@@mastergargoyle3901 I would urge you to join my discord server, link in the description text, you can ask around, there are bound to be some players around your area
I've been using some UA-cam videos, including this one, to get me the refresher. I think my main issues as a wannabe DM who never had enough players to do THAT kind of game were with conversions... because Palladium Fantasy (either one) had legitimate balance. To the extent I'm reviving my abandoned ideas about 'adaptations', it's to keep that balance despite hopping dimensions. But yeah, great setting, refreshers are interesting too.
This setting sounds epic and I like that specific times can boost spells and magic that works great for people trying to perform rituals at a specific time that the party can get involved with
Rifts inspired 18 year old me to create a dimension book. It’s long gone, but I’ve revived it into a world for my writing. I’m only just beginning to write, but I’m enjoying it still as a 46 year old man. Atlantis was the dimension book that really got my mind running. I love this stuff!
@@AxiomofDiscord the Atlantis book, regardless of it being World book or dimension book, introduced the Splurgoth and a variant tattoo Magic and the application of dimensional travel for our minds to fantasize about. It made my mind bend like a pretzel and helped me to create my own worlds and dimensions. I would’ve hoped that the person I saw a response from would have given more to the conversation than “You’re wrong, dude! It’s a world book, not a dimension book… nerd!” I accept your one line and give you a bloody paragraph! Or two! 😂
I was introduced to the Palladium system, and fell in love with the unlimited possibilities. I have a storyline in my head that will be awesome to play, If only I can find other players.
I have been struggling with different rpgs to fit my setting for a decade. This is basically the catalyst of change in my world! This has made my week. I would love to here more about this setting from you, even as I look into it myself.
OH MY GOD TMNT the memories!!!! I played this ninja deer thing and had a blast goofing off with friends in HS until 6am. God I'd give anything to go back to those days. Thx for the shot of nostalgia!!
I have been traveling the megaverse for more than 30 years. I have loved all of your DnD content and it helped me integrate DnD worlds into Palladium, specifically Toril, Krynn and Sigil. Thank you for going into the worlds of the Megaverse and showing how Palladium is soo flexible for GMs. It's alot of wibbly wobbly timey whymie stuff but once you get the hang of it; a heck of alot of fun!
GM for the Rifts game I'm playing in has just introduced our characters to the Megaverse as a whole this past Saturday. Very fun system when you get used to it. Thnx for the lore AJ
This has reminded me of my first RIFTS character- a Cyberknight who spread the word of a hero of phenomenal power and virtue who lived and died- and rose again, in humanity's hour of greatest need- hundreds of years before the cataclysm. That's right, he worshipped Kal-El, the Super Man! 😅
Fun fact: years ago I was helping my friend tidy up and clean out his basement. We found 3 Rifts books. Neither of us knew what they were, but I figured the cover art looked cool. And so my friend gave them to me. The books mostly sit in my drawer. Sometimes I might get enough curiosity to browse through one but…. Never played Rifts, I do find the lore and concept fascinating.
Dear AJ, I’ve been watching your channel for years now. Using your vids to help designing so many characters and monsters. But… my true love had ALWAYS been PALLADIUM’s Megaverse. The collection isn’t “complete”, but my core book collections and sourcebooks are pretty vast to say the least. I am beyond excited to join you on your ultra deep dive into the Megaverse!! I’m gonna go grab a snack and a tasty beverage now, it’s time to get DEEPLY NERDY!
Great video, AJ, and OH! MEMORIES! I was one of the OG players of the TMNT RPG. I both loved TMNT becoming a cartoon and was one of those who raged against it, eventually we all agreed it's an alternative universe TMNT that the Turtles wrote as a spoof on their world, mostly by Mikey. Don't look at me like that, we all (our group) agreed that it's a fun idea. My human-looking mutant wolf ninja became friends with them and sat in on the group talking about their next story... us, playing TMNT the RPG, having a discussion with the turtles writing the TMNT cartoon. It was awesome mind candy RPG fodder for the game. Sorry, back to the Rifts universe. My most-played character was a Storm Dragon. I at first considered playing a Juicer, but I decided against it because of the short life of one... expecting our campaign to live longer than the Juicer would. We used every single magic rule they had and our DM (GM? Guy who had the books and ran that game) had a bunch of his own homebrew rules that he got inspired from my Loom of Magus AD&D homebrew. Oh, and we decided that fighting game characters that we play on our game systems worked very well within the Rifts reality. I mean, beating a car into wreckage in less than a minute... hurling fireballs and electrical bolts capable of knocking people around while also taking such hits without getting blown into bits... doing uppercuts that knock people way into the air while also taking them without dying... you get the idea. One of the players that capitalized upon the whole willing PPE thing for animals, I'm not sure if it's possible in core rules or what character type he created, but he was a "Dog Shaman" (loosely inspired by such a shaman from Shadow Run). He had a BUNCH of loyal dogs at his disposal, and they willingly gave up their PPE for sacrifice rituals... so, reusable PPE pools that were also loyal good boys (and girls). He was really useful... except in fights, even with battle armor access... and he had a mobile kennel of dogs to look after. His three "brother dogs" were not quite dogs, they were like TMNT mutant animals (dog looks, full biped, full hands). Those guys just stuck with the "normal" dogs. Being a Storm Dragon, I could not go near the dogs, even in human form, because they would go terrified-nuts. So, I guess in Rifts, dogs can smell through a magical shapechange the same way they can sniff out an infiltration type cyborg in the Terminator universe. I was told that in Rifts, animal senses include a psychic extension, is that true? I never ran Rifts games, so I never really knew... never read (that much of) that side of the rules. When I got comfortable enough with the Rifts reality to create a homebrew being of my own imagining that our GM approved of, the campaign never really moved after that. Our group drifted back to my AD&D games and another member's full explosion of Star Wars RPG and FASA Star Trek (would now be called ST:TOS) RPG missions. Oh, and every once in a while, our Rifts GM (DM?) would "just for sh^ts and giggles" have us in "not-campaign-reality-related" fight a Rifts bad guy. Basically, play-test a bad guy against us in a death battle without in-campaign consequence. The reason I bring this up is the Rifts Horseman of War. For the love of God, that guy is a killing machine... a TPK guy. He's practically MADE of weapons of war, and he's not limited to what he can reach - for what he can use. Sorry for the long one here. You hit a 90s nostalgia button here with me. As long as you are doing Rifts, can you do the Four Horsemen? War was a total badass. Our party was at the point where most combat was a guaranteed win... the challenge was only in how long it took. Maybe the Horsemen changed significantly since the 90s, but I doubt it... I doubt WotC (or the Palladium [if I spelled that right] equivalent) had their middle-finger-to-canon "geniuses" brainstorm that. I'd totally love a Sage AJ Pickett video on those guys, and I am confident that I'm not alone on this!
