RPG Book List

Here is my super awsome RPG Booklist that I use to run the 3rd Age of Dragonwright rifts game.
New characters should be from one of the books on the list so I at least know what I'm up against...

Rifts Ultimate Edition

Rifts Main Book 

Rifts conversion book 1 

Rifts conversion book 2: Pantheons of the Megaverse 

Rifts Mercenaries 

Source book 1 

Source book 2: Mechanoids 

Source book 3: Mindwerks 

Source Book 4: Coalition Navy
Rifts Bionics Sourcebook
Rifts Merctown
Rifts Heros of the Megaverse
Rifts DBees of North America
Rifts Aftermath
Rifts Book of Magic

World Book 1: Vampire Kingdom 

World Book 2: Atlantis 

World Book 3: England 

World Book 4: Africa 

World Book 5: Triax and the NGR 

World Book 6: South America 

World Book 7: Rifts Undersea 

World Book 8: Japan 

World Book 9: South America 2 

World Book 10: The Juicer Uprisings 

World Book 11: Coalition War Campaign 

World Book 12: Psyscape 

World Book 13: Lone Star 

World Book 14: The New West 

World Book 15: Spirit West 

World Book 16: Federation of Magic 

World Book 17: Warlords of Russia
World Book 18: Mystic Russia

World Book 19: Australia 

World Book 21: Splynn Dimensional Market Place 

World Book 23: Xiticix Invasion
World Book 24: China 1

World Book 25: China 2

World Book 29: Madhaven

World Book 31: Triax 2

Dimension Book 1: Wormwood 

Dimension Book 2: Phase World 

Dimension Book 4: Skraypers
Dimension Book 7: Megaversal Builder 

Coalition Wars 1: Sedition 

Coalition Wars 2: CS Overkill 

Coalition Wars 3: The Sorceres Revenge 

Coalition Wars 4: Cyber Knights 

Coalition Wars 5: Shadows of Evil 

Coalition Wars 6: The Final Siege 

The Vanguard
The Black Vault
Rifts Firetown and the Tolkeen Crisis
Rifts Machinations of Doom
Rifts Shemarrain Nation Sourcebook
Rifter 1 53 15 52 44 31 14 54
Rifts Chi-Town Burbs
The Rise of Magic Rifts Chaos Earth Sourcebook

Non Rifts Palladium
Aliens Unlimited
Heros Unlimited
TMNT and other strangeness
Palladium RPG
Palladium RPG Book II: Old Ones
Nightbane: Between the Shadows
Robotech II REF Feild Guide
Robotech Shadow Chronicles RPG Deluxe Edition
Macross II: Deck Plans Volume Two
Beyond the Supernatural

DND
Dungeon Masters Guide v.3.5
Dungeons and Dragons Planar Handbook
Monster Manual v.3.5
AD&D 2nd Edition The Drow of the Underdark
AD&D 2nd Edition Complete Psionics Handbook
AD&D 2nd Edition Complete Thief's Handbook

Shadowrun
Shadowrun Third Edition
Matrix a Shadowrun Rules Expansion
Tir Tairngire
The Neo Anarchists Guide to Real live
Feilds of Fire

Other
The Techno-Mages Fact Book
Gurps Illuminati

Rifts World Book Five Triax Review

Tirax and the NGR, a European nation-state embroiled in a seemingly endless battle against the demon hordes to the east. That pretty much makes up the main point of this book, a technologically advanced group of humans fighting for their basic survival.
I really liked the ideas in this book, but there was one major thing that bothered me about it. Out of it’s 222 pages, this book has less than 30 pages devoted to actually describing the whole continent of Europe, and at least 175 pages of toys. Now, all the toys are some of Palladium’s most interesting, but really, what kind of world book only has 30 pages of actual information? Errrr… Just that makes it impossible to run a game in that area with out having to make up things left and right.

The meager world-data there is excellent, but I get the feeling that my tongue has just been slightly whetted, and that there really could have been MUCH more world data put in. The toys in this book have been some of the most coveted since it was released, but unless you allow your PC’s to somehow find caches of extremely hard-to-find Triax military equipment, most of them are out of reach for the average character operating out of North America.

That brings me to my final point on this book: It’s not in North America. Now, I am sure that many people out there have no problem with this, but for me, North America really is big enough for all of my games. If for some reason my PC’s did end up out side of it’s borders, most of Palladium’s world books are also guilty of having sparsely detailed descriptions of the actual places, and mounds of stats and new OCC’s/RCC’s. But even then, this is one of their coolest book ideas, but it would be pretty difficult to directly incorporate into a North American campaign.

