I've been cooking on this idea for a little while and I wanted to toss it out there, see what people think about it. I've always been a fan of post-apocolyptic games, and Shadowrun is an awesome setting to have something like that happen in.

How do you think the game would take an event akin to the cataclysm that occurred in Palladium's Rifts. Of course not quite so punishing and continent ruining. Lets just say that the tides of magic weren't quite finished sweeping in yet, and a 'second awakening' occurs. The world is wracked with freakish natural disasters and rifts start opening to all kinds of gnarly metaplanes/other dimensions. I would be tempted to morph around CAS or UCAS to look more like the Coalition, as I'm certain public opinion of magic would be drastically soured by all this.

I think if done carefully it could be quite the awesome campain. Any ideas, people? How certain governments might behave to magical threats overwhelming a greater portion of the known world?

If I remem correctly, there's actually a campaign book set during the time when the Rifts open.

A campaign book for palladium? Or a shadowrun book?
Of course, it must be palladium. That doesn't help too much because I want to stick to more SR theme then Rifts theme. I just really like the idea (And huge background count excuse) of having rifts belching all kinds of monstrous goodness all across the world...

ever heard of earthdawn?

The game set during the first days of the Rifts is called Chaos Earth. Never played it, though. By the time it was released, I had given up on Palladium, sick of their constant cancellations and product delays.

And inconsistent system.

Wish Ramon Perez would do work for other lines or at least get a break into comics.

Rifts has terrific fluff, but a terrible system. (MD is teh debil!)

So, as a third wave, the planet starts goblinizing?

Sounds interesting. SR4 has FAR fewer head-desk interfaces than Rifts, system wise. I would rather play in an entire party of troll adept archers than have to endure holdouts than can vaporize unarmored people.

Ah Rifts... silly.

What would the SR stats look like on a Glitter Boy?

Shiny!!!!!

You want stats for a GLITTER BOY?!? To put it bluntly, it would be insane, game breaking, uber-mega cheese. The only way to take one down would be with magic. This is how I would stat it out

Armor: B: 600 / I: 600 (in the Mega damage system of Palladium, a NUKE does 3d6 * 10 mega-damage... Glitter Boys had 700 MDC, and were completely IMMUNE to any regular weapons)

Railgun: Damage: 40 P; AP: -20; Mode: SA; RC: Special (the Glitter Boy has to be anchored to fire the gun... otherwise it is knocked down the first time it fires)

Now, what I would like to have in Shadowrun is true Psionics. None of this Psionics was just a spotty expression of magic. I mean, come on, if Technomancers can have power that's not magical, why not have other sources of power. The game mechanics are there. It wouldn't be game breaking at all.

Yeah... like I said Rifts is silly.

I am surprised the Palladium Nazi's have not been here yet with a cease and desist threat. Only a matter of time.

Palladium Nazis?

Has anybody ever tried the home rules for psionics on this site? If so, what did you think?

Palladium has well earned reputation for going after fans attempting to do any cross compatibility discussion, or discussion of modifications of any of their Intellectual Properties. Everyone jokes about the Gaming Gestapo showing up at your front door and telling you how to run your game, well Palladium comes very close to doing it. Thats why you will find things like using SR4 for a Victorian Steampunk game, but you wont catch a whiff of something similar for Palladium games, because if someone did post something online that was workable, a cease and desist order would soon be in your mail if they knew about it. Fun times.

Apparently, they don't see that selling RIFTS sourcebooks to be used with other systems is still selling RIFTS sourcebooks.

Like a novelist saying you can buy their book to read it, but if you buy the book to balance a table, they are suing you!

well, it makes sense in a way to me.

basically, rifts has a rather well-liked setting.

it has a rather widely disliked game engine (for lack of something better to call it).

personally, however, if i was going to adapt rifts to anything, it would be the fallout system. simplified a little mind you (computers can cheat with their fancypants computing skills, so they don't care how ugly the math looks), but that's what i would use.

in any case, my point is that if people start creating superior rules to what palladium uses (which imo wouldn't be hard), everyone will want to use that instead of palladium stuff. hard to sell a book when the 80% of it that's rules isn't going to be used by most of the people interested in the setting.

(seriously, if rifts had a more robust set of rules, i'd be all over it. as it stands, every time i think "i'd like to play <some palladium game> i start looking over the rules and remember why i don't...)

in any case, all that aside, i would tend to agree that shadowrun is not particularly well-suited to actually play rifts with. you could certainly borrow ideas from rifts, but it would have to be very different.

Sure. Change the word "troll" to "gargoyle" and you've got the New German Republic of Saeder Krupp vs. the Gargolyes of Black Forest (and their dark millenium tree.) "Atlantean Undead Slayer" is a fancy name for an elf physad with decorations. "Juicers" are orks with adrenaline pumps.

The only thing missing is powered armor, which makes me a sad panda.


Why? If you're not using the Palladium system, there's no reason for it to be like that.