YES! I am that guy who leans over to the youngster and says _"You know, in Eastman & Laird's original comics and graphic novels, the Turtles where much darker in their outlook, and like actual ninjas? They killed people, also Casey Jones is a psycho and April O'Neil is not Hispanic... don't even get me started on what they did to the Utroms, and the entirety of TMNT space civilisations was some of Eric Wujcik's best writing, the concepts about technological pollution causing social collapse in galaxy-spanning empires due to rampant mutation and social breakdown was absolute genius... but yeah, pizza power, cowabunga... it's fun, I get it"_
@@AJPickett Since you locked into the TMNT RPG aspect of my comment, if you had a turn as a player in that game, what was your favorite character? I am probably off, but I am guessing a mutant crow (I might be thinking Road Hogs expansion), the sage of avians (social, problem solvers, understand things most animals don't), full speech, crow looks, extra limbs (functional wings and full hands), and some kind of Donatello type Crow... the brain guy who is combat-capable. Am I at least close?
@@That80sGuy1972 I played a mutant porcupine for a while, but we rolled up new characters for almost every game session we had, the idea of a campaign was more of a D&D thing for our group. Later, I became the forever DM of palladium, so, I only got to roll up NPCs.
@@AJPickett I feel both your privilege and pain as a forever DM, my friend. I am willing to bet my should-have-had life's savings that you truly treasure your fun days as a player... that mutant porcupine was probably gold times for you.
So glad to see Palladium get the respect it deserves. I remember running a Rifts campaign which was more closely related to Cthulu in terms of the players having to hunt down and stop a supernatural menace that didn't exist in the rule books and was never defined. The magic and rules had so much flexibility and really relied on players being involved and creative in their uses.
It chaffs my balls that Stranger things promoted D&D rather than Beyond the Supernatural... the game PERFECTLY designed to run a campaign EXACTLY like that show!!
On a side note, I wish there was an online version like D&D beyond and Roll 20. If there is I have not found it, and the company never answered my emails.
megaversal-hunt.obsidianportal.com/wikis/palladium-books-internet-policy Because they address this in their internet policy directly. (and unfortunately)
Palladium's TMNT was my first RPG. Still have that book, even play it about once a year. I like how a Palladium sourcebook isn't for just one rpg, it's for like six. At one point I had every Rifts book through Mystic China. Unfortunately a perfect storm of shitty medical bills meant most of my rpg stuff got sold. Still rebuilding what I had.
D&D fans are losing their shit over muskets being in the game, meanwhile the Palladium player in me is just wanting to laugh in their faces... _"It's because your system is built for wargamers, not roleplayers"_
Good quick lore explanation on how magic and PPE works in the megaversal system. I'm hoping you'll do a couple of videos on everyone's favorite North American antagonists, the Coalition States and the Federation of Magic.
Haven't gamed in a while but now my kids are teenagers I have a tiny bit more time. Wish I knew of more people in my area who ran a Rifts campaign. Love your work AJ keep it up
AJ, thank you _so much_ for your recent Palladium, and specifically Rifts content! Rifts was a major part of my adolescence in the 1990s. I cut my teeth as a GM throwing Mechanoids, dead boys, DBees, vampires, and Xiticix at my friends' characters for years. These videos were pure nostalgia for me. An itch I never knew needed scratched. There isn't much Rifts content out there; its popularity sharply fell off in the 2000s. It's a shame because the Rifts setting is among the most extraordinary, robust, and complex of RPGs. Critics get bogged down in the combat system and lose sight of the forest for the trees. I know there are many other RPGs worthy of focus. But, I'd like to see more Rifts content before moving on to feature other titles. Thanks again. PS, I remember sometime around 2003, 2004... six or seven years after the last game of our campaign, thinking... "My Hyperion Juicer would be dead by now." 😄
@@AJPickett Best news I've heard all weekend. You truly rock hard, AJ. And your style in flat caps is unmatched. Wishing you the best from the States. 💫
I'm in the same boat, it was a very interesting setting when I was in that time of my life. Looking back on it years later and I still like the setting a ton. The rest needs a bit of tender loving bashing to fit in place well, but the setting's strong.
As someone who uses the Hero system, I hear you. Some systems just aren't for introducing people to the hobby but are great once you're comfortable enough to try the more complex systems.
Rifts was My first love as an TTRPG system. Sadly it's can be complex and intimidating so most don't want to try it. I hope you go indepth and cover more lore about this wonderful series and about other Palladium Books as well!!
I like Rifts. At first it was a bit too complicated, but that was when I felt like you have to use all the info provided to make your game. After I treated all the options as just that, I found it to be very fun. It is still a bit chaotic
This video is GREAT AJ love the topic and your presentation! More of this please sir. Like I wish this had been around 20+ years ago when I was playing rifts regularly. I know you pulled a lot of this directly from palladium but it’s shouldn’t be understated that your presentation of it is what made it more accessible to me. You make me wish I would’ve grown up on New Zealand so we could have met at the same comic shop for game sessions. Any chance of some story time videos in rifts setting? Or food or metals like you did for dnd? Can you do a coalition video without getting demonetized? Or a video on the splugorth and Atlantis (maybe 6-10 videos lol big subject)? Best of luck to you and your health AJ as I sit waiting patiently for more of this great content! Seriously btw this and Xitic…X-bugs video I really want to start a rifts game again!
been a good 20 years since i played this. never did get into the magic and line walkers, but had a great time in it. Wonder where those old books are.....hmmmm
Just a shame Kevin is batshit insane. If he'd just, you know, not DCMA literally ANYONE who puts up even fan made OCCs, and allow his staff to update Rifts for the first time in thirty years, maybe it would be a bit more popular in today's D&D/d20 clone climate.
