Forums of the Megaverse®

So my group is thinking about Rifts as our next campaign - but none of us have played it. I've collected books for over 30yrs now, but never got into a campaign (well played one day, decades ago, and it fell apart).
So I'm looking for advice on how to to form a campaign, choose adventures and develop some long run path our campaign can take. I see TONS of source material in the books, and the couple Adventure supplements give ideas, but I am really confused on how to pick material that will work as we progress. We will probably start out at 1st level, so how do I find adventures that work for 1st level guys? I don't think I'll be running the game, so have avoided reading too much of the adventure material. But delving in will the adventure material state what level party works with it?
Can anyone point me to some low level adventures, and maybe provide guidance on progressive material that could fit as we level?

Thoughts and suggestions appreciated.
Thanks,
Mal

Go on the Palladium store and look for the adventure books. Modify them for your groups experience level.

https://palladium-store.com/1001/catego ... Books.html

Index and Adventures.
Adventure books.

NOT the coalition war campaign, thats too much for you right now. Also, dont be afraid to experiment. If you try running adventures and they dont work out, you will learn from the experience, and do better next time.
If you never try, you won't fail and you won't learn.

Malleable wrote:So my group is thinking about Rifts as our next campaign - but none of us have played it. I've collected books for over 30yrs now, but never got into a campaign (well played one day, decades ago, and it fell apart).
So I'm looking for advice on how to to form a campaign, choose adventures and develop some long run path our campaign can take. I see TONS of source material in the books, and the couple Adventure supplements give ideas, but I am really confused on how to pick material that will work as we progress. We will probably start out at 1st level, so how do I find adventures that work for 1st level guys? I don't think I'll be running the game, so have avoided reading too much of the adventure material. But delving in will the adventure material state what level party works with it?
Can anyone point me to some low level adventures, and maybe provide guidance on progressive material that could fit as we level?

Thoughts and suggestions appreciated.
Thanks,
Mal

my first question is have your ever played any other palladium game? if yes the mechanics are mostly the same, if no you are looking at a new campaign and game system.

with that said you can really play any campaign you want in rifts so for instance if you really wanted to you could play castle ravenloft in rifts or you could play a st or sw adventure in rifts.

where rifts really is different than most settings is its a kind of cross between a medieval/fallout/supertech/magic game all at the same time

if you think of it a certain way rifs is a combination insta death game with counters for the insta death weapons. I mean if you actually stop and think about it, a person walking around with a c18 laser pistol, and for all practical purposes it fires 2 law rockets (that have no blast radius) with every shot or if you were to watch a star trek episode, anyone with a MDC weapon against people without MDC armor its like shooting people with weapons on kill where any hit is basically death, unless you have MDC armor and then you CAN take some hits... until you run out of armor.

with that said, want to run a wild west campaign? Rifts Main book, and or Rifts ultimate edition and the New west books and you can run a wild west campaign
if you have watched the mandalorian tv series its basically a star wars western, you can have the same thing in rifts, just without the starships so instead of going to a new world, you travel to a new town

First, I too want to recommend some adventure books. Start with Rifts Adventure Guide . I always say this is THE book I wish I could send back to my high school self in 1990 to help run better games.

The Rifts Index 1 and 2 have some great adventures and the Rifts GM's screen and Rifts Primer would all be great resources. These books though I would suggest getting on Drive Thru as you will not use all of them and they are much cheaper as PDF.

Second, you need to start with your players, or more precisely your player characters in mind. When you do your session zero, a must for Rifts, your players should decide what kind of game they want and what kind of characters / OCCs / species fit. During the Session get a group reason for adventuring. This is what unifies the players even if the characters may not be unified in the beginning.

During or after the session I like to get the following from each Player: OCC, Species, origin, reason for adventuring (this is individual but needs to be compatible with the group reason), character goals (this could be find a missing loved one to kill an enemy to fortune and glory), and finally a basic back story. I give experience points for these personally.

Once you have the info build the campaign around them. Use the OCC or species descriptions for ideas. You're telling a story with your players and characters should (almost) always drive a story.

Finally you need to establish rules with your players, in this case what house rules are you going to use and how are you going to implement them. For me I like to have a place (like an online forum) to post all house rules and even discuss changes before you implement them.

Hope some of these help.

Thanks guys. Very helpful Warshield.
I'll start off with this stuff. I don't know that I will be GMing this, but my group is looking for a new campaign setting, and a different ruleset. We typically play Rolemaster, and Pathfinder; but have played L5R, Seventh Seas, GURPS, and Traveler. Palladium seems like a simple enough system that we could pick up easily; and it seems to have plenty of source material so we don't end up running out of stuff to use (as we are all busy and having to create stuff usually means the end of the campaign).
Another question (and I might find the answer as soon as I go through the suggestions, but I'll ask now) is there a source material that has a bunch of premade characters at 1st-ish level so I can do a practice run of the system without having to go through character creation? Something to just do a quick play session and get agreement that we like it.

Thanks,
Mal

A few suggestions:

1. Start small. Not necessarily in terms of power, but in terms of the scope of the adventure. Rifts is enormous, varied, and complex as a setting, and it can be hard to keep it grounded and relatable if you try to bring in too much of it at once.

2. Start simple with a reason for your player characters being together and a general direction/purpose. A simple concept, well-executed, is generally better than a complex one with many moving parts. There are great movies built this way, where you can sum up the plot in a single sentence. "Taken: Retired agent trying to save his kidnapped daughter" "Master & Commander: a frigate hunts a privateer." "Dredd: Drug bust." "Fury Road: Drive away, then drive back."

3. Consider giving players some guidelines for building their characters: general power level, equipment options, types of O.C.C.'s/races available, et cetera.

4. Establish and build relationships. Use and re-use NPCs, organizations, and locations so the players get to know them. Consider using my disposable NPC generators to help reduce prep time and adjust the power level of allies/enemies.

5. Consider using maps, miniatures, visual aids, and quick-reference tools to provide a common frame of reference for everyone.

to reference a couple more movies that would be straightforward to adapt to rifts:

Magnificent 7
cowboys and aliens
both could work as inspiration for a new west campaign

cyberpunk setting
think bladerunner
Aleta
dread / judge dread
basically taking place in chi town, or other coalition fortress city, or rifts japan

anything fallout inspired, as its a post apocalypse setting just like the whole rifts setting is, the main difference being fallout is only ~50-100 years after and rifts is closer to 300 years after, and there is a lot more environmental recovery, (and a lot less nukes and radiation)

Also, for a first campaign, I think the GM might find it easier to have something more restrictive. A campaign with a definite start and finish, and plotted adventures, and possibly even hand picked characters. This game does not have the inherent balance of other RPG's, things can get out of hand easily.
Once your players are comfortable with the setting and the mechanics, they can probably tell you what your next campaign should be.

By the way this has been the most useful book for me, and I own most of them.
https://palladium-store.com/1001/produc ... Guide.html

It actually tells you how to run a Rifts game which, for most of us, was mostly confusing and involved lots of improvising.

How to start your first RIFTS game: https://youtu.be/oLOM95nchf8

Shorty Lickens wrote:By the way this has been the most useful book for me, and I own most of them.
https://palladium-store.com/1001/produc ... Guide.html

It actually tells you how to run a Rifts game which, for most of us, was mostly confusing and involved lots of improvising.

Yes, I would have killed for this book back in high school.

Rifter_GM wrote:How to start your first RIFTS game: https://youtu.be/oLOM95nchf8

I had forgotten about this video, yes it is worth the watch.