One of the book’s greatest features is it’s awesome art. The cover kicks ass. Long’s stuff shines bright through out the entire thing, and really gives the Triax stuff that slick, bad-ass look. If anything, buy this book for some neeto art to cut out and put up on your wall (or photocopy first, and then put it up on your wall; that’s what I do!). Plus the comic is pretty cool, too bad Palladium has never done another like it…

I originally didn’t buy this book because it really isn’t integral to any game you might want to run in North America. However, a few of my fellow gamers did buy it right away, and after paging through it extensively, I decided to buy I used copy at Gen Con. Was it worth my $17? Well, I would say yes, but it really wasn’t needed, just cool enough for me to spend money on. So, if your short on cash, spend your money on one of Palladium’s newer books dealing with North America, and save getting this one for when you have some money to burn.

Noticable Picture, Quote, or Stat:
A platoon of Triax X-535 Jagers with TX-871MM interchangeable Rotary Missile Drum Launchers. All I can say is VOLLEYS OF 48 SHORT RANGE PLASMA MISSLES. Considering that these things aren’t at all that big, and can still run at about 100 mph with the TX-871MM, a small group of of them could destroy pretty much anything in 1 or 2 attacks!!! Imagine 480 Short range plasma missiles being launched at once! Screw nukes, get these guys in there and make sure they have some supply trucks around for reloads!

Noticable Lame Picture, Quote, or Stat:
While I did enjoy the comic’s art, it was way to unrealistic for me. 2 Jagers vs. 2 Gurgoyle PAs. Fine. But the fact that both of the Gurgoyle bots are taken out in 1 shot?! No way! Even if that was possible, I don’t think that Glank the Gurgoyle pilot would’ve also lost all of his 400 MDC! No, those 2 poor Jagers would have still been in combat with at least 1 of their opponents when the really big-ass robots appeared… Oh well, I guess I’m just nit-picker. =)

Rifts Source Book Two Review

Ed note 2009: After watching BattleStar Galactica, wouldn’t you agree the Mechanoids are basicaly Cylon clones?
Rifts Source Book Two:

The Mechanoids
Do you like alien cyborgs who’s only point is to destroy all humanoid life? Well, I sure hope so, because that’s really all your going to get if you buy this book.
Based off of Palladium’s truly ancient RPG, The Mechanoids, this book is just basically a big conversion of the cyborgs into the world of Rifts. There is a fairly interesting background on the Mechanoids, followed by about 10 times as many pages devoted to their stats. The book also includes some OK adventuring ideas for incorporating them into your game.

On that last note, the Mechanoids are NOT a race that you can just casually bring into your campaign. They’re just too alien, war-like, and frankly annoying. I mean, you could theoretically have a game with the PC’s encountering them, exploring their lair, etc., but who want’s to? What reason would PC’s have for putsing around with these aliens? Maybe if your PC’s are all Cyber-Knights or something, but just the fact that the cyborgs usually move in platoons/groups, have MASTER psionics, and also have some pretty lethal ‘borg bodies makes them really powerful.

Now don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of them having been around for 1000’s of years (they fought the Kittani, cool!), but do they really NEED their own entire source book? I don’t think so, all they really need are stats, descriptions of their mind-less killing habits, and a history of their previous encounters. The adventures? Usually out of the scope of my campaign, it’s to big of a pain to bring them in, and all they’d ever do was shoot at my PC’s. I’m still not sure how your can have a whole RPG about them, just what is their to role-play out? “Let’s go kill some humanoids”. “OK, yes, they all must die”, and so on, this seems to be the mentality of ALL the insane borgs, the smart ones just think about it in more complicated ways.

Overall I would say that this book is definitely NOT detrimental to have in any campaign. If you like unity, buy it. If you just buy all of the books, then you probably don’t care anyway. Or, if you just need some baddies to shoot missiles at your innocent, and unfortunately humanoid PC’s for no other reason than to cause them to need to have expensive repairs done on their nice shiny vehicles and armor, then you might want to buy it. But if you’re like me, and want some detailed world data you can use to actually role-play off of, this is not the book for you.

