Experiences with In-Book Adventures

[Eashamahel]

Several RIFTS books contain single, pre-made adventures, but they are nowhere near a standard thing. They seem to pop up here and there in the books and off the top of my head they show up in;

Sourcebook 1 -ARCHIE3-OZ adventure
England -Magic Table (which appears directly after the Random Encounter Table which tells readers the book does not include a
pre-made adventure...)
Juicer Uprising - The Uprising (this one's kind of difficult, it's more like Africa/SoT than a random adventure, but it's detailed in steps unlike Africa so I'm going to include it in my arbitrary list)
Xiticix Invasion -Biological Warfare game
Mercenaries -Casualties of Peace

I'm going to leave out Africa, which was nearly 100% an Event book as opposed to a World Book, and didn't really have a written adventure (from what I can remember) so much as it was a book full of NPC's and Boss Monsters for the main adventure (very much the same as Siege on Tolkeen would be later), as well as the Rifts Index's which had several missions in them from my memory. If anyone can think of any others, feel free to mention them and I'll edit them in.


What are people's experiences playing/running these games?

For me, I've both played in and ran the Sourcebook 1 adventure, and had it done two different ways. The first was as the straight adventure, where you move from one thing to the next to the next, and I have to say this universally went terribly. To begin with, usually this was run for very low level characters, often the first game they had played in, and it's just not (in my experience running and playing in it) something low level characters have a hope of succeeding at. Sure, ARCHIE will let you go, sure of his clever ruse, BUT he's not going to go out of his way to do so, and the bots presented in the adventure are generally enough to stomp parties into the ground. The second was as a background purpose to a larger adventure, where it was the thread that kept people together while they did other things which allowed them to up their level and get new gear/repair.

Maybe this would be different if played now, with the introduction of a great deal of new Magic and Psionic powers (telemechanic type ones particularly), far more powerful OCCs, Cyber-Knights being robot-fighters, ect., but at the time, even with the advantage of Burst rules (early in the game PC's had access to weapons that could burst through clips and do huge damage, while enemies were generally limited in the bursts they could do, the CS C-12 limited to a double damage burst, the ARCHIE Bot's weapon being a 5D6 pulse weapon couldn't inflict any more than that damage, Slavers weapons being 1 shot/attack, ect) it seemed pretty much impossible. Sometimes GM's would ignore half the stuff the robots were said to be able to do (tone down their ridiculous hearing, lower their optics, make them react slower/walk around slowly Terminator style, ect.,) to give the PC's a chance, but overall, it was generally a no-hope game (especially when there was no armour/ammo to scavenge from the 'bots).


The Magic Table one in England I've never ran, played in, or ever heard of anyone one else running or playing in. There just seemed to be absolutely no interest, especially in a book that sets up so many NPC's and places to go, and then creates an entirely different adventure that includes none of them, and introduces a weird race of beings that's never, ever, going to be encountered again.


Juicer Uprising is one I've ran in the past and would likely be the one I'd choose to run again in the future. I've gotta say though, the best version of it I've ever seen was done by a guy who completely ignored the Vallax (hope i spelled that right) Alien part, and just made it what it actually was, between the CS and the Juicer's. This version was WILDLY more serious, didn't have the 'the CS forgives everyone!' happy little ending thing, and didn't use the bait and switch for the badguys. When it was run like that, to me it was way better, but maybe less 'RIFTS'.



What are your experiences with these pre-made missions? Played them yourself, or ran them as GM? Perhaps multiple times to have given you a different perspective? Or maybe as a non-standard character type that totally changed the dynamic of the game?


The Xiticix 'Raid' one (yeah, I just did that ) I've also never played, though I and many people I know have done some variation of it, generally going into a hive for some reason.

[Incriptus]

I ran Casualties of Peace as described in Rifts Mercenaries.

It was one of the best games I ran. It was years ago, the players and their merc company was with hope town and was considered the #3 group (after Braddock & Crows). I began with the first week pumping up the player characters. I had determined that most of the Merc's aren't all that great. So the Mind Melter, Shifter, Special Forces & HU Weapon's Hardware were quite a big deal. The players had a blast. Then they started their first patrol with a few of the random encounters. We continued on the written path with the first major skirmish. I then divert slightly. It's decided that Unless Larson's Air Superiority (Air Castles) are grounded he's going to win. So I have the player characters go in behind enemy lines to disable Larson's Planes. While doing that they ultimately hijack a plane and are shot out of the sky. They crash into the hill, that brings the tunnel sub-plot moving. The team ends up racing between the two armies transmitting to everyone the AI plot. The two Merc leaders do decide to take the PCs seriously, and agree to the cease fire. They discover the mines aren't rich in anything and the hostilities end there. Since Tactical Hazardous Engagement Company was instrumental in stopping the conflict they're reputation is increased in the Merc Community and they start finding jobs to be more plentiful.

