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Statistically, in the roleplaying game business, the typical gamer tends to stick with any particular rpg for anywhere from 3-5 years, with the the majority moving on to new titles at around the 3-4 year mark.

Pour moi, I'm not sure this will be the case with Rifts. There's just too much to the setting. Indeedy, no matter what my interest each day, be it vampire, cyber hacker, sea monster, pirate or drug dealing scum (no offence to drug dealers) in some future distopian city, I can usually say to myself after some thought: "Yip, that's most likely covered in Rifts."

Hell, even space is covered.

Mhmm

Well, that's one of the advantages of having a whole MEGAVERSE to wander around...

Yeah, I've a funny feeling I'll be wandering the Megaverse for a while.

I don't know where you get your statistics, but I've been with RIFTS for 22 years now.. I imagine they reflect the publishing scam the other companies in the industry follow, redoing everything to sell the books over again every few years?

Over 20 years, and it's as fascinating as ever.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Over 20 years, and it's as fascinating as ever.

This this this
the greatest post of all time !!

I have been Playing in the rifts megaverse since RMB first hit the shelfs. And robotech longer then that.

Yea the scam of rewriting your books every 4 to 5 years made me drop the TSR games.

What kept me (Gamer ADHD and all) interested (back when I ran Rifts a lot) is focusing on a set area to run in. So when I would get a little bored I could jump to another area. Dealing with the CS starts feeling a little stale. Time to start a Japan campaign. ect.

The Robotech RPG was the entry drug, and Rifts cemented the happy addiction.

Pretty sure many of the Palladium fans will not adhere to those statistics. I may not play as much as I'd like but I started with Palladium back in 88 or so. Mind you I also started with WEG d6 Star Wars back then too and still stick with that by and large along side my palladium.

taalismn wrote:The Robotech RPG was the entry drug, and Rifts cemented the happy addiction.

For me, my entry in to the Megaverse was through TMNT & Other Strangeness playing a mutant bulldog. I've been able to create anything I could want with in this setting/mechanics, and I don't see my interest in it fading permanently ever.

MADMANMIKE wrote:I don't know where you get your statistics, but I've been with RIFTS for 22 years now.. I imagine they reflect the publishing scam the other companies in the industry follow, redoing everything to sell the books over again every few years?

Yes because buying a new edition of a rpg equals myself and others falling for a "publishing scam". I suppose all the fans that 3E D&D than 3.5. brought into the hobby like myself and others were "scammed" out of cash. I suppose Paizo is also implementing a publishing scam. By your logic PB also implemented a publishing scam with RUE. then. Mostly the same with a few rule changes I get it. You don't like new editions. I'm starting to get sick of them myself. You really need to think before you post. As you pretty much insulted myself and anyone else who bought a new edtion.

To the OP. One can get tired of something. Even if it is the best thing since sliced bread. I was a fan of 4E switched back to Pathfinder. Liked the Old world of darkness. Became fed up of the metaplot and moved to another rpg. What we like in terms of rpgs and other stuff changes every now and then.

Sureshot wrote:[

Yes because buying a new edition of a rpg equals myself and others falling for a "publishing scam". .

"They changed the WH40K standards pattern AGAIN?! But I just finished painting my SpaceMarine Chapter!!!!"

Now college textbooks...THAT's a scam. Pure and simple.

1984: I felt in love for the first time with D&D and AD&D 1st edition. I still can't forget them!
1990: I met RIFTS and she was HOT. I already got the experience to enjoy my new relationship to the fullest! I have discovered my true love although I can still remember my first time.
1991: I had an affair with Dark Sun (BROM was guilty!) and Ravenloft. AD&D 2nd edition!
1992: I had an extremely complicated new affair with the Forgotten Realms because of a Boxed Set called Menzoberranzan! SHE WAS SUPER HOT! But I knew she was not going to be the mother of my child!
1998: I married RIFTS forever after 8 years!.
2005: I had a kid before the Crysis of Treachery.
2012: Thanks to Chuck Walton drawings (and Carmen writing) I met SPLICERS and...you guess it right: I am living another affair BUT more dangerous because I have a wife and a kid!

Get sick of RIFTS? No, as I told you, she is my true love...but you could have an affair here and there...sometimes...anyway...

ffranceschi wrote:1984: I felt in love for the first time with D&D and AD&D 1st edition. I still can't forget them!
1990: I met RIFTS and she was HOT. I already got the experience to enjoy my new relationship to the fullest! I have discovered my true love although I can still remember my first time.
1991: I had an affair with Dark Sun (BROM was guilty!) and Ravenloft. AD&D 2nd edition!
1992: I had an extremely complicated new affair with the Forgotten Realms because of a Boxed Set called Menzoberranzan! SHE WAS SUPER HOT! But I knew she was not going to be the mother of my child!
1998: I married RIFTS forever after 8 years!.
2005: I had a kid before the Crysis of Treachery.
2012: Thanks to Chuck Walton drawings (and Carmen writing) I met SPLICERS and...you guess it right: I am living another affair BUT more dangerous because I have a wife and a kid!

