Hello another new post...
Newbie to the board....anyway...

I wanted some information on the differences between Rifts & Shadowrun...

how are they?

are they rules heavy or rules light?

Style of gameplay?

any information would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Pia.

Shadowrun is pretty moderate. The world hasn't changed that much and the only foreign influence is the recurrence of magic and magical races.

Rifts is a post-apocalyptic future with the ultimate kitchen sink of genres. There's mecha, magic, chtuloid monsters, people from Atlantis, aliens, whatever you can imagine.

This is a rather big contrast. Shadowrun is in the near future on purpose, so that you can see the differences from today. In Rifts, the current age is a bygone memory. No two stones left on each other.

Quote from: PiaevoHello another new post...
Newbie to the board....anyway...

I wanted some information on the differences between Rifts & Shadowrun...

how are they?

are they rules heavy or rules light?

I would say they ar both rules medium, but one persons medium is light or heavy to another. I grok the palladium system better though.

QuoteStyle of gameplay?

Rifts is much more dark since it is a post apoc setting where humans struggle to survive.

IIRC, Shadowrun is more cyberpunk with a heavy fantasy flavor.

Shadowrun is better.  Rifts is an interesting setting full of horrible mechanics.  Don't let any Palladium Fanboys try and tell you differently.

If you are looking at those two systems you should also look into SLA Industries.  Now the mechanics aren't perfect (hell of a lot better then RIFTS though).  It's also a dark grim future where serial killers and mutants run rampant.  The entire world is basically owned by a coporation and players play agents that go out to clean up and hide the corporate accidents.

Of the 3 games.

Shadowrun 4th edition has the best mechanics and offers a generally medium style of world.  By that I mean it's a futuristic version of our own and it's easy to visuallise the types of things going on.

Rifts has Terrible mechanics but it does have a vast volume of source books to draw from - each one more powerful then the last.  Powergamers will love RIFTS.

SLA Industries has probably the most interesting - yet fixed - setting.  If you want some grim and horror in your sci-fi SLA is the way to go.  There is supposed to be another new edition of it coming out some time so hopefully that'll clean up all the mechanical issues.  Currently it's sorta like D20 but using 2d10.  However it's also broken in some areas.

Quote from: kryystShadowrun is better.  Rifts is an interesting setting full of horrible mechanics.  Don't let any Palladium Fanboys try and tell you differently.

I'm glad you are the all knowing and one true judge of what is fun.:rolleyes:

Despite what people say the mechanics in Rifts work fine. Many thousands of people have played Rifts and have had no major problems with the system. yes, there are even some people her that actually like Rifts.

Anyway, IMO, the Rifts setting is superior.

Torg, Torg, Torg!

Rifts is a game set in a future where millions died and triggered mystic portals opening that brught aliens, demons, cyborgs, monsters. The general setting includes playing a variety of people from very high tech or high magical backgrounds thrown together to "adventure' in such a setting: from psychic knights, to powerful wizards, and people with vast psionics, to human scholars and human members of a fascist state dedicated to stomping out magic, and aliens, and anything not human. The mechanics, well they're not overtly complex: Pretty much a D20 for combat and percentile roll for skills. Most of the complexity comes from lots of skills that are marginally effective (low percentage numbers) different systems for magic and psionics (yet not really all that different or flavorful--both are "spell point" powered.) Rifts setting is a big huge mashup of a lot of SF (mecha, power armor, spaceships, aliens), fantasy (elves, ogres, wizards) and so on. The rules system is, not play balanced mechanically (which to be fair is not something I look for but other do.), and the recent edition actully seems to have short shifted some of the PC types over the previous Rifts game (making them weaker by comprison--Dragons, Cyberknights, forexample.)



