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EverettLO posted:So Robotech Tactics is 80% off at DGI. Is this game any good aside from the issues with bad sprue space usage/miniature design? The rules look workmanlike and functional but I've never seen anyone actually playing it. I was wondering if the sale linked was indicative of bad sales for the game line or if it's just business as usual. I haven't been able to play it, but the general gist is that it has a good core, though it's weighed down by excessive Palladium RPG style minutiae, and has a problem with missiles being too powerful. Nothing a good balance pass and an editor with wargame rules experience couldn't fix with a FAQ.
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Nov 16, 2015 20:57
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At a used bookstore I found a copy of the Mechanoids Trilogy. It was 8 bucks, so I bought it. On the train home? Found out it was signed. Neat! The neater thing? This looks pretty good in an old school sort of way. Characters lack bloat, skills are more functional, and everything has a fantastic 70s-80s comic look, with fine illustrations of everything and even maps of major ideas. The Mechanoids themselves are a fusion of Berserkers and Terminators and Ellison's AM but with a Kardashev 2.5 civilization that eventually annihilates itself, but all presented as is these ideas weren't taken from their sources, but from something that'd be in a Marvel comic. The linked settings are well-structured, and there's even a decent explanation of the aims of each story/setting to manage expectations. You're told that on Gideon-E you *will* eventually die, for example, and by Homeworld we're told upfront that this is really open-ended exploration, and won't be as structured. I wonder if the severe physical limits on the original works (which were saddle stitched newsprint!) and a chance to edit them for republication gave them a relative sense of refinement.
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Dec 15, 2015 08:22
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MalcolmSheppard posted:At a used bookstore I found a copy of the Mechanoids Trilogy. It was 8 bucks, so I bought it. On the train home? Found out it was signed. Neat! Yeah, honestly Palladium makes a real thing of signing their books if you're at a con, it's a nice thing they do where they'll pass them around the whole staff present. The Mechanoid Trilogy is honestly really interesting for when it came out. I don't know if it's the first metaplot in a game, but it's close to it, but it's actually done in an interesting way where you could make it into a long multigenerational serial. But it's focused in ways few later Palladium games would be and is really a neat little passion project with a lot more thought put into the setting than you'd expect. It still has some of the systemic issues that would plague Palladium games for decades thereafter, but it's honestly just full of interesting ideas with very little filter. A lot of what would be foibles in later books are pretty excusable this early on.
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Dec 16, 2015 00:41
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MalcolmSheppard posted:At a used bookstore I found a copy of the Mechanoids Trilogy. It was 8 bucks, so I bought it. On the train home? Found out it was signed. Neat! It's kind of interesting and sad to compare that to how he's apparently treated his business associates and freelancers and such. But it also makes it clearer as to how he built up such a... fanatical fanbase during the late 80s and 90s too.
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Dec 16, 2015 00:51
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Asimo posted:This reminds me of something Kevin does, or at least did back in the day back when I was a teenager and actually gave a gently caress about Rifts. The internet wasn't really around and the local bookstores didn't carry RPG stuff much, so I wound up ordering three or four books at a time once or twice a year, and it'd always come with a glowing thank you note, one or more of the books would be signed, and sometimes there'd be a t-shirt or baseball cap or whatever merchandise they had lying around thrown in for free. Yeah. I have a warm glowey, too. When I was in a phase of deep confusion in my life, I subscribed to the Rifter with some sort of 'pay a bunch of money up front, receive this magazine for several years' kind of deal. And bought the American Glitterboy poster. Maybe it was a reward I got to pick? I don't remember the details. I read it as it was delivered for a while, until something or other in it kind of just annoyed me with being too low rent. It might have been a poser-generated image, because I was in a grad program for digital art creation, and after having to make your own models, the credit kids who used poser got for filling a deviantart account with what amounted to photos of their dolls really irritated me. Anyway, I had to move from Texas to Seattle, and thought 'what the hell, Palladium is good people, I don't want the rifter, but they can keep the balance of the money as a thank you for my misspent youth'. I'm staying with my parents for a couple months looking for my own place. The Rifter shows up. "Huh. That's odd. I guess that's because of mail forwarding?" I move into a condo. The Rifter shows up. It comes with a notice that my address changed and please update it with Palladium. I do nothing. I sell the condo and move into a house in a different city. Time passes. I receive a strange box one day that's very heavy! It's something like 4-6 issues of the Rifter that I'd missed. There is a note included. It says 'please, we don't want you to miss even a single issue--you paid for this and want you to feel like you got your money's worth'. It's friendly and warm, and seems like it may have been written on the spot just to me, even though it's probably a form letter. I rent the house out and move to another city for work. The Rifter shows up. I write 'return to sender' on it and put it back in the mailbox. Feeling a little bit like I yelled at my dog to go away. I haven't got anymore Rifters. Sometimes, when I see a newer one, I wistfully think 'maybe...' Then I thumb through it for a little while. Still. Warm fuzzy feelings over how hard they tried.
