Follow @zenvis

Friday, September 6, 2013

Rifts(r): Dragon Kings

Our gaming group is voting on our next campaign we will be playing for the next year every other Friday night. Each potential GM will be posting their ideas here as a new post. I have several ideas that I am wanting to explore, so does Nate. For the gang, please post a comment to each posted idea. Don't vote yet, rather post a plausible character you would like to play in that campaign given the restraints of the respective GM.



So without further ado, I would like to GM a Rifts Campaign.
We can't actually profess to support Palladium Megaversal System, and not have a Rifts campaign under our belts! Rifts is a huge universe with LOTS of munchkinism. This makes it a bit difficult to control the story. But I believe I have a great angle:



"Rifts now riddle the Earth. D-Bee's are now among us. Humans are divided throughthe world, choosing sides of Machine vs Magic. But, that is not our real threat! For centuries dragons have been thought to be extinct. Now the Rifts have brought them back. Many humans believe they are wise and are here to help man...but this could not be further from the truth. Unravel the hidden resurfacing of the dragons. Uncover their motives and orginaztion. And vanquish them from Rifts Earth before all humanity is lost. Your party will have to unite the political factions of humans and D-Bees to battle this growing threat. But don't be pulled into the already rampant war going on between the humans, else you will lose!



Thought the Spluggorth were bad, the DRAGON KINGS will rock their world!!





Type of Characters: The only O.C.C. and R.C.C. that would be off limits would be a Dragon, since they will be the main antagonist. You will want to have a character that believes in the preservation of THIS world. Furthermore, you will be going toe to toe with hordes of Dragons...so keep that in mind. I am excited to see your character submissions!

15 comments:

Richard Craig said...

I'm sorry to say that this one just leaves me cold. Maybe it's that I just don't get the point, but there just doesn't seem to be anything here for me to really sink my teeth into.

To be honest, I never really liked the Rifts IP. It feels...light? There is so much potential for the Rifts world that each additional world book betrays and does not explore.

Regardless, I don't think bringing in a new enemy will really fix the issues as they exist. It just underscores them.

Well, I do have other problems with the Rifts IP, and that is the dystopian post-apocalyptic feel of the world. I get that there will likely be a dystopia shortly after a apocalypse, especially one of the scope described in the Rifts source. I truly do not personally believe that dystopia can continue.

Now, I'm just rambling. Thought I'd share my thoughts :)

Jayson said...

Those are good points. Bringing in a new threat would simply add to the clutter. But, I want something that does not force our characters to choose a side in the wars that are going on, namely because I don't feel adequate to GM a war campaign and that is where I see it going if the focus is with the Coalition States and Federation of Magic. I also want to use the mythos. but not be bound to it, thus it behooves me to make a story within the story. In order to not limit character selection...since it is so vast...the threat really had to be something big, something full of secrets and intrigue. I felt a dragon rising orginization seeded in Earth's past would work great.

So the Dragon Kings story is the draw that unites the group, while the rest of Rifts Mythos serves as the distraction from our core story. Invariably, our party will have to pass through the barrage of crossfire from the on going conflicts to try to attain their own goals.

So, Craig if you were to be out voted and this campaign were to be chosen, what character might you play (alignments would definitely be limited to ONLY Good, btw)?

Richard Craig said...

Too...many...choices.

I like the Heroes/Rifts conversion rules, and might want to go that route, but there are a lot of things out there and I'd have to give it some serious thought.

The main problem I run into is that there are so many inconsistencies in Rifts, even more than Palladium that I find myself accidentally munchkining.

Maybe I'll go through with one of my old threats and actually play a janitor :)

Jayson said...

I am not afraid of munchkinism after resolving in my mind how to counterbalance it. I will tend to provide a non-munchkin character more influence in the game, though (I.e. contacts, political influence, etc.) Conversely, munchkin character (even if Principled) will attract unwanted attention and animosity, taking influence and control away from them.

Richard Craig said...

I get that...but there are a lot of characters I've made in the past that were intended as RP characters. I chose everything for the RP aspects and who I thought the character would be....and then suddenly they are ridiculous from a munchkin standpoint because of some synergy I overlooked.

Richard Craig said...

Looked through some today, and at least for now I would consider a Tolkeen Artifact Hunter

Jayson said...

See, now we're cooking with gas! I like it.

Nathan Bingham said...

You'll think this aweful of me but I have never played a real Rifts campaign though I have a ton of books. I would love to play a real Rifts campaign. I have concerns of munch getting into the game. I like the old grind and grunt (looking for resources and feeling vulnerable). If we do Rifts, please GM do not allow a ton of goodies to get in the way. I like the idea of hunting for food and things being bigger then me. I do not want to feel invulnerable. I want problems that would slow down superman; food, fuel, repairs, enemies, etc. If you can give me that, I am in.

Jayson said...

I am taking this done in my notes. It may be a lot of what we experienced test playing some Nightbane adventures, where the struggles arise from our own inability to control our power. I am putting a strict limit to Alignments to ONLY good. This will be rewarded heavily; and penalized mildly mechanically (-1 to rolls for a few rounds if there is a failed roll to save vs Insanity after a severe violation), but more harshly with NPC interactions (I.e. poor trust issues...which may be countered with higher M.A. attributes...this is in the works).

AZ RUNE said...

Definitely what Overkill said about the gritty feeling and to some degree the dystopia point Craig made.

Character Concept:

Valdus Aria
True-Atlantean Cyber-Knight (RUE) and bard. Collecting the tales of the world the great Prince Onra chose to live on.
(A lesser relative that was a traveler and rebelled at convention. Until he saw folks he had known shattered by thugs using magic and technology. He feels ashamed he did nothing to help them afraid he would die. He met a Trimadore Hermetic Knight and found a path to believe in so it would never happen again.)

It's rough but it's a start.

Jayson said...

That is a great start AZ_Rune!

killervp said...

Want to hear more! However, I am thinking about doing a Rahu Man Temporal Mage.

Jayson said...

Interesting. I thought you would have played that one race also from Rifts England that can control a small horde of Gigantes.

Jayson said...

Here is some more detail. The Book of Revelation talks about the end of days, yet nothing in Rifts timeline except for Wars and Rumors of Wars have fulfilled these prophesies. Several Rogue Scholars uncover these ancient writings and bring them to Erin Tarn. This creates quite the stir when it is realized that the Seven-Headed Dragon with Ten Horns sitting on many waters may in fact be a literal translation, given the advent of the rifts and the dragons have again returned! What else may these writings predict? What is coming? Can it be prevented?

Nathan Bingham said...

Holy Crap Snacks Jayson! Thats briliant. It could be the second apocilipse. That would be a great adventure if it included some globe trotting and rift jumping.