Now I know the standard response is "Everything" and the fix is "Use a different system".  
Lets assume we're not doing that.  
No Coalition Politics Talk please.
Ok, we've now had our pre-session communication about addressing the thread premise.

At least on this site, there's a lot of love for Palladium Fantasy RPG 1st Edition, TMNT and Robotech, so where did the wheels come off the wagon?  People OSR the fuck out of D&D, d100 every older system you can think of, but Rifts seems to be "throw up your hands and say 'Fuck it'." Let's try to identify the Pain Points with the Rifts system and see if there's any mitigations we can apply.

1. Mega-Damage - Ok, the MDC/SDC divide is a big deal for a lot of people.  For people who hate MDC, is the problem that SDC weapons cannot effect MDC material or is it that MDC weapons multiply the damage by 100?  If that is the case, the go-to hack I've seen is to just make MDC x10 instead of x100 but keep the SDC invulnerability.  So, you still can't take out a Coalition Abolisher with an army equipped with M-60 machineguns, but it is possible a human can survive small amounts of MDC damage.  The other hack is to go the Savage Rifts route and don't have infantry weapons do mega-damage, so you keep the man-scale and vehicle scale weapons separate, more like Robotech.

2. Layout and Indexing - Obviously this is huge.  Kevin's layout skills at one point were acceptable for a one-man show (in a quaint and charming humorous way), at this point, they're downright embarrassing(in the perhaps there's a neurological explanation way).  A major problem with learning and using any Palladium system, but nothing we can do about unless we win the lottery.

3. Damage Scaling and "Balance"(for the Rifts value of balance) - One of the problems with Rifts is that the signature weapon is the Boom Gun.  Kevin wants to keep it the most powerful weapon in the world, so even though the Coalition and Triax are nearing Golden Age Earth tech levels, they can't seem to make a weapon that can rival it, even massive cannons placed on a Battletech-sized robot or mounted on a vehicle the size of 20 M1 tanks can't match it.  However, a simple laser rifle can, when fired using the autofire rules (I guess they fixed that, saying energy weapons don't autofire).  This is a big one, because you potentially have to redo everything to compensate.

4. A million-million classes. - For me, this isn't too much of a dealbreaker.  Who cares if the classes are balanced?  A Cosmo-Knight and a Vagabond walk into a Juicer Bar...  Forget it Jake, it's Rifts.  But it is a pain in the ass trying to tell a newbie what's the difference between some of the various classes though.  You have to basically make the decision without an eye to most of the mechanics (which isn't necessarily a bad thing) but thanks to the Toughness Feat, for 17 years, players have been obsessing over "Chargen Traps".

5. Skill system - Skills and rules scattershot across 75 books is a problem, but in the end, it's percentage based.  Because of that and the layout issues, decoding the skill system seems like it's akin to reading Al-Azif in the original Sabaic w/Zabur script (with resultant Sanity Loss) but it isn't really, it's fairly straightforward if you treat it like looking at Pendragon or Runequest skill systems as painted by Stafford on the side of a Medicine Tent during a really awesome Peyote trip, it all starts to make sense.  Knowing Kevin himself doesn't really run with things RAW, but just freeballs it most of the time explains much.

So what, for you, makes the game unplayable, not fun, not worth it, whatever?  If you have made it work, what have you done?

I remember buying the rulebook because of the 'cool' cover but the rules were so convoluted I never even thought of running it.

Aside from megadamage. Nothing needs "fixing" because it isnt broken.

The layouts work. And in fact are better than the layouts of more than a few other RPGs out there, then, or now. And it has, or at least used to have, a sort of internal consistency from book to book.

The classes often arent. They are races or essentially tech variations. The game has a million races. And a couple hundred classes. The real problem is that all of these are all over the place in power levels. You have everything from gods to hobos.

The skill system being spread around is an element of having a long long long print history with new ideas being introduced to cover new environments. The number of new skills added per varies quite a bit. Japan lists 36 new skills. But some of these may be just repeats for ease of reference. The rest tend to be relevant to the new setting or tech introduced.

As for Megadamage. Theres rules for converting megadamage to normal SDC. YMMV on their viability. But the system does work to get across the scale of man to man vs mecha to monster combat. The problem arose when everyone and their sister twice remove started getting megadamage or mega HP.

My only experience actually playing RIFTS was with a short Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: and Other Strangeness game.

My biggest complaint with RIFTS is with the editing. The books need to be better organized, and there's a lot of material that they could afford to just cut/consolidate.
I don't have a problem with the large roster of classes, just with the redundant ones. Same with the skills. Options are good, but too many redundant options suck.
I don't mind percentiles. What I do mind is the really haphazard approach to them.
I like MDC and SDC, but I dislike the fact that they are so poorly explained.

