How Many Sourcebooks is Enough?

Incriptus · Unread post by **Incriptus** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 4:02 am

Not every campaign needs everybook . . . but you need every book to play any campaign.

I've played several varied Rifts games, primarily we stick with America, we like it best. So any american source book is fair game. . . and that is how alot of people feel. Rifts @## end of the world that you'll never go to #8 is a bit over kill.

On the other hand i've played a Japan campaign, I'm currently running a Phase World campaign with a heavy emphasis on the splugorth. I set of the main plot to a russian campaign that never saw the light of day. One of my . . .um . . . campaigns on hold was going to include a european tour. Lets just say that those campaigns came a bit easier since I owned all of those books.

I know alot of elitist snobs will tell you that reading an RPG isn't like reading a real book, but just reading a book can be fun . . . and get the imagination going, even if it'll never be played out.

Dunia · Unread post by **Dunia** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 4:43 am

I have the following Books:

Rifts, Unlimited Edition,
Adventure books: (Forbidden Knowledge, Firetown & Tolkeen Crisis, The Vanguard)
World Books: (Canada, Free Quebec, Xiticix Invasion, Vampire Kingdoms)
Sourcebooks: (Aftermath, Shemarrian Nation)
Ordered but not been delivered: (Federation of Magic, Atlantis, Madhaven)

I must admit that I am very new to this game, but I do not see myself buy that many new books in the future as my campaign is basically placed in New Lazlo and the four maniacs...(I mean PCs) have decided to explore Michigan/Canada/Shemarrian Nation and the Eastern Wall.
When I GM I am very fair with allowing most stuff in those books, but some things needs to be tweaked. I mean if a player would like to play a FQ Intelligence Operative -he will either be travelling in disguise and use the PC group as a cover to travel or he is a rouge agent. But this far, I do not have had anyone wanting to play a Vampiric dragon juicer with extensive cybernetic killer implants while tossing spells to the right and left, and to be honest, I dislike all thos MDC monsters/character classes as player characters - I think that personally it is more fun to see the players use wits and smarts instead of "well I have 200 MDC and my armor of Ithan, so I ignore the little punk and shoot him later....".

I mean what can be more fun than when your players have to rely on their wits and luck of the dice than just having a load of MDC + armor + greater runeweapons + whatever?

In another game that I was invited to play in (where I do not longer play, as you will understand) there were (and I kid you not!) (and yes they allowed multiclassing, first for my character then for everyone else):

PC 1: 4-Dimensional Alien Intelligence/Godling/Cosmo Knight with all of the Promethean bonuses and abilities (He was a Godling to Zurvan)
PC 2: Demigod/Chun Tzu multiclassed to Cyberknight and later after I left the group to a Stone Master (whatever they are)
PC 3: True Atlantean Undead Slayer with a Gun-Kata Martial Arts
PC 4: Catyr Phase Adept/Techno Wizard
Me: Elf Saloon Girl/Rogue Scholar

The GM allow anything, that is not as powerful as his character (yes he is PC 1) - do not understand why a GM needs a Charcter of his own in a game. Oh yes, both him and his brother (PC 2) automatically began dating Persian and Aztec Female Gods and were best buddies with the pantheons
The GM/PC 1 managed to kill a V.I. in mexico in three rounds and slew two others within 2 Game sessions, without being seriously hurt. After that, I quit playing with them.
But they used all books, I think they have everything save R.UE. & the books from 2008+ and use them. You may laugh at them, I do.

Balabanto · Unread post by **Balabanto** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 6:26 am

I have all of them. Of course, I've had 17 years to get all of them.

Prince Artemis · Tue Oct 06, 2009 9:24 am

I play a kitchen sink game every saturday night that has now been running for over 10 years (It still amazes me). I'm actually pretty sure there's not a Palladium book that this game hasn't used at some point or another.

Crucible · Unread post by **Crucible** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 2:34 pm

You can never have enough books man.

Dustin Fireblade · Tue Oct 06, 2009 5:46 pm

I have the majority of Rifts books, but if I had to start from scratch knowing the books like I do then it would look something like this:

RMB
RUE
Dark Conversions
Monster's and Animals
World Book's 1,2,10 through 16, 20 through 23 and 26 through 28
Sourcebook 1 and 4
Mercenaries
Merc Ops
Merc Town
Mercenary Adventures
Aliens Unlimited
AU: Galaxy Guide

taalismn · Unread post by **taalismn** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 5:54 pm

Never really liked adventure modules...just keep throwing stuff at me and let me decide what to use and how to use it...

