PhaseWorld another unwritten

I wondered why people have not written more about the wars, societies and histories of just one empire over the other. I realized that making each empire unique focusing on one or the other would miss something. 

My biggest example is the Wulfen. Being torn between two empires means that would include and flesh out one and leave out the other. Piece by piece is what is necessary  to 1) create adventure and 2) create ground rules how cultures act around each other. 

 One guy admire on the forums at Palladium Books has a ton of great ideas that are fleshed out and so usable. I would love to see all his work in a single Rifter (or two). The making of ideas is seriously fun and exciting. 

MDC Modification for the SDC Fan

So here is my house rules for a MDC world that I think others will enjoy. My inspiration comes from an SDC game that I am playing about a Palladium Fantasy parallel world called Regnum. Our house rule have me the inspiration (so thank you Brian and Jayson) to figure out how to enjoy MDC.

In the rules of the original print of Rifts there were rules for being bumped around but they were so vague and convoluted that most players don’t use them; can't blame them. It was a situation that if you were in MDC of any kind you were invulnerable. MDC had to be destroyed before you got the soft insides. For MDC creatures they were immune to stun, bleeding profusely, basically a need to run because you could heal quickly and run away scathed but not without rapid healing; ridiculous.  

I have a ton of Rifts books but have never played Rifts because MDC pissed me off (and if you are wondering just how many Rifts books I have, I would say I have almost all of them, really, I am short about 10 of the total). So I have stewed on the idea and finally I think I have come up with a resolution for those Rifts gamers that don’t want to convert the whole game so that they can even play or give it a armor rating for each thing.

Rules for the Living

Say you have a dragon with a butt load of MDC, well how do you make them fear you? My rules would be if a player is able to roll a natural 20 or modified 24, the player has hit the spot that not only have they done double damage but now bleeding damage has occurred (-10% of the total damage coming from the wound). The alternative is that if they hit a limb that it is severely injured (that means flying is slowed by 20%, running is cut to half or their arm has lost half strength and is -2 to strike, parry and dodge with all bonuses lost till the (any of them) limb is healed).

Now this didn't seem like much but it I am not looking to cripple the game just give it flavor. I mean Kevin gave such flavor to vampires and their rules (look at Rifts World 2: Vampire Kingdoms, the revised version (told you I had a lot of books).

Rules for the Machine

When it comes to personal armor the character is a turtle in a shell. Grab the guy by the limb and shake him like a ragdoll you could kill him. Throw his glitter boy off the edge of a cliff and the pilot (and anyone else on board) could take a beating without really doing much damage to the exterior. This is not about burning holes in helmets with a single shot but more about impact damage. If you have a Broodkill beat a CS soldier in his armor, the old rule was until the armor is destroyed, they were safe. Not now! In the modified rules for each impact blow (this excludes lasers and energy attacks) the guy inside gets 10% damage from each blow so blows that do 10 MDC would do 1 SDC to the guy inside. That wouldn't be much for those in body armor but if they were say in a Spider Skull Walker and it was tossed off the edge, the pilots, gunners etc would receive 1D6 damage for each 10 feet that walker fell and for each time a dragon punched the walker the crew would feel the blow (similar to a scene on Startrek when the ship is hit) and a Natural 20 or modified 24 would do internal damage to the sensors, weapon systems or targeting, etc. The screen would blank out or calibration would be wrong and so that shots would suddenly miss. Perhaps a limb locks up and mobility slows to half the robots attacks or slows to half speed because of the damage and delay. For GM’s I would use the MDC location as a model for your personal critical table.

So yea now you know. You do the double damage but now the heroes and villains will have a reason to retreat from combat for something other than being down to your last 10 MDC. Enjoy.

Images are from from two of the books published by Palladium drawn and colored by Kevin Long.

New Palladium Creature: Paranha Frog

Piranha Frog

The Piranha Frog is a creature that is described as an innocent looking creature that swims at a casual speed to the shore and hops around occasionally looking at those on the beach. The two distinguishing red stripes on their back and look of a fish eyes on their back, the chin and eye brows is what separates them from the other races as it is red; that and the three foot tongue that has four distinct spurs at the end. When the frogs are hungry, they come to shore to eat anything that is warm-blooded, because it can’t see in the conventional way only see warm bodies. It goes after things that are about its body size and weight so larger creatures are out of the question.  However if the creature is desperate enough, it does have the strength to take down a gnome, child or small dwarf or with help a larger creature.

