Next ATB Book?

[VR Dragon]

I was thinking,

With how well the new version is I was wondering if we might get a new book for ATB. If possible how would a book that has nothing but mutant animal information. A compiling of all the old information only updated. And try not to leave animals out just because they might not be available in north america. We might want to run a game someplace else. So how about giving us more animals?

[Tinker Dragoon]

Erick Wujcik has in the past stated a desire to do more After the Bomb books. In all likelihood there will be, but when is anyone's guess. Last I heard he was specifically wanting to do an India book, but that may not necessarily be the first new book written.

[BookWyrm]

If Eric is doing a book about ATB India, then it will likely be an update of the info from Mutants Down Under. I personally would like to see books bringing the AtB1 stuff in & updating them, and then expanding from there, maybe to AtB China & Japan, Russia & Europe, ect.
But first I would like to see something more on AtB North America, expanding from the stuff we get in Road Hogs & new data on the Free Plains of Cattle.

[Mike Taylor]

An idea I'd like to see is "alternate setting books" which use the rules for After the Bomb, but detail other worlds or alternate "mutant animal" Earths.

[CyCo]

I'll go and say what I usually say when this topic comes around. I'ld like a book that which it's prime focus is on animals. Go through and list the most common animals usually found in zoos around the world, and how to mutate them.

Then there would be more room in each book for more background, or 'fluff' if you want to call it that. And you could list particular mutants, chimera and what have you in each regional book.

[Kaner]

I'd also like an update on the rest of North America. I'd especially like to know more about the 'Mountains of Madness' and the funky magic in the Arctic.

-Kaner

[gordyzx9r]

Personally I like the vagueness, I don't want/need to have detailed & colored in descriptions of "kingdoms", "tribes" or what have you.

And to be honest with you I believe that a generic template conversion table could be made to update the mutant animals from previous source books to the new AtB, and Palladium could either publish it in Rifter or even put it in the errata section of their web site.

[GundamChief]

As for what books come out, I'll collect them all eventually but I want to see two books in particular.

1. A book with Updated events in the world, particularly in North America and some new info on The Empire of Humanity, I want to see new Robots, Possibly some heavy P.A.s and new machines, Maybe even some info on hightech animal kingdoms that just started to emerge, who have enough technology to take the E.o.H. on

2. A book on Either Africa with the Congo and Plains and lots of African Animals. or a book on the world of the Ocean, if there are mutant fish in the ocean there could be huge underwater civilizations who could be watching the upper world or could be clans of single types of fish who are fighting other clans to control the ocean, and plus they could have found Atlantis and revived the highly ancient but powerful Atlantian Technology. not to mention the various places like the location of the Titanic, The Maranis Trench, The Bermuda Triangle, and the World Currents. If there was a book on animal that I wanted it would be one on the Ocean. It pleased me When Rifts came out with an ocean book, I was both happy and disappointed with it cause it didn't provide as much as it should have that is IMO.

[Zenvis]

I'd also like an update on the rest of North America. I'd especially like to know more about the 'Mountains of Madness' and the funky magic in the Arctic.

-Kaner

Lets not forget those famous rodents that run the moutains with their relegion.

[Zenvis]

*chuckles*
Empire of Humanity War Campaign

True enough, it would be nice if we knew enough about the Empire to create Empire of Humanity characters with reasonably fleshed-out backgrounds and such. Maybe we can convince them to create an Empire article in a Rifter.

What I'd like to see is a war "adventured" out, because the Federation has finally got fed up and go to war with the mutants. One of those winner takes all kind of things, but I'm sure that would be for a while.

[drewkitty ~..~]

A Big Book of Animals, powers and Animal Psionics would be neat.

*nods* what he said.

i don't know about 'world books' per se... getting folks to play funny animals is tough to do. tried to get my gamers into it, but thanks to an MTV special that featured 'fuzzy' fans, they kinda balked. best i could do was get two of them, my g/f, and her sis into a beer and pretzels game.

it was fun, but doomed to a short shelf life. 6 levels and three months was the best i could muster til 'life' intervened to the real world non-gamer types.

as much as i love ATB/TMNT, i don't believe it to be a viable rpg setting. it exists so long as rifts makes money for palladium. single holistic source books are the way to go. if only we could light a fire under kev and erick to get something else published tho...

What I would like to see for AtB is a sorce book much like the CS/Tolkeen books or the adventure sorcebook where it tells a story, and not much "new equipment" (to the bane of munchkin) would be needed. Just a few NPCs and lots of story.

As to the big book of animals....I would devid it up by regions (continents) and Zoo animals.