For a while I was writing up notes for my own RIFTS rules conversion using the Japanese SRS system from F.E.A.R. games, but that little project of mind drifted into my own unique brand of incoherence, and I haven't touched it since...

You know, I just scored the original Rifts rulebook the other day, nearly mint for $3:)  Brings back such memories.

I would keep the bazillion classes and not worry about them being balanced against one another.  

I would prune the skill list.  This is something that gets out of control in most games anyways.

I know Kev had that example for SDC vs MDC in the books that had a kid bouncing a tennis ball off of a tank, then someone shooting the tank with a machine gun, but still doing no damage.  For the sake of game simplicity, I would just have 1 MDC= 100 SDC and vice versa.  So something that does 100 SDC can in fact do 1 MDC.  

Improve the layout?  How dare you!!!

I would look to America's Hero -The Palladium Role Playing Game 1st ed (revised!) as a restructuring base for the game.  There's so much that game had going for it that instead of being built upon, was abandoned.

I guess I'll share ideas from my development notes (since I mentioned doing my own RIFTS SRS hack.)

Triple Classing
You select up to three classes at character creation. You can select a class more than once (you get some benefits if you do.)
This captures the crazy mash-up nature of RIFTS. It also allows us to dispense with a lot of the classes that amount to nothing more than combinations of existing classes.

BIO-E Points
I liked this aspect of TMNT. You can balance classes of different power levels by varying the amount of points available for customization. Mega damage classes like the Glitterboy get little BIO-E, while the weaker classes like Vagabond get buckets of BIO-E.
We could also tie this into the multi-classing mechanic above by giving bonus BIO-E as an incentive for single-classing. BIO-E could be penalized for mixing incompatible classes.
You could also choose to sacrifice aspects of your class, such as MDC, in order to gain extra BIO-E. Imagine for example a character starting with a damaged Glitterboy with a missing boom gun.

Attributes
I'm not convinced that RIFTS really needs the eight attributes or the 3d6 stat determination.
Mostly they just add small adjustments to skills, but you have to do a lot of work to figure out what those adjustments are and apply them.

Randomness in Character Creation
Character creation becomes a series of 'Roll or Choose' tables.
Randomization is used in character creation to reign in power gamers, to expedite play where analysis paralysis becomes an issue, and to aid new or indecisive players.
If your players know the kind of character they want to play, and aren't power-gaming, then just let them play the kind of character they want to play.

Skills
You could consolidate the skills into a much shorter list of more general skills, but allow options for specialization granting a +10% for specific applications of a given skill.

Communications becomes one skill. Cryptography, laser, radio, and so on are all specializations.

Domestic becomes one skill. Cook, fishing, sewing, etc. are specializations.

Electrical is one skill, with specializations for computer repair and robotics.

The Espionage skill group covers enough to keep it mostly as is. Maybe consolidate Detect Ambush and Detect Concealment into Detection.

Mechanics is one skill, with specializations for different types of vehicles. Locksmith gets separated out and consolidated with the Pick Locks skill.

Medicine is one skill, but Criminal Sciences & Forensics gets split off into its own skill.

Should we consolidate Demolitions and Demolitions Disposal?

The physical skills are distinct enough to constitute different skills. We all love granularity in combat, after all. Acrobatics, Athletics, Body Building, Boxing, Prowl, etc. all get to be different skills.

Pilot is one skill, with a space to write in whatever vehicle you are specialized in.

Science is one skill, with a space to write in whatever field of science you are specialized in.

Art is one skill, with specializations for dancing, singing, painting, etc.

You get the idea.

Rewards
Just ditch levels and XP. It doesn't mean much in RIFTS where most of your power is front-loaded. This isn't a zero to hero game like D&D. This is a game where you can start out with a mech and boom gun. The 5% bonus to skill rolls just doesn't seem so impressive then. We need to find some other way to advance characters.

Instead of rewarding players with experience points and levels, what if we reward players through their relationships with various factions of the RIFTS world?
You could have players track Favor scores for each of the world's major factions like the Coalition and the NGR, and give them access to better facilities and bases of operation as their Favor improves.

Skill Mechanics
Do we really need the granularity of percentile rolls? It seems like you could just switch to d10 roll under, and it would work just fine.
Though, really even that is needlessly complicated. You could just make everything 2d6.

Combat Mechanics
That's a topic for another post.

Regarding the classes - what about making the noticeably weaker(whether slightly or greatly) classes advance even faster? You might still feel under powered, but at least you get a shiny bag of toys sooner on your character sheet than everyone else.