Get sick of RIFTS? No, as I told you, she is my true love...but you could have an affair here and there...sometimes...anyway...

This post is full to bursting with win!

taalismn wrote:The Robotech RPG was the entry drug, and Rifts cemented the happy addiction.

+1.... that was 20 years ago or so.

Bobboky wrote:

taalismn wrote:The Robotech RPG was the entry drug, and Rifts cemented the happy addiction.

+1.... that was 20 years ago or so.

Bought the Robotech RPG book the summer it came out, from a little comics and game shop(no longer existing) that oh-so-optimistically opened up off the main street of Vineyard Haven, Martha's Vineyard, during the July Tisbury Street Fair.....I immediately adjourned up the street to a small park overlooking the harbor and proceeded to acquaint myself with the details of Destroid operations.
Fond, fond, memories.
Was already running a Robotech campaign at Trinity College in Hartford when our Fantasy Guild sponsored a GameFest with the commercial backing of the longer-lived, but now-defunct, War & Pieces. Somebody bought the one copy of Rifts they'd brought, and let me sniff the pages. The next week, as soon as I could secure transportation, I bought my (now-dog-eared and peeling-covered) copy.

We were playing Rifts when I was in the Army in 1988-89 before it was ever published! Sort of, that is. One of my friends combined Robotech and Mechanoids for a really different (yet fun!) experience.

(So, yes, it wasn't really Rifts!)

Rifts was my third game I ever played. First was AD&D 1E, Second was shadowrun 1E. So Rifts just felt like some one combined those two into one game.
Although over the years I have ran hundreds of games. I always come back to one palladium game or another. And that is what is different to me. Other games I rarely go back to after I'm tired of it.

I don't like to stick with one system for too long. Up until last fall (about a year ago) I hadn't played a Palladium game in ten years. It's not that I didn't like the game. If I want to have Rifts game, I am the one that has to run it. It wears on a person after a while (considering my last game I ran lasted three and a half years real-life, playing 2-4 times a week most weeks) and they burn out on a system. Over the last three years, it has been mostly D&D for me and I am starting to burn out on that as well (more for the fact that I wind up running most games with my new group). I enjoy games from a variety of genres and companies. My library includes over 54 game titles from more than 30some companies. I don't like to have all that cash tied up and NOT play those systems as well, no matter what my favorite is.

The great thing about Rifts is that you can combine elements from different worlds together .. Hey, I have even tried combining non-palladium products eg. Legend of the 5 Rings with Rifts Dimension and it is a blast..

ffranceschi wrote:1984: I felt in love for the first time with D&D and AD&D 1st edition. I still can't forget them!
1990: I met RIFTS and she was HOT. I already got the experience to enjoy my new relationship to the fullest! I have discovered my true love although I can still remember my first time.
1991: I had an affair with Dark Sun (BROM was guilty!) and Ravenloft. AD&D 2nd edition!
1992: I had an extremely complicated new affair with the Forgotten Realms because of a Boxed Set called Menzoberranzan! SHE WAS SUPER HOT! But I knew she was not going to be the mother of my child!
1998: I married RIFTS forever after 8 years!.
2005: I had a kid before the Crysis of Treachery.
2012: Thanks to Chuck Walton drawings (and Carmen writing) I met SPLICERS and...you guess it right: I am living another affair BUT more dangerous because I have a wife and a kid!

Get sick of RIFTS? No, as I told you, she is my true love...but you could have an affair here and there...sometimes...anyway...

Ahh! Love and Lust and gaming, three things that never grow old! Rifts is infinitely versatile, one can be anything from anywhere (even if the "rules" don't always support it).

taalismn wrote:

Sureshot wrote:[

Yes because buying a new edition of a rpg equals myself and others falling for a "publishing scam". .

"They changed the WH40K standards pattern AGAIN?! But I just finished painting my SpaceMarine Chapter!!!!"

Now college textbooks...THAT's a scam. Pure and simple.

College textbooks and *maximum credit hours*, I was "scammed" by buying 3rd ed., but it was better IMO that the next "scam" of 4th ed. and the other "scam" of RUE was well done in it's own right, but no the same as the *original scam* of the RMB, VAmpire Kingdoms and the CB 1 (non-revised).

cyberdon wrote:Statistically, in the roleplaying game business, the typical gamer tends to stick with any particular rpg for anywhere from 3-5 years, with the the majority moving on to new titles at around the 3-4 year mark.