BookWyrm · Unread post by **BookWyrm** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 7:09 pm

IMHO, there is no such thing as too many sourcebooks, as long as the information is relevent.

Tiree · Unread post by **Tiree** » Wed Oct 07, 2009 2:24 pm

I only use 3 books -

Rifts Main Book (Rifts UE is now being used)
Sourcebook 1 (Sourcebook 1 Expanded and Revised is now being used)
World Book 1 Vampire Kingdoms

All the other books are used on a per item basis. If I have them, I use them as inspiration. But if it does not fit my view of the Rifts World, it doesn't get used.

Out of the other books, there has been handful of items that I have liked: Temporal Magic, Tattoo Magic, Triax Equipment, Wilks, etc... some of the metaplots I have completely dropped - Arthur, 4 Horsemen, Mechanoids.

Shark_Force · Unread post by **Shark_Force** » Wed Oct 07, 2009 11:44 pm

i wouldn't consider RUE to full replace RMB, and i would add that conversion book is really handy (if nothing else, for the various monsters; you may not particularly want superheroes or TMNT mutants in your game, but being able to just decide that the shifter summons a worm of taut and sends it after you rather than having to invent some monster out of whole cloth can be handy, and deciding what sort of critter you're likely to run into in the wilderness is likewise useful...)

Crucible · Unread post by **Crucible** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 12:31 am

Shark_Force wrote:i wouldn't consider RUE to full replace RMB, and i would add that conversion book is really handy (if nothing else, for the various monsters; you may not particularly want superheroes or TMNT mutants in your game, but being able to just decide that the shifter summons a worm of taut and sends it after you rather than having to invent some monster out of whole cloth can be handy, and deciding what sort of critter you're likely to run into in the wilderness is likewise useful...)

I still use the Behemoth Explorer from the RMB, but what else in there that you didn't replace, out of curiousity. :-D

Lenwen · Unread post by **Lenwen** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 12:47 am

How many books are enough ?

Even if I had every single thing Palladium has ever put out .. I'd still want more ..

For me personally .. its never enough haha

Dunia · Unread post by **Dunia** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 7:05 am

Though it does appear as if PB feels as if they should put as little information as possible and then tell their fans that "If you want to have the neccessary information, then you must buy these X books as well. Otherwise you are screwed." I understand it from a capitalististic interest you want to sell as many books as possible to every fan, every book sold is income and profit. But I have never played any RPG that does this so obvious.

What I mean, if I buy a main book, I do believe that I will have all neccessary info to play, but not according to PB.

Just two examples after having bought the Unlimited Edition:

Page 101, Elemental Fusionists (Even though they have a disclaimer, to play this class you should have book of magic)
Page 261, Coalition Wpns & Armor PA105 to present. (You have to buy World book 11 to get data on the new armors, even though the RUE is set after the tolkeen war)

So appearantly I need to buy WB 11 just to get the data on the new armors...and BoM to be able to play a class that is in the main book.

mobuttu · Unread post by **mobuttu** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 12:47 pm

Munchkin Slappin GM wrote:Its unfortunenate that it's turned out this way, but putting in all the spells and all the new CS stuff would have made for a huge book. That may not have been to bad, but I think they ultimatelly did the right thing.

I don't. While I can understand why PB did it, I think it's not fair to have to buy new books to complete what appear in the main book. SB and WB should be optional, and not something you need to fill what didn't fit into RUE.

Lenwen · Unread post by **Lenwen** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 1:47 pm

Dunia wrote: So appearantly I need to buy WB 11 just to get the data on the new armors...and BoM to be able to play a class that is in the main book.

Wrong on the account of the BoM .. just to play a class that is in the main book.

You will do just fine with the spells listed in Rue .. for the main book classes that they are available to ..

And as for the armors info .. Thats a no brainer .. I do not understand why you are offended at the way that Palladium wants to sell thier wear's ..

Does Martha Stuwart or Anyone else sell thier Cook books or do they give them away ?

Why is this any different ?