Quote from: Rincewind1;943119Regarding the classes - what about making the noticeably weaker(whether slightly or greatly) classes advance even faster? You might still feel under powered, but at least you get a shiny bag of toys sooner on your character sheet than everyone else.

Since RIFTS classes have variable XP, this is a more than reasonable idea, though Vagabonds by nature have no toys regardless of their level. Pretty sure that class was made as a dare.

Quote from: JamesV;943121Since RIFTS classes have variable XP, this is a more than reasonable idea, though Vagabonds by nature have no toys regardless of their level. Pretty sure that class was made as a dare.

Maybe give them more rolls on random powers, like they get at the start?

Frankly - RIFTS has an interesting world/vibe, but the mechanics are such a hot mess that it's like trying to put a bowtie on a pig.  Keep the vibe and have the mechanics start over from the ground up.

Quote from: CRKrueger;943078Now I know the standard response is "Everything" and the fix is "Use a different system".  
Lets assume we're not doing that.  

3. Damage Scaling and "Balance"(for the Rifts value of balance) - One of the problems with Rifts is that the signature weapon is the Boom Gun.  Kevin wants to keep it the most powerful weapon in the world, so even though the Coalition and Triax are nearing Golden Age Earth tech levels, they can't seem to make a weapon that can rival it, even massive cannons placed on a Battletech-sized robot or mounted on a vehicle the size of 20 M1 tanks can't match it.  However, a simple laser rifle can, when fired using the autofire rules (I guess they fixed that, saying energy weapons don't autofire).  This is a big one, because you potentially have to redo everything to compensate.

Emphasis mine.
This is an enlightened criticism of RIFTS, it strikes home. The way I circumvent it is that I take the spirit of Kevin's argument, not the actual dice implementation. So, the Boom Gun is the best for individual, personal arms only. And for that, the values work nicely, and this damage cap makes all decisions re weapons much more easy to handle and much saner. Also, in a way, more realistic: How much difference is there really between all the Assault Rifles of the current world?
But if anything ACTUALLY is broken about RIFTS it's the Vehicles and Big Robot damage and armor values.
I redo them on an as-needed basis. Sadly this makes Strategic RIFTS gaming impossible so far. Maybe the upcoming boardgame will fill the gap.

Back when the world was young, I bought a copy of Rifts a couple of the first world. I remember sitting down and trying to create a character. I can't recall the details but it felt a lot like filing one's tax returns, big form, a lot of flipping though pages trying to follow instruction  and making sense of the terminology and abbreviations all wrapped by that sinking feeling that whatever your writing down is probably wrong.

I admit I've always been a bit of a light-weight when it comes to gaming, I've always been put off by systems with a lot of record keeping and fiddly but there was nothing remotely user-friendly about Rifts character creation.

Rifts wasn't my first RPG, but it was the first one I ran consistently for 10 years or so.

It was pretty easy to run and understand back in the day. The system didn't really start to unravel for me until I was exposed to more games from other companies and read internet sites/blogs/forums that proposed all kinds of "fixes," or simple hatred for it.

I haven't played the game in almost 10 years now.

When I did play/run it, I made a single page cheat sheet of all the various modifiers for combat and whatnot. Gave one to each of the players, too. That made game play much easier.

I don't remember any real problems with Mega Damage. I came into Rifts via Robotech, so it made sense that combat machines would be essentially invulnerable to normal weapons. What I didn't like was creatures with massive amounts of MDC. Especially when those MDC creatures were described as being hunted for food by SDC humans.

Skills were always the biggest challenge in character creation, with weirdly arbitrary values and dozens of essentially usesless skills that were VERY specific, to other useless skills that were extremely generalized. Having to write down different values for each skill, along with different bonuses for those skills (OCC skill bonuses, RCC bonuses, IQ bonus, bonuses from other skills, etc) and then writing down how much each skill increases per level, and having to flip back and forth through the book constantly, quickly became very tiresome. Making all skills a straight 35%, and increasing by 5% per level was the simplest fix for that.

Boxing skill. As a GM, I HATED the boxing skill. As a player, it's basically essential. I think the last Rifts game I ran I banned the boxing skill.

Just to throw it out there, I've always loved Psionics in Rifts. I also like the point-based magic system. Psi-Slayer and Temporal Warrior being my favorite OCC/RCCs.

I've got a text document at home with all my niggly little house rules. Here are the main ones.

1. MDC/MD is x10 damage/SDC, instead of x100.
I think this makes the damage system a bit more liveable. A vibo-blade can't bisect a 20th century tank in one or two hits, but MD is still better than SDC.