Shadowrun posits a future where the (I think Mayan) date for the apocalypse--the world "turning upside down" coincides with a vast return of magic, along with a Native American dance designed to empower them against their opressors--the result is a lot of people change becoming fantasy creatures do to hidden 'tag's' in their genese that marked them as essentially descended from these supernatural like creatures. The world has move forward from this, corporations control a lot of power, magic has given back the Aboriginal/Native Americans a lot of power and control, combined with a future of cybernetics, hacking, and the so are are common--its tone is consistant (unlike Rifts which has dark areas, silly bits, wahoo bits etc.)--the rules set varies between editions (unlike Rifts) the 4th Edition is considered by many the most useful/clear, for me it marked a return to Shadowrun (I'd not played since 1E), it also vastly improved play balance in many ways and allows for characters even humans without cybernetics/magic boosts to actually be highly effective (high skills and a luck trait called edge combined) in general the setting is far more cohesive, well thought out than Rifts, it focuses pretty much on a singular mood as mentioned (near future cyberpunk mood) and its technology actually has been improved to fit closer to how networking modern computers works. (Rifts tech is pretty much superhero stuff mixed with 1980's ideas of cybernetics/computers from various cartoons)


If I had a choice system wise Shadowrun is much more elegant, cohesive and  well put together. It uses one mechanic and twists to that, for everything. While Rifts uses different mechanics (combat skills work different than non combat skills completely.) Shadowrun is not class based--albeit it has archetypes you can build whatever with its point based system. Rifts IS class based and has trouble doing things that fit concepts as opposed to its premade "class" ideas. Shadowrun is a bit more complex in terms of learning curve but once the system IS learned its a lot more straightforward--fewer special case scenarios, and odd rules that crop up and jump on you when you aren't looking.


Both can be fun games (both as a player and GM), I've run a Rifts campaign that started off with a group of ragtag travelers trapped on an island inside a forcefield hunted by a weretiger (based loosely on "The Most Dangerous Game". It lead to the PC's escaping with a serious enemy (not the weretiger they "won" his game without dying), and running away from a Pissed off Coaliton (Fascist/Nazi group) commander and his battlegroup, while exploring ruins (cyberdemons with railguns, trapped in an ancient labratory), discovering a wizard's tower (complete with dragon egg) and so on--leading up to a cube that transported them back in time to try and "stop" certian things from happenning then, before the Rifts openned (they couldn't stop that, just other things.)

I've also played a PC dragon a few times, a juicer (drug enhanced supersoldiers with a short lifespan), and an Elf cyberknight.

In Shadowrun, I've run a game where the PC worked as Newshounds--breaking and entering to get the story, and also a combat field hockey team, trying to survive the travails of sports endoresements, ultraviolence, and corporate espionage amidst a 'sport' backdrop. I've played a Troll Archer whose physical skill made even armored troopers worried about his great oriental bow, a combat mage with enhanced reflexes who was as quick with a gun as a spell, an orc street samurai named Scalpel, "I am the surgeon to the maligninancy you seek to remove, simply guide me to the tumorous growth, and I shall achieve the rest" , and others...


So you can do all sorts of things with either game, I like Shadowrun better thant RIFTS but that doesn't make Rifts bad.


the vast majority of people I've gamed with though have always said they'd play Rifts setting but wanted a different rules set. Take that for what its worth (second hand report of a group of gaming strangers.. )

Actually the RIFTS Rules work, but require some effort on the GMs part.
look here for a after play report of a rifts session, to see what you can do with it, and what kind of fun you can have.
In a nutshell:
Rifts is full of awesome,
Shadowrun is full of cool.

I gave up on Shadowrun when the 2nd edition book came out, so I may be hopelessly out of date with regard to how Shadowrun currently is.

One big difference is that Rifts is skewed toward wilderness adventures and wandering while Shadowrun is much more skewed toward urban adventures.

Both have heavy supernatural elements.  In Shadowrun, the supernatural is mostly neutral, or a tool to be used, and naturalism seems to be an overall positive thing.  In Rifts, while there are certainly instances of good or neutral supernatural elements, the supernatural is ultimately presented as something evil and negative, and a slippery slope towards absolute corruption.

Both games allow odd mixes of characters, but Rifts has the edge in that department for sheer character diversity and outright strangeness.  Both games have themes of racism in them.  Shadowrun pretty much paints racism as pointless, ignorant evil while Rifts paints racism as necessary evil, if not a good thing.