Attributes:

I.Q.: 1D4, M.E.: 3D6, M.A.: 1D6, P.S.: 1D6, P.P.: 2D6+6, P.E.: 2D6, P.B.: 3D6, Spd.: 3D6

Alignment:

The creature is a mindless creature that lives only to feed itself; considered miscreant.

Hit Points: P.E.+20

S.D.C.: 10

Natural Armor Rating: 8

Horror Factor: 5

P.P.E.: 1D4

Natural Abilities: Leap six feet high and twelve feet across.

Damage: Bite: 2D6, Claws: 2D4, Poison: None, it’s a muscle relaxant and numbing agent; those bitten feel sleepy and nauseous (-4 to strike parry and dodge; victim is half speed and sluggish). They are valuable to Alchemists (700 gold for one ounce [takes three frogs to produce one ounce]).

Bonuses: +5 to strike

Magic: None

Psionics: None

Average Life Span: Five years

Habitat: swamp and marshland

Languages: None

Enemies: None

Allies: Evil Wizards that perform the spell, Animal Familiar

Size: 12 – 14 inches across and 8 inches across

Weight: 7 lbs.

Notes: These creatures have a school mentality and swim together fallowing the sun to keep warm while taking down prey much larger then themselves. This has put down the guard of most people because the come on shore one or two at a time; however if a victim is in the water they don’t get the warning that comes from seeing a group on the beach and are usually poisoned by the spurs on their tongue before they can react.

New Palladium Creature: Arbolite the furry lizard

Image is located at World Biology

Arbolite the furry lizard

Description: A two legged upright warm blooded lizard with a colorful coat (reds and oranges) that trails down a large portion of its scaly back. They stand about 9 feet tall and 4 feet wide. Their usual tone of skin is brown and green hues with blue and purple or brown and green highlights around the eyes and lips. They have razor sharp teeth, claws and talons. These creatures are known for being excellent hunters and jumpers.

Alignment: Anarchist but can be manipulated (trained in a gentler behavior)

The Eight Attributes: I.Q.: 2D8, M.E.: 3D6, M.A.: 3D6, P.S.: 3D6, P.P.: 4D6 (very dangerous!), P.E.: 3D6, P.B.: 1D8, Spd.: 3D6+20

Hit Points: 3D6

S.D.C.: 45

Natural A.R.: 12 (thick select fur and skin)

Horror Factor: 8

P.P.E.: 2D6

I.S.P.: 1D6

Natural Abilities: Sense heat and great sense of smell +20% track human if the target is within a mile (two if downwind). As a pack animal these creatures use a series of clicks with their tongues to communicate and orchestrate a fantastic attack. Their natural jump is 15 feet vertically and 20 feet horizontal. Their eyes are built to give them a keen night vision (1000 feet) and the pads on their feet allow for a almost no slip climb (75% climb)

Attacks per Melee: 3

Damage:

• Bite: 3D6
• Fore Claw: 1D6
• Foot Claw: 3D6
• Head butt: 2D6 +PS bonus

Bonuses: +3 to strike

Magic: None

Psionics: None

Value: Alive: 1200; 2000 trained. Fur: 600, Meat: 0 to 100 (extremely sweet but smells to high heaven)

Average Life Span: 20 years, 8 month gestation, live birth (generally one).

Habitat: This warm blooded creature can be found in forests and plains near foothills. Generally they are used as pack animals or riding beasts by orcs, goblins or hobgoblins; some have even been seen with ogres.

Range: These creatures are found in almost everywhere there is a mountain range or foothills. They depend on the hills for hiding their nests though the nest tends to attract bees and insects that love nectar.

Size: 9 feet plus 1D6 inches for every 5 years of age.

Weight: 500 lbs. plus 3D10 lbs. for every 5 years of age.

Life Expectancy: 40 years though most do not live past 20 in the wilderness.

Notes: In their natural habitat these creatures are vicious killers and hunters but this creature respect a challenge and will follow the commands of those that break them without question. Over time the creature show devout loyalty and will attack those that would attack their new master. On another note, the creature has a keen sense of smell and will sniff out fruit, sugar (candy) or honey that generally can be safely consumed by humanoids within a one mile radius.