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Dec 16, 2015 01:54
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Yeah, honestly Palladium makes a real thing of signing their books if you're at a con, it's a nice thing they do where they'll pass them around the whole staff present. I was just surprised to find it signed at BMV (Toronto used bookstore chain) for 8 bucks, shelved in its tiny gaming section. The Mechanoids feels more like an RPG linked to a specific adventure path, since stories aren't laid out in sequences as much as core scenarios and environments. In terms of its system, I'd stack in favourably against a lot of OSR material. Many of the excesses of later Palladium games aren't present. Characters have small numbers of skills, no attribute increases from skills, and for the most part no multiple attacks. Combat looks deadly if you aren't wearing armour because characters hit each other most of the time, and dodging usually sacrifices your action for the round.
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Dec 16, 2015 10:40
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Asimo posted:This reminds me of something Kevin does, or at least did back in the day back when I was a teenager and actually gave a gently caress about Rifts. The internet wasn't really around and the local bookstores didn't carry RPG stuff much, so I wound up ordering three or four books at a time once or twice a year, and it'd always come with a glowing thank you note, one or more of the books would be signed, and sometimes there'd be a t-shirt or baseball cap or whatever merchandise they had lying around thrown in for free. Yeah, in the late 90s my buddy sent off some fanmail, and in it asked what Toronto was like Post-Rifts. Kev sent back about 20 pages on how Lazlo is actually built on Toronto, about how the CN Tower is still standing because it's on a major Ley Line, and a bunch of other details. I don't think the info has ever shown up in any of the books, but it's all in Kev's head.
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Dec 16, 2015 22:27
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JohnnyCanuck posted:Yeah, in the late 90s my buddy sent off some fanmail, and in it asked what Toronto was like Post-Rifts.
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Dec 16, 2015 22:56
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Man, this thread is like hanging a bottle of vintage wine in front of a wino. My name is shades of eternity and I'm a recovering rifts addict. Like pretty much everybody whom got seduced by it in the 90s, I enjoyed the gonzo and the sheer creativity of the world. Hell, I might still be a mod there for all I know. but while nowhere near as bad as some people, I tried to write a book for them. Which one? Rifts Africa 2. to explain my disdain for the original rifts africa, I wrote a blog post that compiled it. http://breadthofpopsanity.blogspot.ca/2015/07/rifts-rpg-africa-rant.html I wrote a manuscript sent it in and it was accepted (yay) I even had a sequel book called Africa Mojo based on my research on magical traditions and superstitions of Africa. A year later it was rejected after being accepted...so yeah not amused to put it mildly. Shortly afterwards, the Bill Coffin incident occurred, and I pretty much gave up on them, running from game to game to get different gaming experiences to this day. However, I still got a soft spot for a game that has a super-intelligent toaster of a mastermind, power armour for whales, and certain armour called the ng mobile gun (which is the perfect symbol for rifts)  tell me I'm wrong :p. edit: one last thing. IF anybody has seen a let's play of the rifts n-guage game online, I'd love to see it. 
shades of eternity fucked around with this message at 03:46 on Dec 17, 2015 |
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Dec 17, 2015 03:36
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MalcolmSheppard posted:The Mechanoids feels more like an RPG linked to a specific adventure path, since stories aren't laid out in sequences as much as core scenarios and environments. In terms of its system, I'd stack in favourably against a lot of OSR material. Many of the excesses of later Palladium games aren't present. Characters have small numbers of skills, no attribute increases from skills, and for the most part no multiple attacks. Combat looks deadly if you aren't wearing armour because characters hit each other most of the time, and dodging usually sacrifices your action for the round. Yeah. The main immediate issues I'd have with it is that it's possible (and actually not all that unlikely in Book 1) to roll a character that doesn't qualify for any class, and also that skill percentages are extremely low by modern standards. You tend not to have even odds of succeeding at a skill until around level 7... in a game that only goes to 13. I imagine this is chiefly inspired by the abysmal odds faced by the AD&D thief, but it's hard to say for certain.