Another big thing is that in Shadowrun, magic is more or less a known factor.  In Rifts, it's an unexplained and random thing.  Shadowrun Earth is a much, much more tamed planet than the magic and demon overrun Rifts Earth.

Both can certainly be about mega-violence.

Shadowrun has much better rules.  Even though I quit SR at 2e because of rule changes, the 2e rules at least make sense and are playable.  With Rifts, you'll more or less end up making your own rules and reworking them whenever you buy a supplement.

Stay away from Rifts Ultimate Edition.  Remember when you had a project to turn in and you didn't want to do it, but you couldn't just ignore it because it was too much of your grade?  You waited until the Sunday evening before the Monday it was meant to be turned in.  Then you just copied a bunch of stuff from encyclopedias or other random books on the subject, and added your own little bullshit commentaries every few paragraphs to make it look new instead of copied.  Then you printed it out without proofreading it and turned it in the next day.  That's exactly what Rifts Ultimate Edition is like.

Thats a good summary. I think Rifts is better myself, but whatever.

Incidentally enough, I got it out and my son and I made characters for it just last night.

You know what the problem with Rifts is? It's completely disorganized, and probably needs a general rewrite for clarity. My son wanted to make up a Techno-Wizard, and we went through and made his guy, but there were a few points of confusion like adding powers to weaponry, armor and vehicles. Skills are kinda all over the place. This could easily make the game really hard to play, if you hadn't already played TMNT or the Palladium Fantasy game. The rules are not as 'hard' or as complicated as people make them out to be, and in general it works about like Basic D&D with a percentile based skill system works.  That to me is fairly simple.

I disagree with Gabriels assertion about racism. I think the Coalition --the quasi-racist (species-ist?) group in Rifts that wants to eliminate all but pure strain humans- is presented as villians in the main book, although it allows you the option of playing them as characters.

Quote from: McrowI'm glad you are the all knowing and one true judge of what is fun.

That's what I've been saying for years.  It's just a mater of time before more people recognize it.

QuoteDespite what people say the mechanics in Rifts work fine. Many thousands of people have played Rifts and have had no major problems with the system. yes, there are even some people her that actually like Rifts.
Anyway, IMO, the Rifts setting is superior.

The mechanics are terrible.  MDC is a bad idea, 5 attacks per round at level 1 is a bad idea, layering of multiple martial arts and other skills on top of each other is a bad idea.  Glitter boys mixing with Juicers and Technomages.  It's...it's like someone through up every conceivable Sci-Fi cheese factor into one setting and then figured because everyone has the same stat block we've achieved balance.

Is the setting interesting and rife with potential.  Without a doubt.  Is it a game where you can realistically pick up and play without starting to make exceptions allowances and twists of logic to make it work - no you can't.

Quote from: kryystThe mechanics are terrible.  MDC is a bad idea

And that's where you're entirely wrong.  The mechanics are a total trainwreck, and the rails haven't been cleared for 25 years.  But, there are good ideas.  Just about everything you listed is actually a damn good idea.  The problem is the implementation, one eyed Jacks are wild on Tuesdays style implementation.  You'd have an easier time playing Fizzbin with Captain Kirk than figuring out the Rifts rules because of their implementation.

Quote from: kryystThat's what I've been saying for years.  It's just a mater of time before more people recognize it.



The mechanics are terrible.  MDC is a bad idea, 5 attacks per round at level 1 is a bad idea, layering of multiple martial arts and other skills on top of each other is a bad idea.  Glitter boys mixing with Juicers and Technomages.  It's...it's like someone through up every conceivable Sci-Fi cheese factor into one setting and then figured because everyone has the same stat block we've achieved balance.

Is the setting interesting and rife with potential.  Without a doubt.  Is it a game where you can realistically pick up and play without starting to make exceptions allowances and twists of logic to make it work - no you can't.

So it hasn't occured to you that the game wasn't designed  to be balanced?

Balance isn't a requirement for a good game, you know.

Rifts Rules work. You just have to look up a lot of stuff. I made some tables to ease my workload. Apart from bad organization, it´s flows  quite mellowy during play.

Both are games.

That's about as similiar as they get.