Rifts (role-playing game)

For geological rifts, see rift (geology).

Rifts is a multi-genre role-playing game created by Kevin Siembieda in 1990 and published continuously by Palladium Books since then. Rifts is a tabletop role-playing game (sometimes also called Pen and Paper) taking place in the future, deriving elements from science fiction, fantasy, horror, western, and many other genres. Since its creation, over 250,000 copies of the original Rifts rule book have been sold and over 60 books have been created.

Rifts serves as a cross-over environment for a variety of other Palladium games with different universes connected through "Rifts" in space, time, and reality. Through this system, characters and elements from different games can interact and combine in new ways, resulting in a role-playing setting that Palladium calls the "Rifts Megaverse."

The Rifts game contains mature subject matter and descriptions of violence and evil and warns in all Rifts books of being inappropriate for young readers. Rifts also describes itself as an "advanced" role-playing game and not an introduction for those new to the concept. Palladium estimates that "1.5+ million gamers have played Rifts and many times that number have heard of it."

Although role playing games in their traditional sense popularized by Dungeons & Dragons may have diminished in relation to computer and online MMORPGs), Palladium continues to publish books for the Rifts series, with 5 published between April and December of 2005.

Second Edition?

Note that Rifts' "Ultimate Edition" was released in August, 2005 and designed to update the game with Palladium's incremental changes to its system, changes in the game world, and additional information and character types. The web site is quick to point out that this is not a second edition but an improvement and expansion of the original role playing game.

The setting

The setting of Rifts forms a unique backdrop for story-telling and role-playing. The foundations for the Rifts world were originally developed in the Palladium game "Beyond the Supernatural" (first released in 1987), which uses Lovecraftian storytelling techniques for a role-playing experience based on horror fiction.

Some of the important concepts upon which the Rifts setting is based:

1. Supernatural events today are rare, generally discounted by science, and difficult or impossible to prove.
2. The Rifts world is Earth, but hundreds of years into the future.
3. The existence of "potential psychic energy" (PPE), sometimes called magic energy. PPE can be found in certain places, objects, and animals, but one of its greatest sources is human beings. While this has a variety of applications, upon a human's death, the energy is doubled, and then released into the surrounding environment.
4. The existence of ley lines, lines of magic energy criss-crossing the earth, forming supernatural geographic areas such as the Bermuda Triangle. In the Rifts game, points where ley lines intersect are places of powerful magic, such as the Pyramids of Giza and Stonehenge. If a ley line nexus grows very strong, the very fabric of space and time can be torn. This creates a Rift, a hole in space-time leading to a new dimension.

Back story

Rifts begins with two future-historical premises: first, that there will be a golden age of humanity with tremendous advances in science, technology, military, and socially. Much of the solar system was conquered, humanity's wars end, and only harmony reigns. Second, this golden age will be followed by an apocolyptic nuclear war in South America during the year 2098. Billions die, the major cities of Argentina and Chile obliterate one another. The PPE of billions dying simultaneously energizes the ley lines and causes many Rifts to open. Many creatures, both mythical beasts and alien beings, come through them to wreak havoc. The combined release of PPE triggers further catastrophic natural disasters and fantastic landscape changes. With it, the lost continent of Atlantis (located near the Bermuda Triangle) reappears from its dimensional void, reshaping coastlines all over the Atlantic and flooding coastal areas. As these disasters claim more and more victims, more PPE is released into the ley lines and makes the disasters worse. By the time everything slows down somewhat, the old world is gone.

Rifts game play takes place roughly 300 years after this event, described as 100 P.A., or "Post-Apocalypse", a calendar established at the formation of the Coalition States). Although different storylines may begin before or after, such as with the invasion of Chi-Town by the Federation of Magic (before) or as the Four Horsemen appear in Africa (after), most of the series "World Books" are described with a kind of snapshot of 100 P.A.

By this time most of the disasters have quieted down, but the earth is still bathed in the released PPE. The planet's mystical energy has attracted untold numbers of alien beings from other dimensions, who continue to arrive through the Rifts. These creatures range from humanoid Dimensional Beings (called D-Bees) who could look like almost anything to monstrous creatures with hides a hundred times stronger than tank armor. The most powerful (and a common theme in Rifts) are the "Alien Intelligences," living mountains of flesh, lidless eyes and wriggling tentacles with supernatural powers.

