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About Dragavan
I have been role-playing since the earliest of 80's, starting with D&D, from T$R, as most players I know have. I quickly moved up (or is it down) to Advanced D&D, while it was still in it's first edition. In the mid 80's I was introduced to Palladium games through Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness and quickly moved into their other games as well. Since then I have played many other games of many other styles, but mainly stuck with Palladium ones. I have also written many different games as well, but never decided to try and publish any of them until recently. When the first of these games comes close to completion I will post a page for it at my Dragavan account. (6/17/98)

RIFTS
In this review I will not only be talking about RIFTS main book, but the entire RIFTS game and series of books that have come out. RIFTS is Palladiums best selling and most popular game, coming out with more books than any other game they make. This unfortunately has placed all other games they make on the back burner, pushing thier sceduled releases back constantly.

Background
The world of RIFTS is a post World War 3 Earth where the planet has been torn asunder by these large temporal and magical rifts that have opened across its face. The world has since been thrown back into a wild land of danger, but much technology has survived, making for a mix of swords and rail guns. The rifts (a word much overused in the book, and most likely in this review as well) have also allowed creatures from other dimensions to come to earth and attempt to take over. These dimensional beings, or D-bees as they are called, can come in any form and usualy spell trouble. So in addition to the swords and guns, we now have humans fighting for life against not only eachother but monsters of all kinds.

You'd think with all the dangers facing the humans of RIFTS they would have united against the alien and dimentional monsters. But what fun would that be? No, they decided to throw in human nature and have humans battling eachother for control of what little land they still control. The main human force found in the first RIFTS book is the skelliton obsessed Coalition, who are made out to be this evil Nazi-like force of humans who control most of what once was the eastern USA. In later books, other human and demi-human forces would be added to the mix, all with thier own agendas.

As is the same with most Palladium games, and as I mentioned in my last review, the system is a fairly standard experience point and level based progression system with a slightly slow rate of increase. The character style is of a Class system, with a wide variety of classes falling into different areas of studies and catagories, with more added every book. Each of these classes have set skills that are the same as every other of that class, but also get to choose a number of other skills to make them more diverse. Something different in RIFTS from other Palladium games is the addition of a type of character class called a Racial Character Class, where the race determines the skills and abilities of the person.

The combat system is based on D20 rolls for most things, with hits being made when the roll is over 4. Defenders have many defenses against this seemingly easy way to hit, from dodging or parrying to wearing armors. Wearing armor doesn't make a character harder to hit, it just protects them from the damage from lower rolls, but the armor takes the damage instead. The same basic system is used for all forms of combat in RIFTS, from hand to hand to mech combat. The only real differences come in with the types of moves that can be done within each each type of combat.

The skill system is the simplest part of the book, as with every different Palladium game, based on a simple percentage chance success/failure system. It's the skills a player chooses that makes them more diverse, with even more being added every few books.

Technicals Review
Although the system is full of little optional rules and a few inconsistancies, it works rather well and clean once you are used to it. The only part where it gets troublesome is in combat, which i've noticed is true of most systems but is especialy true in the overpowered world of RIFTS.

Character creation is based off the randomly rolled basic stats, which are done with a number of 6-sided dice depending on the race, and a selection of skills you get from your chosen class. When you combine the two you can get characters with way overpowered physical skills, but overpowered seems to be the theme of RIFTS. I am not going to go over how I feel about this and how it all works again, just read my review of the Palladium Fantasy RPG (2nd Edition) for that. Basicly I like this kind of character creation works well and is "realisitc" for a RPG.

The class system uses three different types of classes: Occupational Character Class (O.C.C.), Psycic Character Class (P.C.C.), and Racial Character Class (R.C.C.). Personaly I don't like the idea this creates about races being your job. If you choose a R.C.C. you can not also have an O.C.C. or P.C.C. since the R.C.C. is your class. The idea that what you are decides what you do has always bothered me. In the main book they introduce Dragons as the first R.C.C. but many more were to come. I just don't seem to understand why I can't be a Pheonixie who wants to be a Cyberknight, Juicer, or Mind Bleeder instead of just a Pheonixie.