Just because you think you can not play a game with out that information ? Well actually you can play the game of Rifts with out it ..

Imagine .. that ..

Dunia · Unread post by **Dunia** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 2:38 pm

Lenwen wrote:
Dunia wrote: So appearantly I need to buy WB 11 just to get the data on the new armors...and BoM to be able to play a class that is in the main book.

Wrong on the account of the BoM .. just to play a class that is in the main book.

You will do just fine with the spells listed in Rue .. for the main book classes that they are available to ..

And as for the armors info .. Thats a no brainer .. I do not understand why you are offended at the way that Palladium wants to sell thier wear's ..

Does Martha Stuwart or Anyone else sell thier Cook books or do they give them away ?

Why is this any different ?

Just because you think you can not play a game with out that information ? Well actually you can play the game of Rifts with out it ..

Imagine .. that ..

Dear Lenwen,

I did not say that I was offended in the first place, I just said that PB is trying to force their players to buy additional books is quite obvious and I find it a tad bit sad that they do this. I also said that I do understand why they do it, it makes people buy the other books.

But I do not understand what you mean by the Martha Steward example, it is not even related, maybe in your logic it is, but actually it has nothing to do with what I was talking about. If you read my post again and try to understand it and not put your own words among mine, then you will see that what I was complaining about is that they could have removed a picture or added a page with a desc of the new armour that many of the new classes shall have as equipment. Or they could have removed a picture or two (full page) and added some of the spells that the EF should have.

And yes, one can play without that info, but I find it a bit bad judgement on PBs behalf to not disclose all needed info in a main book. For a totally new player of this game, I expect that if I buy a main book - I will not have to look up stuff in other books (some of which might be hard to get, as they might be out of print).

Quite a number of games that I have played with my bofriend over the years disclose all the info needed in a mainbook and then let the buyers decide if they want to buy additional info in other supplements. It is obvious that PB does not do this, that was the reason behind posting my stuff.

I mean I am not interested in most of PBs books as I usually do my own version of the game that I want to have and because my players like that. So If I buy a certain book I do not expect it to be linked to a bunch of other books just to get some information. But that is just my opinion.

Love and huggsies
Dunia

Lenwen · Unread post by **Lenwen** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 2:47 pm

Dunia wrote:
But I do not understand what you mean by the Martha Steward example, it is not even related, maybe in your logic it is, but actually it has nothing to do with what I was talking about.

It has nuthing to do with what you're talking about ?

It has alotta relavence to what you're talking about.

The Recipies .. (Armor Stats an info) are not free .. You must purchase the Books for then wether it be a Palladium book or a Cook book, either or you must purchase or know some one with it to utilize it.

I guess in you're opinion it had nuthing to do with what you're talking about .. and in my opinion it had a big relevence in what you're talking about.

But then again I've always been an outside the box type of guy and come from some strange paths of thought process's.

I hope you understand what I am saying.

Crucible · Unread post by **Crucible** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 3:57 pm

Lenwen wrote:
Dunia wrote:
But I do not understand what you mean by the Martha Steward example, it is not even related, maybe in your logic it is, but actually it has nothing to do with what I was talking about.

It has nuthing to do with what you're talking about ?

It has alotta relavence to what you're talking about.

The Recipies .. (Armor Stats an info) are not free .. You must purchase the Books for then wether it be a Palladium book or a Cook book, either or you must purchase or know some one with it to utilize it.

I guess in you're opinion it had nuthing to do with what you're talking about .. and in my opinion it had a big relevence in what you're talking about.

But then again I've always been an outside the box type of guy and come from some strange paths of thought process's.

I hope you understand what I am saying.

Lenwen! LOL!!!

You were so obvious on this one. You did not read her post. Chip? Is that you pretending to be someone else? (one of my players). No man.

What she is saying is, while she understands the marketing and using books to advertise other books...she doesn't understand exactly why it is a near necessity to have to buy the books to continue a campaign.

Like me, I've been buying the books since I was 19 and I do it by habit. She's a BRAND NEW player and wants to know why and if ther is a way to explain some other way to work around it.

If you take her last thread and several posts and read this one, its basically the same question.

Dunia · Unread post by **Dunia** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 4:09 pm

Lenwen wrote:The Recipies .. (Armor Stats an info) are not free .. You must purchase the Books for then wether it be a Palladium book or a Cook book, either or you must purchase or know some one with it to utilize it.

