I should start this review out with a little backstory. Like many gamers I have a dislike for Rifts. Unlike many gamers, my problems with the game did not stem from the game’s setting or mechanics, but rather it’s production schedule. For two years I worked part-time at two different game stores, and the most difficult of all my customers were those interested in Rifts. The reason for this was that Palladium has a reputation for releasing books in the Rifts series years after the announced release date, assuming they come out at all---remember the Lemuria sourcebook announced in Rifts: Underseas? So on a regular basis I’d have customers come in and curse me out that we didn’t have some Rifts book, and when I tried to explain the book wasn’t available they’d always point to one of the many Rifts promotional posters we had up in the store, which listed release dates that had long since passed, and called me a liar or say something nasty about my lineage and otherwise make me wish I had a job where I worked with more well-adjusted people, like say a maximum security prison. My respect for Rifts dropped further when I started working at the second game store, where I actually got to see some of the press releases Palladium put out regarding the lateness of their books. While some did make sense, many seemed like feeble excuses, and made me wish that I could ship all my irate customers to Palladium’s office so they could see what we had to put up with.
At any rate, because of all I had to put up with due to Palladium I vowed never to buy a Rifts book or other Palladium product again, giving up on Beyond the Supernatural, TMNT, and Robotech. I kept this vow for four years, until a gentleman moving out of state offered to sell me his collection of about twenty Rifts books at a tenth their cover price. Looking for something different to read, and figuring I could easily resell the books if I didn’t like them, I took him up on his offer. Reading through the books I quickly began to see all their rules problems and inconsistencies that fellow gamers had mentioned to me. If I had paid full price for the books, I’m sure I’d have been outraged beyond belief at some of what I read. As it was, I found the books amusing enough to start a Rifts campaign up. It quickly became obvious to my gaming group that Rifts had some serious flaws and contradictions in it, but before the problems could be properly addressed by the players events in my life led me to stop the campaign, and indeed get out of gaming entirely for many months, the only reason I returned to RPGs being that I stumbled onto a copy of White Wolf’s Hunter. After running Hunter for several months, I began to find myself getting the urge to run nothing more than a hack-n-slash campaign, and immediately I turned to Rifts to fufill that need. I dusted off the old campaign and picked up right where they left off.
Very shortly the players again began to voice their opinions about the rules of the game, and it was becoming apparent that if I didn’t do something fast half my group was going to be boycotting our gaming group whenever Rifts was the game of choice. At the same time rpg.net put up that they had a copy of the Rifts Game Master Guide available for review. Never having heard of it before I put in a request to review it, hoping that maybe Palladium had finally come out with a work to clarify all the rules problems that existed and perhaps expanded on the role-playing elements of the world that is Rifts. While it does fix some of the problems that have existed since the game was first released, I’m afraid it reeks of an attempt to make some money by rehashing old material, and is almost totally worthless to anyone with a large library of Rifts books.
It quickly became apparent as I looked at the book that it was not what I’d hoped for. Rather than being devoted to clarifying rules and giving GMs tips on running games (though there is some information on those subjects) the majority of the book is devoted to compiling info from previous Rifts books, focusing on the psychic and technological end, with a note that magic will be covered in a similar manner in a future book, though a few bits of magical technology are stuck in this book as well. I’d say about 98% of this book is reprint material, and its possible that the material I think is new may have been in issues of The Rifter. So if you see me commenting on something in here and think “That’s not new, I read that in [name of Rifts supplement] you’re probably right.
The book begins with an introduction by Siembedia, followed by a Lexicon of Rifts terms, one that would be of great use to a new player, though I think all Rifts GMs would be familiar with all the terms presented here. I’m amused by the entry for “Creatures of Magic,” in the Lexicon, and the statement in it that many players seem to have a problem differentiating between creatures of magic and supernatural beings. This has actually been a hang-up of mine since I got involved with Rifts, and I must say the entries here on both subjects did nothing to clarify the differences between them any better for me. This is followed by another text piece of Siembedia, where I must say he impressed me by going on record as voicing the comment that gamers should respect all forms of game play (hack n slash, story-driven, etc.) even if we don’t enjoy them ourselves; in the last seven years I’ve encountered more frothing anger and hatred between gamers because of differences in taste regarding RPGs than I ever would have believed possible. Of course, I was also amused by a comment he makes about a GM who ran Morrow Project and let players do anything and everything the rules said could be done for experience points, reminding me of my own gaming group. You see, Rifts has a rule about a major experience point bonus for throwing oneself into the face of near-certain death to save other characters, and several of my players frequently argue over who will have the honor of having a near-death experience so they can get a boost on their quest to achieve the next level of experience. Of course, after reading the next section of the book, devoted to the experience system, I found I (and others) had been making some fundamental mistakes with the experience system.