I can’t like this enough! TMNT was my first RPG along with the original WEG Star Wars. I might finally have an accident with Mystra and let the rifts start opening. Thank you again for revitalizing the old imaginarium.
When I was younger I played some RPGs. Most notably D&D, Robotech, Heroes Unlimited/Rifts/Palladium. Rifts was my favorite. Something about the setting intrigued me. Rumors circulated years ago that Jerry Bruckheimer had the film rights and was going to make a movie with Disney. Of course, that never came to fruition and probably never will, especially with Disney, because all they make now is rehashed crap of established properties.
I only recently got in to the Palladium game system via Savage Worlds. While the books are often panned for being poorly organized (which I get), I actually really like the ruleset. I tend to like "heavier" games (I have plenty of GURPS, Hero/Champions, and BRP/Mythras under my belt), so I'm very excited to play it. Will probably start with Heroes Unlimited since that's the first one I've purchased, and delve more from there. Great video.
Love Rifts. Love Palladium. With my group off friends from high school and uni during the late 80s, and early 90s, Palladium was played more than d&d, especially hero’s unlimited..
I played a Mind Melter in Rifts, was such a fun setting. We also played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I think I was a mutant beaver while my friends went for things like a crocodile and wolf.
I haven’t had a group to play in years. I was going to start another dnd champagne but i think I’ll start a rifts one instead. But one thing I can’t remember is, how does a shifter or line walker get enough P.P.E. To open a rift? It was 1000 PPE before the shifter updates I think. Unfortunately dad gave away all of my books more than a decade ago.
Not a shifter? Ok, well, check pages 113-117 (Ley line Walker and Ley line Shifter) and pages 192-196 (Dimensional Rifts) and spell lists from level 10 to level 15 in the Rifts Ultimate Edition book.
I have always preferred the magic point systems it allows for more flexibility in casting, I also do love how palladium pulls from hermeticism . It's just better then ... other systems
16:41 "289 years after this event the Post Apocalypse calendar was established by the formation of the Coalition States in 2286, centered in a huge Ark city complex called Chi-Town." That is a common misconception. The P.A. calendar did not coincide with the formation of the C.S. It is started by Chi-Town in January 2286 as P.A. year 0. Formation of the C.S. is proposed in 31 P.A. & becomes a reality in 33 P.A. (2319 A.D.), consisting of Chi-Town, Missouri, Iowa, & the Illinois Contingent. Sources: Game Master Guide page 12 Triax 2 page 10 Siege On Tolkeen 1 page 98 Excellent vid, good job.
Dang. It's been forever since anyone I know has mentioned this game. My first introduction to it was TMNT in Boy Scouts. I can't exactly put a year to it, but it was brand new then.
Rifts for me also in Boy Scouts, Got into AD&D 2nd edition after that and thought D&D was way behind Palladium mechanically at the time but still enjoyed it for what it was.
I've loved Palladium games since the first session I played of Heroes Unlimited in like 1988. Sadly I don't have anyone to play with at the moment. Any helpful hints to track down a group? Keep up the great work in the meantime! Your videos and livestreams are always high points in my week. :)
I've told people the same thing. The rules of Palladium games look complex but once you realize how they work and when you start playing they just melt into the background. And if a rule really isn't working with your style of play, ignore it.
Ooooh, I haven't played Rifts in Ages. I had a palladium group in highschool but no one at the college wanted to play, twas the Golden Age of World of Darkness and naught but White Wolf itself could dethrone them. So of course they did....
AJ, you describe it well. Palladium’s mechanics are baked into their world building. You could totally replace D&D’s vancian magic system with something else and not affect how the game works (i.e. 4e); but you can’t do that so easily with Rifts, et al.
But, that's not what I am saying Ryan. First off, Savage Rifts exists and is doing well. Second, you can dump the game mechanics almost entirely and the world building still works because the detailed mechanics give it a logical consistency regardless of if you actually use those mechanics in play or not. I don't mind if you have another opinion, but that is mine.
@@AJPickett Point well-made and gladly taken. Thanks for the clarification. Many said that 4e “didn’t feel like D&D.” I think there is something about how the lore and mechanics being made together…
Thanx AJ . I came to palladium from AD&D andBECMI dnd in the 80's and never found it complex or confusing. The character creation takes some more time but when thats done its no more complex than 5e and less abstract. There is no balancing between players though. One party member can be a hacker with a cyber eye while another is a literal demigod, but remember the Avengers have Hawkeye and Thor and that doesn't get in the way of decades of stories and a massive movie franchise. I found Pathfinder way more comple .
Balance is all in the storytelling with rifts. I'm running a savage rifts game with a mind melter, an engineer, and a dragon. Sure, the dragon can fight near anything, and the mind melter can cause all their enemies to just kill each other. But the engineer built/maintains the party's mobile base, can operate technology the other two don't understand, and has saved the day more than once with jury rigged MD pipe bombs. Not to mention that he isn't automatically an enemy of the CS and doesn't stick out like a Beacon. Rifts isn't all about power, it's about teamwork and applying your unique, varied skillsets to the challenge. And that's why it's one of my favorites
Did not the beginning of the Cataclysm begin with a nuclear detonation? You mentioned it at the beginning of the video and I have told that to the players in my new campaign. I can't seem to find that passage again though. Granted I have not looked back in my 1st Printing book from 1990 due to the lamination coming off the cover.
