The best and worst of Rifts books

[Alpha 11]

Just wandering who thinks is the best and worst of Rifts. Japan, Free Quebec, and China 2, I think are the best books out there so far. Unfortinitly, I do not have any worst books yet. Course, I do not have them all, so I may not have the worst book, or I am just be easily pleased. It is probably the later, I would not be surprised. I do not "dislike" things in a certain johnru (spelling?) easly once I get into it and like it. So, what do you think?

[SkyeFyre]

My fav's and therefore the best
- Rifts Main Book
- Conversion Book One (Unrevised)
- Rifts Sourcebook One
- Book Of Magic
- Game Master Guide

But if you're just talking World Books and the such, which you probably are... then.

- Rifts Main Book ^_^
- Free Quebec
- Dimension Book 1: Wormwood
- I really liked Canada too. Maybe cause I'm canadian, but oh well.

Don't know any of the "worst" ones. From what I can see in my collection I like em all.

[Alpha 11]

Any Rifts books!

[Braden Campbell]

I believe Psyscape stands as the absolute worst of the Rifts line. Late arriving in stores, horribly re-written, rushed into final production, never fact-checked, and no real info on the city of Psyscape. Hate England and Africa all you want, but this one chews!

Book 12 came in the midst of a real slump in Rifts quality, one that didn't end until several years later. 2002, in fact.

As for the best...Japan, World Book 11, and Atlantis. All wonderful efforts, and prime examples of Rifts at it's best.

[GundamChief]

nothing else worth posting, why not (Bored)

Best books

Rifts Adventure Guide
Rifts MB
Rifts Pantheons (sorta)
Rifts Coversions (old or new, doesn't matter)
Dark Conversions (MHO)
and...Rifts GMG (Skills and equipment)

Worst books

Most of the SoT books
Aftermath (focuses only on the tolkeen aftermath, nothing else really)
not much else though.

World Books

Best, in order from most to least: Austrailia, Spirit West, Canada, Atlantis (Both), and both Russian books IMO

Worst, In order of most to least: Africa, Underseas, Japan, England, and South america 1

That's it for me.

[Scooter the Outlaw]

The best books, overall, I would way were Rifts Australia, the Book of Magic, and the Game Master's Guide. I think the Australia book is fantastic, the best book in the Rifts line. Like others, I also really enjoyed the Canada book.

The worst books? I'd have to agree with Psyscape. It sucked. The O.C.C.s seem incredibly unbalanced (the psi-tech is obscene), there's almost nothing about Psyscape, and it tells you to refer to a Nightbane book for information on the Astral Plane! Condenders for this slot also include South America 2 and Japan. I didn't like either.

[RainOfSteel]

Excluding RMB & RUE, as they are necessary for play, and the GMG/BOM:

--------------------------------------------------------

Best: Vampire Kingdoms

Honorable Mention: Atlantis

Worst: Manhunters, the comic strips in Wormwood and Triax, and Africa.

Question Mark: Australia.

--------------------------------------------------------

Vampire Kingdoms: Not much for vehicles, equipment, bots, etc. Woo hoo! Crunch, crunch, and more crunch.

Atlantis: There are many cool ideas in here, and it is a bright source of inspiration about many things. However, I didn't like how so many parts of Atlantis weren't covered in favor of OCCs (and yet the Bio-Wizard OCC is absent), bots, and equipment descriptions. I didn't like how every Conservator had a major rune weapon, or how rune-statues seemed to be all over the place. A lot of the rune/eye-of-eylor items didn't seem that impressive, overall. The prices in the book seemed to turn the Rifts world topsey turvey. 100,000,000 for an Absurr Life Node? (Galaxy Quest Quote: "That's not right!")

Manhunters: I bought it many years ago. When I looked through it and found nothing I could use or was interested in, I didn't want it to go to waste, and so I tried to give it away to three separate people, all of whom gave it back to me with various excuses like, "I don't want that!")

Comic strips in Wormwood and Triax: I didn't dislike them, much; but in the limited space available, I would have prefered more crunch than comic strips. They could have been serialized in the Rifters.

Africa: The Four Horseman seem pretty wimpy. There are a few other blurbs about this or that in here, but it is all so brief that I really don't use much of it all. The one bright spot was that the write ups of the Egyptian gods inspired me to do my own write ups of some the Norse gods.

Australia: Every time I read all the excellent comments here on FotM, I pick up the book on the next visit to the game store, look through it, and set it back down.

