How has your game changed over time?

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Thom001
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How has your game changed over time?

Unread post by Thom001 »

I recently got to thinking about how different my groups rifts games are today as opposed to the way we played when we only had the rifts main book. The first thing that comes to mind is how we play the NG and the xiticix. Second is of course how we play the CS. Back when we only had rmb the ng was merely a weapons manufacturer and that ishpeming was the creator of these weapons was a mystery to all. The xiticix were a common enemy but we played them as if they were an unorganized group of huge insects. The CS was basically the bad guys of the game with no redeemable characters or use in game mechanics other than as the invading army, slaughtering towns that didn't think like they did.

How about everyone else?
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Zer0 Kay
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Re: How has your game changed over time?

Unread post by Zer0 Kay »

Barely use the tix, never really have though, mostly cuz I run my games sandbox style run and players have never taken them seriously. They find the CS and vampires a lot more threatening.

The adventures I run now are usually life lessons not hack n slash or puzzles.
The CS has produced some heroes of humanity
The vamps aren't stupid and the one near Mexico city is pro human. Think California happy cow. Happy humans freely donate blood, last longer, multiply and actually work to protect the city.

That's some of the things I do different.

A lot less dice rolling too.
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Re: How has your game changed over time?

Unread post by Tiree »

My games still tend to be Dark and Gritty. Travel between towns is few and far between. City States hold the biggest population centers. Most human non-magic characters come from the Coalition at some point. The Coalition is not only the big bad in the room, they are also the ones willing to hire folks (Even psychics and mages), when they don't want to get their hands dirty with something.

Monsters are the big bad that players fight, along with the Splugorth. The adventures generally revolve around "The search for more money" as I keep the players perpetually broke, and when I break their gear, they tend to have earned a cool replacement.

So pretty much it's kept the same - as I haven't really incorporated much from the books other than some new gear and OCC's.
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grandmaster z0b
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Re: How has your game changed over time?

Unread post by grandmaster z0b »

I generally start my campaigns in 101 PA and avoid a lot of the later meta-plot stuff. However this time around I may get as far as the Juicer Uprising/CWC and see if the players are interested in participating or if it's all just stuff that happened in the background. If we get as far as the siege of Tolkeen I will definitely change it.

Also on a worldwide scale, I had already started to create things for Australia before the Worldbook was released and when it came out I tended to stick with my stuff and just take what I wanted from the released material.
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Re: How has your game changed over time?

Unread post by Phaze »

I am rather new to Rifts and the Palladium system (I got my first taste last year), but I am an old hat at RPGs, from the basic D&D Red box to Pathfinder and Mechwarrior.

So while I don't have a history of Rifts specific related content, my general rpg gaming experience has changed significatly over the years.

Early on it was the run for the wealth. The groups I ran with were all about power and wealth. How much wealth could one gain and how large of a castle or home base could one build, was the order of the day.

Later, it became more story related. The earlier gaming sessions just left us with bloated characters, overloaded with hoards of gold. It became less about the wealth (although that was the prime objective during many sessions) and more on character development and story line. Those were some of the best gaming sessions. Role playing took on a new level. The games seemed to be more 'real', they took on topics that related to the times and looked far closer on the effects of the actions of the party. The characters could no longer get into a bar fight that didn't have reprecussions of the town law enforcement, or get into an armed conflict and have the likes of a swat team on their tail, or get publicly scorned by the weeping widow of the nameless 'henchman' they killed the night before.

Recently, we have focused mostly on character creation and evolution. We stopped playing with 'Super' min maxed characters altogether and try to develop a unique personality for lots of color and role play. Money has been an objective, but it is no longer the prime objective. We are there to write a story. Rolling the dice now is just a mechanic, as with stats. What the characters do is more important than the mechanics of rolling the dice, not to say that the dice won't effect the results but it becomes less important than the will and style of the characters.

We have also enjoyed a few TPK games recently that continue to be memorable. Money becomes unimportant because by the end of the session, your character is going to be dead anyway. Now the RP aspect really comes out and the players generate the most interesting characters.

Thats just my observations...
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Re: How has your game changed over time?

Unread post by Blue_Lion »

When I started out I felt every thing had to be in writing and when I ran had to have every thing planed out.
Now I take a more laid back approach where I have a general Idea of what the mission will be but what happens is more flexible. It is more about what the players do than my grand plans. Taking the actions of the players and weaving them into a story rather than weaving the players actions into the story. (Basically instead of X always needs to happen regardless of the players to the players actions can stop or change X) This requires more thinking on my toes and results in a more fluid story line. This also carries over to when I roll play I tend to think fast, and come up with an idea fairly quickly to reaction to something. Such as coming up with an excuse to give to NPC without any pause.

I even came up with using a list of brain stormed mission/session jobs that players pick the one they want to do.(Basically brain storm names of missions or general ideas of missions and the players choose the one they want to do. The form it takes in game varies could be a job board could be working contacts to see what jobs are available.) Then as time passes use the outcome to create a larger story plot that is driven by the players actions.
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