Nobody actually knows for sure in the setting itself, the common assumption with players is that it started with a limited nuclear exchange but that seems to be retconned or not entirely true. It was really a combination of things that ended up snowballing to an extreme degree. If it was Warhammer 40K we would just say the planet plunged into a sudden warp storm or something. Shit went south, real hard, real fast, after that, nobody had time to take notes.
@@AJPickett i think it must have gotten changed with the Revised Edition as you said. Maybe it was in the 1st Chaos Earth book, I should look. Absolutely love Rifts. Thanks for the reply.
Start of the cataclysm was explained in chaos uprising. Many nukes launched when all the stars aligned caused ley lines to explode opening rifts across the planet. Book does a much better job explaining than I just did
My last D&D/Star Wars group just used the TMNT alignment suggestions to cover our D&D PCs with interesting Indepth character concepts. " TMNT is about Teenage Heroes, so no role playing is needed, just be yourself, .. Teenagers !" .. as stated in the book. So if you want to create PC whose main theme is skateboarding and doing bicycle tricks, go for it. As for the d% system, just treat each 5%pts as a +1 on rolling a d20. Conversion is easy. Also my gaming shop converted Robo Tech into Star Wars with very little problem. Just a different way of playing your story telling games.
Rifts is an amazing inventive game. It's rules are also a shattered, scattered, contradictory mess, that is scattered through some 50+ books. These rules are so contradictory that one of my players made psychic borg, legally. My play group is assembling a Master Rules Document for our use. It has some homebrew, but most of it is just collecting rules from various sources. Rifts we love your weird jank, we hate your weird jank. It is awesome.
I've done a lot of catch-up and reading before asking this out loud. What do you think about the time taken to cast spells and the ability to interrupt them? I feel like the oldest material is balanced in this regard (Fantasy 1st Ed) before they raised the # of attacks globally, which I respect as a design shift, but canonical writing deliberately yanks spells back and says "No, that's not for you." The timing difference clashes with everything else in the whole system. I see the intent, but it definitely slanted the balance. How do you see it working out?
I find it annoying, it certainly highlights one of the main problems with universal rule systems... inertia. You want to change a rule? Welcome to updating 30 books to include it! The solution is simple, but Palladium would never embrace it. A free rulebook with the core system hosted free for anyone to access online, and all the world settings and supplimental sourcebooks would contain NO rules updates, changes or perhaps even stats at all. A universal rule system should be able to stat out anything quickly and easily, there is no need to fill pages with that stuff in your sourcebooks. As for spell casting times, magic theory in general, yeah, Palladium fantasy and Beyond the Supernatural (with a bit of Mystic China in there) are pretty much perfect. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
@@AJPickett The theories are great. I'll try and catch some live play examples with it used in action, but if it works well with actual games then great. Agreed completely about the need for a One Rulebook though!
Have you covered the pen and paper game Paranoia ? They made a video game about it but it was pulled from sales. I have no idea why. The PnP version was insane
Palladium is my personal favorite game system for role play. Sadly the best I can find now is players for D&D 5th. Which I have no interest.
Lots of folks in the comments here are looking for games. 😎👍
@@AJPickett any in southern Florida?
@@mastergargoyle3901 I would urge you to join my discord server, link in the description text, you can ask around, there are bound to be some players around your area
Sounds like you gotta start converting
@@dinkleberg684 I just play wargames.
Rifts is the only RPG I play. 20 years and it still never gets old. It's great to see you doing lore content. Keep up the good work.
Haven't thought of Rifts since the 90's. Something like this would be the refresher I'd need before stepping back into that world.
I've been using some UA-cam videos, including this one, to get me the refresher. I think my main issues as a wannabe DM who never had enough players to do THAT kind of game were with conversions... because Palladium Fantasy (either one) had legitimate balance. To the extent I'm reviving my abandoned ideas about 'adaptations', it's to keep that balance despite hopping dimensions. But yeah, great setting, refreshers are interesting too.
This setting sounds epic and I like that specific times can boost spells and magic that works great for people trying to perform rituals at a specific time that the party can get involved with
Thank you for covering this game system! Been a fan of them since 93.
Rifts inspired 18 year old me to create a dimension book. It’s long gone, but I’ve revived it into a world for my writing. I’m only just beginning to write, but I’m enjoying it still as a 46 year old man. Atlantis was the dimension book that really got my mind running.
I love this stuff!
Atlantis is a world book. It is World Book 2.
@@AxiomofDiscord the Atlantis book, regardless of it being World book or dimension book, introduced the Splurgoth and a variant tattoo Magic and the application of dimensional travel for our minds to fantasize about. It made my mind bend like a pretzel and helped me to create my own worlds and dimensions.
I would’ve hoped that the person I saw a response from would have given more to the conversation than “You’re wrong, dude! It’s a world book, not a dimension book… nerd!”
I accept your one line and give you a bloody paragraph! Or two! 😂
@@multidinero cool story
Rifts is my favorite RPG and having gamed for over 40 years I have played/GM'd many.
I remember when to me, you were only a name in two of my Rifter books on the shelf. And now, my Lore Master of choice.
Yes! More Rifts content please!
I was introduced to the Palladium system, and fell in love with the unlimited possibilities. I have a storyline in my head that will be awesome to play, If only I can find other players.
I have been struggling with different rpgs to fit my setting for a decade. This is basically the catalyst of change in my world! This has made my week. I would love to here more about this setting from you, even as I look into it myself.
Love the Rifts fluff, I can never find people to play it with though.
OH MY GOD TMNT the memories!!!! I played this ninja deer thing and had a blast goofing off with friends in HS until 6am. God I'd give anything to go back to those days. Thx for the shot of nostalgia!!
By the Gods AJ you can't just hit me with TMNT lore out of nowhere
I can, I did, and I will do it again :D
@@AJPickett Good I want to learn about that roleplaying book/setting
@@zacharyweaver276 You have Requested Mutant Animals and the Bio-E system!
