New Rifts GM Seeking Guidance

[Elirion]

Hi guys. New to the forum and returning to Rifts after a short 25 year hiatus from the game. I am building my book collection back up while relearning the game and trying to get ideas for the campaign I'm going to run in a few months.

My issue right now is which books would most help me in this endeavor. I'd like to buy them all but need to be a little more fiscally responsible, sadly.

I plan on starting my campaign small with some low level issue the characters get involved in which slowly, over several adventures, leads them to bigger and bigger adventures. I plan on setting this in NA maybe close to Merc Town with potential adventures in the Federation and maybe an excursion into the Chi-town burbs.

What books would give me monsters and NPCs that I could use to develop the adventures? Are they defined jn the World Books, the bestiary, or the D-Bees of NA Book? Beyond the RUE, what books are essential to fully enjoying the game? I plan on only using the OCCs from RUE for my campaign just to keep it simple for now.

Thanks for any help.

[Warshield73]

It feels like this thread pops up every few months so you can probably search through and find some suggestions but here is my usual.

First Rifts Ultimate Edition and Rifts Sourcebook One Revised. This is the core of what you need to play so start there.

After that I always suggest Rifts Adventure Guide . The other two GMs guides can be useful but not essential. The AG gives lots of great ideas for how to run a Rifts campaign and as I always say this is the book that I wish I had had when I started running Rifts in high school.

If you want races for NPCs and even for your players to choose Conversion Book One is cool, also D-Bees of North America.

As for all the other books you only have to get them if you go to that part of the world. Want to fight Vamps? Get Vampire Kingdom, it's sourcebook and Arzno. Want to go to Europe? Get the 2 Triax books plus Mindwerks SB and maybe England or Russia.

If you get a campaign going and the players want to do some save the world heroics Sourcebook 2 The Mechanoids gives the Edict of Planetary Distress and lots of villains to go after. I milked that book plus Africa, England and then finally Xiticix for more than a decade of games.

Good luck and have fun.

[Elirion]

Thanks for taking the time to respond. I looked through every thread about 6 pages back and did a search and couldn't find a topic about books needed. Might not have used the correct search terms.

What type of beasties does the bestiary cover?

[guardiandashi]

It feels like this thread pops up every few months so you can probably search through and find some suggestions but here is my usual.

First Rifts Ultimate Edition and Rifts Sourcebook One Revised. This is the core of what you need to play so start there.

After that I always suggest Rifts Adventure Guide . The other two GMs guides can be useful but not essential. The AG gives lots of great ideas for how to run a Rifts campaign and as I always say this is the book that I wish I had had when I started running Rifts in high school.

If you want races for NPCs and even for your players to choose Conversion Book One is cool, also D-Bees of North America.

As for all the other books you only have to get them if you go to that part of the world. Want to fight Vamps? Get Vampire Kingdom, it's sourcebook and Arzno. Want to go to Europe? Get the 2 Triax books plus Mindwerks SB and maybe England or Russia.

If you get a campaign going and the players want to do some save the world heroics Sourcebook 2 The Mechanoids gives the Edict of Planetary Distress and lots of villains to go after. I milked that book plus Africa, England and then finally Xiticix for more than a decade of games.

Good luck and have fun.

another point is right now is the time of year that if they do it... the grab bag might be a good thing to look at.

warshield does make a good argument however to start with "core" books and expand from there. so the rifts main book is obviously core everything else is optional, like dogboys? get the lonestar book, want a lot more general coalition stuff get war campaign, mercenaries gets you a large grab bag of stuff early on. sourcebook 1, and shemarrian nation gets you a lot of archie and the shemarrian stuff new west has a lot of links to an old western theme.

the important thing is there is no 1 right way to play

[desrocfc]

Given the templated adventures you have mentioned, my suggestions:

Baseline. These two are the *must have* books for a starting GM:
- Rifts: Ultimate Edition
- Rifts Adventure Guide

Setting. Because you mentioned these specifically:
- Merc Town
- World Book 16: Federation of Magic
- Adventure Sourcebooks 1 to 4 for info on the 'Burbs to support the Adventure Guide

After that it depends on the PCs OCC choices and/or RCC choices. I've done a review of Rifts library under the Scholar's Review section at the link in my signature below (World Books, Sourcebooks, almost in its entirety).

From the sounds of it, you've got yourself a pretty good start point for a grab bag!

Cheers.

[Elirion]

Given the templated adventures you have mentioned, my suggestions:

Baseline. These two are the *must have* books for a starting GM:
- Rifts: Ultimate Edition
- Rifts Adventure Guide

Setting. Because you mentioned these specifically:
- Merc Town
- World Book 16: Federation of Magic
- Adventure Sourcebooks 1 to 4 for info on the 'Burbs to support the Adventure Guide

After that it depends on the PCs OCC choices and/or RCC choices. I've done a review of Rifts library under the Scholar's Review section at the link in my signature below (World Books, Sourcebooks, almost in its entirety).

From the sounds of it, you've got yourself a pretty good start point for a grab bag!

Cheers.

Thank you very much. My grab bag is already on the way. Probably should have asked this question before I ordered it. Oh well. I've bought several pdfs and noticed none had any monsters in them. I was mainly wondering if they were detailed in the world books, the bestiary, or d-bees of NA. I think I've found my answer. Seems they are mainly in the Conversion book?