Noticable Interesting Picture, Quote, or Stat:
The picture on pages 102-103 is pretty cool looking, it’s another tragic victim of the “let’s cut good art in half” problem though. A good representation of how ruined buildings would look like, and the two robots in it don’t look all that bad.

Noticable Lame Picture, Quote, or Stat:
Well, the piles of Mechanoid stats themselves are annoying, but overall this book doesn’t have anything that out of place. I if see something though, I’ll be sure to bring it to your attention!

Rifts Source Book One Review

This is (I think, someone correct me if I’m wrong) the first Rifts Book after the Main Book. It gives new information on North America, and some new guns and bots, to supplement the (at the time) slim ammount of them.
There is much needed info on the average Coalition platoon make-ups, populations of Coalition and other towns, the North American wilderness, and a great description of the Coalition’s view point on things and more information leeding into it’s intrisities and main characters.

There are also some more demons (which appear in later books), some early info on Atlantis, some outlandishly expensive (and kind of annoying) robot creation rules, and a few rules clarifications which were needed at the time.

Plus, there is a pretty good adventure included, but as of yet I have NEVER found a player who by this time has not already read most of it’s secrets. But A.R.C.H.I.E.’s robots sure are nifty.

The book is adorned with alot of excelent art, with some of the best pieces including the picture of the new T-1000 (but it’s cut in halph by the page damnit!), the Shemerian Warrior (with the awsome rail gun!), and the NG-V7 Mobile Hunter Gun. There is also the picture of the bad-ass Forager X-500. I think the retro-old style look is awsome, it has turbines!

Overall, this book is a must for any Rifts player. I don’t know any respectable gamer who doesn’t already have one. Back when it first came out (oh so long ago), people were so entraled with Rifts, they gobbled up any new offical info like candy, and this book whetted their needs. Now I think it is more considered an old standby. The equipment and data within is considered standard, it is not a “stand-alone” style book, and the later ones refer to equipment from it pretty frequently.

Noticable Intresting Picture, Quote, or Stat:

The picture on p19 realy helps give a feel for the squalor of the burbs, I especialy liked the brand names and graffiti (they add a little culture).

Noticable Lame Picture, Quote, or Stat:

P. 104, robot weapons section: “Small Claws - 1pt of MD, 60000cr” When I read this I had to think, “what the hell?!”, I mean, why do a pair of crappy claws cost so much? I’d rather have an NG-E4 Plasma Ejector and like 3 long e-clips! The rest of the prices for annoying robot stuff are just as outragously inflated! I guess Mr. Siembada must have been slightly dazed from lack of sleep after writing the other quality information in this book, and he accidenaly added in a couple of 0’s to every thing in the robot section.

Rifts World Book One Vampire Kingdoms Review

Vampire Kingdoms, Rifts World Book One

Palladium’s first world book, Vampire Kingdoms covers the area of Mexico and central America. There is ample information on the Vampire Kingdoms that dot the Central American area, and are present in the dimensional-fluxing place called the Yucatan. The book has extremely detailed information on the few strongholds of humans left in the area (including Cuidad Juarez, El Paso, and others). This is one of the most detailed of all of the other world books. There really are scores of pages about the different peoples and nations of this area, and how they intermingle and compete with each other.
The book mainly focuses on the ultimate enemy, Vampires. There is a good amount of information on the undead, as well as tactics of killing them and items for such a purpose. Definitely not a stat filled book in that aspect though.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this book to a GM, to a PC it seems like it would just ruin a lot of secrets. The Vampires can be great enemies, and are really pretty good catalysts for some interesting adventures. And, they are given a back ground and reason for living, Palladium has really spent some time on writing up a great race, with many details and little things that help make everything seem very realistic.

Using this book in a “normal” North American campaign is pretty easy, the areas it covers are easily accessible for most, and the land is not unheard of to most adventurers (it’s even mentioned in the Main Book!)

The book’s art is OK. Long draws a lot of it, but I never was fond of his style with humans, he draws technology stuff much better. Seimbada also has a few drawings of his own here, I wouldn’t say his a the best artist, but he does pretty good drawing the vampires.