@@AJPickett Sounds fun
It keeps! Getting! Better!!
Loving the RIFTS videos.
👍👍Rifts sounds awesome! I really can't fault a system that can function as a setting for any kind of adventure the players can imagine 😊👌
I have been traveling the megaverse for more than 30 years. I have loved all of your DnD content and it helped me integrate DnD worlds into Palladium, specifically Toril, Krynn and Sigil. Thank you for going into the worlds of the Megaverse and showing how Palladium is soo flexible for GMs. It's alot of wibbly wobbly timey whymie stuff but once you get the hang of it; a heck of alot of fun!
Great to hear! I love this game soo much.
I know like two people who run rift, thank you for the great content
Always loved Rifts, Palladium and the rest of their titles. The 3 galaxies are a great space setting.
I am so happy you did a rifts video! Thank you
Great memories
Awesome. My friends and I loved playing Rifts
GM for the Rifts game I'm playing in has just introduced our characters to the Megaverse as a whole this past Saturday. Very fun system when you get used to it. Thnx for the lore AJ
This has reminded me of my first RIFTS character- a Cyberknight who spread the word of a hero of phenomenal power and virtue who lived and died- and rose again, in humanity's hour of greatest need- hundreds of years before the cataclysm. That's right, he worshipped Kal-El, the Super Man! 😅
Noice!👍
Fun fact: years ago I was helping my friend tidy up and clean out his basement. We found 3 Rifts books. Neither of us knew what they were, but I figured the cover art looked cool. And so my friend gave them to me. The books mostly sit in my drawer. Sometimes I might get enough curiosity to browse through one but…. Never played Rifts, I do find the lore and concept fascinating.
Wow. The Rifts books had amazing covers. So pulpy and sci-fi! :D
Very much so!
Dear AJ,
I’ve been watching your channel for years now. Using your vids to help designing so many characters and monsters. But… my true love had ALWAYS been PALLADIUM’s Megaverse.
The collection isn’t “complete”, but my core book collections and sourcebooks are pretty vast to say the least.
I am beyond excited to join you on your ultra deep dive into the Megaverse!!
I’m gonna go grab a snack and a tasty beverage now, it’s time to get DEEPLY NERDY!
Excellent, I have months of information to cover and am welcoming viewer requests for Palladium RPG topics
Rifts and Superspies were my favorites, just my two cents.
Great video, AJ, and OH! MEMORIES!
I was one of the OG players of the TMNT RPG. I both loved TMNT becoming a cartoon and was one of those who raged against it, eventually we all agreed it's an alternative universe TMNT that the Turtles wrote as a spoof on their world, mostly by Mikey. Don't look at me like that, we all (our group) agreed that it's a fun idea. My human-looking mutant wolf ninja became friends with them and sat in on the group talking about their next story... us, playing TMNT the RPG, having a discussion with the turtles writing the TMNT cartoon. It was awesome mind candy RPG fodder for the game.
Sorry, back to the Rifts universe. My most-played character was a Storm Dragon. I at first considered playing a Juicer, but I decided against it because of the short life of one... expecting our campaign to live longer than the Juicer would. We used every single magic rule they had and our DM (GM? Guy who had the books and ran that game) had a bunch of his own homebrew rules that he got inspired from my Loom of Magus AD&D homebrew. Oh, and we decided that fighting game characters that we play on our game systems worked very well within the Rifts reality. I mean, beating a car into wreckage in less than a minute... hurling fireballs and electrical bolts capable of knocking people around while also taking such hits without getting blown into bits... doing uppercuts that knock people way into the air while also taking them without dying... you get the idea.
One of the players that capitalized upon the whole willing PPE thing for animals, I'm not sure if it's possible in core rules or what character type he created, but he was a "Dog Shaman" (loosely inspired by such a shaman from Shadow Run). He had a BUNCH of loyal dogs at his disposal, and they willingly gave up their PPE for sacrifice rituals... so, reusable PPE pools that were also loyal good boys (and girls). He was really useful... except in fights, even with battle armor access... and he had a mobile kennel of dogs to look after. His three "brother dogs" were not quite dogs, they were like TMNT mutant animals (dog looks, full biped, full hands). Those guys just stuck with the "normal" dogs. Being a Storm Dragon, I could not go near the dogs, even in human form, because they would go terrified-nuts. So, I guess in Rifts, dogs can smell through a magical shapechange the same way they can sniff out an infiltration type cyborg in the Terminator universe. I was told that in Rifts, animal senses include a psychic extension, is that true? I never ran Rifts games, so I never really knew... never read (that much of) that side of the rules.
When I got comfortable enough with the Rifts reality to create a homebrew being of my own imagining that our GM approved of, the campaign never really moved after that. Our group drifted back to my AD&D games and another member's full explosion of Star Wars RPG and FASA Star Trek (would now be called ST:TOS) RPG missions.
Oh, and every once in a while, our Rifts GM (DM?) would "just for sh^ts and giggles" have us in "not-campaign-reality-related" fight a Rifts bad guy. Basically, play-test a bad guy against us in a death battle without in-campaign consequence. The reason I bring this up is the Rifts Horseman of War. For the love of God, that guy is a killing machine... a TPK guy. He's practically MADE of weapons of war, and he's not limited to what he can reach - for what he can use.
Sorry for the long one here. You hit a 90s nostalgia button here with me. As long as you are doing Rifts, can you do the Four Horsemen? War was a total badass. Our party was at the point where most combat was a guaranteed win... the challenge was only in how long it took. Maybe the Horsemen changed significantly since the 90s, but I doubt it... I doubt WotC (or the Palladium [if I spelled that right] equivalent) had their middle-finger-to-canon "geniuses" brainstorm that. I'd totally love a Sage AJ Pickett video on those guys, and I am confident that I'm not alone on this!