[Shades of Eternity]

er both comics were pre rifter.

[RainOfSteel]

er both comics were pre rifter.

By several years, yes.

I'm not saying the release of the comic strips would have been parallel with the release of the books, I'm saying it would have been done later.

I'm also not saying there was anything else ready to go to print for those particular pages in the book other than the comic strips.

I'm expressing a general opinion I have held on the subject since the books first appeared. Triax and Wormwood are excellent. The parts I cannot make use of are the comic strips. Therefore, in a best/worst type of topic, the above is what I have to say about them. If I have a choice of world info over comic strips, I'll take more world info.

[Jason Richards]

I think that the Russia books, as a set, are the greatest world books out there. This is mostly because of their relative completeness as far as the setting goes. The "warlord" approach with its constant conflict and struggling is very Rifts, and the books in general are very gritty.

Everybody raves about Australia, and maybe I haven't given it a fair shot, but while I can appreciate the "Road Warrior" aspects of the setting, I look and see monster Kangaroos, Koala-people, Techno-Wizardry that isn't really Techno-Wizardry but is called such and shouldn't exist in Australia, and a giant water-drinking frog. It just turns me off. In a lot of ways it reminds me of England, how it relies so heavily on the classic stereotypes for material. I realize that you have to do that some, but aliens that look like Koalas?

[cornholioprime]

Sorry.

I can't help myself.

Pantheons of the Megaverse remains my favorite Rifts Book.

Why??

Because of Cyber-Thor on the Cover, by Zeleznik, one of my ALL-TIME favorite artistic Creations in ANY Medium.

That's it.
That's all.

Sorry.

[RoadWarriorFWaNK]

Best Books -
New West
China 1
China 2
Rifts Main Book
Rifts Ultimate Edition (GOLD, baby!)
Unrevised Conversion Book
Dark Conversions
Mercenaries
Merc Ops
Rifters 9 1/2, 28, and 31 (for obvious reasons )
Wormwood (my first rifts book ever, even before the rule book)
Xiticix Invasion (almost forgot this one)

Worst Books -
Pantheons of the Megaverse (the ultimate munchkin wet dream)
Phase World and all of its subsequent sourcebooks (more munchkin fun)
South America 2 (a munchkin shopping list)
Revised Conversion Book (its like there's no point)
Revised Federation of Magic
England (the only good thing here is the Temporal Mage and the Chiang-Ku)
Splynn Dimensional Market
Atlantis (i used to really like Atlantis, but now it just seems silly)

[CyCo]

In a lot of ways it reminds me of England, how it relies so heavily on the classic stereotypes for material. I realize that you have to do that some, but aliens that look like Koalas?

There is a reason that the Kwarlas were included...

[Jason Richards]

In a lot of ways it reminds me of England, how it relies so heavily on the classic stereotypes for material. I realize that you have to do that some, but aliens that look like Koalas?

There is a reason that the Kwarlas were included...

They're cuddly?

[Gabriel_V]

Best

Rifts Mainbook (Original)
Conversion Book One (non-revised)
England
Triax & the NGR
South America 2
Phase World
Phase World Sourcebook
New West


Worst

Juicer Uprising
Coalition War Campaign
Warlords of Russia
Free Quebec
Canada
Australia
Africa

Edit: MaddogMatarese's post reminded me that I had forgotten completely about World Book 4: Africa. That book belongs in my Worst list, and I've updated to reflect that.

[CyCo]

In a lot of ways it reminds me of England, how it relies so heavily on the classic stereotypes for material. I realize that you have to do that some, but aliens that look like Koalas?

There is a reason that the Kwarlas were included...

They're cuddly?

Nah. I wouldn't call them cuddly, and those claws can really do some damage to someone.

But it is because of me.

[Josh Sinsapaugh]

I like most Rifts titles.

Mercenaries....that's a bad book IMO, though. Horrible art and even worse writing.

[Qev]

Hmmm... lessee... favorites. Well, ignoring the main rulebook, I like:

Vampire Kingdoms
Sourcebook 1
Conversion Book
Japan (mostly for the dragon 'borgs)
Canada (mostly due to patriotism )

As for things I don't like, well, anything that has seriously bad Power Creep. I want to like Atlantis, but when I keep tripping over Greatest Rune Weapons that people have discarded in the streets, things have gotten out of hand.

[The Beast]

Why does everyone seem to have WB 3 and 4 on their lists?