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Dec 17, 2015 09:14
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Nostalgia4ColdWar Your stuff is fantastic. compile it, rename everything, cleanup the system and put it up for release. It's better then the material it was originally based on. A tentative name if you need one is tearzone (as in dimensional tears, although it could go the other way for your pcs. :p)
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Dec 17, 2015 13:59
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The OP has been updated with links to the newer F&F Rifts reviews, as well as a link to inklesspen's site for those who don't have archives to read the older ones. At some point I feel I need to update it with the state of things regarding Robotech RPG Tactics, because that's such a cluster, but I don't know if I have the time right now.JohnnyCanuck posted:Kev sent back about 20 pages on how Lazlo is actually built on Toronto, about how the CN Tower is still standing because it's on a major Ley Line, and a bunch of other details. I don't think the info has ever shown up in any of the books, but it's all in Kev's head. Yeah, it's weird because if anything, Lazlo should be a central PC hub, and it's a vital and very important location in the setting, but it's never been written up! It's crazy. Rifts World Book I Don't Feel Like Looking Up: Canada has some details on the region surrounding it, but Lazlo has never been touched that I'm aware of. shades of eternity posted:Rifts Africa 2. Yeah, Africa is easily one of the worst Rifts books. I mean, a lot of that shows in the "Gathering of Heroes" section which has American, German, and Chinese heroes, but no African heroes! You'd think they'd have had a shorter walk, at least! But then, Rifts tends to idealize native populations in general but rarely ever gives them a face. "Oh, these guys are nice, so none of them really matter enough to mention."
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Dec 21, 2015 01:11
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It idealizes immigrants even more, considering there's a ubiquitous 'miscellaneous peaceful D-Bee' presence throughout the world. It also idealizes long range missiles and lasers.
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Dec 21, 2015 19:29
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http://breadthofpopsanity.blogspot.ca/2015/08/rifts-siege-on-tolkeen-analysis.html Throwing up my siege of Tolkeen rant for obvious reasons.
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Dec 24, 2015 13:20
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shades of eternity posted:http://breadthofpopsanity.blogspot.ca/2015/08/rifts-siege-on-tolkeen-analysis.html Two things also come to mind that have been brought up by Bill Coffin himself regarding Siege of Tolkeen. Even though he wrote a lot of it, he was never a big fan of the idea; Coffin was a guy who liked Palladium Fantasy first and foremost and never really clicked with Rifts, and didn't feel he had enough passion or investment for the project. So even from the start, you have one of the writers who didn't think it was a great idea in the first place and admitted it wasn't the project for him. The first thing is just tactics. You have to invent reasons for the Coalition and Tolkeen to have a stand-up war. There's not much reason otherwise why Coalition can't just lob cruise missiles or do airstrikes to just bombard Tolkeen. They don't even need to draw on their nuclear arsenal, but they could. Similarly, there's not a lot of reason Tolkeen couldn't teleport in assassins or suicide bombers into Prosek's location once they divine it and blow him to holy hell, unless the Vanguard (that's a secret society of pro-Coalition mages) manage to keep an anti-magic field up around him in total secrecy 24/7. The second thing is the themes. Until Siege of Tolkeen, there's not a strong metaplot in the game; every disaster in Rifts is a potential disaster. The Mechanoids have just touched down and it's up to the PCs to fight them off and close the gate. The Four Horsemen have landed but there's enough time for the PCs to stop them and prevent them from forming into the Apocalypse Beast. The gargoyles are poised to take over Europe, but maybe the PCs can turn the tide. Rifts is a game where disaster is always looming on the horizon ready for the PCs to stop. But Siege of Tolkeen creates a disaster that not only can the PCs not stop (influence or soften, maybe, but not stop), but it reduces them to bit players in that conflict, and it works against the way Rifts had been written up until that point. Worse yet, it mostly just returns the game to the status quo as you mentioned. Tolkeen hardly mattered before, and it just dials back the Coalition military to the troop levels they were at before Coalition War Campaign. If CJ Carella had been involved, I'm sure a lot of the abandoned threads in Rifts Mercenaries would have been picked up for that and you would have seen a much larger role for established military companies that just gets abandoned. Larsen's Brigade should be a huge, huge player, but it it... arrives too late from what I recall? And there are obvious hooks for a number of the other companies to finally throw them into one big conflict and really get to tear through the material in that book, but alas.