To cope with these natural, supernatural, and alien menaces, the human race has tried to change in a variety of ways, many of them borrowed from the technology developments of the lost golden age. Augmentation of the human body has become common with three basic categories: the "Juicers" do it chemically, the "Borgs" do it mechanically, and the "Crazies" make use of performance-enhancing brain implants. All such augmentations boost strength, speed, endurance and dexterity to superhuman levels. However, they all come at great cost. Chemicals cause the body to wear out faster, decreasing life span to a few short years. Mechanical Borg augmentation causes a loss of humanity, causing those with multiple limb and organ replacements to become more machine than human. Brain implants cause mental instability ranging from mild phobias to crippling neurosis or psychosis. Those people who choose to be augmented in these ways accept these risks in order to become powerful. Some are required to receive these augmentations either for defense or for work. The poor, hungry and weak are often forced or coerced into these roles to serve their rulers.

This setting is very versatile; almost anything can happen in a Rifts game, and Rifts stories can be anything from dark and haunting to odd and whimsical. The Rifts allow characters to travel through time, to new worlds or to parallel universes. Magic beyond most of the fairy tales of earth's past even knew exists alongside futuristic technology capable of giving the user something of a chance against these supernatural forces. It is not uncommon for a game of Rifts to involve a wizard battling a fleet of flying robots, nor unthinkable for a Fairy creature to get a bionic arm. Creatures of magic such as faeries and dragons are, due to their supernatural nature, incapable of receiving artificial limbs or implants of a purely technical/cybernetic variety. This is also true of any creature possessing regenerative abilities as said implants would be rejected as their body repairs itself. Despite this apparent barrier, a type of mechanics known as "Techno Wizardry" is a bridge-point between modern technology and ancient magic.

Game play elements

Conflict

Rifts is an environment embroiled in conflict between different groups, factions, and interests. It employs many concepts of enormous evil, treachery, racism (or species-ism), and more to tell a story of enormous change. Its backdrop allows for a great variety of storytelling and exchange, giving players a great variety between "hack-and-slash" style role-play against the more cerebral problem-solving or political games, and all shades in-between.

Damage and Firepower

One important note about Rifts versus other game systems is scale: weaponry and combat in Rifts are far more destructive than in traditional gaming systems. For example, in Rifts and other Palladium games, a simple knife inflicts between 1 and 4 "points" of damage. This point system makes sense when considering a small animal killed has between 1 and 4 "Hit Points," which make it realistic that it could be killed by a single strike. Yet even a basic Rifts-era laser pistol will cause between 100 and 400 points of damage (more than enough to totally destroy a small car in one shot)! This means someone shot by such a laser pistol would be literally cut in half without protective armor and trees, bystanders, or anything else in the line of fire would meet a similar fate. Thus, an average person in Rifts Earth with standard-issue armor and weapons has the effective durability and firepower of a modern tank. Even minimal skirmishes may leave deep craters, level towns, and kill many bystanders.

To accommodate this scale, Mega Damage Capacity is an important game concept. Each point of mega-damage is equal to 100 points of "Structural Damage", enough to destroy a small car. Personal armor has on average 40 MDC, and vehicles start around 80-100. Exceedingly powerful beings such as Dragons have mega-damage skin.

As Rifts has no systematic method of designing weaponry, the game is criticized frequently for severe power escalation; often magic or equipment from new books are drastically more powerful than magic or mecha from an earlier one, requiring players to buy the most recent supplement to keep up with the power curve. Rifts Conversion Books are designed to help facilitate the transition of magic and psychic characters into this new landscape, for which many automatically gain increased benefits due to the magic-rich environment. But a pistol that fires projectiles in our time fires the same bullets with the same effects during Rifts times and is effectively useless save as a valuable antique.

World highlights

The Ley Lines, formerly invisible, now dominate the landscape, appearing as massive lines of bluish energy half a mile wide, and stretching for up to thousands of miles. The largest can even be seen from space, at least at night.

Template:Spoiler If you are, or plan to be, a player character in a Rifts campaign, reading further in this section may compromise plot elements your Game Master may be planning.

North America

The strongest power in North America is the Coalition States, a collection of fascist, Human supremacist states with a powerful army. The Coalition is ruled by Emperor Karl Prosek, and is genocidally opposed to all aliens, D-bees (beings from other dimensions), and Magic.

Mexico is ruled by a group of vampire kingdoms, who treat humans as little more than cattle to feed upon. North of the Rio Grande, west of Texas and roaming most of the American South West are large nomadic bands/tribes of bandits collectively called the "Pecos Bandits", though not part of a cohesive power structure or political organization.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police managed to survive the great cataclysm, though Canada itself did not. The Mounties have become an independent law enforcement force, patrolling the northern wilderness.

Tolkeen was a major city in the former Minneapolis region in early rifts books; the city welcomed users of magic. Recently, a military campaign made by the Coalition States resulted in the magic-user kingdom being wiped off the map (This is covered in the six-volume series of sourcebooks "Coalition Wars: Siege on Tolkeen").