[Alpha 11]

Don't know. My guess is that it is just popular. And as for picking Free Quebec, I LOVE GLITTER BOYS!!!! (Sorry, just had to put that in). And I guess I am a munchkin fan, because I like the Phase World books, and South America 2. And as for Pantheons of the Megaverse, they are Gods for pete's sake! How do you think they are going to be portrade! And yes, I like that book to.

[Gabriel_V]

Why does everyone seem to have WB 3 and 4 on their lists?

I'm not entirely sure why everyone has England on their worst lists, but I can tell you why I have it on my best list.

While many people complain that the whole Camelot and King Arthur thing is unoriginal, I find it a very fun part of the book. For example, in licensed games, players like to occasionally interact with characters from the show. In a Star Wars game, the players might want to meet Han Solo. Camelot offers the Rifts equivalent of that kind of payoff. The Camelot NPCs are iconic and easy for players to relate to, thus increasing their impact in play. It doesn't hurt that the political situation between Camelot and the other kingdoms is fairly interesting and full of plot hooks if you actually read the book.

Like Triax and the NGR, the England book offers a unifying threat against the human kingdoms. In fact, it offers two. First there are the giant Fomorians in the northern highlands, led by no less than a "god." They present a welcome and needed straightforward and unifying threat. Then there are the Dabugghs which, while extremely unoriginally named, provide further emphasis for the mystery and intrigue overall angle of the book.

Then the setting information itself paints in broad, but immensely gamable strokes. England could have used improvement on this point, but it does have a nice summary of the major hooks of the area.

If the book has any flaw, it's the material which just doesn't fit. I'm talking mainly about the Temporal material which has no place in the book at all. All the non-Druid/non-Knight OCCs/RCCs seem like they were hurriedly thrown in to pad out page count. The Cernun feels like it was only added in because the cover painting came in with a strange lizard there (at the moment, I don't recall it being mentioned anywhere else in the book other than it's RCC description).

Like most Palladium books, it's poorly organized, and you have to dig for things. I've come to realize that the Palladium system is about secrets and how well you can locate and recall these secrets. So, on that count this one fills its function admirably.


As for Africa, I can summarize much more quickly why I dislike it. The book starts with a compendium of completely ridiculously statted NPCs/gods. Then it moves on to fill most of the rest of the book with completely uninteresting and not particularly useful OCCs/RCCs. It continues with a brief, boring, and poorly written travelogue which definitely doesn't fire the imagination. Near the end you come upon the Phoenix Empire which IS interesting and could have been a wonderful centerpiece of the book had it not been consigned to a poorly sketched afterthought. And finally the book tops off with the cardinal sin of RPGs, a group of what can only be called GMPCs intended to be much cooler than your group. The way the book's main thrust of the Gathering of the Heroes is written, it's clear the PCs are just supposed to step out of the way and let these legendary heroes and the amnesiatic god handle the matter. This is entirely different from the way the NPCs of Camelot are successfully presented.

[DemonJames]

Well lets see here, best would most definitely be a favorite rather than actual best since everyone has their own opinions and that goes as well for worst since again everyone has their own opinions Personally? See Below

Fave/Best (In no particular order)

Rifts MB/UE
Sourcebook one
Sourcebook 2 Mechanoids
Sourcebook 4 Coalition Navy
Mercenaries
Merctown (Its nice to have a book that has NO toys in it and has wealth of information all the same)
Phaseworld Sourcebook (DB3?)
WB 2 Atlantis
WB 5 Triax
WB 7 Underseas
WB 11 Coalition war campaign
WB 17/18 Russia
WB 20 Canada
WB 23 Quebec
AB 3/4 Black Vault and The Vanguard

Least Fave/Worst (In no particular order)

Wormwood
WB 4 Africa
Juicer Uprising (Should have been a sourcebook not worldbook)
WB 13 Lonestar (Though it had neat mutants, meh not that good a book)
SB 3 Mindwerks
AB 1/2 The Burbs
CB 2 Pantheons (Did we REALLY need a book that statted Gods?)



NOw keep in mind this does not include the GMG and BoM which are both excellent but not really original books per se, just reference guides. Otherwise they'd be on my fave list.

Jaymz

[Greg Diaczyk]

For the most part I'd say that there really isn't a Rifts Book I didn't like (and therefore buy) with the exception of Wormwood.

Top of my list:
Wormwood, too creepy and didn't like much of the art in it.

