This was one of my favorite games as a teen. We played it for years in high school alongside Heroes Unlimited.
With the Kickstarter rerelease I have decided I want to run a new campaign. I always wanted to use the Terror Bears from the books in a campaign, but never worked them into what I was doing.
I recently found my original book (12th printing, from 1991), plus an original printing, but less used copy.
What are some memorable animals that have been played in your games over the years?
This was actually the first RPG that I owned and ‘played’, at least one friend and I did some combats and part of one of the example missions/stories. Mostly just did character creation for fun. Eventually got a group together to play RIFTS, since most people were too ‘cool’ for TMNT in the 90s due to the cartoon.
What I remember was the BIO-E system seemed to be inconsistently scaled between species, which makes sense as a complete lack of balance is one of the things Palladium Books is known for! If I remember correctly, weasels ended up ahead overall.
The whole concept was great and I dearly miss having the rulebook as it was a fun read. Plus the fun and evocative art!
I found a slip of paper I took notes on different species and adjusted BIO-E.
And yes, Paladium has always been bad with balance, I am looking at you OG Glitterboys.
My first RIFTS campaign had a Glitterboy and a Crazy! Trying to find ways to make combat feel exciting without being deadly sure was a learning experience on coming up with reasons why the stuff with MDC didn’t target stuff with SDC.
Took a lot of inspiration from movies and shows, and to be honest it was a great lesson on how individual enemy motivation and behaviors can make combat more fun than just having them focus down the weakest players first.