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Dec 24, 2015 17:55
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I agree with this to an extent, but I think the intention is to replace CS vs Tolkeen, which is, as you've pointed out, kind of untenable as a 'war' with CS vs CS(quebec). CS vs Tolkeen is already redundant with federation of magic, except that the federation kind of being disorganized makes more sense, because then you don't have to write an excuse for why there's no straightforward conflict. But by blowing Tolkeen up, sure, you move the narrative, but if you just take it from the point of view of what happens afterwards, you have the CS and Free Quebec in a standoff that might erupt at any time. And they *are* a suitable adversary. They even off the side-benefit of making glitter-boys balanced in a plot involving CS suspicion and Quebec war machine stuff--making all the variable lasers and laser-proof armor stuff that was formerly kind of weird a sensical thing to pervade the tech in the region. CS won't commit to a full blown invasion, because Fed of magic and whatever. Free Quebec is too busy dealing with splugorth raiding and xiticix or whatever. Pretend Tolkeen never was a town that really existed in the material, and instead was always a recently destroyed enclave of people/DBs working together in a positive way. Now NA is exactly what you're talking about--a disaster area where the PCs have emergencies they have to deal with, and a potential conflict between the two great human powers in the region that might cripple them both and open the way for a tide of monsters to suck on the front of your YT model freighter cockpit. so to speak I think treating all the tolkeen stuff as a rewrite of the base setting is great. But to your point, it means that there's a bunch of material both before and during the conflict that becomes a complete wank. Because who wants to revisit this event, when the entire point was that it sets up what happens after? Kevin's editing process seems to take place in actual roleplaying sessions spread out over years. Books probably get delayed because PCs won't 'do what they're supposed to' and have to be passively-aggressively punished.
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Dec 24, 2015 18:51
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I've never played a Palladium game, but I'm excited about the Savage Worlds Rifts conversion. However, I haven't heard any news, and I'm considering getting the core for Rifts so I can get a feel for the game. Should I just wait for the better version which may never come, or should I play a system I know may be too much for me?
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Jan 2, 2016 02:58
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Depends on how much you're influenced by first impressions and how much you care about layout, writing quality and mechanics. There's an energy to the original, but that's really all its got going for it.
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Jan 2, 2016 03:22
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Hiro Protagonist posted:I've never played a Palladium game, but I'm excited about the Savage Worlds Rifts conversion. However, I haven't heard any news, and I'm considering getting the core for Rifts so I can get a feel for the game. Should I just wait for the better version which may never come, or should I play a system I know may be too much for me? I wouldn't say "no", but bear in mind you're paying for an artifact or the loose setting material than anything too functional. Which isn't to say it doesn't function at all, but bear in mind it's based on systems circa 1986 where everything is bullet spongy, starting characters are only marginally competent at anything that doesn't involve shooting people or casting spells, and balance? Forget about balance entirely. But if you want some rad '90s art and an old lady providing a guide to the setting, that's where you'll find it. All that in mind, you can easily find the original version (not Rifts Ultimate Edition, but the original softcover) for under $10 with shipping at a online bookseller. A lot of the early supplements you can find for $5-10 as well because they've been overprinted as gently caress because Palladium's a little buggy about making sure their books stay in print. If you're going for the old, cheap books, the main supplement I'd recommend in addition to the core is the Sourcebook (not the revised edition). Most other books quickly get pretty tangential and are large alternate regions or settings. The Ultimate Edition will generally run you retail - it's better than the original core, but mainly by degrees. If you want the original Rifts experience circa 1990, just a copy of the softcover core and the first sourcebook will do. If you don't mind a very snarky summary, you can find the F&F writeups done by occamsnailfile and I in the OP instead. If you don't have archives, you can find them mirrored at Inklesspen's site. Those might give some idea of what you'd like of the early books, most of which are pretty cheap for the above reasons - we've done about the first seventeen books that were released at this point. Inklesspen's site is probably better, though a few of the newest reviews are only on the forums. Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Jan 2, 2016 |
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Jan 2, 2016 03:54
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I like Nightbane so much that I at least wanted to go through the process of generating a character, but I found it almost impossible. Layout isn't usually something brought up in reviews as a factor that saves or sinks a game, but it had so many special case rules wedged in-between parts of the character creation process that I gave up in frustration. By the way, where can I read Carella throwing shade at Palladium?