I would had agreed with you if Martha would have said something in the line of "If you take all the ingredients from the recepie and pour them into a bowl where you have made a pie of the lowfat, highenergy piedough that I explained how to make in my previous cookbook, then you will have a delicious pie that you will not get fat from eating even though it has a pound of dark chokolate."

But she does not do that, now does she.

Lenwen wrote:But then again I've always been an outside the box type of guy and come from some strange paths of thought process's.

You are so far away from the box that you are on a different continent from it. No insult, but you are.

Lenwen · Unread post by **Lenwen** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 4:13 pm

Crucible wrote:Lenwen! LOL!!!

You were so obvious on this one. You did not read her post. Chip? Is that you pretending to be someone else? (one of my players). No man.

What she is saying is, while she understands the marketing and using books to advertise other books...she doesn't understand exactly why it is a near necessity to have to buy the books to continue a campaign.

Like me, I've been buying the books since I was 19 and I do it by habit. She's a BRAND NEW player and wants to know why and if ther is a way to explain some other way to work around it.

If you take her last thread and several posts and read this one, its basically the same question.

I believe in my one of my prior posts .. it clearly stated .. you do not need all books to play a campaign. Rifts was still rifts with out World Book 11 ..

And I do believe there is a magic invocation table and description in even the first edition Rifts rule book. Which enables the Core class casters to actually cast magic.

You need neither anything other then the Rule book to run a campaign .. or a scenario.

If you think that you do just because ..

Then thats not really an issue with palladium's way of product advertisement .. but rather a problem with the way you percieve (sp?) you're game world.

I can take even the first edition Rule book an run an entire setting or campaign out of it alone. What makes you think any other books are "NEEDED" to facilitate such a gaming encounter ?

There in lies the real question, if you ask me.

Crucible · Unread post by **Crucible** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 4:51 pm

Lenwen wrote:
Crucible wrote:Lenwen! LOL!!!

You were so obvious on this one. You did not read her post. Chip? Is that you pretending to be someone else? (one of my players). No man.

What she is saying is, while she understands the marketing and using books to advertise other books...she doesn't understand exactly why it is a near necessity to have to buy the books to continue a campaign.

Like me, I've been buying the books since I was 19 and I do it by habit. She's a BRAND NEW player and wants to know why and if ther is a way to explain some other way to work around it.

If you take her last thread and several posts and read this one, its basically the same question.

I believe in my one of my prior posts .. it clearly stated .. you do not need all books to play a campaign. Rifts was still rifts with out World Book 11 ..

And I do believe there is a magic invocation table and description in even the first edition Rifts rule book. Which enables the Core class casters to actually cast magic.

You need neither anything other then the Rule book to run a campaign .. or a scenario.

If you think that you do just because ..

Then thats not really an issue with palladium's way of product advertisement .. but rather a problem with the way you percieve (sp?) you're game world.

I can take even the first edition Rule book an run an entire setting or campaign out of it alone. What makes you think any other books are "NEEDED" to facilitate such a gaming encounter ?

There in lies the real question, if you ask me.

Some players my perceive that they need more because they are not CERTAIN if they need it or not if the book keeps pushing it.

Crucible · Unread post by **Crucible** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 6:37 pm

Karsus wrote:
Crucible wrote:Some players my perceive that they need more because they are not CERTAIN if they need it or not if the book keeps pushing it.

If they are anything like me, they need the new book, not because they NEED the info, but because they know there is info out there that they dont have and thats simply unacceptable.

Yeppers...it can be annoying but what can I do. I'm hooked...LOL

Shark_Force · Unread post by **Shark_Force** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 7:02 pm

Crucible wrote:
Shark_Force wrote:i wouldn't consider RUE to full replace RMB, and i would add that conversion book is really handy (if nothing else, for the various monsters; you may not particularly want superheroes or TMNT mutants in your game, but being able to just decide that the shifter summons a worm of taut and sends it after you rather than having to invent some monster out of whole cloth can be handy, and deciding what sort of critter you're likely to run into in the wilderness is likewise useful...)

I still use the Behemoth Explorer from the RMB, but what else in there that you didn't replace, out of curiousity.

