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Greetings all,

I've been running a couple of D&D campaigns the last several months. One has run its course and the group has decided to play a game which holds no interest for me. My second group is on the cusp of rounding up phase 1, which could easily be a jumping off point to something different. I've several years as a GM with this system under my belt. Two of the members of the group have sat at my table in the past to play Rifts, or Nightbane, or whatever kind of campaign I was running, with a mix of rules from various Palladium settings.

Without going into detail on what the campaign will be centered around, it will be set in the modern era, and I will take full advantage of all the craziness that is in our 24 hour global news cycle. It will be a low power setting, so along the lines of Nightbane and Dead Reign (no M.D.C.), but one thing needs to be resolved before I can move forward. Which skill list from which book to use.

All suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

TiekoSora wrote:Greetings all,

I've been running a couple of D&D campaigns the last several months. One has run its course and the group has decided to play a game which holds no interest for me. My second group is on the cusp of rounding up phase 1, which could easily be a jumping off point to something different. I've several years as a GM with this system under my belt. Two of the members of the group have sat at my table in the past to play Rifts, or Nightbane, or whatever kind of campaign I was running, with a mix of rules from various Palladium settings.

Without going into detail on what the campaign will be centered around, it will be set in the modern era, and I will take full advantage of all the craziness that is in our 24 hour global news cycle. It will be a low power setting, so along the lines of Nightbane and Dead Reign (no M.D.C.), but one thing needs to be resolved before I can move forward. Which skill list from which book to use.

All suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Nightbane as low powered?!?!

Beyond the Supernatural (2nd ed) seems to be what you're looking for in nearly every respect. Skills are plentiful and more modern real world than any other setting, and the OCCs are basically normal people thrust into a strange world. Not sure what other system would be a good match. HU is way to powerful for what you describe. I strongly dislike DR and don't see it as a match as the skills are more survival oriented. You might try Recon (revised) for a military style game. Ninjas and Superspies is a modern(ish) game that could work, but is bouncing up the power level.

Hope that helps.

In my last Heroes Unlimited campaign I pulled skills from across the Megaverse and made them available in a new and expanded skill list for players. Generally, they came from Nightbane and Beyond the Supernatural but I might've snagged a few that were exclusive to Rifts, too. I don't remember now. https://www.heroesofthecentury.com/skills/

Thanks for the responses. And I consider Nightbane to be low powered, in comparison to Rifts and Robotech, both of which have M.D.C. weapons, abilities, and characters. Yeah, it's a higher power level than BtS and even the HU line, but it's not the "knock a skyscraper down with one shot" strong. As far as a consolidated skills list, I've spoken with Kevin once (GenCon) about it, and seen him on a recent video interview, where he has stated that skills are tailored for the specific setting, especially the calculated percentage value. Regardless, I was going to be picking up the BtS books as I am rebuilding my collection, so the suggestion will be put to use.

TiekoSora wrote:Greetings all,
Without going into detail on what the campaign will be centered around, it will be set in the modern era, and I will take full advantage of all the craziness that is in our 24 hour global news cycle. It will be a low power setting, so along the lines of Nightbane and Dead Reign (no M.D.C.), but one thing needs to be resolved before I can move forward. Which skill list from which book to use.

All suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Good choice on deciding on a single main rulebook before generating characters and starting play TiekoSora. Benefits of keeping the core rules to a single rulebook:
1) avoids confusion for Skill choices as a Skill can be listed as Wilderness in one book and Military in another rulebook
2) avoids conflicting Skill percentages and bonuses between different rulebooks

Without details on the nature of the setting I would say use the skills list from whatever book you expect the majority of your Players to pick their characters/O.C.C.S from. You mentioned Dead Reign and Nightbane in your original post. Any reason why you wouldn't want to use one of those two books as your "main"? Do you consider the characters "too powerful?"

If there is a skill you feel that is needed that is lacking from that book, make a house rule. Examples:
- "Characters/O.C.C.s from other rulebooks with a Skill not in the main/core rulebook use the Skill entry in the book the O.C.C. was pulled from."
- "Jury-Rig from the Rifts rulebook is available to any character as a Technical skill"

foilfodder wrote:

TiekoSora wrote:Greetings all,
Without going into detail on what the campaign will be centered around, it will be set in the modern era, and I will take full advantage of all the craziness that is in our 24 hour global news cycle. It will be a low power setting, so along the lines of Nightbane and Dead Reign (no M.D.C.), but one thing needs to be resolved before I can move forward. Which skill list from which book to use.

All suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Good choice on deciding on a single main rulebook before generating characters and starting play TiekoSora. Benefits of keeping the core rules to a single rulebook:
1) avoids confusion for Skill choices as a Skill can be listed as Wilderness in one book and Military in another rulebook
2) avoids conflicting Skill percentages and bonuses between different rulebooks

Without details on the nature of the setting I would say use the skills list from whatever book you expect the majority of your Players to pick their characters/O.C.C.S from. You mentioned Dead Reign and Nightbane in your original post. Any reason why you wouldn't want to use one of those two books as your "main"? Do you consider the characters "too powerful?"

If there is a skill you feel that is needed that is lacking from that book, make a house rule. Examples:
- "Characters/O.C.C.s from other rulebooks with a Skill not in the main/core rulebook use the Skill entry in the book the O.C.C. was pulled from."
- "Jury-Rig from the Rifts rulebook is available to any character as a Technical skill"

I'm not using those books, because I'm not using those settings, simple as that. I may pull an O.C.C. from one or both. Characters will be "an average everyday person" caught up in crazy world events, just not a Dark Day or a zombie apocalypse. And I'm not thinking about a skill being missing from a list. As I said in my initial post, I've both spoken to Kevin regarding skills in the past, and heard him say the same thing in a more expanded manner on a video interview, why each setting has different skill lists and means of calculating their percentages. BtS seems to fit the bill just right, and I am now awaiting my copy of the physical book, though I also picked up the pdf from DrivethruRPG.

TiekoSora wrote: Characters will be "an average everyday person" caught up in crazy world events, just not a Dark Day or a zombie apocalypse. And I'm not thinking about a skill being missing from a list. As I said in my initial post, I've both spoken to Kevin regarding skills in the past, and heard him say the same thing in a more expanded manner on a video interview, why each setting has different skill lists and means of calculating their percentages. BtS seems to fit the bill just right, and I am now awaiting my copy of the physical book, though I also picked up the pdf from DrivethruRPG.

Sounds like you have a good plan!

If Beyond the Supernatural was not the book or pdfs you purchased it may have additional material you would be interested in.