Now, I’ve played and ran a lot of Palladium RPGs over the years, and every gamemaster I ever played with had a different take on the experience system of Palladium. Some tallied up all the XP earned in an evening of play, and divided them evenly to all the players. Others (myself included) gave the experience points for defeating foes only to the player whose character landed the killing blow, based on the logic that if experience points for skill use were awarded only to the charcter who used the skill, then the XP for defeating a foe should be awarded to the one who vanquished it. I’ve also encountered GMs who would divide up the XPs for a foe’s defeat amongst all who participated in combat. It turns out we were all wrong, where XP for combat was concerned. It turns out that the XP value for defeating a foe is given to all characters equally, so a foe who was worth 50 XP means that each and every character who participated in the combat gets 50 XP for the victory. I’m glad that this has finally been revealed to me after all these years of gaming, though I shudder to think what will happen tomorrow when I tell my players of the error I’ve been making.
The experience article is followed by a section on how game balance does not equal equality, which I believe first appeared in one of the Coalition: Siege on Tolkeen books. When reading this I get the impression the author doesn’t understand that the complain about Rifts is not that characters of vastly different power levels are sometimes part of the same gaming group, making play difficult, but that many gamers feel that each Rifts book is an attempt to outdue the power level of previous books, leading to some character classes possessing outrageous abilities.
Next up is the rules clarification portion of the book, which is what I was really hoping for when I asked to review this book. In a change from the Rifts Conversion Book, stats which go above 30 now provide additional bonuses to characters, though it may be hard for many characters to reach those fabled levels. Sadly, a very high still does not provide a bonus to Dodge when you are running at full speed. Here’s an interesting tidbit: it says in this book that very rarely does a normal human go above 30 in Speed, but there’s no mention of the limitation from the Rifts Conversion Book that an ordinary human can’t go above a Physical Strength of 50. Whether this omission was an accident or an actual change in rules I do not know. The combat rules for augmented humans have changed slightly, so they can now do slightly more damage to mega-damage creatures than they could previously--I was amused by this, as only a few hours before I received this book did I read the rules on augmented human damage in the first Rifts Conversion Book for the first time.
Sadly, one of the things I was hoping for most, a discussion of weapons used by those with supernatural strength, is present, but it did not answer my questions at all. From reading all the Rifts books I had it seemed there were three different thoughts on how meele weapon-using individuals with superstrength were handled in Rifts:
A) A Mega-Damage meele weapon wielded by a creature with supernatural strength merely did the weapon’s listed damage, with the wielder’s strength having no effect on damage (which seemed very wrong, given that many of the creatures show using weapons could do more damage bare handed than when using a weapons if this was the proper way).
B) A Mega-Damage meele weapon did its listed mega damage, plus the mega damage the user would normally inflict in a punch attack. This idea made sense, but several meele weapons were listed that specifically said this is the way they worked, indirectly indicating that other meele weapons just did their damage listed, with Physical Strength having no effect on total damage inflicted.
C) Mega-Damage meele weapons did their weapon damage plus a bonus to the damage similar to that gained by S.D.C. characters when they used meele weapons. In other words, whatever S.D.C. damage bonus a normal person would gain due to their strength becomes an M.D.C. bonus when a character has supernatural strength, so a character with a supernatural strength score of 24 would do 9 M.D.C., just as a character with the same level of normal strength would do 9 S.D.C..
Well, according to the Rifts Game Master’s Guide “When wielding a hand weapon, such as swords, clubs, and knives, supernatural beings inflict either the weapon damage plus P.S. damage bonus or their basic hand to hand damage....plus P.S. damage bonus, whichever is greater.” Not much of a help, is it? It seems to indicate that superstrong characters do get an M.D.C. bonus to their attacks, ala example three, but it doesn’t clearly state it. Then again, this section is follwed by optional rules for weapons to break when used by those with supernatural strength, and since I don’t think M.D. weapons would break like that (since they’re often designed for M.D. users) I think the author is referring to using S.D.C weapons in the damage description., since it’s been stated in previous books that superstrong creatures can do restrainted punches, and thus do S.D.C. damage, gaining a bonus to their damage according to the P.S. bonus chart. Of course, there’s an example of Xiticix meele weapons later in the book, where M.D.C. meele damage is described as being a weapon’s normal M.D.C. damage plus the user’s M.D.C. normal punch damage (assuming the user is an M.D.C. being, of course). And on page 29 there’s mention (under the use of the Death Blow special attack by mega-damage creatures) of a damage bonus due to strength for M.D.C. creatures). I guess this one will have to remain a mystery to all. Ah, well, at least they were kind enough to finally introduce rules for how much damage a superstrong character can do by tossing giant objects at people.
