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One of the things I have been looking for rules in any way for is any, even faint, rules or concepts for players building their own bases/outposts, or taking over a fort/town. I know rifts has a million things you can do in the system but I was curious if anyone knew anything about something like this, group I am with is making moves to take over a trade outpost because the current owner is a complete ******* and tried to kill them. So I was curious if there were rules for such things, I could always hand wave and roll with it if need be. They have a good spread of skills that should allow them to manage the outpost atleast at a low level for a base.

And then there is a joke someone voiced about them going to a nearby city once they got higher level and use their wealth from managing an outpost for a few years to overthrow the current corrupt mayor. And of course they would put themselves at the top of the heap after all the bloodshed.

I was curious if anyone had any idea how to properly handle both of these situations? Any help would be lovely.

In WB 19 Australia it has a builder for Outback communities. I'm sure you could probably use that.

yes and no.

to be honest a lot of it should be rpg based, essentially a campaign in itself.
with that said, i'm not sure that palladium really has anything to cover it per say.
however there are if you have them suggestions in other game systems, such as 3rd/3.5 D&D about running a business (profession) battletech / atow (A Time of War) has title /property guidelines for the reasonable skim amounts, etc.

in general I would say look at any other games (if any) you have and see if they have anything you can borrow.

with that said we had chars in various campaigns, decide to setup and run a business, but taking over a town was usually incidental / accidental, IE the current mayor / boss was a dick and the char was playing poker or similar and won (mayor welched and got shot, or the mayor got caught cheating and got shot, or similar

There is a hero base table topic in the HU forum, the merc. company table in mercs, a city table in one of the early rifters.

I tend to look at dungeon-crawls as real-estate shopping.

You could use the Town Builder tables from Rifts Australia and the Adventure Guide books...the smallest community size is effectively 'Outpost/Trading Post'.

If you're looking for fortification materials, Merc Ops has a listing of stuff you can buy.
Of you want to but fan matrials...well. my own Paladin Steel company has prefab bunkers.

The city creation rules in rifter number one are a favorite of mine. They have a few options cut out when they got re printer elsewhere.

Point Construction tables for such things are fine, of you want do a lot of work to balance all the factors in your target location out, but for quick design, you might just want to pick and choose from the tables.

Pity there's not a random roll version of the tables, because then you would get a quick-set-up situation that might actually have a few things to throw the PCs off...like a well-fortified MDC position with only a handful of fairly weak active defenders...or an SDC mud fort that's protected by really competent and well-armed mercs...or maybe just a walk-over, with the result being the PCs having to decide if they really want to sink the necessary credits into building up the place so THEY don't get walked over.
Of course, a random roll might create a position too tough for them to take over without GM handwavium or a longer campaign than anticipated.

guardiandashi wrote: (mayor welched and got shot, or the mayor got caught cheating and got shot, or similar

There seems to be a common theme there....

taalismn wrote:Point Construction tables for such things are fine, of you want do a lot of work to balance all the factors in your target location out, but for quick design, you might just want to pick and choose from the tables.

Pity there's not a random roll version of the tables, because then you would get a quick-set-up situation that might actually have a few things to throw the PCs off...like a well-fortified MDC position with only a handful of fairly weak active defenders...or an SDC mud fort that's protected by really competent and well-armed mercs...or maybe just a walk-over, with the result being the PCs having to decide if they really want to sink the necessary credits into building up the place so THEY don't get walked over.
Of course, a random roll might create a position too tough for them to take over without GM handwavium or a longer campaign than anticipated.

Nothing says you can't make that random table, or build the city that way.

taalismn wrote:Point Construction tables for such things are fine, of you want do a lot of work to balance all the factors in your target location out, but for quick design, you might just want to pick and choose from the tables.

Pity there's not a random roll version of the tables, because then you would get a quick-set-up situation that might actually have a few things to throw the PCs off...like a well-fortified MDC position with only a handful of fairly weak active defenders...or an SDC mud fort that's protected by really competent and well-armed mercs...or maybe just a walk-over, with the result being the PCs having to decide if they really want to sink the necessary credits into building up the place so THEY don't get walked over.
Of course, a random roll might create a position too tough for them to take over without GM handwavium or a longer campaign than anticipated.

The Rifts Adventure Guide allows for randomly rolling "Orientation & Disposition" and "Type & Size of Community."
Roll 2d4-1 or whatever for each category.
Just use the same principle for the details, if you don't want to point-buy:
1d6 for Weapons & Armor
1d8 for Medicine
1d6 for Agriculture & Natural Resources
And so forth.

There's also the agency builder in N&S but that is pretty much the parent of the Marc group and traveling show tables.

*Shrug* I just base the players out of Kingsdale or Lazlo...sometimes Phaseworld
Saves me having to do ANOTHER pile of work for a bunch of ungrateful git players... did I say that outloud? Oh well.

DhAkael wrote:*Shrug* I just base the players out of Kingsdale or Lazlo...sometimes Phaseworld
Saves me having to do ANOTHER pile of work for a bunch of ungrateful git players... did I say that outloud? Oh well.

Hey, setting up shop outside the big centers of civilization, bringing goods and services to the unenlightened wastelands?
Fame and fortune!
Or maybe infamy and tragedy...

taalismn wrote:Point Construction tables for such things are fine, of you want do a lot of work to balance all the factors in your target location out, but for quick design, you might just want to pick and choose from the tables.

Pity there's not a random roll version of the tables, because then you would get a quick-set-up situation that might actually have a few things to throw the PCs off...like a well-fortified MDC position with only a handful of fairly weak active defenders...or an SDC mud fort that's protected by really competent and well-armed mercs...or maybe just a walk-over, with the result being the PCs having to decide if they really want to sink the necessary credits into building up the place so THEY don't get walked over.
Of course, a random roll might create a position too tough for them to take over without GM handwavium or a longer campaign than anticipated.

You could in theory adapt/use some of the tables in the Phaseworld books*: DB2 pg104-8 *Steps 7/8/9 &maybe 5 and/or 6), DB6 (p7-14), DB5 (pg139-60, focus on152-60, though some of the early sections could help in terms of geography possibly).

*also going to add 1E Robotech, in the back of BK #5 is a random table for communities, but one would need to workout some aspects on their own (like magic, psionic, D-Bee orientation).

As far as the rules go if they are getting that big as an organization and have or want a base of some sort the Mercanary company rules in one of the Merc books might be a good place to start. Even if they don't really want to be a bunch of sell swords in that fashion it has some pretty good options as a base line for assuming they have some manner of income and that they are assured some degree of minimum gear. From wretched peasantry to fabulous noblility of a first world military depending on how many points they spend on what. The material in there for bases as a physical location is fairly basic (heh) and pretty much is just a 1-5 sliding scale of Doesn't exist through to major metropolis dedicated to serving them, and a similar slider for the bases level of security. If they are taking over some sort of a trade outpost I would say probably have them spend some points on some of the dealer perks in there, like merchants or smugglers as NPC's. Depending on if they start taking contracts, or take out a loan of some sort to buy material to upgrade the place, or get an actual sponsor; the sponsorship rules to get more points to buy features with can be a good way to hook players in to working jobs they might not otherwise take, as they just need the cash, or their sponsor really needs this done and can't find anyone else etc.

I just adapt from the company tables in Mercenaries or the one for making Fadetowns in FoM, with some silly random impromptu tables of my own mixed in.

There are few ideas in the books that can be adapted.
I use house rules as part of my tech builder guide I use for such things.
Things like types and cost of waste and sewage, power generation and such. So it goes well beyond basic fortifications.

Also some rules in the first edition Robotech books.