Edit: Just checked out your blog. Very nice! Thanks for pointing me to that. Will help immensely.

[Fenris2020]

Rifts Conversion Book One and most world-books have monsters, animals and so on.
Conversion Book one also has the races from Fantasy, and basics for super-powers. If you want more super-powers, go with the Skraypers book.

[ShadowLogan]

What books would give me monsters and NPCs that I could use to develop the adventures? Are they defined jn the World Books, the bestiary, or the D-Bees of NA Book? Beyond the RUE, what books are essential to fully enjoying the game? I plan on only using the OCCs from RUE for my campaign just to keep it simple for now.

World Books and Source Books (generally) contain a mix of information, including new OCC, Races (monsters and playable races), and new gear. Not all are created equal, some SBs are overly specialized (Bionics SB for example). IIRC Rifts Source Book 1 Revised (it was in the OLD Rifts Main Book, not RUE) has a table for random monsters, technically so does WB8 (Oni creation) and WB7 (sea monsters) and DB2 (alien creation, though this is largely duplicated from Heroes Unlimited line IINM).

Rifts Bestiary and DBoNA are both largely compilation books that draw material related to their subject matter from various books (up to when they are created) into a centralized location (along with the Book of Magic for all things magical, the GM Guide for equipment preWB2x, and Conversion Book 1 Revised drawing in stuff from non-Rifts main lines).

[Elirion]

What books would give me monsters and NPCs that I could use to develop the adventures? Are they defined jn the World Books, the bestiary, or the D-Bees of NA Book? Beyond the RUE, what books are essential to fully enjoying the game? I plan on only using the OCCs from RUE for my campaign just to keep it simple for now.

World Books and Source Books (generally) contain a mix of information, including new OCC, Races (monsters and playable races), and new gear. Not all are created equal, some SBs are overly specialized (Bionics SB for example). IIRC Rifts Source Book 1 Revised (it was in the OLD Rifts Main Book, not RUE) has a table for random monsters, technically so does WB8 (Oni creation) and WB7 (sea monsters) and DB2 (alien creation, though this is largely duplicated from Heroes Unlimited line IINM).

Rifts Bestiary and DBoNA are both largely compilation books that draw material related to their subject matter from various books (up to when they are created) into a centralized location (along with the Book of Magic for all things magical, the GM Guide for equipment preWB2x, and Conversion Book 1 Revised drawing in stuff from non-Rifts main lines).

Thank you. That helps to clarify.

[glitterboy2098]

note that the Game Master Guide will be a useful compendium of gear to add some diversity to your games without having to buy all the sourcebooks right off. you'll have to fill in a lot of gaps for some of it but that shouldn't be super hard. it'll also give you rules for stuff like customizing gear and a skill compendium. plus a way to figure out what sourcebooks and world books have items you want to use and thus allow you to decide purchase priority.

[desrocfc]

Given the templated adventures you have mentioned, my suggestions:

Baseline. These two are the *must have* books for a starting GM:
- Rifts: Ultimate Edition
- Rifts Adventure Guide

Setting. Because you mentioned these specifically:
- Merc Town
- World Book 16: Federation of Magic
- Adventure Sourcebooks 1 to 4 for info on the 'Burbs to support the Adventure Guide

After that it depends on the PCs OCC choices and/or RCC choices. I've done a review of Rifts library under the Scholar's Review section at the link in my signature below (World Books, Sourcebooks, almost in its entirety).

From the sounds of it, you've got yourself a pretty good start point for a grab bag!

Cheers.

Thank you very much. My grab bag is already on the way. Probably should have asked this question before I ordered it. Oh well. I've bought several pdfs and noticed none had any monsters in them. I was mainly wondering if they were detailed in the world books, the bestiary, or d-bees of NA. I think I've found my answer. Seems they are mainly in the Conversion book?

Edit: Just checked out your blog. Very nice! Thanks for pointing me to that. Will help immensely.

No worries, and hey, I hope the blog helps! I actually feel rather sheepish for not including Conversion Book 1 in the Baseline documents. An absolute gold mine of encounters and beasties to throw at your party.

[Elirion]

note that the Game Master Guide will be a useful compendium of gear to add some diversity to your games without having to buy all the sourcebooks right off. you'll have to fill in a lot of gaps for some of it but that shouldn't be super hard. it'll also give you rules for stuff like customizing gear and a skill compendium. plus a way to figure out what sourcebooks and world books have items you want to use and thus allow you to decide purchase priority.

Thank you. I have that pdf. Hadn't thought about using it that way.

[Hell knight]

You may all so want to get Northern gun 1 and 2 plus the black market to expend on gear and vehicle choices .

[Rifter_GM]

I made a video for this topic a little while back. Feel free to check it out!

https://youtu.be/oLOM95nchf8

[desrocfc]

Edit: Just checked out your blog. Very nice! Thanks for pointing me to that. Will help immensely.

I actually went back over the library and will be posting something more definitive for each region of Rifts Earth; scheduled for 30 November. Probably "overtaken by events" at this point, but there as a reference nonetheless.

Cheers.