A section on revised combat terms is next, with no real differences from previous books that I could see, followed by a Q&A section on combat. This section did reveal to me that characters who have used up all their actions in a combat round can use an action they will receive in the following round to dodge, and there is a ruling that Psi-Swords do not get a strength bonus to damage from the user---I appreciate that, as there was one creature intoduced (in the sourcebook on deities) that had in its stats that its Psi-Sword damage was added to its punch (well, tentacle) damage, and I’m glad to see that it’s the exception, not the rule. There’s is also an example of the “official” system of rules for jumping in front of someone to take the damage for them. I like that, as it’s much better than the house system I’d been using, though I’m a bit curious about why such a deed takes two of your meele actions. Rolling with a punch DOES take an action (something which some non-Rifts Palladium books have listed as being an inate reaction, and thus not costing an action) and the Grappling rules are still bad, with a character being held still able to attack the person holding them at no penalties.
Revised ranged combat rules are covered next, though I see no real difference between them and those rules that have already been established. I do appreciate it noting that energy weapons firing burst do get the burst 1 to hit bonus. Some Game Masters (myself included) are so familiar with other Palladium games where the rules gave this bonus only to burst fire by SMGs and other automatic weapons that we assumed that energy weapons did not share this bonus.
A Summation of all the Hand to Hand skills is next, followed by a complete list of all the skills that have appeared so far in the Rifts series. I noticed no new skill selection limitations were introduced, which makes me laugh. For those unfamiliar with Rifts and just reading this review because you have time to kill, Rifts characters classes have different areas of knowledge to choose skill from, but certain skills in those areas may be forbidden to a character class. While I understand that with the introduction of every new skill Palladium couldn’t publish a list of what characters can and can’t take them, it still amuses me that as it stands right now characters who can’t learn the likes of boxing or acrobatics are able to learn Murderthon and Juicer Football, two superviolent sports designed for humans augmented by technology or superhuman creatures.
A section on psychic powers is next, reprinting all powers that have every been published, including those from the main rulebook and those powers who first appeared in Rifts: Africa and then were reprinted in Rifts: Psyscape. There’s an annoying little note in here that the reason the powers are reprinted here is because those GM’s who focus on technology and not psionics were missing out on the powers by not buying Africa and Psyscape. I was upset to discover that there is still no explanation on whether or not powers that are written up as healing S.D.C/Hit Points will heal M.D.C. if taken by an M.D.C. creature, especially those psionic powers that heal only the character who possesses them. I have only ever found one M.D.C. character class where it clearly stated that if the character took psionic healing powers that worked only on itself, like Bio-Regeneration (Super), that it would heal its M.D.C. damage; this makes it sound like any other M.D.C. character class who takes such powers are wasting their time. Also there was no explanation on whether the Bio-Manipulation power of Pain does 1 M.D.C. to M.D.C. creatures (instead of the one Hit Point it is written up as), or if it inflicts no damage, and regardless of whether it does damage is the pain still enough to affect a mega-damage creature. Very disappointing, as this, along with the rules on damage, was one of the two things I hoped would be made totally clear in this book.
After a brief discussion on E-Clips we get a little bit about how the author feels C.J. Carella made many of the things in the first few Rifts books he worked on too powerful, with rule adjustments given to make the weapons he introduced in the South American Worldbooks more in keeping with weapons from other supplements. I found this amusing, as the the South America sourcebooks, and indeed all of C.J. Carella’s work, to be the best thing about Rifts.
