I have to admit, I find MDC problematic- and I'd like to replace it with something like damage reduction:

DR: 20/Energy Weapons

or something similar

Do so. Even Kevin Houserules Rifts. It`s easy as eating pancakes.

QuoteI 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.

Some of the more recent sourcebooks have glorified the Coalition beyond a level I'm at all comfortable with.  It's like those WWII buffs you meet that are a little too obsessed with the Germans . . .

The mechanics are a mess.  And absolute nightmare.  Every single one of my friends who played at the time spent a very large percentage of their time trying to make sense of the ruels, or complaining about the rules, or complainging about how X OCC/RCC was horridly overpowered, and on and on.  The only reason we stuck with it at all was because of some of the group was just too stubborn to want to learn a new set of rules.  The rules were a mess, but they sort of knew them, and they'd rather stick with what they knew.

Quote from: McrowSo 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.

Sure it is.   Doesn't have to be mechanical balance but there has to be some kind of balance, or at the very least a logic to why things are together.  Rifts is a wreck.  There answer to everything is by hand waving any argument with saying Ooooh it's a Rift deal with it.

Rifts works when you house rule it to fix some mechanical problems.  Then house rule a specific kind of campaign that you want to have.  If you just play the game carte blanche it doesn't work.

excellent feedback. thank you for all of the information.

im still on the fence on which to try out.

Shadowrun from the reply's seems to be a little smoother rules wise vs Rifts from what i am reading.

I like the idea of the setting of rifts universe vs shadowruns post apocalyptic world.

The good thing is that from the posts, i really cant go wrong with picking one over the other. Someone was asking my friend is he was interested in playing rifts (or if he had played rifts) so there seems to be some local interest in trying out rifts.

Are their sample PDF rules for each one?

anything else?

thanks,
Pia.

There's probably a sample/quick play Shadowrun 4th edition PDF out there somewhere.  I know there used to be a 3e version.

Palladiumbooks is deathly afraid that you'll steal their IP and is run by people who say that the printing press wasn't an important development (they're a wee bit technologically behind us), so you won't find any legitimate PDFs of Palladium products.

You really can't go wrong with either one if you're in it for setting.  I was never big on Shadowrun's world, but I know it grew exponentially since my days of slaughtering gangers, Lone Stars, and corps in Seattle.  I preferred Rifts's backdrop as it grabbed my attention more immediately.

For rules, it really depends on how much you want to do the work yourself.  If you like puzzles and dreaming stuff up on the fly, then Rifts's system will be a new playground for you.  If you expect a RPG to be playable out of the box, then Shadowrun is probably a better bet.

Quote from: PiaevoAre their sample PDF rules for each one?

anything else?

thanks,
Pia.

Rifts--No, they don't do PDF's (yet) that I'm aware of.

Shadowrun doesn't seem to have much either, just some sample character templates:
http://www.shadowrunrpg.com/resources/sr4/sr4_sampchar_combatmage.pdf
http://www.shadowrunrpg.com/resources/sr4/sr4_sampchar_weaponspecialist.pdf

There's no SR4 sampler on the official site, so I guess you're out of luck. And like Gabriel already said, the Palladium folks won't touch PDFs with a ten-foot MDC pole...

Generally, SR4 will be a cheaper system. You'll buy the game book and then you're better of not doing any other purchases. At least that was the rule with previous editions, almost anything you could buy made the game worse.  That's the general problem with a setting that isn't to distant from our modern world. Some of the setting material tended to get a little unbelievable, the meta-plot got quite annoying (Dunkelzahn...) and with every technology/magic book you had a new level of superiority, so the stuff from previous books was second-rate. Worse than with the D20 rush...

Now, Rifts has some problems with new classes from later sourcebooks. They don't neccesarily balance nicely. But the general setting material is much more inspirational. If you're playing Rifts, you basically accepted that it's a little over-the-top, so the suspension of disbelief doesn't get activated as much. Rifts is rather inventive, even when it uses some well-known genre, it usually has its own take on things.

