I have the main rulebook, magic, and the creatures book. I also have the London article in Rifter. Has this line gotten any more support? I actually like it a lot.

Unfortunately, I think it was dead in the water due to be split up into 3 rulebooks. Maybe if it had been combined like the normal Rifts book it would have been a better seller. In any case, I think people who skip it are missing out.

It's a good line, especially for people who want to play out the Apocalypse, Rifts-style, as opposed to picking up the pieces afterwards.

Jason Richards had a post on his blog a while back about a potential new sourcebook for the series.  Would that it would see the light of day; I really enjoyed Jason's stuff in the Rifter, as well as his Rifts: Arzno.

Arzno is absolutely spectacular.  I was unimpressed at first read, but later discovered it to be absolutely excellent for campaign material.

As for Chaos Earth, it was dead on arrival, its true. It was too much like RIFTS, so that at most it should have been a sourcebook-type game, maybe with its own basic rules, but meant mainly as one-shot kind of deal highlighting the ancient origin of the RIFTS.   Gamers who don't like RIFTS won't like Chaos Earth and gamers who do like RIFTS already have RIFTS.

Not to mention that both Dead Reign, After the Bomb, and especially Systems Failure are all better post-apocalyptic games.

Come to think of it, with 5 different kinds of post-apocalyptic full-on games (and countless other sourcebooks and setting books), I think Palladium has to be described as THE seminal postapocalypse RPG company.

RPGPundit

I honestly think Systems Failure was very underrated as a stand-alone RPG.

Pundit's right on Chaos Earth. They really could have been marketed and utilized better as like a Rifts: First Age or Rifts: First Darkness sort of line. It perhaps would have done better.

Quote from: RPGPundit;418542It was too much like RIFTS, so that at most it should have been a sourcebook-type game, maybe with its own basic rules, but meant mainly as one-shot kind of deal highlighting the ancient origin of the RIFTS.

True.  Also, CE book says its a "complete RPG" and it's not.  

That said, CE is awesome fun.  

In RIFTS we are supposed to hate the "evil" Coalition States because they are humans who fear/hate magic and think everything coming out of the rifts are demons.  

In CE, you are fighting for humanity's survival and little niceties like "maybe that alien isn't all bad" is lost in a hailstorm of railgun fire because it is truly
US vs. THEM and THEM is anybody who ain't human.  

CE is like Call of Cthulhu that your character is the last line against unspeakable evil and hard choices need to be made so the innocent can flee to live another day.  

I would absolutely LOVE to see CE re-written and re-launched.

Never heard of it, but after Spinachcat's description I think I want to read it, maybe own it too.

But Pundit's makes me not want to, since I own the RIFTS book. Is the fluff worth it when considering Chaos Earth? I know the system is RIFTS, but what about the fluff?

-=Grim=-

I think it's worth it. The setting is pretty much right as the Rifts are first opening. Your PC's will be running around, trying to survive. Not only do they have to worry about human looters, they have to worry about aliens, vampires, demons, and who knows what else.

The big problem is that the rules are split up into three books. If you can find them at discount (try Noble Knight), they are well worth picking up.

Quote from: GrimJesta;418723Is the fluff worth it when considering Chaos Earth? I know the system is RIFTS, but what about the fluff?

Maybe.

It's 20 pages of fluff.  The rest is OCCs and machinery.

The OCCs aren't thrilling.  I pull OCCs from both Systems Failure and Rifts to spice things up.  The CE book only focuses on NEMA (the USA rescue force).

The two supplements Rise of Magic and Creatures of Chaos are 64 pages each and the material ranges from meh to good, but inconsistent.   There are some cool demons in Creatures of Chaos...but if you have loads of Rifts books, then you already have tons of monsters.

Yeah, the whole thing kind of smells of "there's not enough here to warrant a whole other RPG".

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;419074Yeah, the whole thing kind of smells of "there's not enough here to warrant a whole other RPG".

RPGPundit

It probably would have better if CE was a Rifts supplement and Dead Reign was a BTS 2e supplement instead of new game lines.  Splicers could have been a Rifts supplement too.   Probably would have cut down on player expectations of future support.

What bums me is that inside CE is a Kernel of Kickass, much akin to the original Mechanoid Invasion, where the action and setting are really immediate and emotional.   Instead of post-apoc games, you are IN-DA-SHIT and there is no safe haven, no walled city and no "if we just find all seven parts of the penile power rod the world will be saved" quests.

It's got unrealized potential.

Quote from: Spinachcat;419102It probably would have better if CE was a Rifts supplement and Dead Reign was a BTS 2e supplement instead of new game lines.  Splicers could have been a Rifts supplement too.   Probably would have cut down on player expectations of future support.

Palladium is hardly the only one to blame (did Geist really need to be a full-fledged WoD game?), but I agree 100% with this.

Quote from: Spinachcat;419102What bums me is that inside CE is a Kernel of Kickass, much akin to the original Mechanoid Invasion, where the action and setting are really immediate and emotional.   Instead of post-apoc games, you are IN-DA-SHIT and there is no safe haven, no walled city and no "if we just find all seven parts of the penile power rod the world will be saved" quests.

It's got unrealized potential.

Now you've sold me on Chaos Earth.

Thankfully, I still have my old books, so I'll just hack something together with the Rifts core, pillage tech from the NGR and Japan books, and use the Bermuda Triangle table from WB2: Atlantis for spacetime-warping weird shit.