[Bood Samel]

I've never used any of the in book adventures but I have used a lot of hooks buried in the fluff, which IMO is more fun.

[grandmaster z0b]

I've run both the ARCHIE-3 adventure and the magic table one. Both worked well.

The Archie one is the best published adventure in my opinion. It has interesting characters, particularly James T and I liked that his dialogue is included. It introduces Archie to the player characters and if they don't play that adventure they will unlikely meet him or his minions. It has an introduction at the freak show, a mid way point with Lord Formalaine and a good ending. The only thing I added on the way was a encounter with Shemarians fighting Splugorth just for fun. I agree that the ending is very difficult, however I ran it pre-RUE, so all the characters snuck into the central chamber and used their sneak attack to do full-round bursts with energy weapons and the borg used mini-missiles and rolled a 20; pretty much killing ARCHIE 3-OZ in one round and retreating before having to kill too many robots.

I threw the magic table adventure in as part of a larger adventure with some adjustments but it wasn't that memorable.

I started a Mechanoids adventure but never finished the campaign. That's more of an event book like Africa though.

EDIT: clarified that I GMed rather than played those adventures.

[Glistam]

My first Rifts campaign I ever played in was centered around the Mechanoids and Sourcebook 2. I enjoyed the heck out of that campaign. When we moved on to Africa, I was less thrilled. The Four Horsemen storyline just didn't really do it for me.

[Slight001]

My Mystic Coalition players stumbled into James T and were eventually lead to A.R.C.H.I.E. 3-OZ... sadly for the little toaster the Mystic-Tech intuitively realized the giant brain was a fake and tracked A.R.C.H.I.E. 3 down. Hagen(sp?) was nearly killed and the toaster captured all of his pre-rifts data was downloaded. The Nema soldiers remain in stasis and the Republicans have been hunted down to the point where they are no longer a threat.

[Armorlord]

My Mystic Coalition players stumbled into James T and were eventually lead to A.R.C.H.I.E. 3-OZ... sadly for the little toaster the Mystic-Tech intuitively realized the giant brain was a fake and tracked A.R.C.H.I.E. 3 down. Hagen(sp?) was nearly killed and the toaster captured all of his pre-rifts data was downloaded. The Nema soldiers remain in stasis and the Republicans have been hunted down to the point where they are no longer a threat.

I'm curious just how they could have tracked him down in a separate bunker miles away in an obliquely labeled drawer, with an army of robots everywhere.
The downloading also gets a brow raise from me.

[Slight001]

My Mystic Coalition players stumbled into James T and were eventually lead to A.R.C.H.I.E. 3-OZ... sadly for the little toaster the Mystic-Tech intuitively realized the giant brain was a fake and tracked A.R.C.H.I.E. 3 down. Hagen(sp?) was nearly killed and the toaster captured all of his pre-rifts data was downloaded. The Nema soldiers remain in stasis and the Republicans have been hunted down to the point where they are no longer a threat.

I'm curious just how they could have tracked him down in a separate bunker miles away in an obliquely labeled drawer, with an army of robots everywhere.
The downloading also gets a brow raise from me.

It wasn't easy... The Mystic-Tech (sort of a hybrid of the Techno-Wizard and the Gizmoteer (SA version)... Obviously its custom.) was able to detect that the giant brain could never have worked or been functional in the way that an AI would need to be. He was able to backtrack the signals that A.R.C.H.I.E. 3 was using to control and monitor the robots and facility because he had already been working on a device to hijack the robots and gain control of the facility due to James T's descriptions of it.

After surviving numerous increasingly vicious ambushes by A.R.C.H.I.E.'s bot legion they were eventually able to narrow it down. The final bit fell into place when Republicans attempted to use the group only to find themselves the victims of the Mystic-Tech's Domination Projector and spell sustainer bracelets. The Dominated Republicans told the PC's everything. They in turn called in reinforcements and were able to capture a signifigant number of Republicans and gain not only the locations of A.R.C.H.I.E.'s bases but also the codes to override his controls and force a shut down. He fought back of course and Haggan fought rather bravely to try and save his friend. In the end they were no match for the numbers nor capabilities of a mystically enhanced coalition. The bots were pushed beaten back while hackers armed with the NEMA access codes dove into A.R.C.H.I.E.'s grid and did battle there as well.