Venturing into the realms of Palladium Fantasy

[TolanaAudery]

I've yet to explore the depths of the Fantasy books, leaving me clueless about its balance and intricacies. Have any of you delved into its integration with Rifts?

While theoretically, all Palladium games should seamlessly intersect, what's the practicality of merging Palladium Fantasy and Rifts?

[Library Ogre]

I've yet to explore the depths of the Fantasy books, leaving me clueless about its balance and intricacies. Have any of you delved into its integration with Rifts?

While theoretically, all Palladium games should seamlessly intersect, what's the practicality of merging Palladium Fantasy and Rifts?

Your best option, IMO, is to pick a game and stick with that. Not "don't integrate them" but "don't go crazy trying to exactly replicate Palladium Fantasy in Rifts or vice versa; pick one game and use that for all your rules decisions."

So, if you've got a Palladium Fantasy character in Rifts, use Rifts rules wherever possible. Horsemanship? That's gonna be the Rifts version, unless you've got knight or palladin, which have specific rules. Modern weapons? Rifts rules. A specific spell? Unless otherwise negotiated, use the Rifts version.

And, as always, remember that the Megaverse runs on vibes. Trying to follow strict readings of things all the time is going to drive you nuts, so go with what seems to work well at the table and abide. Allow someone one melee round to make their case (15 seconds) to change a ruling at the table, then just roll with what the GM decided.

[kiralon]

+1 at what library ogre has said.
Depends on which way you are going. I have done a palladium group going to rifts, rather than rifts players going into palladium, or palladium charaters being used in rifts. The power dynamic is pretty different, with mdc being a big but not only thing.
I have also done BTS and N&SS characters being in palladium as well, which is easier than rifts.
But it all depends on which way you are going, because palladium is different enough that there can be issues.

[drewkitty ~..~]

I've yet to explore the depths of the Fantasy books, leaving me clueless about its balance and intricacies. Have any of you delved into its integration with Rifts?

No. PF RPG is its own game, separate from the Rifts game. Each has its own core-book.
If you want to bring PF stuff/items over to Rifts there are the conversion books as gaming resources to do that bringing of the stuff to your Rifts Game.

While theoretically, all Palladium games should seamlessly intersect, what's the practicality of merging Palladium Fantasy and Rifts?

Actually no they should not be seamless. They each have their own tweeks and specializations. This is why there is the Rifts Conversion Books, to give GMs a guide to how to bring items/ideas from the other PB RPG games to Rifts.

Games that use the same gaming system that are recognized as separate games without trying to "Merge" them:
-D&D ed 3.5
-D&D ed 5
Pathfinder
Starfinder
pathfinder 2nd ed

[GoliathReturns]

I've yet to explore the depths of the Fantasy books, leaving me clueless about its balance and intricacies. Have any of you delved into its integration with Rifts?

While theoretically, all Palladium games should seamlessly intersect, what's the practicality of merging Palladium Fantasy and Rifts?

First, I'm going to echo the Ogre.. get out of my swam... wait, wrong Ogre.

But, I do still agree with his guidance- choose one set, and hold onto those rules. It keeps it all consistent and straightforward for all characters.

Secondly, while there's the concept of the "megaversal" system, it really isn't. Want a perfect example? Look at skill selection methods of N&SS or ATB, and compare that to PF or Rifts.

While Rifts and PF are REALLY close on a lot of things, they aren't identical. So, like Ogre said, choose one set of rules, and follow that set for everything, except where there's specific abilities or rules that don't have a counterpart. For example, say you have a PF warrior monk get Rifted to earth. Well, I don't think there's a version of his demon death blow in Rifts (I could be wrong, I'm not super familiar with all the fine details of rifts), so you'd keep using that ability from PF.

--
GS

[Grazzik]

Since most of my games are Rifts-based, that's the ruleset that I use for all PB games with adaptions were applicable to get a megaversal campaign. Note that this takes a lot of house rules to smooth the edges AND you need the agreement from the players to cut off any rules lawyering.

IF you are going to crossover games with PFRPG, it's important to keep an eye on making sure the fish out of water knows it. For example, in one game a CS Special Forces PC who specialized in being a sniper found themself in Palladium and was overpowered until they ran out of ammo. Without much in the way of mechanical, electrical or science skills, there was no way to replenish their ammo and had to adapt. Also, being CS, they didn't know any languages that might have helped integrate - elvish, dwarfish, or even gobblely. The adventure story had stripped them of their Deadboy armor from the outset, so the player had to give up the crutch of their PC hiding inside their EBA all the time. So it can be done, but the GM must be intentional in how they set up the players/PCs for challenges.

I've done Rifts going to Chaos Earth through a time warp and even this wasn't a cake walk. Surprisingly overpowered PC group in most encounters (CE NPCs are people who had not adapted to the Cataclysm yet and MDC is very rare) until they realized that as a GM I had time-warped in Rifts ruleset about demons, magic and such and that when facing the supernatural they had no advantage over their gaming experience in Rifts Earth. So in that case, the change was really with respect to the setting and how they interacted with humans. Having dimension hopping PCs from HU hop over into Dead Reign was straightfoward after I dropped some of the sillier DR zombie rules, but the lack of magic in DR was disconcerting for some PCs as I house ruled that their PPE didn't regenerate as it should, which meant they had to get creative.

The point is that a GM that is moving the PCs across games needs a plan and know at least broad strokes how they will address the meta issues that come with different settings, game flavors, and rulesets.