South America

The Amazon River has flooded most of the western part of the continent, giving it the nickname "The Land of a Thousand Islands". In Colombia, a nation of humans and Dwarves fight against a kingdom of Vampires. The gods of the Inca have returned to their ancient holdings in the Andes, and fight a battle against alien invaders. Much of the rest of the continent is a wide collection of states ranging from democracies, corrupt oligarchies, and communist guerrillas, to Mutants, Amazons, Aliens, Mercenaries, and dozens of others.

Europe

• England has become a series of feudal kingdoms again, complete with a New Camelot and a new King Arthur, partially being manipulated by the ethereal extension of an alien intelligence (disguised as the wizard Merlin).
• In Germany, the New German Republic, with assistance from the Triax corporation, battles against an empire of Gargoyles that have taken much of Europe.
• France has already been overrun by Gargoyle hordes as well.
• Russia is presently ruled by a collection of Warlords, who rule through the use of vast armies and Cyborg troops.

Asia

Much of China has been overrun by demons. The remnants of the People's Republic of China live in the pre-rifts city Geofront, possessing pre-rifts technology equalling or exeeding any other human nation on Rifts earth.

Japan has become a mixture of tradition and technology. The Samurai warriors of the New Empire battle Oni demons and high-tech raiders from the Otomo Shogunate. One of their closest allies is the Republic of Japan, an alliance of four Pre-Rifts cities accidentally rifted off the planet at the exact moment of the Great Cataclysm.

Africa

Much of Africa has gone back to nature, making the land a wild, mysterious Dark Continent again, where only those foolhardy enough to ignore the tales of this land would willingly go to.

In Egypt, the ley lines coursing through the pyramids have brought Rama-Set, an evil oriental-type Dragon who has conquered the locals and established the Phoenix Empire (with him leading it as Pharaoh).

Meanwhile, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (the powerful supernatural beings legends name as War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death) are traveling across the continent, seeking to reunite and combine their powers into an ultimate destroyer of a monster; but a group of powerful adventurers is hot on their tails, including the legendary rogue scholar Erin Tarn (death marked by the Coalition States for her writings, which criticize the Coalition States), and the 20th century's most accomplished time-displaced expert on the paranormal, Victor Lazlo (whose writings were so popular among P.A. magic-users that they named a kingdom after him), and even the disguised(and unfortunately amnesiac) Egyptian Goddess Isis. (See Rifts: World Book 4: Africa)

Atlantis

The lost continent of Atlantis appeared after the cataclysm that caused the RIFTS. According to some it rose from the sea, but more accurately it returned from an alternate dimension which it had shifted to ages ago.

Controlled by the Splugorth, a race of DBs (Dimensional Beings), Atlantis is a land ruled by magic. One common form of mysticism on Atlantis involves the use of parasites to enhance ones abilities. Humans exist there only as slaves, and often serve as fodder in gladiatorial arenas. Enhanced by parasites or other magic, they are then pitted against one another or bizarre, monstrous creatures.

The Splugorth are evil spell casters that are reminiscent of some creature from an H.P. Lovecraft novel. They are huge tentacled monstrosities with a giant eye atop their massive, amorphous bodies. The Splugorth rule through the use of subject races enslaved by biowizardry. They are an evil power that spans many dimensions and are the sworn enemies of the True Atlanteans who have been banished from Atlantis. The Splugorth minions are a particular threat on the coast lines of adjacent North and South America, conducting slave raids against human and DBee settlements to feed the insatiable hunger of the Atlantean slave markets and in some cases, the appetites of dimensional visitors to Atlantis.

Australia

A vast inland sea has flooded the centre of the continent leaving notable landmarks like Uluru completely submerged. With the return of magic to the land, the Aborigines have enjoyed resurgence and many practice Dreamtime magic. The "civilized" world has devolved into often competing city-states, with Melbourne and Perth the most technologically advanced.

Other settings

Further supplements to the Rifts game have expanded the setting to include:

• Mutants in Space - Several Space Stations and Colonies existed in orbit at the time of the Great Cataclysm. The descendants of their inhabitants, including many Moreau-style mutant animals, still survive in space, fighting against each other, and trying to prevent any force from entering or leaving Earth.
• The Three Galaxies - an alternative space opera setting centered on the planet of Phaseworld
  • Skraypers - Superheroes lead a resistance movement against alien conquerors amongst the massive cities of their home planet.
• Wormwood - Knights and symbiote-bearing warriors fight against demons on a living planet.
• Chaos Earth - Earth as it was during and immediately after the devastation of the Apocalypse
• Splicers - A planet in which humans use bio-technology to fight against an A.I. in a post-apocalyptic world.
• Manhunter Universe - an alternative dimension to Rifts:Earth, published as a sourcebook under license from Palladium Books by Myrmidon Press. In this dimension, humankind fights an intense battle against artificially intelligent robots bent on human extermination.

