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Does Splicers = Systems Failure
Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2006 5:33 am
by The Watcher
Just wondering if Splicers going to go the way of Systems Failure, a one off.
Anyone care to comment on this.
I believe that splicers is the best thing to come out of Palladium for years, I gave up on Rifts the day my group realised that we were in danger of becoming Munchins
Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2006 3:58 pm
by Spinachcat
I think the problem was launching Splicers as its own game line without an immediate plan for supplements in the first 6 and 12 month window. Now the game in aging without support. I also suspect Splicers would have done better as a Rifts Dimension book as a strange planet like Skraypers or Wormwood or placed within the Phase World setting.
Hopefully the fan produced PDF supplement will juice up interest. The game has gotten great interest when I have done demos. The Bioguyver + Dune + Terminator feel of the game world is very refreshing and new.
The problem is very double-edged. Do you support a line that is not selling with the hopes that spending money on the line will suddenly make it popular? Sadly, not a great bet when you are strapped for cash.
Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2006 3:50 am
by RockJock
System Failures was designed from the beginning to be a one off, even a joke making fun of Y2K. I agree with S-Cat, Splicers really need a follow up book right away, and would have benefited from being a closer part of the Megaverse. There is no reason why Splicers couldn't have been a Dimension Book, even with special case rules to make it a little most distant from Rifts Earth. Look at the mythical barrier around Palladia that severely limits technology, or the worlds in the 3Gs that have strange PPE/ISP effects. Make Splicers an isolated world somewhere, where magic and psychics are weak and you have the same setting, but a wider audience.
Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 2:09 pm
by The Baron of chaos
That's what I've always said, but no one seem to care.
Splicer is too isolated, an anomaly in the palladium books that on various level DO allow crossing over and mix matching characters from different books. Really is enough hard that the nanoplague will (but this is uncertain fact) your carefully built and played full conversion cyborg , accidentally rifted there, but here we are talking about totally negating the possibility of Rifting at all.
And this does not help getting player. I personally , while I like SOME of the stuff of splicer, cannot play it , for lack of interest around me. For HU or Rifts I ca find players if i make some effort but for SPlicer, well, sometimes I think I'm the only one in ALL europe to have ever bought the book, figure it.
Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 4:06 pm
by RockJock
I've brought bits and pieces of Splicers into my HU game, and everyone has loved it. The idea is great, and the material that is already out is very usable. Most people just don't have a reason to look directly at it, especially when it doesn't plug and play with the rest of the Megaverse.
Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2006 10:15 pm
by RockJock
I hope you run with the idea. In Rifts I just popped characters directly from Splicers to Rifts with no changes. Since they were stuck with no way to upgrade or keep their hand held equipment alive, and still had the nannite plague I let the Dread Guard and Pack Master change Occs to Cyber Knight and Mystic respectively. I know that the Mystic is usually considered a psychic, but I let it slide.
For the HU character I went a different route. First of all, I went with no plague. I did make the equipment be incompatible with normal technology, but no attack or anything from touching metal. Instead of being a rifted in character from another world I had the biotech as an experiment from a somewhat evil multinational. Basically a specialized grown suit along similar lines as the Eugenics class. I've only brought one character over, and he was basically a robot pilot with skills switched to things like Pilot Host Armor. I also went with a Proto-Host Armor since it seems simpler to start with. It works very well, and can hold up against power armor fine.