Noticable Interesting Picture, Quote, or Stat:

The Vernulians. A bad-ass d-bee race that isn’t just some lame-o human looking person with a ridged forehead. These guys are definitely NOT humanoid at all, they’ve got cool-looking tentacles, and are given some fairly interesting background inf. Plus, they’re not like all the wussy d-bee races that are just loser refugees on Rifts earth, the Vernulians have military OCCs, and are trying to colonize Rifts earth. Plus there is a faction of the race that is fleeing the military rule of their leaders. This race could be really cool, and it’s to bad they only get under 2 pages out of Vampires…

Noticable Lame Picture, Quote, or Stat:

Well, remember those “create your own super-hero group” rules from Heroes Unlimited? The book has many pages devoted to this, only now you’re making oh-so-exciting traveling shows. Some of the little details that they include are cool, but for the most part I always found the whole point system crap annoying. I mean, if I want a group, I’ll make it up my self, I don’t need some wacky rule system to help me.

RiftsConversion Book Review

A very old review of conversion book I…
Rifts Conversion Book One

Another one of the old standbys, the conversion book has been around for what seems like forever. This book was written in response to the need at the time for many rules clarifications, and to release a plethora of new creatures and things into the world of Rifts.
One of the main aspects of the Conversion Books is, amazingly, conversions. Palladium has written information on how to bring characters from nearly all of it’s previous games into Rifts earth. Plus, there are many races and monsters that are taken directly from the Palladium Fantasy game, and Beyond the Supernatural. Does any of it actually fit into Rifts? Well, that depends. I am inclined to say most of the older games’ stuff doesn’t usually work to well in Rifts, it’s just to out of it’s environment. Some of the monsters and d-bee races would work, but Super Heroes, Martial Artists, and Null-Psychics? They just seem WAY out of their genre in the Rifts world. But Palladium seems to think that they do work (note the many “Converted” NPC’s that are from other worlds). I guess Rifts is a big inter-dimensional melting pot, but even then, I don’t imagine spandexed heroes and ninjas running around in the battle-torn continent of North America. It just wouldn’t seem very realistic, I mean I envision Rifts as being all gritty and hard-core, not full of smiling superheroes and crap.

But anyway, the book does include quite a few worth while things, some of my favorite include the warlocks, werebeasts, and the listings of haunting entities. Most of the demons are either WAY to powerful, or just pitifully weak. I mean, take a close look at the Balrog demon’s stats, they really are pretty crappy.

The rule clarifications are needed, but by now most people already know them anyway. The conversions of older games’ stuff usually just turns the characters into walking guns/suits of armor, unless the character has powers or something else that will be on par with Rifts stuff. I always have wondered if there are Nightbane conversions somewhere, but I have never found them.

Overall, the conversion book is definitely worth the money. At the time, it was really needed, and like many of the older books, it is usually regarded as and old-standby. No serious gamer doesn’t have this book, there’s just too much good info in here to go with out.

Noticable Interesting Picture, Quote, or Stat:

Can we say GREATER EARTH ELEMENTAL? And warlocks get a chance to summon these things! Now this is what the Coalition is afraid of, not some crappy Ley Line walker’s magic! The Greater Earth Elemental has 3d6×1000MDC!!!! It’s power punch does 4d6×10MD!!! It has 8 hand to hand attacks, or 6 Earth Elemental magic attacks! Earthquakes away! Just one of these mothers could take out an entire Coalition Heavy Mechanized Search and Destroy squad! Think they can’t have ranged attacks? Well they can throw stones 6000ft doing 1d4×10MD!!! Everything about these creatures kicks ass, plus the thing can summon many other elementals to it’s aide. Scary.

Noticable Lame Picture, Quote, or Stat:

Well, this book is full of wacky races and such, but I feel that one of the most annoying things in the book is the picture of the Cyber-horseman on page 112. The thing has a cyber-schlong!!! Was this really necessary Mr. Gustovich? Plus the picture has things like the never before released “Cyber-Tree RCC”, and “Cyber-Grass RCC”. Why is EVERYTHING in the picture cybernetic?

Rifts Mainbook Review

Again an old repost of the Main Book review I did a long time ago for my old site.

Rifts books,

An objective view of them and the world(s) they describe.

Skip to the other reviews

Rifts Main Book: What started it all.

This is the book that started Palladium’s most widely known (and played) RPG game. Using a slightly modified version of the rules of their previous games, Rifts allows players infinitely more possibilities in gaming, instead of the previous game’s basically real-life settings.

This freedom in my opinion is a mixed blessing. As a fan of actual role-playing, and not just hack n’ slashing, Rifts creates a dilemma. While most of Palladium’s other games take place in a world basically like today’s, Rifts takes place in the drastically transformed earth of around 300+ years in the future.

