to make at least one more book to fill in the holes you, I and others haves mentioned. If someone wants to write them I will buy them. But, it has to be said that Wormwood, because of how the organic technologies work means that most characters from Wormwood can not adventure anywhere else which is a real problem for a Dimension Book of Rifts. You see this problem with lots of OCCs in other books too but it is a serious drag on Wormwood as setting.

The Dimension Books I want to see are settings that a player can visit and adventure in that have some good amount of detail (on par with a world book like Juicer Uprising or Xiticix Invasion) for GMs and players but can be described in 1 or 2 books maybe 3 at most.

Rifts is supposed to have a dimensional travel aspect at its core so we need places to travel to besides alternate versions of earth.

As for turning other PB lines into Dimension Books, any GM that wants to can do that easily enough it's just a little work and I don't want PBs limited efforts retreading what I already have into a DB. Just my opinion though.

Re: What do you want in the Next Rifts:Dimension books?

Posted: Sun Jul 28, 2024 10:04 pm
by Shorty Lickens
OK I just thought of one. This problem was brought up in another thread but it seems across all the source books there aren't nearly enough small, basic, cost effective flying craft. Something reasonably priced but able to transport a regular PC group. Like up to 10 people. In Phase World many such craft would be space capable as well, and some would be interstellar capable. Obviously price goes up as features go up, but something that's not heavily armed or armored would be popular with many different sentients for exploring and adventuring. Within the lore such craft would be very common and widespread.

We seriously need a source book that has tons of vehicles for the 3 Galaxies, with many different manufacturing companies and loads of different functions. And I think we have enough cruisers, carriers, and battleships already. We need more small craft, like crews of 4 and capacities of one dozen. Also there's enough one-man fighters in the books by now.

As for Rifts Earth: it seems after the war there would be a demand for small but not tiny flying vessels. Again for groups of a dozen people or fewer. They'd be scavengers and freedom fighters and explorers. You can only dig up and modify so many 20th century vehicles before they run out, and a lot of them would be destroyed and unsalvageable eventually.