Hello Mr. M nice to see you agine.

[Goblin-Jack]

Here's a crazy idea; there were plans earlier to do a Rift's Africa 2; perhaps the way to go is an Africa ATB/Rifts book, half dealing with the ATB world, the other half pertaining to areas of Africa not covered in the main Rifts books. Or maybe I'm just smoking crack... ---GJ.

[Rali]

Here's a crazy idea; there were plans earlier to do a Rift's Africa 2; perhaps the way to go is an Africa ATB/Rifts book, half dealing with the ATB world, the other half pertaining to areas of Africa not covered in the main Rifts books. Or maybe I'm just smoking crack... ---GJ.

As good as that may sound, I really doubt Palladium will do any more dual system books like they did with Mutants in Space. It would increase production time and the end cost of the book would probably be higher than normal, not to mention that I don't think it would a good idea with it being the second in a series of world books.

Maybe a smaller world book designed to help cross-promote the two settings. Including some sort of game device that would allow AtB characters to cross-over into Rifts earth, or Rifts characters to the AtB world.

[Goblin-Jack]

Steel, my good man, thank you for breathing some life into this post! Excellent idea, that would indeed be an enjoyable crossover. Perhaps while Rifts Vampires is being updated and expanded, a lonestar/ATB crossover and update would be appropriate... Probably not, but here's to hoping!

Now, if only the Warpath: Urban Jungle RPG would start getting closer to reality...

--GJ

[gaby]

A Atb,s Africa and Atb,s Asia can wokr.

[Armorlord]

A compilation, or even simple reprints, of the old TMNT-era AtB books revised to the current edition would be nice. I get nervous handling my older books too much.
Then again, I'm a bit obsessive about book care. I brought one of my old TMNT books to one Open House to have signed and Erick signed it 'Enjoy the TMNT!' thinking I just bought it off the shelf over there, that's how good I try to keep them. I didn't correct him that's for sure, I enjoyed it in the past, and I'd enjoy it in the future.
On topic though, getting that information out there for newer players to have access to would be a pretty good idea, and since it just needs revising it would have an easier process toward getting it published as well.

[glitterboy2098]

personally, i think the best route would be to do "revised" versions of the ATB sourcebooks, updating the old info and adding new material and expanding on the existing material to get them up to 98 pages. then you could start putting out new books along the same vein to fill in some of the bigger gaps in the setting.

[gaby]

Revisting AtB is a good idea.

Maybe they can use all New Art.

[DBX]

I think an ideal cross-over book would be an extension of Lone Star into ATB. Something along the lines of Dr. Bradford or a group of renegade mutant rats open a rift to the ATB dimension using the the rift generator in the Lonestar complex.

also rifts CB2 hinted at the animal gods helping mutant animals in ATB.

[mr.phillup]

I would like to see the older books updated to follow along with the feel of AtB2. Add in world info and and animals maybe a little tech stuff, but not wanting another rift book.

[gordyzx9r]

Be careful what you ask for. AtB was always written with some subjectivity and lots of unanswered questions for a reason. Putting in too much detail ties a GM hands and stifles creativity...and then you have Rifts, an AtB supplement gone mad.

I think a Rifter totally dedicated to AtB would be all it would take to update the old books and bring the animal descriptions and skills to par with AtB2. The settings, cities, powers, people, etc, don't need updating.

[mr.phillup]

Be careful what you ask for. AtB was always written with some subjectivity and lots of unanswered questions for a reason. Putting in too much detail ties a GM hands and stifles creativity...and then you have Rifts, an AtB supplement gone mad.

I think a Rifter totally dedicated to AtB would be all it would take to update the old books and bring the animal descriptions and skills to par with AtB2. The settings, cities, powers, people, etc, don't need updating.

I like the idea of the Rifter. When looking at updating the other books I was thinking inline with how AtB2 was done where there were hints or just enough info to get ideas flowing on your own.

[Mechanurgist]

That's true, a good GM thrives on mystery and ambiguity. A good RPG presents the seed of an idea that you can then grow into a stout oak.

I take issue with some of the updated information in AtB2, so I'm not convinced updating the other supplements would be doing them any favours. Mutants Down Under is pretty much perfect the way it is, art included. I wish that artist had done more mutant animal illustrations for the other supplements. Mutants in Avalon too is "done" as far as I'm concerned.

What I'd like to see are short, unique new supplements that present a clever take on the AtB world, much as Down Under and Avalon did with their regions. Perhaps Mutants in the Mekong or Mutants of Amazonia?