Rating: 
Summary: Great setting; rules and lack of world info are drawbacks
Review: The quick overview: Rifts is a post-apocalyptic future Earth with magic, psionics, and technology intermixed. After enjoying a brief period of peace, unity, and prosperity (both social and technological) in the mid to late 21st century, nuclear war breaks out. The "psychic energy" released by the simultaneous deaths of millions of people causes rips in the fabric of space-time that connect different realities to Earth (the rifts mentioned in the title), as well as allows humans to manipulate magic for the first time in millenia. Fast-forwarded about three hundred years, things have stabilized from their initial chaotic state, mankind has managed to survive on the new Earth, but instead of other humans, their neighbors are dragons, demons, vampires, and all sorts of beasties that have crept in from alternate dimensions. Not to mention that some of the new Earth governments are just as violent and evil as the creatures from the rifts.The book is light on specific details of the changes Earth has undergone. While there is a section of about two dozen pages devoted to describing the "new Earth," the various regions of North America (Northeast, Southwest, etc.) and Mexico get a few paragraphs each, and the rest of the countries of the world are lucky to get more than one or two paragraphs each. The descriptions of North America are enough to get started, but there are precious few maps and very few "what its like for people now" descriptions (for instance, while frontier towns are mentioned, there is very little guidance as to the technology level that can be found outside of the major human cities). Much of the "feel" of the setting has to be derived from the rules for characters and equipment. (The World Book series of add-ons address some of these issues by providing maps and details of those lands, but the core book itself is lacking.) Most of the book is devoted to those "crunchy" bits (rules and equipment). Characters can be of the "warrior" type, including (but not limited to) cyborgs, robot pilots, or other physically-augmented persons; adventurers, such as scientists, scholars, and scouts; and magic-users, including the shifter (who can bond with other-dimensional beings) and the techno-wizard (who converts technological devices to run on magic power). There are also "racial" classes, such as psionic characters, dragon hatchling or dog boy (a humanoid dog mutant with psychic powers). Character classes are not balanced in comparison to each other: it's possible for one character to be a vagabond (think: homeless person) and another to be a dragon hatchling, or to have one character be a humanoid wilderness scout and the next character piloting a 50-foot-tall robot. Equipment available includes the standard fare (armor, weaponry, useful bits of field equipment like portable computers) as well as more non-standard fare, such as powered armor, robots, hovercycles, and magical items (precious few are included in the main book; more are included in the supplemental books). Bionics and cybernetics are also listed and detailed. The big letdowns of the book are the lack of world/background information and, as others have pointed out, the rules. The lack of background information makes it hard to figure out what the "feel" of the world is. Is it apocalyptic (people scrounging for technology, scouring the ruins of "ancient" times) or merely simple (people have accepted their state and don't know any different)? Are encounters with other-worldly beings rare or commonplace? Are the human cities seen as refuges from the world, or simply as capitals? The rules aren't necessarily bad, either, they are just unsophisticated and have not changed much since Palladium developed them. The Palladium rules system was originally based off 1st Edition D&D, but unlike D&D, haven't been adapted or become more capable as time goes on. There is very little "how to run a game" advice for a new gamemaster, and so many of the details ("How much of a penalty is there for doing X in the rain?", "How long does it take to do Y?", "Do I have to make a skill roll every time I want to do Z, or only when I'm using the skill to do something out of the ordinary?") are unaddressed. Experienced gamemasters may be able to pull this out of the air, but new ones may be flustered. Some rules have very little applicability; there is a stat for beauty that provides bonuses when dealing with people, but there are no rules for social interaction, so the bonus is dubious at best (in most cases, the GM has to fudge the social interaction by hand to accomodate the player's skills and/or stats). The flipside of that is that combat is well accomodated in the rules. There's not an awful lot of number-crunching and very few charts are required, so combat tends to be cimenatic and fast-paced. Ultimately, Rifts may be best considered the first issue of a four-color comic book. Just enough of the setting to get you started, with the assumption that the characters will get to see more of the world as times goes by (in Rifts, that means making things up on your own or buying a worldbook for the official version). Combat (or conflict) is par for the course because around every corner may be somebody intent on doing you in, and it's only in the downtime between fights that you get to explore the character(s).
Rating: 
Summary: RIFTS - Science Fiction & Fantasy RPG
Review: The RIFTS rulebook is a complete set of role playing rules for $24.95. While there are literally dozens of optional, supplemental rulebooks available, this main book is more than adequate to allow years of playing by itself. Like most role playing games written in the 1980's, it requires at least one set of polyhedral dice (also known as a "d20 dice set", a set contains dice with four, six, eight, ten, twelve, and twenty sides,) to play. It is preferred that each player has their own set of dice, but it is not required as people can share them. If you wish to give a role playing game as a gift, then the RIFTS main rulebook and a set of dice (if they don't already have a set,) would be a fine choice that would allow them to play almost immediately. RIFTS has been in print continuously since 1983, and has been a perennial steady seller in comic book stores since that time. Strangely, RIFTS has not received the respect it deserves from mainstream bookstores, which tend to only carry Dungeons and Dragons and White Wolf's role playing games. Hopefully this will soon be remedied, as at this time, spring 2004, a motion picture is being filmed set in the world of RIFTS. RIFTS uses Palladium book's house game mechanics, which are the same as those of their other games, including Heroes Unlimited, Palladium Fantasy, and the now defunct Robo-tech and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games. The mechanics are similar to, but simpler and easier to use than the current "d20" rules, which they pre-date by about twenty years. The setting of RIFTS is a unique, post-apocalyptic North America, with both technology and the supernatural. At some time in the distant future, man developed bionics, cybernetics, genetic engineering, and other advanced technologies. Then a nuclear holocaust decimated the population and opened a number of inter-dimensional portals, called rifts. Various people and creatures wondered thought the rifts from alternate realities, including fantastic beings like vampires, elves, dragons, and wizards. Some factions, most notably a totalitarian state based in Chi-Town (the remains of Chicago), still have access to high technology, such as Mecha (giant fighting robots as in Robo-tech or Battle Tech) and suits of power armor. Since inter-dimensional travel is available, players can encounter anything conceivable. Using the main rulebook alone, players can pick from thirty character types, including: scientists, rouges, Mecha pilots, high tech soldiers, mutants, medically enhanced humans, cyborgs, genetically enhanced dogs, psychics, wizards, and dragons. This means that if one player wants to play a more-science fiction type character, and another wants to play fantasy type character, both can easily be accommodated.
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