1) a few spells didn't make it into the RUE version. in particular, i've noticed some of the spells that duplicate psionic powers (astral projection, in particular), the talisman spell, the transformation spell, and a few others if i'm not mistaken. these are not critical, there's still plenty of selection in RUE (including some that were not in RMB), but it is stuff that i noticed.

2) equipment. there's a decent selection of old-style CS equipment in RUE. there is a whopping 6 vehicles in RUE (none of which fly) that are not CS, 5 MD pistols, 5 MD rifles, 2 railguns, and that's the entire selection of MD personal weaponry (the body armor selection seems about the same, afaict). there are only 2 non-CS power armors (3 if you count the glitterboy), and 1 robot vehicle. i haven't checked an RMB in some time (sadly, don't own it, only borrowed it from a friend), but i'm pretty sure there was more than that in the RMB.

3) i could've swore there were at least a *few* monsters. gargoyles, brodkil, xiticix, maybe even a random "make your own monster" table. definitely it included different types of dragons than RUE, and dragons which imo are much more likely to be encountered.

this is all from memory, there may be more (or maybe i'm remembering stuff from other books being in RMB), but basically the RMB was a lot more self-contained... RUE has some great rules changes and various updates, but it is not nearly as self-contained. if you intend to buy additional books anyways, RUE is great, but (especially on the technological end of things) it feels like the options are rather sparse. it's not a *bad* book by any means, but the old RMB from what i can recall was much more readily used on it's own.

Crucible · Unread post by **Crucible** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 7:53 pm

Shark_Force wrote:
Crucible wrote:
Shark_Force wrote:i wouldn't consider RUE to full replace RMB, and i would add that conversion book is really handy (if nothing else, for the various monsters; you may not particularly want superheroes or TMNT mutants in your game, but being able to just decide that the shifter summons a worm of taut and sends it after you rather than having to invent some monster out of whole cloth can be handy, and deciding what sort of critter you're likely to run into in the wilderness is likewise useful...)

I still use the Behemoth Explorer from the RMB, but what else in there that you didn't replace, out of curiousity.

1) a few spells didn't make it into the RUE version. in particular, i've noticed some of the spells that duplicate psionic powers (astral projection, in particular), the talisman spell, the transformation spell, and a few others if i'm not mistaken. these are not critical, there's still plenty of selection in RUE (including some that were not in RMB), but it is stuff that i noticed.

2) equipment. there's a decent selection of old-style CS equipment in RUE. there is a whopping 6 vehicles in RUE (none of which fly) that are not CS, 5 MD pistols, 5 MD rifles, 2 railguns, and that's the entire selection of MD personal weaponry (the body armor selection seems about the same, afaict). there are only 2 non-CS power armors (3 if you count the glitterboy), and 1 robot vehicle. i haven't checked an RMB in some time (sadly, don't own it, only borrowed it from a friend), but i'm pretty sure there was more than that in the RMB.

3) i could've swore there were at least a *few* monsters. gargoyles, brodkil, xiticix, maybe even a random "make your own monster" table. definitely it included different types of dragons than RUE, and dragons which imo are much more likely to be encountered.

this is all from memory, there may be more (or maybe i'm remembering stuff from other books being in RMB), but basically the RMB was a lot more self-contained... RUE has some great rules changes and various updates, but it is not nearly as self-contained. if you intend to buy additional books anyways, RUE is great, but (especially on the technological end of things) it feels like the options are rather sparse. it's not a *bad* book by any means, but the old RMB from what i can recall was much more readily used on it's own.

Just got the RMB back a few weeks ago and I noticed some of what you said. WOW man, its true. I think that the GM's guide covers a lot of it as well.

Shark_Force · Unread post by **Shark_Force** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 8:01 pm

yeah, RUE is great if you also intend to pick up the GMG (for equipment) and conversion book 1 (for monsters) (actually, i haven't seen revised CB1, i'm just assuming it still has all the stuff it used to have, but i could be wrong). the BoM is handy, but not really required (RUE has plenty of selection when it comes to magic, tbh, making the BoM just a nice book to have, not an almost-required book to make the world feel at all fleshed-out)

keir451 · Unread post by **keir451** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 8:19 pm