Character Classes

Character Classes are divided into two categories: Occupational Character Classes (O.C.C.), and Racial Character Classes (R.C.C.). Both indicate a character's training and learned skills, as well as specifying one's initial weapons and equipment. An R.C.C. indicates that the character's racial background prevents the selection of an O.C.C.: some races (such as human) may choose an O.C.C. on top of their race, while some, usually due to culture or other conditions (such as game balance), are a Character Class in and of themselves.

Examples of Rifts Occupational Character Classes (O.C.C.)

• Glitter Boy pilot
• Cyber-Knight
• Coalition Grunt
• Ley line Walker
• Operator(Mechanic)
• City Rat

Examples of Rifts Racial Character Classes (R.C.C.)

The expected favorites are available as well as a host of new ones.

• Elf
• Dwarf
• Orc
• Ogre
• Wolfen
• Trimadore
• Dragon
• Noli Bushman
• Grackle-Tooth
• Dog Boy - A race of mutant dogs created by the Coalition, capable of literally sniffing out magic-users and supernatural beings.
• D-Bee - A generic term, short for "Dimensional Being" for all of the races above, as well as the many hundreds more who exist on the planet.

Skills

Rifts, like other Palladium games, uses percentile dice to calculate skill success. Each character, based on training, intelligence, and experience level, has a base percentage chance of success. If a number equal to or below a player's percentage is rolled on percentile dice, then the use of the skill is considered to be a success. While modifiers are suggested in cases of unusual difficulty (or lack thereof), these are rarely enumerated in the system, except in the case of rare or special skills. Some criticize this as being more cumbersome than the D&D D20 System while Palladium defends their method as allowing for a wider variety of skills.

Associated Palladium games

The Rifts world is based on parts of several other Palladium Books games, including:

• Beyond the Supernatural - (discussed above)
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness - This game's focus on mutant animals is used primarily in Rifts World Book 13: Lone Star
• After the Bomb - A post-apocalyptic expansion series for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness. An expansion book, Mutants in Orbit, also contained information for Rifts.
• The Palladium Fantasy Role Playing Game - One of Palladium Books' earlier RPGs, this fantasy role-playing setting is unusual, as it has a fleshed-out world setting rather than a vague world with fleshed-out regions. Some of this material has reappeared in other Palladium books, including Rifts World Book 3: England.
• Ninjas and Superspies - This Cyberpunk-style game's approach to cybernetics influenced that of Rifts, although its martial arts elements have largely been omitted.
• The Mechanoid Invasion - This, Palladium's first game, was the source for Rifts Sourcebook 2: Mechanoids
• Robotech - This role playing system was Palladium's first use of the Mega-Damage concept for futuristic combat technology, and its influence can still be seen in Rifts' use of power armor and giant robots.
• Chaos Earth - Chaos Earth is a Palladium RIFTS spin-off that lets player portray characters in the "Great Cataclysm" time period that led to the formation of the world as it is in RIFTS. The game is set in the devastation and war (and return of magic, and opening of the Rifts to other worlds/dimensions) that ultimately bring about an entirely new world built from the ashes of our own.
• Heroes Unlimited - A superhero RPG with little influence on RIFTS. Notable exceptions include the corporation that would later produce GlitterBoy armor, the presence of a supercomputer named A.R.C.H.I.E., and the occasional crossover character.

Spinoffs

Several novels and large amounts of fan fiction have been based on the world of Rifts. A licensed Rifts video game, (Rifts Promise of Power) was released in November of 2005 for the Nokia N-Gage, as was a short-lived collectible card game.

Rifts Movie

According to a March 2004 press release [1], noted film producer Jerry Bruckheimer (Pirates of the Caribbean, Top Gun, The Rock) and writer David Franzoni (Gladiator) have become interested in creating a Rifts movie. According to the Palladium Web site, Franzoni is working on a script for the production.

So far, according to the Internet Movie Database, Jerry Bruckheimer is not yet listed as working on a Rifts movie. Because there are references to movies projects through 2007, it may be estimated that we will not see a release until at least 2007.

External links

• Rifts official home page (www.palladiumbooks.com)
• Palladium Books' online catalog of Rifts products
• Rifts Web Ring Hub
• Rifts - Promise of Power N-Gage game.

Trademarks

Rifts®, The Rifter®, Megaverse® and Palladium Books® are registered trademarks of Palladium Books Inc. and Kevin Siembieda. Rifts® Ultimate Gold, Chaos Earth, Heroes Unlimited and all other titles, names and slogans are trademarks of Palladium Books.