The combat system is the same slightly buggy system used by all the games in the Palladium stable, but with the addition of thier Mega-Damage system. Mega-Damage Capacity (M.D.C.) is an extreme measure of damage some creatures and items can handle that equals about 100 M.D.C. per hit point, but they are not interchangable. When any S.D.C. (Structural Damage Capacity, which is equal to Hit Points) weapon shoots at an M.D.C. thing it does no damage, no matter how powerful the S.D.C. weapon is. Even if you use a powerful S.D.C. weapon that can do over 200 points of damage in one shot hits a weak M.D.C. thing it does no damage at all, but if large S.D.C. creature is hit by a weak M.D.C. weapon that does 2 points of damage they take 200 points of S.D.C. damage. This makes no sense at all to me since it should work both ways.

There are both point based powerful magical and psionic systems in RIFTS. Both of them work fairly well in the overpowered nature of the game, allowing for magic and psionic users to become as powerful as, if not more powerful than, combat based characters. The only downside in my eyes is the way psionics are handled just like a form of magic that doesn't require the spoken word. I could go off on a entire rant just about this, but there would be no point to it at this time.

On the whole, for what they wanted, the system works well to create the mood and attitude of the RIFTS world. It is an overpowerful world of extrem combat and danger. The power gamers and hack-n-slashers out there love that part of it and this works right into thier hands.

Aesthetics Review
RIFTS uses the same baisc layout as all other Palladium book on the market. It has the standard corperate looking two collumn layout with graphics that are mostly set cleanly into the same collumn layout. The simple layout hides the fact that the book is sometimes difficult to find things in, but it well written and makes for a good read.

First off the artwork is a style I really enjoy, with clean black and white ink drawings, and the main books cover is by my favorite painter, Keith Parkinson. Although there is a lot of really good artwork in the book, much of it is either misplaced within the book or doesn't belong at all. There are also a number of rather nice full color plates in the middle of the main book, but once again, some of these don't belong either.

As with many of the books they put out, RIFTS is organized more like a story and RPG combined. This, unfortunately, makes some of the information in the books hard to find, especially as more and more of them come out. This lack of clean organization and excessive number of expansions coming out at an ever increasing rate makes the need for a separate book of nothing more than just a RIFTS Index come about, as it did. There have been two RIFTS Index books in fact.

The writing itself is well done, with colorful descriptions and nice side stories from the Earth of RIFTS, as well as other places in later books. Kevin Siembieda is a talented RPG writier and makes his books almost as much fun to read as they should be to play. This is more true in the later books than the main book, since it is mostly full of system and world information to make the game playable from it.

The world of RIFTS itself is a wonderfully designed world of magic, machines, and monsters. It combines the feel of a fantasy game with the mechanics of a mech game in a way I have not seen before. Unfortunately, as the books came out, one after another, they started to increase in power each time. This meant that the characters from the latest book would always be able to beat one from the main book. This leads to the game becoming a power gamers wet dream, but a ROLE-players possible nightmare.

All in all this book has the same boring organized look as all other Palladium games, is not well organized, but is very well written and creates a world of great wonder and excitement.

Final Notes
The world is fantastic at the beginning, but gets too big for its britches as it grows. The writing is great, but poorly organized. It uses a level based system of experience points, but is one of the better level based experience point systems I have ever seen. So if you like power games, you'll like it. If you like interesting worlds of magic and machines combined in a constant war between races and groups, you'll like it. If you are a role-player, you may like the first few books, but then be careful and read before you buy.

But that's just my opinion, and I may not even exist.