YES! I am that guy who leans over to the youngster and says _"You know, in Eastman & Laird's original comics and graphic novels, the Turtles where much darker in their outlook, and like actual ninjas? They killed people, also Casey Jones is a psycho and April O'Neil is not Hispanic... don't even get me started on what they did to the Utroms, and the entirety of TMNT space civilisations was some of Eric Wujcik's best writing, the concepts about technological pollution causing social collapse in galaxy-spanning empires due to rampant mutation and social breakdown was absolute genius... but yeah, pizza power, cowabunga... it's fun, I get it"_
@@AJPickett Since you locked into the TMNT RPG aspect of my comment, if you had a turn as a player in that game, what was your favorite character? I am probably off, but I am guessing a mutant crow (I might be thinking Road Hogs expansion), the sage of avians (social, problem solvers, understand things most animals don't), full speech, crow looks, extra limbs (functional wings and full hands), and some kind of Donatello type Crow... the brain guy who is combat-capable. Am I at least close?
@@That80sGuy1972 I played a mutant porcupine for a while, but we rolled up new characters for almost every game session we had, the idea of a campaign was more of a D&D thing for our group. Later, I became the forever DM of palladium, so, I only got to roll up NPCs.
@@AJPickett I feel both your privilege and pain as a forever DM, my friend. I am willing to bet my should-have-had life's savings that you truly treasure your fun days as a player... that mutant porcupine was probably gold times for you.
So glad to see Palladium get the respect it deserves. I remember running a Rifts campaign which was more closely related to Cthulu in terms of the players having to hunt down and stop a supernatural menace that didn't exist in the rule books and was never defined. The magic and rules had so much flexibility and really relied on players being involved and creative in their uses.
It chaffs my balls that Stranger things promoted D&D rather than Beyond the Supernatural... the game PERFECTLY designed to run a campaign EXACTLY like that show!!
On a side note, I wish there was an online version like D&D beyond and Roll 20. If there is I have not found it, and the company never answered my emails.
megaversal-hunt.obsidianportal.com/wikis/palladium-books-internet-policy Because they address this in their internet policy directly. (and unfortunately)
The series was way ahead of their time. One of the deepest yet most expansive rpg worlds.
Excellently well-made. Kudos!
I love this so much. I use to bug the hell outta AJ about making Rifts content and now here we are. Totally worth it. Lol.
😁 and all it took was a miracle!
This is one of my favorite games, right behind Palladium Fantasy
Palladium's TMNT was my first RPG. Still have that book, even play it about once a year.
I like how a Palladium sourcebook isn't for just one rpg, it's for like six. At one point I had every Rifts book through Mystic China. Unfortunately a perfect storm of shitty medical bills meant most of my rpg stuff got sold. Still rebuilding what I had.
D&D fans are losing their shit over muskets being in the game, meanwhile the Palladium player in me is just wanting to laugh in their faces... _"It's because your system is built for wargamers, not roleplayers"_
Good quick lore explanation on how magic and PPE works in the megaversal system.
I'm hoping you'll do a couple of videos on everyone's favorite North American antagonists, the Coalition States and the Federation of Magic.
Request for Coalition states already made, you have requested The Federation of Magic. *notes*
Transdimensional tmnt was a lot of fun. Heroes unlimited and beyond sup were core games in my youth before rifts came out.
Here we go, kids! Some of the best source material in the industry. I hope AJ covers the CyberKnights soon.
You have requested Cyberknights!
@@AJPickett It was either that or more info on the psionic types but that felt far too broad.
@@HBHaga You have Requested Psionics!
Phase World is the Sigil of the Palladium multiverse.
Haven't gamed in a while but now my kids are teenagers I have a tiny bit more time. Wish I knew of more people in my area who ran a Rifts campaign. Love your work AJ keep it up
AJ, thank you _so much_ for your recent Palladium, and specifically Rifts content! Rifts was a major part of my adolescence in the 1990s. I cut my teeth as a GM throwing Mechanoids, dead boys, DBees, vampires, and Xiticix at my friends' characters for years. These videos were pure nostalgia for me. An itch I never knew needed scratched. There isn't much Rifts content out there; its popularity sharply fell off in the 2000s. It's a shame because the Rifts setting is among the most extraordinary, robust, and complex of RPGs. Critics get bogged down in the combat system and lose sight of the forest for the trees. I know there are many other RPGs worthy of focus. But, I'd like to see more Rifts content before moving on to feature other titles. Thanks again.
PS, I remember sometime around 2003, 2004... six or seven years after the last game of our campaign, thinking...
"My Hyperion Juicer would be dead by now." 😄
I'm really enjoying making the Palladium content and plan to continue doing so until I feel otherwise.
@@AJPickett Best news I've heard all weekend. You truly rock hard, AJ. And your style in flat caps is unmatched. Wishing you the best from the States. 💫
I'm in the same boat, it was a very interesting setting when I was in that time of my life. Looking back on it years later and I still like the setting a ton. The rest needs a bit of tender loving bashing to fit in place well, but the setting's strong.
Digging it!
As someone who uses the Hero system, I hear you. Some systems just aren't for introducing people to the hobby but are great once you're comfortable enough to try the more complex systems.
Rifts was My first love as an TTRPG system. Sadly it's can be complex and intimidating so most don't want to try it. I hope you go indepth and cover more lore about this wonderful series and about other Palladium Books as well!!
I like Rifts. At first it was a bit too complicated, but that was when I felt like you have to use all the info provided to make your game. After I treated all the options as just that, I found it to be very fun. It is still a bit chaotic
This video is GREAT AJ love the topic and your presentation! More of this please sir. Like I wish this had been around 20+ years ago when I was playing rifts regularly. I know you pulled a lot of this directly from palladium but it’s shouldn’t be understated that your presentation of it is what made it more accessible to me. You make me wish I would’ve grown up on New Zealand so we could have met at the same comic shop for game sessions. Any chance of some story time videos in rifts setting? Or food or metals like you did for dnd? Can you do a coalition video without getting demonetized? Or a video on the splugorth and Atlantis (maybe 6-10 videos lol big subject)? Best of luck to you and your health AJ as I sit waiting patiently for more of this great content! Seriously btw this and Xitic…X-bugs video I really want to start a rifts game again!