Pour moi, I'm not sure this will be the case with Rifts. There's just too much to the setting. Indeedy, no matter what my interest each day, be it vampire, cyber hacker, sea monster, pirate or drug dealing scum (no offence to drug dealers) in some future distopian city, I can usually say to myself after some thought: "Yip, that's most likely covered in Rifts."

Hell, even space is covered.

Mhmm

I don't think that this applies to most people here on this forum. There are cliques here that has been playing for 20+ years and they are die-hard fans with shelves upon shelves of books from Palladium Books. Then there are more causual fans, who follow a line (fantasy, Splicers, Rifts, Heroes Unlimited, etc) who has been here quite some time and still follows one or maybe two lines and ignores the rest.
Then there are those that you describe.

I played Rifts for 3 years (approx.) and then I got disheartened by their (in my opinion, bad quality of books, their inability to hold on to their promises when books are to be published and the overall hostile atmosphere on this forum if you are negative to the games). For me, Rifts was a wonderful game, with some really bad rules, but I enjoyed the world.
Then comes the complexity to locate things in the books, some things are so cleverly hidden that even someone who has played for years can't find references from time to time. Also, I got annoyed of all the contradictions that existed in the books (Book X page Y says that a certain OCC has something, then a chapter later, it contradicts this.), obvious spelling errors and bad grammar, headlines that should be in bold, but isn't. It is just as if they do not proofread the books, the writes hand in a manuscript to Kevin, he looks at it and rewrites it, and changes stuff to contradict what the writer had said, but he only do this on one page, but he does not bother to change it in the rest of the book. It feels as if he does not really read through it after he has added his own touch to the book.
Then comes the obvious lies and broken promises: OMG! Book X is so wonderful and I am editing the last pages and i will send it to the printers by the end of next week!! You guys will be so exited to read it!" ...Two weeks pass and nothing happens, no book is sent to the printers...the two weeks becomes a month, two months and 6 months...this goes on an on. Then I see that on the back of another Rifts book, that the book that was postponed so much is "available in any store now", but when I later check it up, it will be an October release...no wait a November release.

Then when there are too much complaints about that Book X was promised to be out this month...the next we see a murmur with references to the TIME OF CRISIS (c) and how much we must feel sorry for palladium Books.

Me and my group, we played Middle Earth RPG (MERP) for 12-15 years, we played Vampire since it came out in 1992 and we have not stopped playing it and we have campaigns that we play sporadically to Traveller, Star Trek and Vikingatid (a swedish RPG where you play Vikings). As we like systems that are made to speed up the gaming so that we can RP more and look at Rules less.

To play Rifts, you must buy certain books from other lines of PB in order to find rules that should be in Rifts Core book, but was omitted because lack of space (when the author has pages after pages about his own RPG anecdotes and memories. I am not interested in that kind of stuff, if I buy a Core book, i do not wish to learn about why the creator of the game made a specific character class or that in his group that is 12-26 players they do this and they do that. I want it plain and simple: Info about the world, info about how to make a character and rules. I do not give a rat's behind to know what T-shirt that the game creator wears when he GMs or simmilar things.

So, all these things built up my frustration, and that is why I left this game and sold my books.

But most friends I have within the gaming community does not switch games every 3-5 years, they have one or two games that they love and play a lot, then they test things on the side. But most often they have their favorite game they always revert to if the new game is not as promising than it looked like.

Dunia wrote:But most friends I have within the gaming community does not switch games every 3-5 years, they have one or two games that they love and play a lot, then they test things on the side. But most often they have their favorite game they always revert to if the new game is not as promising than it looked like.

I have found this to be true as well. I have had several gaming groups over the years and in each, there is 1-3 games that are the "core" games that they play. Most of the players will show interest in three or more other games and if they do not turn out to be fun, revert back to those "core" games.

Sureshot wrote:

MADMANMIKE wrote:I don't know where you get your statistics, but I've been with RIFTS for 22 years now.. I imagine they reflect the publishing scam the other companies in the industry follow, redoing everything to sell the books over again every few years?

Yes because buying a new edition of a rpg equals myself and others falling for a "publishing scam". I suppose all the fans that 3E D&D than 3.5. brought into the hobby like myself and others were "scammed" out of cash. I suppose Paizo is also implementing a publishing scam. By your logic PB also implemented a publishing scam with RUE. then. Mostly the same with a few rule changes I get it. You don't like new editions. I'm starting to get sick of them myself. You really need to think before you post. As you pretty much insulted myself and anyone else who bought a new edtion.

Megaversal Insider... yeah, 'nuff said.

Icefalcon wrote:

Dunia wrote:But most friends I have within the gaming community does not switch games every 3-5 years, they have one or two games that they love and play a lot, then they test things on the side. But most often they have their favorite game they always revert to if the new game is not as promising than it looked like.

I have found this to be true as well. I have had several gaming groups over the years and in each, there is 1-3 games that are the "core" games that they play. Most of the players will show interest in three or more other games and if they do not turn out to be fun, revert back to those "core" games.