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Jan 2, 2016 04:55
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Halloween Jack posted:I like Nightbane so much that I at least wanted to go through the process of generating a character, but I found it almost impossible. Layout isn't usually something brought up in reviews as a factor that saves or sinks a game, but it had so many special case rules wedged in-between parts of the character creation process that I gave up in frustration. Don't forget the missing tables that other tables reference!
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Jan 2, 2016 05:06
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Halloween Jack posted:I like Nightbane so much that I at least wanted to go through the process of generating a character, but I found it almost impossible. Layout isn't usually something brought up in reviews as a factor that saves or sinks a game, but it had so many special case rules wedged in-between parts of the character creation process that I gave up in frustration. It's in this classic rpg.net thread (the same one with the infamous Bill Coffin posts), but I dug up the relevant posts so you don't have to dig through 20 or so pages of posts to find them, since his appearance in the thread is pretty brief. Bill Coffin posted:The thing with BTS [Beyond the Supernatural - ARB], though, is that it needs an angle, and I'm not sure Kevin has one in mind. I could be totally off the mark on this, naturally, but it seems to me that he just doesn't know where to take the game. The grim and gritty horror angle is already being done beter than Palladium can muster (Call of Cthulu). White wolf has covered a lot of popular monster genres so successfully that it would take a work of genius to revisit subject matter such as vampires, werewolves, ghosts, etc. And right now, I don't think Palladium has that in it. I think CJ Carella does, and his work has proved that on a number of occassions, and I think that also might be Kevin's problem. Somebody on this thread wondered if Kevin is a jealous man. I don't know about jealous, but he is definitely insecure, and I think it always bugged him how Nightbane (another CJ hit) really grabbed people while BTS didnt. Kevin used to gripe about how CJ didn't have an original idea in his head, but that just seemed like sour grapes to me. That CJ has since come out with a string of great horror games since he left Palladium only furthers my point. Elliott posted:I actually liked overpowered tech in CJ Carella's books the best. Because I think he designed the weapon damages and armor damages for faster combat, He saw that 3d6 vs 80 MDC would take a long time, so he made it 1d4x10 or 1d6x10. CJ Carella posted:Pretty much. When I started designing Rifts books, I had to grapple with the fundamental inconsistencies of the game. It made no sense to me that a man-portable weapon did the same (or more) damage than a vehicle mounted one. If a Boom Gun was so badass, why didn't some bright boy mount one in a tank turret, mated it to an autoloader, and turned it into a Boom Machinegun? So starting with Mercenaries (which by the way, was my personal homage to David Drake's Hammer's Slammers series), I tried to redress that discrepancy. It made a lot of people unhappy, of course, both inside and outside the company. Oh, well... Steve Conan Trustrum posted:CJ points out one of the biggest problems that was.is inherent to Palladium's primary problems: their books are so full of inconsistencies and contradictions that the various writers working on any given product line has to try to work within the limitations created by those problems, which usually led to a power creep. CJ Carella posted:Yup. And if you try to actually point out the inconsistencies, instead of working around them (as subtly as you can, btw), it pisses off the Powers That Be. The emperor, you see, is always fully clothed, and you'd better not say otherwise. The Formless One posted:Hey CJ, since you seem to be following the thread at least a bit, have you seen any of the new books for Nightbane to come out? Shadows of Light and Through the Glass Darkly? CJ Carella posted:I haven't gotten my hands on Shadows of Light (I feel a degree of reluctance to put any money in the company, to be honest). I've looked through TtGD: liked the magic ideas (another attempt to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, IMHO), but thought the whole stupid moral relativism crap that the author injected at the end debased the world and was a rather annoying attempt to make his mark by pissing all over someone else's work. Steve Conan Trustrum posted:Bill speaks the truth. Even if you think your criticism is designed to help Palladium and is given with the best of intentions, Kevin will see it as an attempt to torpedo his products and will send you the industry's equivalent of a Dear John. Trust me on this. CJ Carella posted:Me three.