Style: 2 (Needs Work)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

RIFTS
Author: Kevin Siembieda Category: game Company/Publisher: Palladium Books Cost: $24.95 (for main book) Page count: 256 ISBN: 0916211-50-9 Playtest Review by Dragavan on 06/17/98. Genre tags: none	About Dragavan I have been role-playing since the earliest of 80's, starting with D&D, from T$R, as most players I know have. I quickly moved up (or is it down) to Advanced D&D, while it was still in it's first edition. In the mid 80's I was introduced to Palladium games through Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness and quickly moved into their other games as well. Since then I have played many other games of many other styles, but mainly stuck with Palladium ones. I have also written many different games as well, but never decided to try and publish any of them until recently. When the first of these games comes close to completion I will post a page for it at my Dragavan account. (6/17/98) RIFTS In this review I will not only be talking about RIFTS main book, but the entire RIFTS game and series of books that have come out. RIFTS is Palladiums best selling and most popular game, coming out with more books than any other game they make. This unfortunately has placed all other games they make on the back burner, pushing thier sceduled releases back constantly. Background The world of RIFTS is a post World War 3 Earth where the planet has been torn asunder by these large temporal and magical rifts that have opened across its face. The world has since been thrown back into a wild land of danger, but much technology has survived, making for a mix of swords and rail guns. The rifts (a word much overused in the book, and most likely in this review as well) have also allowed creatures from other dimensions to come to earth and attempt to take over. These dimensional beings, or D-bees as they are called, can come in any form and usualy spell trouble. So in addition to the swords and guns, we now have humans fighting for life against not only eachother but monsters of all kinds. You'd think with all the dangers facing the humans of RIFTS they would have united against the alien and dimentional monsters. But what fun would that be? No, they decided to throw in human nature and have humans battling eachother for control of what little land they still control. The main human force found in the first RIFTS book is the skelliton obsessed Coalition, who are made out to be this evil Nazi-like force of humans who control most of what once was the eastern USA. In later books, other human and demi-human forces would be added to the mix, all with thier own agendas. As is the same with most Palladium games, and as I mentioned in my last review, the system is a fairly standard experience point and level based progression system with a slightly slow rate of increase. The character style is of a Class system, with a wide variety of classes falling into different areas of studies and catagories, with more added every book. Each of these classes have set skills that are the same as every other of that class, but also get to choose a number of other skills to make them more diverse. Something different in RIFTS from other Palladium games is the addition of a type of character class called a Racial Character Class, where the race determines the skills and abilities of the person. The combat system is based on D20 rolls for most things, with hits being made when the roll is over 4. Defenders have many defenses against this seemingly easy way to hit, from dodging or parrying to wearing armors. Wearing armor doesn't make a character harder to hit, it just protects them from the damage from lower rolls, but the armor takes the damage instead. The same basic system is used for all forms of combat in RIFTS, from hand to hand to mech combat. The only real differences come in with the types of moves that can be done within each each type of combat. The skill system is the simplest part of the book, as with every different Palladium game, based on a simple percentage chance success/failure system. It's the skills a player chooses that makes them more diverse, with even more being added every few books. Technicals Review Although the system is full of little optional rules and a few inconsistancies, it works rather well and clean once you are used to it. The only part where it gets troublesome is in combat, which i've noticed is true of most systems but is especialy true in the overpowered world of RIFTS. Character creation is based off the randomly rolled basic stats, which are done with a number of 6-sided dice depending on the race, and a selection of skills you get from your chosen class. When you combine the two you can get characters with way overpowered physical skills, but overpowered seems to be the theme of RIFTS. I am not going to go over how I feel about this and how it all works again, just read my review of the Palladium Fantasy RPG (2nd Edition) for that. Basicly I like this kind of character creation works well and is "realisitc" for a RPG. The class system uses three different types of classes: Occupational Character Class (O.C.C.), Psycic Character Class (P.C.C.), and Racial Character Class (R.C.C.). Personaly I don't like the idea this creates about races being your job. If you choose a R.C.C. you can not also have an O.C.C. or P.C.C. since the R.C.C. is your class. The idea that what you are decides what you do has always bothered me. In the main book they introduce Dragons as the first R.C.C. but many more were to come. I just don't seem to understand why I can't be a Pheonixie who wants to be a Cyberknight, Juicer, or Mind Bleeder instead of just a Pheonixie. The combat system is the same slightly buggy system used by all the games in the Palladium stable, but with the addition of thier Mega-Damage system. Mega-Damage Capacity (M.D.C.) is an extreme measure of damage some creatures and items can handle that equals about 100 M.D.C. per hit point, but they are not interchangable. When any S.D.C. (Structural Damage Capacity, which is equal to Hit Points) weapon shoots at an M.D.C. thing it does no damage, no matter how powerful the S.D.C. weapon is. Even if you use a powerful S.D.C. weapon that can do over 200 points of damage in one shot hits a weak M.D.C. thing it does no damage at all, but if large S.D.C. creature is hit by a weak M.D.C. weapon that does 2 points of damage they take 200 points of S.D.C. damage. This makes no sense at all to me since it should work both ways. There are both point based powerful magical and psionic systems in RIFTS. Both of them work fairly well in the overpowered nature of the game, allowing for magic and psionic users to become as powerful as, if not more powerful than, combat based characters. The only downside in my eyes is the way psionics are handled just like a form of magic that doesn't require the spoken word. I could go off on a entire rant just about this, but there would be no point to it at this time. On the whole, for what they wanted, the system works well to create the mood and attitude of the RIFTS world. It is an overpowerful world of extrem combat and danger. The power gamers and hack-n-slashers out there love that part of it and this works right into thier hands. Aesthetics Review RIFTS uses the same baisc layout as all other Palladium book on the market. It has the standard corperate looking two collumn layout with graphics that are mostly set cleanly into the same collumn layout. The simple layout hides the fact that the book is sometimes difficult to find things in, but it well written and makes for a good read. First off the artwork is a style I really enjoy, with clean black and white ink drawings, and the main books cover is by my favorite painter, Keith Parkinson. Although there is a lot of really good artwork in the book, much of it is either misplaced within the book or doesn't belong at all. There are also a number of rather nice full color plates in the middle of the main book, but once again, some of these don't belong either. As with many of the books they put out, RIFTS is organized more like a story and RPG combined. This, unfortunately, makes some of the information in the books hard to find, especially as more and more of them come out. This lack of clean organization and excessive number of expansions coming out at an ever increasing rate makes the need for a separate book of nothing more than just a RIFTS Index come about, as it did. There have been two RIFTS Index books in fact. The writing itself is well done, with colorful descriptions and nice side stories from the Earth of RIFTS, as well as other places in later books. Kevin Siembieda is a talented RPG writier and makes his books almost as much fun to read as they should be to play. This is more true in the later books than the main book, since it is mostly full of system and world information to make the game playable from it. The world of RIFTS itself is a wonderfully designed world of magic, machines, and monsters. It combines the feel of a fantasy game with the mechanics of a mech game in a way I have not seen before. Unfortunately, as the books came out, one after another, they started to increase in power each time. This meant that the characters from the latest book would always be able to beat one from the main book. This leads to the game becoming a power gamers wet dream, but a ROLE-players possible nightmare. All in all this book has the same boring organized look as all other Palladium games, is not well organized, but is very well written and creates a world of great wonder and excitement. Final Notes The world is fantastic at the beginning, but gets too big for its britches as it grows. The writing is great, but poorly organized. It uses a level based system of experience points, but is one of the better level based experience point systems I have ever seen. So if you like power games, you'll like it. If you like interesting worlds of magic and machines combined in a constant war between races and groups, you'll like it. If you are a role-player, you may like the first few books, but then be careful and read before you buy. But that's just my opinion, and I may not even exist. Style: 2 (Needs Work) Substance: 4 (Meaty)