I'm in this boat.

I wouldn't say that new editions of RPGs are necessarily a scam. For example, I thought that 3rd edition D&D was a HUGE improvement, in terms of game mechanics, over its first and second editions. However, it did seem to me like 4th edition D&D came out awfully soon after 3E/3.5 (a lapse of less than 5 years between the 3.5 core books and 4th edition!). Given the fact that D&D 3/3.5 was a great game that didn't seem "broken" in any way and didn't seem to have many people complaining about it, the suddenness of the 4th edition's appearance seemed like planned obsolescence to me (and thus somewhat 'scammy') - especially given that it was completely incompatible with the previous edition! And don't get me started on how silly some of its game mechanics are...

The great thing about Palladium's games is that I can buy products that I'm virtually assured are still going to be 'current' or compatible with the current game editions for years and years and years down the road. A Rifts book that I bought back in the early 1990s is still completely usable (with no or almost no modification) and compatible with the Rifts stuff I bought this month. I can't think of any other systems for which that sort of 'product longevity' holds true. Buying Palladium books feels more like a long-term investment than a quick gaming burst that will last for several years and then fizzle out.

I played mostly palladium titles, had all the genres my group and i needed. Dabbled in various other systems (Started wit Tunnels and trolls hahahaha. went to DND ADND 2e then straight to Rifts and other palladium titles.) Pound for pound The shear content is amazing and keeps me coming back.

I do get tired of system changes (played 3rd e DnD a few times, wasn't so bad but felt limited in scope)

I know this system through and through and found ways to deal with the klunkiness of some parts (all games have them somwhere) and can usually run through pretty fast.

I haven't really played in over a decade, but I still pick up books every now and then because even though I have no love for most of the Palladium system, I do love the settings that Kevin comes up with. As I've said before in other threads, systems are a dime a dozen, but good settings are hard to find.

When we were playing, we mostly followed the book rules for character creation, but used significant house rules once play started. For us, the book rules were simply there to suggest to us how we might handle elements within the setting if we couldn't think of a better way.

--flatline

Icefalcon wrote:

Dunia wrote:But most friends I have within the gaming community does not switch games every 3-5 years, they have one or two games that they love and play a lot, then they test things on the side. But most often they have their favorite game they always revert to if the new game is not as promising than it looked like.

I have found this to be true as well. I have had several gaming groups over the years and in each, there is 1-3 games that are the "core" games that they play. Most of the players will show interest in three or more other games and if they do not turn out to be fun, revert back to those "core" games.

We do this too but the reason we play palladium is that our "break from the old routine" games are-

The other palladium titles! No new rules! Bit stagnant? Be a super hero! Tired of that? Play a gun smuggling mutant camel! Too Boring? Be dragon slaying palladin! Sick of slaying dragons? Then play one instead!!!

You can't get bored of rifts let alone the megaverse!

You can get bored of any game if you play it long enough. Rifts has plenty of oppurtunity for gaming in almost any genre you can think of. I do think, however, that after awhile the rules can slow the game down, which is why most GMs house-rule it to death in order for the game to fit their playing style. Either way Rifts has a great setting but an archaic and rather jumbled rule-set. I hope you enjoy the game for as long as possible, it can be a lot of fun with the right GM and group.

earthhawk wrote:You can get bored of any game if you play it long enough. Rifts has plenty of oppurtunity for gaming in almost any genre you can think of. I do think, however, that after awhile the rules can slow the game down, which is why most GMs house-rule it to death in order for the game to fit their playing style. Either way Rifts has a great setting but an archaic and rather jumbled rule-set. I hope you enjoy the game for as long as possible, it can be a lot of fun with the right GM and group.

this is true, but even KS states you dont like some of the rules changed them to fit your style of play.

The Dark Elf wrote:

Icefalcon wrote:

Dunia wrote:But most friends I have within the gaming community does not switch games every 3-5 years, they have one or two games that they love and play a lot, then they test things on the side. But most often they have their favorite game they always revert to if the new game is not as promising than it looked like.

I have found this to be true as well. I have had several gaming groups over the years and in each, there is 1-3 games that are the "core" games that they play. Most of the players will show interest in three or more other games and if they do not turn out to be fun, revert back to those "core" games.

We do this too but the reason we play palladium is that our "break from the old routine" games are-

The other palladium titles! No new rules! Bit stagnant? Be a super hero! Tired of that? Play a gun smuggling mutant camel! Too Boring? Be dragon slaying palladin! Sick of slaying dragons? Then play one instead!!!

You can't get bored of rifts let alone the megaverse!

But you can have players that dislike Palladium's rule set enough to want to go back to other games.

I started playing Robotech back in 1989. Started Rifts in 1991. I haven't played in a while, butr I still buy new books, and definatly have no desire to move on to another game.