You could stat it as a troll with an assault cannon wearing mil-spec armor with full shielding from Street Magic's light element. Arsenal might have something useful, too, but I don't have it yet.

psionics usually is a nice way for sci-fi writers to intro magic without labling it as that. telekinesis, telepathy, pyro/cryo-kinesis, its all basically magic rooted in some hidden "ability" of the mind rather then some external "energy". never mind that neither can reliably be detected by scientific means...

on the other hand, the TM's play around in a world that magic just cant touch (outside of fireballing a comlink that is). also, before TM there where otaku. kids that could (pre-SR3 retcon) pull of much the same as the TM could, but needed a physical datajack to do the final connection. a TM seems to be a otaku that have evolved a biological radio. and i dont see that as far fetched.

why? a number of points:

1. our body generates electricity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bio-electricity

there are even fish that use that ability as a weapon:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_fish

2. its been shown that our brains respond to magnetic fields

3. sharks and some other species can detect electric fields:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroreception

now, if the wireless data systems of SR have become so sensitive that it can be confused with bio-electric fields unless there are some very smart electroncis at work, things could get interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_radio
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_radio

also, otaku and tm isnt exact a new creation in sci-fic. they seem to take on much the same theme as one explored in snow crash:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_crash

basically. what would you get if multiple generations have their brain plugged into a computer? is there not a possibility that future generations evolve some way to "talk" computer? hell, one can say that people thats trained in writing assembly code is very close to doing that. and if they do raw binary, even closer. and one could could have the brain do the translation subconsciously, what then? what happens when people start to "think" binary? and if one then can channel that into a nearby computer?

Exactly! Why not allow another form of power that is specialized. Heck, they even defined TM as VirtuaKINETIC! To me that is a form of psionics. It can also be a way to explain why you can either be a Mage or a TM, but NEVER both. A "fluff" reason is that the "hardware" (the brain) to use magic is different from that to be a Virtuakinetic.

take a look at the meaning of the word kinetic...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_energy#Etymology

if one where to do a quick and dirty translation it would be virtual motion...

hell, one could even call a hacker a virtuakinetic if one really wanted to

and for the reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telekinetic

this link however redirects to an article about psychokinesis, a word to is more fitting to whats being described (basically mind movement, or moving something with ones mind).

also, the term virtuakinetic shows up in emergence, the main book never refers to the TM's with that label.

I am personally acquainted with palladium's lameness. But as it's been said the fluff is kinda cool...
I guess I am thinking of keeping the SR system and most of it's fluff, but just kick in a mellow flavor of early Rifts Earth. I.E. Unstable magic, pissed off anti-magic governments. Rifts that sometimes open and thangs come out. You could use the base SURGE effects as a template to create random 'Dee-beez' to fill the sprawls and the wild lands between. More monster activity, cities all become like locked down fortresses to protect against monsters and inter-dimensional slave raiders.
Give the whole game a definite post-apocalyptic survival cast. (Run! Its a Toxic Splugorth Shaman!)
Not to mention all kinds of alien technology various corporations are frothing at the mouth to get their hands on...
What other effects would earth once again becoming some kind of dimentional hub be?

I would think that Emergence gives a more accurate term for TM. Also I know about the word kinesis. I just wish that there was Psionics in the Shadowrun universe. Basically, in my view, a Psionic is a person who can do 1 or 2 Major branches of Psi ability (and only a few powers... this isn't suppose to be a munchkin "class") anywhere. In space, in a Mana void, anywhere. Psis would access their ability like TM can (unless TM can't use their powers in space)

Technomancers can't use their powers anywhere there isn't a wireless connection within range. Which, actually, is extremely similar to how Magic works. Technomancers are magicians, they're just attuned to the noetic patterns of metahuman technology instead of the noetic patterns of life-force.

Except they can use their powers in Space. Take a TM to a space station and they can use their powers on the station's network. they can use their power to connect to the Matrix on Earth. The BBB is very specific about where a Mage's power craps out on them. With TM, it just says that TMs get annoyed when there is no wireless traffic.

Also, Hentai, I will disagree with you, TMs are not mages, and don't use Mana energy for anything.

A rose, by any other name ...

TM powers work in space, therefore they are not mages. A Mage tries to use his powers in space (unless he completely surrounded by a mana field, then he's screwed. A TM can go hog wild and the only thing he might feel is that the signal strength is "too weak" (not enough commlinks and/or network traffic.)

Just a quick thought on GBs:

What if Laser Resistant was an armor upgrade, like Nonconductive or Fire Resistance? That solves that issue.

You could have some uber hardened military armor with maxed laser resistance, environmental sealing, a too-big gauss rifle, strength enhancement, and foot anchors... Hmm.

Okay, now I really need to get a copy of Arsenal.

-paws

Yeah, it would be a sort of proto GB, but no armor or spirit in SR can survive being hit by a nuke. A Glitterboy can... THREE times!

You're absolutely right, they don't use Mana energy. Mana is the noetic energy of life-force. TM's use the noetic energy of technology. This is a totally different noetic space.

whiskey tango foxtrot

im tempted to state that someone is trying to hard...

yeah, if I did this, Glitter Boys and otehr Power Armor would be more in line with advanced tanks. MD was screwed up as hell, why not fix it????? The flavor of surviving nukes is just too .

There are lots of things in rifts that survive multiple nukes. Because they don't do that much damage!

Rant:

That's true. But if you cut the GB armor to 1/3 it can still survive a nuke... unless you house rule it that it can't.