Unfortunatly, for GM’s who wishes to employ a lot of setting into their adventures, now just taking things out of today’s world doesn’t work. Rifts earth is more alien than ever. The remaining humans of this world are even hard to imagine, they’re way of life, thinking and society all permanently changed by the forces that ravaged the earth during and after the coming of the Rifts. And that’s just the humans! There are now countless other races now co-inhabiting Rifts earth with them. How can a GM know how to play out the actions of this Alien or than mutant? We may tend to just give them human tendencies, but never really think about the differences in psychology that there obviously should be between to races that grew up totally separate.

Plus, the world of Rifts itself is also totally different. Cities are nuked to radioactive dust, crushed to ruble, or covered by the invading seas. And, the remaining cities may look nothing like their previous selves, and probably no longer hold humans only, adding to their alien look. The water has expanded, and natural and unnatural disasters have literally reshaped the world in many places.

So, what is an unfortunate GM to do in these drastically different circumstances? Well, now you really have to rely on either Palladium, yourself, or the work of others to aide you in the stocking of this incredible new world. Is this a bad thing? No, personally I think that the world of Rifts kicks ass! But without actual world data, it turns into just and empty wasteland of stats (numbers). Making up the intricacies of the world is where I feel the prime difficulty lies, and the Main Book does make a valiant start at it, but it is only that, a start, a taste of things to come.

The book does an excellent job of giving the general setting of Rifts that chaotic, anything goes feel. The art truly goes miles in capturing a glimpse of what the earth transformed looks like. Nearly all of the character classes are detrimental to the playing and fleshing out of the world. There is the perfect (almost to little) level of technology, and of course Palladium’s slightly moded rules system, set to work with the new aspect of M.D.C.. Plus it gives quite a large amount of world data, that while general, does give you a pretty good feel for the world, and gives a GM a foundation to work off of (as was planed I assume).

Negatives of this book? Well, one minor one that always annoyed me was that there wasn’t quite enough of a conversion of the old rules to the new SDC ones in relation to bursts, but I know that that has been an ongoing argument, so I’ll leave it be for now… At the time the book was written it was assumed that more world data would follow shortly, but I’ll also have more on that later. But aside from all of it’s relatively minor problems, no one could argue with the fact that this is undoubtedly one of Palladium’s greatest works, and it deserves to be revered.

Rifts World Book Two Atlantis Review

Heres an old review of Atlantis I did. kinda funny

RIfts World Book Two: Atlantis

Atlantis. Just the name brings up many ideas, this place is not one of Palladium’s creation. With that in mind, lets look at how this mystical place is brought into Rifts.

First off, I’d like to say that this book has the possibility for more adventures and plots than many of Palladium’s others. It is simply filled with information and ideas that can keep a GM drooling for months. The Splugorth, their minions and conquered lands/dimensions, and the True Atlanteans are both great examples of the excellent quality of this book.

Atlantis is covered in enough detail to make it playable, there is plenty of good alien technology, magic, and rune weapons. The relations of many of the new peoples with the already existing people of earth is also covered.

The book’s art is pretty damn good. This is one place where the alien looking stuff applies, and a good job is done with the Kittani equipment. The many new races are also finely depicted. My personal favorites are Long’s Splugorth drawing, and the Rune weapon pictures.

Like most of the older books, this one is definitely an old-standby. The things in Atlantis do pop up in later books. Most players today have probably already heard of or used this book too. Do you really need it? No, it’s not needed, but man does it give a lot of great information! One of those books that you just get because you know it’s cool, even if you don’t necessarily *need* it.

My only misgiving with this book? Well, it was published in 1992. Back then it gave many tantalizing ideas, but Palladium has never really focused anymore on this great place!!! I mean, this book has plenty of places where Palladium could have done a lot more explaining. I almost felt they left to many possibilities and didn’t focus enough on giving actual information written in stone. Oh well, it’s still a great book anyway.

Noticable Picture, Quote, or Stat:

Frankly, this book is FULL of them, but after close consideration I picked out the cool idea of Bio-Wizardry. An interesting way to pump up characters, it can make them quite powerful but is very expensive and sometimes has negative side-effects. Also great for NPCs, now that “normal” looking gurgoyle isn’t so normal after all…

Noticable Lame Picture, Quote, or Stat:

Those odd looking Hawrk-whatevers. I guess the idea is sort of interesting, but I just can’t shake the fact that the second one looks like an angry chicken. It’s just not frightening at all…