I, too, own a large portion of the Rifts books and used to try and carry all of them w/me for gaming, for just in case purposes, but now I try to limit what I use by putting reasonable(imo)limits on what characters are available. The sourcebooks are very helpful at times for the extra info they provide and are fun to read as well. I, personally, think that sourcebooks defining specific areas in detail is a good thing, tho' all those books get reeeeaaaaalllly heavy after awhile.
On the other hand, the way Palladium likes to fill in their gaps is also frustrating, too much of the world is defined at times leaving little room for manuvering. We've all seen those who dislike some part of the Rifts setting or had ideas that got tossed because a previously empty area is now filled. Many of us remember the "old days" of D&D when we created our own realms from just the first three books and the other sourcebooks were just for different classes or monsters, now, with Rifts, the majority of the world is laid out for us and tho' we can still create what we want, it can be, at times, very limiting.

Shark_Force · Unread post by **Shark_Force** » Fri Oct 09, 2009 1:07 am

when you look at the sheer variety of weapons out there, imo the paucity of RUE in that respect really shows. at the very least, it'd be nice to see a few more "generic" categories; here's what a generic car looks like, a generic truck, a generic motorcycle (all SDC) etc, and then maybe a paragraph or two dealing with MDC conversions. i mean, RUE has skills you just aren't going to be using anytime soon; there isn't a single tank in the main book, let alone a helicopter or jet. even if each category only got like 3 lines apiece, that would give something to work with.

i'll agree the miscellaneous equipment, body armors, and CS gear are sufficient. likewise, i believe i indicated there were spells missing, but it wasn't a major point for the most part (some of them were nice, but none were really required for the game to be run, and there's tons of selection anyways). and when it comes to cybernetics and psionics, you'll note i never indicated a shortage there.

power armors and robots: not convinced. if they had maybe 5 or so power armors and some sample customisation costs (even if it just included some 'generic' larger weapons, costs for increasing armor/speed/whatever, and likewise with robots) it probably could have been at least somewhat self-contained (especially since 'robot vehicles' includes things like the spider skull walker)

for the weapons: i disagree. when you consider there are 5 different types of energy weapons in the game, and you don't have any examples of various categories of said weapons in either pistol or rifle form. even just putting explosive and/or ramjet rounds would have at least expanded things to the point where we could have used the various SDC W.P. entries to probably double the number of weapons, and added a huge variety (and a really inexpensive option, which is definitely needed). we don't have any examples of cyborg/power-armor grade heavy energy that *aren't* railguns, either. edit: the same kind of idea with 'generic' weapons categories would be nice; here's a 'generic' ion rifle, a 'generic' plasma pistol, etc. /edit

RUE is a great book, but self-contained? i can't agree with that. not if you want to really experience the fulness of RIFTS: it's playable, certainly, with just RUE... but you're going to be very limited in some areas, and non-human opposition is only one of those areas. certainly, some character types aren't likely to notice, but others will, in my opinion.

Tiree · Unread post by **Tiree** » Fri Oct 09, 2009 11:20 am

With Rifts, I really liked the 'Post Apocolyptic' Feel of the game. Thus, I keep the power level really low. CS Power Level fairly high, and Tolkeen and the Federation of Magic on par, but with less inhabitants. It takes days to travel from one town to the next, and adventurers are rare. Mercenaries are even more scarce (but in fact are being used as town militia's or a standing army).

This is the reason why I deal with very limited set of books as I find are 'canon' and everything else is added in as a case per case basis.

As for equipment, there really is a good point to this: How many variations of a 'Motorcycle' do you need? It all does the same thing, but looks different. To be honest, the best equipment list I have seen in Palladium Books, has been for Robotech: Macross RPG (the old RPG). Quick list, shows 1 picture for like 5 items, and called it good.

Crucible · Unread post by **Crucible** » Fri Oct 09, 2009 1:13 pm

Tiree wrote:With Rifts, I really liked the 'Post Apocolyptic' Feel of the game. Thus, I keep the power level really low. CS Power Level fairly high, and Tolkeen and the Federation of Magic on par, but with less inhabitants. It takes days to travel from one town to the next, and adventurers are rare. Mercenaries are even more scarce (but in fact are being used as town militia's or a standing army).

This is the reason why I deal with very limited set of books as I find are 'canon' and everything else is added in as a case per case basis.