Love Rifts.
been a good 20 years since i played this. never did get into the magic and line walkers, but had a great time in it. Wonder where those old books are.....hmmmm
Love Palladium and Chaosium. Hope to see more stuff like this.
Just a shame Kevin is batshit insane. If he'd just, you know, not DCMA literally ANYONE who puts up even fan made OCCs, and allow his staff to update Rifts for the first time in thirty years, maybe it would be a bit more popular in today's D&D/d20 clone climate.
Thanks AJ. Just what I was looking for.
Glad I could help 👍😎
I need more Palladium. first time I heard about it was in one of your recent streams and now I see that it's like really fucking cool!
It is really fucking cool
I can’t like this enough! TMNT was my first RPG along with the original WEG Star Wars. I might finally have an accident with Mystra and let the rifts start opening. Thank you again for revitalizing the old imaginarium.
My pleasure!
When I was younger I played some RPGs. Most notably D&D, Robotech, Heroes Unlimited/Rifts/Palladium. Rifts was my favorite. Something about the setting intrigued me. Rumors circulated years ago that Jerry Bruckheimer had the film rights and was going to make a movie with Disney. Of course, that never came to fruition and probably never will, especially with Disney, because all they make now is rehashed crap of established properties.
I played first and loved wormwood
I only recently got in to the Palladium game system via Savage Worlds. While the books are often panned for being poorly organized (which I get), I actually really like the ruleset. I tend to like "heavier" games (I have plenty of GURPS, Hero/Champions, and BRP/Mythras under my belt), so I'm very excited to play it. Will probably start with Heroes Unlimited since that's the first one I've purchased, and delve more from there. Great video.
Good choice, HU is my favorite RPG of all time.
Love Rifts. Love Palladium. With my group off friends from high school and uni during the late 80s, and early 90s, Palladium was played more than d&d, especially hero’s unlimited..
Same
I played a Mind Melter in Rifts, was such a fun setting. We also played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I think I was a mutant beaver while my friends went for things like a crocodile and wolf.
You had me at heros unlimited!
I haven’t had a group to play in years. I was going to start another dnd champagne but i think I’ll start a rifts one instead. But one thing I can’t remember is, how does a shifter or line walker get enough P.P.E. To open a rift? It was 1000 PPE before the shifter updates I think. Unfortunately dad gave away all of my books more than a decade ago.
Not a shifter? Ok, well, check pages 113-117 (Ley line Walker and Ley line Shifter) and pages 192-196 (Dimensional Rifts) and spell lists from level 10 to level 15 in the Rifts Ultimate Edition book.
LOTS of blood sacrifice!... on a solstice... on a nexus... People give off double their ppe when they die 🙂
Love these videos wish there were more of them
I have always preferred the magic point systems it allows for more flexibility in casting, I also do love how palladium pulls from hermeticism . It's just better then ... other systems
Indeed :D
These videos are well done. Keep up the good work!
Thank you, will do!
16:41 "289 years after this event the Post Apocalypse calendar was established by the formation of the Coalition States in 2286, centered in a huge Ark city complex called Chi-Town."
That is a common misconception.
The P.A. calendar did not coincide with the formation of the C.S.
It is started by Chi-Town in January 2286 as P.A. year 0.
Formation of the C.S. is proposed in 31 P.A. & becomes a reality in 33 P.A. (2319 A.D.), consisting of Chi-Town, Missouri, Iowa, & the Illinois Contingent.
Sources:
Game Master Guide page 12
Triax 2 page 10
Siege On Tolkeen 1 page 98
Excellent vid, good job.
Thanks for the references, that's helpful.
Interesting! RIFTS is the one rpg I haven't played (yet).
It's great to hear about (and explore) a realistic ttrpg. Rifts sounds technical, but fun.
As always your videos act as great inspiration for all types of projects. Thanks again aj
we still play every other weekend
I miss playing rifts, it was a great game
Still is 🙂
Yay! Thanks so much
Rifts and Phase World are my favorite settings, everything is possible from magic to cybernetics to star travel.
Mutants in orbit for me.
Well done brother!
Much appreciated!
Thanks AJ.
Oh! Here it is! Nice 🎉 😂
Dang. It's been forever since anyone I know has mentioned this game. My first introduction to it was TMNT in Boy Scouts.
I can't exactly put a year to it, but it was brand new then.
Rifts for me also in Boy Scouts, Got into AD&D 2nd edition after that and thought D&D was way behind Palladium mechanically at the time but still enjoyed it for what it was.
I've loved Palladium games since the first session I played of Heroes Unlimited in like 1988. Sadly I don't have anyone to play with at the moment. Any helpful hints to track down a group?
Keep up the great work in the meantime! Your videos and livestreams are always high points in my week. :)
Check the Forums of the Megaverse, bound to find some players there.
I've told people the same thing. The rules of Palladium games look complex but once you realize how they work and when you start playing they just melt into the background. And if a rule really isn't working with your style of play, ignore it.
Ooooh, I haven't played Rifts in Ages. I had a palladium group in highschool but no one at the college wanted to play, twas the Golden Age of World of Darkness and naught but White Wolf itself could dethrone them.
So of course they did....
Can't wait til you cover the Chads of the Coalition. 💪
You have requested The Coalition States.
I would love to find a good Rifts campaign being run online.
After the OGL issue, my group has been looking at new systems. I'm curious about Rifts. Where can we find books?
DrivethruRPG or Palladiumbooks.com
AJ, you describe it well. Palladium’s mechanics are baked into their world building. You could totally replace D&D’s vancian magic system with something else and not affect how the game works (i.e. 4e); but you can’t do that so easily with Rifts, et al.
But, that's not what I am saying Ryan. First off, Savage Rifts exists and is doing well. Second, you can dump the game mechanics almost entirely and the world building still works because the detailed mechanics give it a logical consistency regardless of if you actually use those mechanics in play or not. I don't mind if you have another opinion, but that is mine.