Next up is 67 pages summarizing weapons from the first twenty-four Worldbooks, the Mercenaries sourcebook (which is listed twice when all the books the information has been collected from are listed), the first four Sourceboks, the four Dimension books, and the six Coalition Wars books. Note that magic weapons were not to included in here, being saved for the magic sourcebook I mentioned earlier, but a few such weapons of the techno-wizard variety sneak in here, having originally appeared in the Triax/NGR and Underseas Worldbooks, along with some mystic items from the Splynn Dimension Markets, Xiticix book, and a few magic arrows that have appeared in various sourcebooks. Phase Weapons and Tolkeen weapons are also not in this volume. Also the stats for the weapons from South America have their original stats, rather than the modified versions suggested earlier. I should point out that I was amused by how many weapons were packed into this section, as one of the things I’ve always thought about Rifts books was there was a lot wasted white space whenever new weapons , armor, or vehicles were introduced; since Palladium did not try to include illustrations for everything in this volume you feel like you’re getting more bang for your buck. There’s also a notation in this section that the South American nation of Columbia is now trading with Atlantis, a tidbit of info I don’t recall from any of the books I’ve read. Also, green laser weapons are mentioned, but their ability to work underwater is not mentioned. On a note not relating to the text of the book, midway through this section I found a strange stain on a page of the book, as if someone had been eating potato chips and accidentally brushed against the page of the book.
A general list of equipment, armor (personal & power), robot vehicles, and mundane vehicles is next. The only real change between the listings in this volume and their first appearances in other volumes is that many of the personal armor stats now include individual M.D.C. scores for the various portions of the armor, in case people wish to do called shots at various parts of the body. The authors admit in the descriptions of power armor that there was not enough room to put all the necessary info about them in the book, so they tried to put the necessary info in at least. They did a good job, but several suits of armor (strangely enough, most from the South America sourcebooks) have special abilities or limitations that were not listed in their descriptions that made the armor unique.
A listing of all the bionics introduced so far is next, with an index of what books they can be found in. This is followed by a listing of which books each O.C.C.s, R.C.C.s, and P.C.C.s can be found in, an idea I applaud, and a Monster index done in the same style. What follows this is 22 pages of experience tables for all the character classes, and I don’t really understand why it was published. If I’m going to be using any of the characters classes I will have to have the books they appear in, which already have their XP charts listed. Without those books I don’t need the charts in the Game Master Guide, and with the books I still won’t need the charts because they’ll all be in the books! This is just a real waste of space.
What’s next is a section on running Rifts, the kind of information I expected this book to be packed with. Some parts of this section offended me (there’s a bit about how it is usually the GM’s fault when a game session goes bad), some made me feel like I was on the same wavelength as the author (like when he mentions “Monty Haul” gaming and how many gamers today are too young to know the source of the term), and other times I wanted to say “Hey, White Wolf, pick up this book and learn something from it! For the record, the latter idea comes from the fact that author of this book seems to respect that the reader is intelligent and does not come off as condescending to the reader (check out Hunter Players Guide and the Hunter Storyteller Handbook for examples of this) and in a section with adventure suggestions there’s a nice, clear statement that none of the ideas presented are way in which future Rifts publications will defintely go; a sharp contrast to White Wolf’s habit of introducing cool story ideas, then leaving some to writhe in the wind while others are later fully developed (though it may be years in the future), leaving Storytellers wondering what things they should develop on their own and which will be worked on by White Wolf. All in all I liked this section. There’s also a not so subtle nod to The Road Warrior in the adventure suggestions section, along with the author poking fun at Palladium itself for the long-awaited Lemuria sourcebook I mentioned at the beginning of this review.
Rounding out the book is 21 pages of world maps collected from various sourcebooks. Frankly, the only reason I can see these maps being published here was to wet the readers’ appetites so they buy the books they originally appeared in. There’s all sorts of neat thing mentioned on the maps, but the only way you’ll find out what they are is to buy said books. Also, a few of the maps don’t tell you exactly what the shading on them mean, leaving you scratching your head and saying “huh?”
Finally there’s the back cover of the book, which I mention only because it says that coming for Rifts is Rifts: Dragons & Gods. Getting back to the beginning of this review and my comment on Palladium’s habit of lateness, I have a Rifts book listing Dragons & Gods as coming out in 1996......
So, in the end, do I recommend the Rifts Game Master Guide? If you have a complete collection of Rifts books I would say no. You have the information that’s in this book already, and $24.95 is too much to pay to have the majority of the information reprinted in one volume---I know I’d be fuming if I’d actually had to pay for this book and found it was mostly reprints. However, for those Rifts GMs who own only one or two Worldbooks and focus their campaign on them, it might be worthwhile to pick up this book just to add in some new equipment and weapons into your game. Also, if you suffer from players constantly bothering you to get a book out of your collection so they can research some weapon they want to buy or see how some skill they have works, it might be good for you to buy a copy of this book (or have your players buy it) so they’ll shut up and let you focus on running the game; does it show I have a player who nags me all the time on such matters?
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