more rifts ramblings
This post is just random ramblings about the early nineties role-playing game Rifts. Please comment on this post with your experiences with Palladium games.
I have been playing Rifts the last couple of weeks with two of my friends. I've been game mastering, which is a lot of fun, but I'd much rather be a player. Yesterday I ran the first half the long adventure in the back of Rifts Sourcebook One. It was a lot of fun and I'd love to run it again when I'm back in America this summer. I will make some characters that can handle the adventure.
I'm not sure why I really like Rifts. I'm sure a lot of the reason I like it nostalgia. It's one of the first role-playing games I bought right when it came out. I remember seeing the poster in my gaming store of the amazing cover art and really wanting to play it. I also remember my Aunt finding the book and being really offended by the cover. I remember her saying it was sexist and wrong. I felt really embarrassed and was careful not to show the book to any adults from that point on.
I was also a part of a Rifts gaming group at Games Plus in Woodinville with a few friends of mine. We would mix in a lot of the TMNT and Robotech stuff. We would play for hours every week but I can barely remember any of the adventures. I remember one adventure when we were trapped in a parking garage in a gun fight. The game was really intense even though nothing really happened. I remember another time we played the traps adventure from the TMNT Adventures book. It was awesome, everyone had to try and figure out a trap or have their character killed. There were a bunch of adventures where we just flew around in space and fought Robotech enemies.
I started playing Rifts again last year and it was the first time I read through the book as an adult. The first thing that struck me was how strangely written it is. The author, Kevin Siembieda, is constantly interjecting his own opinions and feelings about the rules in the writing. The combat rules are very hard to follow and a lot of the rules weren't concretely laid out. I found looking through the Rifts Ultimate Edition and the Game Master Guide that there are combat rule variations that change the game a lot. I read through them and created a quick reference guide that combines the rule variations. I'm working on the same thing for the magic and psionics rules.
One thing I liked about Rifts when I was a kid was it's open ended nature of the world. Kevin Siembieda keeps on reminding the player that they can do whatever they want. There is a section in the rules about throwing away rules that you don't like and making new rules. They clearly want the players to have fun.
I have been playing Rifts the last couple of weeks with two of my friends. I've been game mastering, which is a lot of fun, but I'd much rather be a player. Yesterday I ran the first half the long adventure in the back of Rifts Sourcebook One. It was a lot of fun and I'd love to run it again when I'm back in America this summer. I will make some characters that can handle the adventure.
I'm not sure why I really like Rifts. I'm sure a lot of the reason I like it nostalgia. It's one of the first role-playing games I bought right when it came out. I remember seeing the poster in my gaming store of the amazing cover art and really wanting to play it. I also remember my Aunt finding the book and being really offended by the cover. I remember her saying it was sexist and wrong. I felt really embarrassed and was careful not to show the book to any adults from that point on.
I was also a part of a Rifts gaming group at Games Plus in Woodinville with a few friends of mine. We would mix in a lot of the TMNT and Robotech stuff. We would play for hours every week but I can barely remember any of the adventures. I remember one adventure when we were trapped in a parking garage in a gun fight. The game was really intense even though nothing really happened. I remember another time we played the traps adventure from the TMNT Adventures book. It was awesome, everyone had to try and figure out a trap or have their character killed. There were a bunch of adventures where we just flew around in space and fought Robotech enemies.
I started playing Rifts again last year and it was the first time I read through the book as an adult. The first thing that struck me was how strangely written it is. The author, Kevin Siembieda, is constantly interjecting his own opinions and feelings about the rules in the writing. The combat rules are very hard to follow and a lot of the rules weren't concretely laid out. I found looking through the Rifts Ultimate Edition and the Game Master Guide that there are combat rule variations that change the game a lot. I read through them and created a quick reference guide that combines the rule variations. I'm working on the same thing for the magic and psionics rules.
One thing I liked about Rifts when I was a kid was it's open ended nature of the world. Kevin Siembieda keeps on reminding the player that they can do whatever they want. There is a section in the rules about throwing away rules that you don't like and making new rules. They clearly want the players to have fun.