@@AJPickett Point well-made and gladly taken. Thanks for the clarification. Many said that 4e “didn’t feel like D&D.” I think there is something about how the lore and mechanics being made together…
Watching this whole video just to juggle that algorithm a bit for some Palladium love. Thanks
Thank you, that helps a LOT.
I love d&d, but rifts is my absolute favorite, but unfortunately, I found it hard to get people into it
I'll play with ya
Same. Denver, CO here.
will you cover the white wolf verse anytime soon or maybe even champions?
The more requests I get for titles, the more I will lean into making videos about those titles, simple as that :)
Great channel.
Thank you!
Thanx AJ . I came to palladium from AD&D andBECMI dnd in the 80's and never found it complex or confusing. The character creation takes some more time but when thats done its no more complex than 5e and less abstract. There is no balancing between players though. One party member can be a hacker with a cyber eye while another is a literal demigod, but remember the Avengers have Hawkeye and Thor and that doesn't get in the way of decades of stories and a massive movie franchise. I found Pathfinder way more comple .
Sounds like we have a similar background and point of view on this :)
Balance is all in the storytelling with rifts.
I'm running a savage rifts game with a mind melter, an engineer, and a dragon.
Sure, the dragon can fight near anything, and the mind melter can cause all their enemies to just kill each other. But the engineer built/maintains the party's mobile base, can operate technology the other two don't understand, and has saved the day more than once with jury rigged MD pipe bombs. Not to mention that he isn't automatically an enemy of the CS and doesn't stick out like a Beacon.
Rifts isn't all about power, it's about teamwork and applying your unique, varied skillsets to the challenge. And that's why it's one of my favorites
interesting system some useful and interesting stuff in this video hope to learn more about this and other new settings you decide to cover
Did not the beginning of the Cataclysm begin with a nuclear detonation? You mentioned it at the beginning of the video and I have told that to the players in my new campaign. I can't seem to find that passage again though. Granted I have not looked back in my 1st Printing book from 1990 due to the lamination coming off the cover.
Nobody actually knows for sure in the setting itself, the common assumption with players is that it started with a limited nuclear exchange but that seems to be retconned or not entirely true. It was really a combination of things that ended up snowballing to an extreme degree. If it was Warhammer 40K we would just say the planet plunged into a sudden warp storm or something. Shit went south, real hard, real fast, after that, nobody had time to take notes.
@@AJPickett i think it must have gotten changed with the Revised Edition as you said. Maybe it was in the 1st Chaos Earth book, I should look. Absolutely love Rifts. Thanks for the reply.
Start of the cataclysm was explained in chaos uprising. Many nukes launched when all the stars aligned caused ley lines to explode opening rifts across the planet. Book does a much better job explaining than I just did
@@vyper258 While on a Winter Solstice as well. But yeah basically everything was perfectly aligned for tragedy.
My last D&D/Star Wars group just used the TMNT alignment suggestions to cover our D&D PCs with interesting Indepth character concepts.
" TMNT is about Teenage Heroes, so no role playing is needed, just be yourself, .. Teenagers !" .. as stated in the book.
So if you want to create PC whose main theme is skateboarding and doing bicycle tricks, go for it.
As for the d% system, just treat each 5%pts as a +1 on rolling a d20. Conversion is easy.
Also my gaming shop converted Robo Tech into Star Wars with very little problem. Just a different way of playing your story telling games.
Keep em coming.
Rifts is an amazing inventive game. It's rules are also a shattered, scattered, contradictory mess, that is scattered through some 50+ books. These rules are so contradictory that one of my players made psychic borg, legally. My play group is assembling a Master Rules Document for our use. It has some homebrew, but most of it is just collecting rules from various sources. Rifts we love your weird jank, we hate your weird jank. It is awesome.
Why not have a Psionic cyborg? They have a brain... Anyway, I've never had a single problem running the game... guess I am just amazing.
@@AJPickett You are most likely better at running it. It is fun. Why no psionic borgs? Lore. You know more than me.
@@gmradio2436 Hmmm well, I shall share what I know to all who ask, to the best of my ability.
@@AJPickett Thank you. Please teach.
I've done a lot of catch-up and reading before asking this out loud. What do you think about the time taken to cast spells and the ability to interrupt them? I feel like the oldest material is balanced in this regard (Fantasy 1st Ed) before they raised the # of attacks globally, which I respect as a design shift, but canonical writing deliberately yanks spells back and says "No, that's not for you." The timing difference clashes with everything else in the whole system. I see the intent, but it definitely slanted the balance. How do you see it working out?
I find it annoying, it certainly highlights one of the main problems with universal rule systems... inertia. You want to change a rule? Welcome to updating 30 books to include it! The solution is simple, but Palladium would never embrace it. A free rulebook with the core system hosted free for anyone to access online, and all the world settings and supplimental sourcebooks would contain NO rules updates, changes or perhaps even stats at all. A universal rule system should be able to stat out anything quickly and easily, there is no need to fill pages with that stuff in your sourcebooks. As for spell casting times, magic theory in general, yeah, Palladium fantasy and Beyond the Supernatural (with a bit of Mystic China in there) are pretty much perfect. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
@@AJPickett The theories are great. I'll try and catch some live play examples with it used in action, but if it works well with actual games then great. Agreed completely about the need for a One Rulebook though!
Hell yeah Rifts!!!
Thanks for the video AJ!
phaerimm might appear in a future rifts campaign of mine…
Informative video AJ
Thanks Chris!
Have you covered the pen and paper game Paranoia ? They made a video game about it but it was pulled from sales. I have no idea why. The PnP version was insane
I sure have and I love it! I will be happy to create some videos about Paranoia.
Best game world ever!
I know Palladium is protective of its intellectual property. Where can I find their rules covering their product?
Aside from the obvious answer of "Buy a book or PDF"?
@@AJPickett I think he's talking about their rules on making content for the setting
Ash, I believe it's just a no go. I dont think they let you make anything for publishing.