As for equipment, there really is a good point to this: How many variations of a 'Motorcycle' do you need? It all does the same thing, but looks different. To be honest, the best equipment list I have seen in Palladium Books, has been for Robotech: Macross RPG (the old RPG). Quick list, shows 1 picture for like 5 items, and called it good.

My games are similar. I also do not have the "chopping down the tree" type of scenarios. Violent encounters are brutal! Many of the books look all cutesy but my games show a much more dangerous side. Like you travel last days and civilized(?) encounters are rare.

Ziggurat the Eternal · Fri Oct 09, 2009 1:39 pm

I have just about all the books. No most of them don't ever get used. Some have never been opened by my friends. I find them delightful just to read, and occasionally imagine how awesome some of the stuff would be. While I do allow kitchen sink style adventure, I have everybody get together and explain why the heck I'd let them do it. If they convince me, its all good.

Also, no, there is no such thing as too much. In fact, I will be gettoing Shemarrian Nation shortly, and am Just Dying to get my hands on the Splicers Source book when it comes out. Hoping for a systems failure one too.

keir451 · Unread post by **keir451** » Sat Oct 10, 2009 7:18 am

Sharoth wrote:~looks at my collection of Palladium books in Horror~ 117 books and counting, plus The Rifter 1-47+. I need help! Professional help! Someone help me!

~snarls as someone tries to touch my stuff~ GET AWAY FROM THAT!!!!

~GRINS~

Yup, that pretty much says it all!!

Crucible · Unread post by **Crucible** » Sat Oct 10, 2009 4:11 pm

Munchkin Slappin GM wrote:
keir451 wrote:
Sharoth wrote:~looks at my collection of Palladium books in Horror~ 117 books and counting, plus The Rifter 1-47+. I need help! Professional help! Someone help me!

~snarls as someone tries to touch my stuff~ GET AWAY FROM THAT!!!!

~GRINS~

Yup, that pretty much says it all!!

second

Third.

I lost every book and started collecting over again. Even my players are giving me material...stuff I don't even want...sorta.

Crucible · Unread post by **Crucible** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 11:42 pm

Munchkin Slappin GM wrote:
Crucible wrote:
Munchkin Slappin GM wrote:
keir451 wrote:
Sharoth wrote:~looks at my collection of Palladium books in Horror~ 117 books and counting, plus The Rifter 1-47+. I need help! Professional help! Someone help me!

~snarls as someone tries to touch my stuff~ GET AWAY FROM THAT!!!!

~GRINS~

Yup, that pretty much says it all!!

second

Third.

I lost every book and started collecting over again. Even my players are giving me material...stuff I don't even want...sorta.

My RPG jones is so bad I evan by stuff from other system to add more flavor to Rift's when Palladium has nothing new to buy.

Been there, Ended up an Eden fan that way.

Crucible · Unread post by **Crucible** » Tue Oct 13, 2009 12:23 am

Munchkin Slappin GM wrote:I might have that problem if my friends would run other games,but they leave the GMing up to me, and I like the Palladium storylines more than any other system I've found.

CJ created the unisystem and a book called Armageddon, Armageddon had what I could not find here and was VERY lethal. I still came back home though...Palladium is better.

Crucible · Unread post by **Crucible** » Tue Oct 13, 2009 12:33 am

Munchkin Slappin GM wrote:
Crucible wrote:
Munchkin Slappin GM wrote:I might have that problem if my friends would run other games,but they leave the GMing up to me, and I like the Palladium storylines more than any other system I've found.

CJ created the unisystem and a book called Armageddon, Armageddon had what I could not find here and was VERY lethal. I still came back home though...Palladium is better.

I've picked up CJ's witchcraft and thoght about running a game or two, but my players didn't wont to.

Despite what anyone will tell you, they do have a form of munching in that game...MIN-MAXXING!!!

Nah, its okay...I just started missing my Palladium. I think Techno-Goth is called Goth at Eden and he started talking about Juicers and I just started longing for better days and came back.

Crazy Lou · Unread post by **Crazy Lou** » Wed Oct 14, 2009 12:53 pm

Incriptus wrote:Not every campaign needs everybook . . . but you need every book to play any campaign.

I know alot of elitist snobs will tell you that reading an RPG isn't like reading a real book, but just reading a book can be fun . . . and get the imagination going, even if it'll never be played out.