Other titles had some really good stuff, but also had some really bad stuff:
Africa, for the most part was bad, poor world info, lazy application of the Pheonix Empire (could have used a lot more detail!) and centered around the Gathering of Heroes, way to many NPC's and God stats (who actually used any of these?) If they had tied them into the ruling of the Phoenix Empire (or used them to try and take it back?) it could have been better. The only useful O.C.C was the Necromancer and for most that was for an NPC Villain.
England, Full of really good stuff like maps, Chiang-Ku, Temporal Magic, Millennium Trees and such (just some of the reasons I really like this book), but had the poorly done Arthurinian Legend (again good idea, just not executed well enough).
Russia, Warlords of Russia was really cool, lots of neat stuff in that book, absolutely no complaints on it, Mystic Russia had a few good things like the Slayer and Mystic Kuznya, but I felt they spent too much of the books content on demons (a few here and there for flavour would have been fine, but was mostly overdone), which kind of ruined it for me.
China, China 1 had some good world info, like the Yama Kingdom, it smacked of another Demon compendium like Mystic Russia but had enough world info to even it out. China 2 was also really good, lots of neat character concepts. Biggest beef was the "out of left field" Chi = ISP thing (Japan had PPE = Chi, still another change from the original N&SS) and removal of Immortals and Chinese Dragons, rumoured to now be revealed in the delayed? China 3: Masters of Magic book...
Australia, great setting great book, even with a few cliches (sp?). Greatest Beef, they didn't finish the book/series off!
Dark Conversion, just a book on demons (and another, not quite right version of the Shifter...). Really don't like how they split these books up and messed around with things.

No real complaints, but also no real excitement either:
Vampire Kingdoms, Splynn Dimensional Market (Atlantis 2), Xiticix Invasion, Free Quebec and Aftermath, New Conversion Book One, Pantheons of the Megaverse

Books I liked:
Atlantis
NGR
South America 1
South America 2
Undersea
Juicer Uprising
Coalition War Campaign
Psyscape
New West
Spirit West
Federation of Magic (Original, non-revised was/is better)
Canada
Dinosaur Swamp


Honorable Mentions:
Source Books: Sourcebook One (Archie), Mechanoids, Mindwerks, CS Navy, Mutant in Orbit, Bionic Sourcebook. For the most part these were interesting. Mechanoids was the most useless, but interesting no the least. Bionic Sourcebook I found a little confusing and could have been structured better but is still useful. Sourcebook One was really good as was Mutants in Orbit.
SoT Series: Many hate this series, but I thought it was a nice change of pace from the norm. I liked the SoT1 - had some new useful spells, SoT3 had Vanguard and some useful D-Bees, Sot$ had the updated cyber-knights.
Adventure Sourcebook: These were nice, but too small. They also dealt with all the info on the Burbs and I think they could have put it out with one book, maybe throw in some additional material (Black market stuff?). I didn't like some of the contradictory info on the Vanguard that was presented, but other than that the Vanguards were ok (still prefer the stuff in SoT3).

All time Favourite:
This would have to be Atlantis or Canada! Both are well balanced have lots of good info and no really major downers.

[Scyber]

I think my picks are going to be a little different than everyone elses

Best:
Vampire Kingdoms
South America 1
South America 2

Worst:
Atlantis (sure it had some cool stuff, but it felt very lacking, especially since we had to wait so many years for additional information)
Africa

[Jason Richards]

I like most Rifts titles.

Mercenaries....that's a bad book IMO, though. Horrible art and even worse writing.

It's got some decent stuff in it, but CJ's NPC's always lacked vision.

[RainOfSteel]

As for Africa, I can summarize much more quickly why I dislike it. The book starts with a compendium of completely ridiculously statted NPCs/gods.

Yes, I agree. They were ridiculously wimpy to be actual gods or apocalypse monsters.

[Shorty Lickens]

MY favorites are Atlantis and Splyyn Dimensional Market.
The Mercenaries books have provided a lot of good general info that should have been in sourcebook 1.

I also like all the Phase World stuff.
But it doesnt seem like Palladium can come up with much more. The dimension books were supposed to offer all kinds of new material. We had Wormwood, which was OK. And the next 8 books are all based in the same dimension. Nothing really new.

[Arioch]

Favorites:
Australia
Wormwood
Mystic Russia
Federation of Magic
Vampire Kingdoms
Parts of England

Least Favorites:
South America
South America II
Africa
SoT Series

[Mech-Viper Prime]

i could sit here a nit pick each book and sound like some fanboy nerd. but i preffer to keep a good outlook on things