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Jan 2, 2016 12:32
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yup Part of the reason I did my own rpg was to see if there was a way to get the spirit of Rifts without the baggage (referring to crunch, fluff and behind the scenes). Most of us (ex) fanboys seem to shout the mantra, hate the rules, love the world, so I attempted to make a world that didn't pull on the issues (and more importantly copyright infringement) of Rifts. Kevin was terrified of the ogl, so I wanted to see if mating the concept of rifts with d20 would be marketable. The jury's still out on that one, but here's a link for your own entertainment. https://www.drevrpg.com There is a ton of material, but here's hoping it helps you guys with your "rifts itch" :p. Any feedback would be most helpful. 
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Jan 2, 2016 14:35
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shades of eternity posted:Kevin was terrified of the ogl, so I wanted to see if mating the concept of rifts with d20 would be marketable. Well, honestly, a 1500+ page d20 rpg is pretty feedback-proof at this point; most RPG fans will have good idea if they want that sort of thing or not. Really what it comes down to is whether or not you'd want to invest in the work to take it to (digital) market - the covers are probably the first thing I'd bring up, you'd really want to either get better art or design on them if you'd want to catch readers' eyes. Beyond that, you'd probably want a professional editor or layout person, but that's probably not practical cost-wise for the size of the books and what you'd make back. The d20 market is pretty thick with material and standing out as a independent d20 RPG that isn't tied to Pathfinder and doesn't have a really unique take on the system is an uphill fight, I think. I do hope you find folks who enjoy it, and I hope you get to play and enjoy it as an obvious labor of love, but conventional d20 games are both polarizing and plentiful. Most of my commentary would go to the core of d20 itself, which is like pulling from the bottom of a house of cards if you've written that much material. Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Jan 2, 2016 |
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Jan 2, 2016 19:55
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My first recommendation is not to make it D20. You can have a d20-based resolution mechanic, sure, but the hobby has mostly moved on from D20 as a brand. To too many people it instantly signals that your product is shovelware, or that you're trying to ride a bubble that burst a decade ago. Consider that the last two attempts to be the Next Big Thing in gaming that I know of (Fyxt and Genesys) both used D20 or something very similar.quote:Coalition of the Living against the Fallen Lords in the Necromantic Wars quote:Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, and your role at The Rock’s School of Science? Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Jan 2, 2016 |
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Jan 2, 2016 23:34
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No problem. I think it was to give its own feel, tried to figure out how it work, did a ton of research and didn't realize how big it was until it's complete. Honestly, it took a long time and many missteps and I pretty much completed the core a month ago: The Book of progress - or how to do mechanical life forms (M.L.F.s) in my game. I'm proud of the work, but I deliberately stuck to public domain material knowing it was most likely for serenity then the next big thing. We did a game at rpglory's twitch/youtube channel so you can see how it's played, if you want. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUKMRLV2Ksg All it does it confirm the need for a starter set if I decide to continue it. If I ever find a system that doesn't feel like jumping on a bandwagon because I really don't to have this same problem again, I'll consider it, but with 5e's schrodinger game licence, I'm wary of converting it to that. what system would work best for a similar feel? shades of eternity fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Jan 3, 2016 |
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Jan 3, 2016 01:04
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I'm not an expert on copyright law like Kevin Siembieda, but as far as I know, you can't copyright game mechanics, only text and specific terms. Before the OGL was a twinkle in WotC 's eye, there were lots of published, for-profit games out there that were more or less ripoffs of other games. Hell, the Palladium house system started as one of the first wave of systems that were "D&D but fixed" that went on to be universal, multi genre rules. So I don't know if you NEED a free premade system.