Compare Torg to that, which had a modern earth invaded by rather direct genre versions (pulp, fantasy, sci-fi) most of the time. Apart from the Cyberpapacy, of course. Which was way cool...

While we're talking about genre-mesh settings, anyone ever had a look at "Nexus - The Infinite City"? There you had a huge (limitless?) city with multi-dimensional elements that slowly integrated with each other. Kinda like the KULT Metropolis on Acid.

Since Torg has been brought up, let me toss the following idea out there:

1) Order Torg (version 1 or 1.5)

2) Hunt down the original Rifts corebook, the grey one with the hentai monster and chicks in skintight outfits.  You REALLY don't want Rifts Ultimate Edition.

3) Put them in a mental blender.  Use Torg for the system and merge the setting ideas.

Quote from: SosthenesGenerally, SR4 will be a cheaper system. You'll buy the game book and then you're better of not doing any other purchases. At least that was the rule with previous editions, almost anything you could buy made the game worse.  That's the general problem with a setting that isn't to distant from our modern world. Some of the setting material tended to get a little unbelievable, the meta-plot got quite annoying (Dunkelzahn...) and with every technology/magic book you had a new level of superiority, so the stuff from previous books was second-rate. Worse than with the D20 rush...

I haven't really found that the case with Street Magic at all. In fact Street Magic is in some ways a better quality book than the core itself. Of course you don't actually need it to run a game, but still it's pretty cool. And no I don't mean that in a Rifts "more powerful than the last book" sense.

Street Magic is important if you want the full fleshed out canon magic background such as the normally-NPC baddies like bug spirits and shedim (the true "undead" in SR) and magic in far off places.

I'd definately pick up Runner Havens as it gives great detailed setting info for Seattle and Hong Kong, and a little more background of the world in general.

On The Run is a prepacked adventure if that is your thing. I haven't gotten it, though if you are interested in how a traditional SR adventure you could pick it up.  Or you could just use the adventures from Shadowrun Missions (Fanpro's shared world) that are free for the download somewhere on their site. They are set in Denver. One of the past issues of Fanpro's freebee quarterly Commando webzine had a 8 or 10 page write-up on the city's makeup to lead into those adventures.

Gee, converting Rifts to any other system is a huge task and would require either lots of work or enough hand-waving to last the next 500 british queens...

Quote from: blakkieI haven't really found that the case with Street Magic at all. In fact Street Magic is in some ways a better quality book than the core itself. Of course you don't actually need it to run a game, but still it's pretty cool. And no I don't mean that in a Rifts "more powerful than the last book" sense.

Like I said before, I don't know whether this is still the case with the current edtion. But I definitely _hated_ the magic supplement (Grimoire?) from SR3 (or was ist SR2?).

Freakin' initiates...

Quote from: SosthenesGee, converting Rifts to any other system is a huge task and would require either lots of work or enough hand-waving to last the next 500 british queens...

So is converting Rifts to Rifts.  

Quote from: GabrielSo is converting Rifts to Rifts.  

Touché

Quote from: SosthenesLike I said before, I don't know whether this is still the case with the current edtion. But I definitely _hated_ the magic supplement (Grimoire?) from SR3 (or was ist SR2?).

Freakin' initiates...

Initiation is in the core book now, with a couple of Metamagics (which aren't totaly freaked out power crazy, even in Street Magic).  Grimore was SR2, and I wouldn't know since I didn't read it.  Magic In The Shadows was SR3.  SR3 definately had a lot of power increase with the splatbooks, but that was mostly because FASA didn't bother to put the whole game into the core book. :pundit: Fanpro consciously moved away from that, trying to make the core book as standalone functional as possible.  So far they've mostly succeeded, the closest to failure is the weaker Matrix portion of the core book. Ironically the primary splatbook for that, Unwired, is slated to be written last.