Borg Heritage Distinction
I've hit a point in the process here where I've realized I'm not going to get very far with this working on my own. I only had a tangential exposure to RIFTS. Enough to see the cool the setting contains, but not enough to be able to really describe character types with any confidence. This of course is only the first part of the conversion. In addition to creating the Heritage distinctions, I also would need to create several powers from scratch, and a few others need a fair bit of modification. But by far the most important change to my mind is the Values. The ones in the Smallville RPG work just fine for a Superhero Teen Drama, but they don't really capture the feel of the Rifts setting very well. If in the future I find someone who's had greater exposure to RIFTS, I'm open to working on this project again, but I've too many projects right now.
So for now I'm going to post what I have, and will leave it at that for the time being.
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I started off by making each OCC I ran into a separate Heritage Distinction, but in the end realized that, as with many things in RIFTS, it was fairly easy to condense things without watering them down too much. The difference between the different robot pilot OCCs is what large humanoid robot they've been trained to use, the difference between the 'borg types is the amount of their body they've replaced, and these are the kinds of things easily handled through power and gear selection, so I'm going with a more generalized model here.
'Borg Heritage
Description: Whether replacing a bum leg to be better able to walk, or doing a full conversion to brain-in-a-jar-in-a-robot, man has been stretching the limits of the power a prosthesis could grant them. Soldiers, law enforcers, warriors, and those who want to become one of those, frequently choose some level of the 'borg conversion to give them an edge over the killers, enemy soldiers, and otherworldly creatures they face in their line of work. This has granted them abilities beyond the scope of normal men, but at the price of their very humanity.
D4:
D8:
D12: Earn a Plot Point when you Choose to act without compassion or remorse.
Connected Abilities: Super Senses, Super Strength, Super Speed, Invulnerability, Regeneration, Technopathy, Blast, Claws
Limits: Electricity
Notes: The OCC this is based on generally has weaponry (blades, guns, etc) built into the cyborg pieces. This would most likely be represented by modifying the descriptor assigned to the Blast power. Sonic attacks, beam weapons, and even projectile based weapons could all be accounted for in this fashion.
I'll be posting these every day or so for a couple weeks. I only got through the Men of Combat section of the book before stopping. Adventurers and Scholars are best just written straight (as they by definition have no special abilities), though were I to have continued I'd have created heritage distinctions for the magic users and other critters.
So for now I'm going to post what I have, and will leave it at that for the time being.
************************************
I started off by making each OCC I ran into a separate Heritage Distinction, but in the end realized that, as with many things in RIFTS, it was fairly easy to condense things without watering them down too much. The difference between the different robot pilot OCCs is what large humanoid robot they've been trained to use, the difference between the 'borg types is the amount of their body they've replaced, and these are the kinds of things easily handled through power and gear selection, so I'm going with a more generalized model here.
'Borg Heritage
Description: Whether replacing a bum leg to be better able to walk, or doing a full conversion to brain-in-a-jar-in-a-robot, man has been stretching the limits of the power a prosthesis could grant them. Soldiers, law enforcers, warriors, and those who want to become one of those, frequently choose some level of the 'borg conversion to give them an edge over the killers, enemy soldiers, and otherworldly creatures they face in their line of work. This has granted them abilities beyond the scope of normal men, but at the price of their very humanity.
D4:
D8:
D12: Earn a Plot Point when you Choose to act without compassion or remorse.
Connected Abilities: Super Senses, Super Strength, Super Speed, Invulnerability, Regeneration, Technopathy, Blast, Claws
Limits: Electricity
Notes: The OCC this is based on generally has weaponry (blades, guns, etc) built into the cyborg pieces. This would most likely be represented by modifying the descriptor assigned to the Blast power. Sonic attacks, beam weapons, and even projectile based weapons could all be accounted for in this fashion.
I'll be posting these every day or so for a couple weeks. I only got through the Men of Combat section of the book before stopping. Adventurers and Scholars are best just written straight (as they by definition have no special abilities), though were I to have continued I'd have created heritage distinctions for the magic users and other critters.