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Jan 3, 2016 01:17
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with the 5e srd finally dropping, how feasible would it be to make a rifts-inspired game using that material? mostly curious before I jump into yet another insane project.
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Jan 15, 2016 23:01
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Well, it's a pretty generic D&D game, so it doesn't have any of the multi-genre tools that came out of d20 AFAIK. You'd be having to do a lot of work regarding things like rules for technology and whatnot. It also still has a lot of the drawbacks of d20 (that is, magic dominates over martial by mid-to-high levels, a lot of things are "balanced by feels", etc.). It's more elegant than d20 but you can't rely on it to cover edge cases without GM rulings like d20 generally did. I would look at it and make your own judgements, but it's not really a generalized system; whether or not d20 was is another story, but it'd require a fair deal of hammering to get what you want out of it.
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Jan 16, 2016 12:24
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I've been thinking about giving it a go in FATE, which let's me drop out the worst of the rules and use aspects and stunts to better define a character. But I think MDC is a terrible concept and am going to drop entirely. The only thing I have found lacking so far is gear in FATE, but if my players really want that then I will figure something out.
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Jan 16, 2016 15:46
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Gear could just be a stunt or mega-stunt where it's relevant. The ones I've made below are a little weaker than your average stunt, since they'd be intended to just be small brand bonuses on top of whatever their damage rating would be.
TR-001 Titan Combat Robot Aspects
Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Jan 16, 2016 |
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Jan 16, 2016 16:48
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drat you're good. Stunts are something I really struggle with
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Jan 16, 2016 18:31
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shades of eternity posted:with the 5e srd finally dropping, how feasible would it be to make a rifts-inspired game using that material? By the by, I haven't had time to go through the whole thing, but I've been trying to set aside some time here and there to go through Dark Revelations. The first thing I want to say is that you have a pretty solid, succinct first chapter that explains the premise of the setting and gives the players (as it's a player's guide) as much setting as they need to know to play. The first thing I want to criticize is in character creation. You sandwich rules for aging, carrying capacity, and tactical movement in between "generating ability scores" and picking a race. Why is that necessary? Oh, and alignment. Why do you need nine-point alignment at all? The second thing I have to criticize is that this is a D20 game, so character creation involves picking a race from a list that includes, elf, dwarf, human, and some other stuff. I'm sorry, but you really, really, really, really, really, really shouldn't do this. I can't emphasize enough how stultifying it is to crack open yet another D20 fantasy game and find yet another Races chapter with Dwarf, Elf, Human, plus a couple novel races. In fact, fantasy heartbreakers have been using the model of "Humans plus Tolkien races plus some new ones to show that we're different" since at least 1990. Rifts doesn't do that--it's class based and racial classes are a notable feature of the game--so why should you? The hardest thing when you're developing something under the D20 label is not making a bunch of assumptions that are built into the default D20 model. If you look at the D20 games that have been memorable and still have a fanbase after the collapse of the D20 bubble, like Mutants & Masterminds and Spycraft, the first thing you notice is that they hacked the system to death and made games that, ultimately, aren't even compatible with D&D 3rd edition.
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Jan 16, 2016 19:27
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Demon_Corsair posted:drat you're good. Stunts are something I really struggle with I still struggle, but I've been practicing, at least. Stunts are kind of a place you can go sideways and do the complicated bits of design you otherwise don't see in Fate's core rules. Stuff like Atomic Robo and Breakfast Cult are my standout examples for good stunt design and ideas, but I still haven't explored Fate implementations extensively. If you want, I could share some of the preliminary ideas I put together for Rifts skill modes and the like. Warning: it's kinda dumb! But I did write some.
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Jan 17, 2016 00:20
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I still struggle, but I've been practicing, at least. Stunts are kind of a place you can go sideways and do the complicated bits of design you otherwise don't see in Fate's core rules. Stuff like Atomic Robo and Breakfast Cult are my standout examples for good stunt design and ideas, but I still haven't explored Fate implementations extensively. I have been looking at inverse world fae for my inspiration. I would love to see what you got.
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Jan 17, 2016 05:21
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So I still get the weekly newsletter because I'm way too lazy to unsubscribe:quote:NEWS! Rifts® Savage Worlds RPG voted Most Anticipated RPG of 2016
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Jan 17, 2016 06:58
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Demon_Corsair posted:I have been looking at inverse world fae for my inspiration. This is reliant on being familiar with Atomic Robo, but here you go.