SO TRUE. I read the world books through similarly to how I read novels sometimes.

Karsus wrote:If they are anything like me, they need the new book, not because they NEED the info, but because they know there is info out there that they dont have and thats simply unacceptable.

Exactly how I am.

Cyrano de Maniac · Fri Oct 16, 2009 2:22 am

Despite also having pretty much everything ever published (including a few items now on the way via UPS and USPS), alas I've only participated in one campaign, about 15 years ago, cut short by the GM dropping out of school never to be seen again. How's that for sad -- I'd really love to start playing again.

Anyway, we had an absolute blast with just a few books:

Rifts main book
Conversion Book 1 (none of this newfangled revised nonsense

)
Mercenaries
Vampire Kingdoms
England (mostly for an NPC fairy that we picked up along the way)

There might have been some nasty river monster pulled from one of the South America books, however I can't definitely place where the GM got that serpent from. It was definitely "fun" wrestling it in a Titan Explorer.

I remember fondly our quest, originating in Ishpeming, searching for the Fountain of Youth somewhere in the Yucatan. A Vagabond, a Juicer, my Headhunter, along with the aformentioned NPC fairy and what as best we could tell was a sentient robot, though maybe it was a cyborg. Unfortunately the robot/cyborg thing was lost along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico.

Thinyser · Unread post by **Thinyser** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 8:40 am

While it's certainly fine to limit your player's to a handfull of books it can be very fun to expand their horizions and allow them to bring in a character that is not "native" to the main book for the area you will be playing.

IMO one of the best aspects to Rifts is its huge "kitchen sink" diversity. Hell you can even say thats one of the best aspects of Palladium"s megaversal system that you can usually* take an OCC from another system and make it work. You can take a Nightbane into Rifts Earth get a North American Juicer and from there rift to Phase World where you can pick up a Promethean and end up back on Rifts Earth in Africa where you meet up with a Japanese Ninja borg (who has no idea where he is or how he got there).

Now if you were gonna do an Africa campaign and limit the OCC/RCC the players can take to say Europe and Africa you would never have come up with these 4 and this could be the most fun campaign ever but you would never know.

*not always and its not without effort but certaily no more effort than making sure you dont have a severly unbalanced group. Don't want to have a nightbane wampeer (sp?) in a group with godlings and dragon hatchlings and T-archers unless as a GM you really know what you're going to do and are good at doing it.

Try using Palladium's diversity, it is usually really fun.

Saitou Hajime · Sun Oct 18, 2009 11:32 am

Never enough!

Personally everything and the Kitching sink can be a lot fo fun especially with good roleplayers

Cyrano de Maniac · Mon Oct 19, 2009 12:27 am

Saitou Hajime wrote:Never enough!

Personally everything and the Kitching sink can be a lot fo fun especially with good roleplayers

Agreed. But good roleplaying makes everything better, even the most generic of characters and situations.

As I've aged I've started having much more fun by really knowing my characters backward and forward (including extensive background on the defining events in their life), and playing out what they would reasonably do, rather than A) what I know would be best as a player or B) what would inflict the most mayhem on the bad guys.

One good example of this was when playing Shadowrun two or three years ago. I had a completely stock character taken from one of the main book's examples -- I just didn't know enough about the feel of Shadowrun to know what I'd want to do with a character, so I thought I'd start with a pre-gen. But I gave the character a good working background, along with what she (first time I ever played a female character) was trying to accomplish in life, and quickly threw in a few hardened spots and softened spots in her outlook on other people as we played our first few sessions.

And I ended up getting totally invested in this straight-from-the-examples character.

When the party was captured by what was effectively (as far as our characters knew) pirates, and the "pirates" were trying to take her off alone to give her medical assistance (not that she knew this), she fought them tooth-and-nail (and fire axe) as they drug her already-battered self down the ship corridor; she was convinced the "pirates" had something more unseemly in mind for her. I as a player knew she was overreacting to an innocent situation, but playing out that fear and fight to her last ounce of strength (and detriment) was a defining and rewarding role playing experience. It's almost getting to the point where straight-up battles seem a bit boring to me, the real juiciness comes in inhabiting the thoughts and emotions of the character.

Anyway, all that to agree that good roleplaying can make even the most limited of settings, toys, and characters a lot of fun.

Brent