Blake WWII

Either one is good for me. Modern will be New Orleans, and so will likely have Zombies.  It is pretty standard Dresden Files, so let me explain my vision for WWII

The team will be a group of mortals or light supernatural characters who are all members of the OSS.  They're behind enemy lines, far from support and the weird euphemism begins happening.

We'd be looking at starting with 6 refresh, so there's not really much you can do in a supernatural sense.  I'd prefer if the max refresh that is spent on power didn't exceed -3 (after catches and other drawbacks of course), with each of the charcters growing organically during the course of the adventure. (IE a White Court Virgin going full White Court in play at a necessary moment).

Nazi Vampires, Ancient Horrors, and maybe even a Unicorn or two, Europe will be your entire setting and you'll go where the mission, or investigation, takes you.

Voting Suggestion

We have a lot of different game options for next year for our gaming group.  With all of them that are being posted, I think now is a great time to start narrowing down.

It was proposed that each potential GM only present one idea, so the best thing to do would be to put a response to this post with your preferred games for each potential GM.  This way, the most votes of their suggestions will be the one they will present.

Just tack it on in the comments section.  We should be nice and not allow GMs to vote on their own worlds, letting the rest of us have an unbiased choice.  Again, this is not for the final vote, just for the game that will be presented on Oct 4th.

Nightbane: Broken Law

Option 5 (I think)

Heres an idea. The players play Nightbane (or the like) that have strong afiliations with a Truth Seekers club that goes missing. Clues left by the Seekers take them on a wild trip round the whole country. Meanwhile, a half trusting federal agent (that thinks that they are guilty of something and wants them to turn themselves in) is on their tail unaware that the Nightlords are also on their tail to stop the truth and the agent helping them.

Phase World: Runners

Characters are prisoners of the 'Empire' (I havent named it yet, maybe the Human Alliance or Coalition), a small empire of six solar systems (that means at least 4 dozen planets and three times that in moons and space stations). They are attempting to join the CCW. The ship is attacked by pirates who have ambition of freeing some key players to their attempts to stop the empire from protection and expansion. The characters are left on the barge to die but are saved by the empire who wants to take down the pirates and keep a low involvement so that they can get in the CCW and look good to the inspectors. Its a race against the pirates and ill informed CCW and government officials. What government secrets will be revealed and what secrets will be hidden while attempting to get into the greatest free world empire in three galaxies.

This story will have a government similar to the Wolfen government in Palladium Fantasy (with its barage of sub governments), political intruge and each character will have a crimial past (I leave it up to the player to decide how they landed in jail; white collar crimes, political prisoner etc.). I hope to have some mystery and racing to get answers to what is really going on. It should be fun.

Regnum the Fall

Please enjoy this power point that describes why I think we should play this game.

The group I game with on Friday's is voting on our next campaign we will be playing for the next year. Each of us wishing to be a GM for the group will be posting our idea here as a new post. I have wanted to explore an idea for a new world. To those in the game, please post a comment. Don't vote yet, rather post a character you would like to play in my campaign. I have a fairly flushed out OP campaign site that should help answer most questions.

So I would like to introduce:

Heroes Unlimited: The Beginning of a Saga

Nate and I have pondered on a 3 part Heroes Unlimited Saga. The first part would highlight a group of heroes that were coming of age. They would sort of start out much like a minor hero or a low powered hero. Nevertheless, they would have great potential. Nate suggests that they be teenagers. Thus, they might have great power but inexperience in using that said power. However it is spun, this first part is about finding out what it means to be a hero.



The second part would be an extention of where our heroes end up pending the first part. We would either continue playing the same heroes with minor modifications, or design new characters. Regardless, our previous heroes who have "all grown up" will either be PC's or NPC's in this next installment. The focus of the second part in the saga would be we are distinguished heroes, known throughout the world. We discover a huge catastrophy and become "Earth's Only Hope". This part will focus on becoming a global level hero.



The final part in the Hero Saga, our second characters again are turned into NPC's. Our new heroes continue where we left off, discovering that the global plot has become even greater. We discover we are not alone on this floating rock, and the threats up there may decimate humanity. Thus, "we take to the stars" to unseed the greater plot and defend the Earth once more in an epic galactic struggle. The theme of this final campaign is how and when a hero becomes "Cosmic!"



Each of these campaigns would stretch for a year a piece. But they do not have to be played consecutively. Thus, my proposal would be the first installment of this saga, The Prelude of Heroes...