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Jan 18, 2016 00:12
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Alien Rope Burn posted:This is reliant on being familiar with Atomic Robo, but here you go. I like it. I was planning on keeping the standard AR skill list though. I think most OCC's and RCC's could be covered by modes of existing skills. What I have been struggling with is how to make a general purpose spell caster like the Ley Line Walker. I could make one generic magic skill that lets you do all 4 actions, but that is kind of boring.
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Jan 19, 2016 16:36
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Sorry to take so long to respond, but was feeling sick and wanted time to compose my thoughts. If this comes off at all defensive, I apologize in advance. This is exactly the feedback I wanted. Why I picked d20 was simple. It was the first system I was aware of with an ogl licence. Palladium was noctoriously litigation happy and wanted to make sure my butt was covered. I spent way too long on the darm thing and now am trying to see if it's feasible to continue with it now that the core of the system is completed. As for differences between both Rifts and d20. I wrote a series of blog entries that might help For d20 http://www.drevrpg.com/2015/01/differences-from-d20-games.html For Rifts http://www.drevrpg.com/2015/01/rifting-back-through-time.html For starters, I'm glad you enjoyed the first chapter. Need clarification for the following: Halloween Jack posted:The first thing I want to criticize is in character creation. You sandwich rules for aging, carrying capacity, and tactical movement in between "generating ability scores" and picking a race. Why is that necessary? Oh, and alignment. Why do you need nine-point alignment at all? Can I confirm that your querry is on location in the book or unecessary rules? If the former, where would it fit better? As for the carrying capacity was completely redone as a formula (as well as an alternative version that uses slots in the adventure guide that might be more to your liking) Alignment is merely shorthand for ease of use and to act as a bridge for potential consumers whom come in using d20. That's pretty much all the effect it has on the game. However the one that perplexes me is the following quote: Halloween Jack posted:The second thing I have to criticize is that this is a D20 game, so character creation involves picking a race from a list that includes, elf, dwarf, human, and some other stuff. I'm sorry, but you really, really, really, really, really, really shouldn't do this. I can't emphasize enough how stultifying it is to crack open yet another D20 fantasy game and find yet another Races chapter with Dwarf, Elf, Human, plus a couple novel races. In fact, fantasy heartbreakers have been using the model of "Humans plus Tolkien races plus some new ones to show that we're different" since at least 1990. Rifts doesn't do that--it's class based and racial classes are a notable feature of the game--so why should you? 1. They used their own fantasy world as a basis, but they included their stock races in Rifts conversion. 2. Elves and Dwarves exist in surprising prominence in Rifts. Besides being included in the rifts conversion guide, the tattoo man rules in Atlantis allow elves as the only other races. plus there are many, many npcs scattered throughout Rifts that are elves and dwarves. http://www.drevrpg.com/p/current-races-classes-and-paths.html 3. I have 29 separate races (38 if you include the variations of robotic frames). Most are of my own creation and usually have a unique spin of some sort. Combine that with the templates available and there is a ton of customization to be had by all. Ultimately If I decide to do any proprietary system, it will most likely be an expansion on the skill montage system, something that developed as a response of a need to have a mechanical way to do crazy work projects with an xp guage. http://www.drevrpg.com/2015/02/rules-spotlight-skill-montage.html Thanks again for the feedback.
shades of eternity fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Jan 19, 2016 |
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Jan 19, 2016 19:15
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Personally, my favourite race is the Harlowes. If you haven't read up on them yet everyone, they're magically created bird-women. They grow to look like a 21 year old woman "with exaggerated female characteristics" within two to four weeks of their birth. Why do they grow so quickly? Well, their demon masters needed the new children to breed really quickly after the old ones were used up. A Harlowe can only give birth once, you see. In other words, there's a race of bird-women who exist only as pedophilia bait and as utterly disposable rape once and throw away objects by their demon masters. What the gently caress dude? That's incredibly hosed up, even by RPG standards. Let me guess, they become 21 so quickly because you think women over 21 in real life are completely used up and horrible. gently caress off, you gross piece of poo poo.
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Jan 20, 2016 09:06
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