2. All weapons that do less than 1d4x10 MD, get an extra damage dice.
This makes a vibro-saber 3d6 instead of 2d6, for example. It's a small change, but does give some weapons more oomph. Anything 1d4d10 or higher is fine already, IMO.
Weapons that do 6d6 MD, are raised to 3d12+2 MD. That increases damage without bumping them over 1d4x10.

3. All MDC up to 100 from a single source (armor, force field, cyborg body, whatever) is unchanged.
If a monster or robot or whatever has more than 100 MDC, take the amount over 100 and divide it by 2.
This is also a small change, but combined with the aforementioned damage increase means that combat is a bit swifter.

I can't see how to improve the skill system without a huge rewrite, so I leave it as is. It's survivable, if a bit annoying to wrangle all those skills.

I use the rules that Scholars and Adventurers can have Heroes Unlimited powers from the first Conversion book. Either that or they can automatically have minor or major psionics (no roll required, major takes some skill hits so it's not an auto-choice) or they can choose to have some limited magic.  A few spells from levels 1-3 max.

To me, the party having a Glitter Boy, a Vagabond, and a Cosmo-Knight is part of the draw of Rifts. Chuck balance out the window, and just run the game.

Quote from: CRKrueger;9430781. Mega-Damage -  

2. Layout and Indexing -

3. Damage Scaling and "Balance"(for the Rifts value of balance) -

4. A million-million classes. -  but thanks to the Toughness Feat, for 17 years, players have been obsessing over "Chargen Traps".

5. Skill system -

?

1: Mega Damage does what it was made to do, and the exact level of divide seems to come down to personal taste.  I've seen everything from a x5 to a x50 thrown down as an alternative.  The issue, it seems, isn't in Megadamage itself (well, for MOST people... I've seen people argue against Integrity scale in Cthulutech, because you SHOULD be able to shoot down a 50' mecha with your 9mm?), its that EVERYTHING does Megadamage, and EVERYONE has MDC.   So now you need a new scale, so that large MDC structures and weapons (you know, mecha and tanks and shit) need some sort of Super-MDC to stand out.  Maybe the solution is to make 'personal scale' items... armor and guns... instead convert MDC down to SDC or up to MDC... but now you're talking about seriously altering the armor mechanics.

2: I don't have a problem with the layout of the main book, never did. Could use an index? Sure.  Could use a proper revision, with all the 'new skills' folded into the main book? Absolutely.  Beyond that, it sounds like you are complaining that there are too many supplemental books that are too useful?  

3: This gets redundant with point one. You have a point with the Boom Gun, of course.  Like most RPGs the actual game values for weapons are poorly matched to reality, and often irrelevant. No one pays that much attention to the weight of their laser gun. No player in the history of gaming has gone "Gee, I'd like to carry a laser gun, but with my low strength I'm not sure I can handle the encumbrance", RIFTS or not.  Certainly not for the 'common weapons' of the game.  Likewise, outside of Phoenix Command I'm pretty sure no one is measuring out 5000' to see if their laser gun can hit the target, or worried that their ion gun might not have the range at 500'.   RIFTS is actually pretty average here in my opinion, it just talks louder.

4: I would like... LOVE to see the RCCs get split off from the OCCs proper. WHat does it mean that my RCC Sea Titan rolls and is, psychically, a Mind Melter?  Does that mean I keep the skills of the Sea Titan but gain all the special abilities of a Mind Melter? Or do I just get access to Super-Psi?  Good luck finding an actual ruling.  MInd you, as I recall, the various Psychic classes are all listed as RCCs! Does that mean I can take a 'soldier' who had a late life psychic awakening and mix a soldier OCC's skills with a Burster's RCC psychic powers?  Again: Good luck finding a ruling on that one.  As a GM I'm comfortable with this lack of rulings, but as a Player it can be a bit of a crapshoot for interesting concepts.  Luckily, if you aren't really challenging, oh say, A Dragon Hatchling for power, chances are what you want to do isn't game breaking and any GM familiar with RIFTS should let it slide.  Maybe there is something for leaving the rules wide open here... but thats not saying a revision for clarity wouldn't be welcome.

5: Most of the books don't have extra skills in them, and half the ones that do have redundant 'new skills'.  I'm not a fan of having huge lists of skills, despite my unholy love of GURPS, but honestly this isn't so much a problem. We could argue for removing the 'physical' skills, with all their various bonuses and weirdnesses. I'm in favor of revamping the Hand to Hand skills (where most of the levelling goodness lies...).  Percentile systems are easy to understand, and in contrast to another poster, do allow you to remove that weird "Ten percent of all checks automatically succeed, or automatically fail" while still allowing for critical/automatic successes and failures.