Rifts, HU-style (or, more choices please!)

[dataweaver]

I like options. For this reason, setups like HU's Background, Education and Skills appeal to me, and Rifts' one-size-fits-all approach doesn't. As well, I tend to dislike the divide between “professional adventurer types” and “the common rabble” — a division that is strictly enforced by the OCC system; whereas HU's approach gives much more of a feel of ordinary people rising up and becoming adventurers.

OTOH, excessive randomness also restricts choices, which is why I like the attribute generation system from Robotech 2e more than the purely random system used in nearly every other Palladium game.

For these reasons, I'm thinking of using something of a mishmash of Heroes Unlimited, After the Bomb, and Robotech 2e for character creation: generate attributes and talents in a manner similar to Robotech 2e; handle Backgrounds, Education, and Skills in a manner similar to After the Bomb (or Heroes Unlimited, if your character is from one of the rate pockets of “civilization” still surviving on Rifts Earth), and handle things like being a D-Bee, Borg, Juicer, Crazy, Cyber-Knight, or Psychic in a manner similar to HU's Power Categories.

Thoughts?

[dragonfett]

HU uses the Education Tables to help randomly determine how well educated your character is in a world where such education is common or, at the very least for college education, enough financial support that it's not uncommon. Conversely, the OCC's in Rifts are set up like someone learning a trade through on the job experience (at least, that is how I look at it, anyway).

[dataweaver]

That's why I mentioned After the Bomb first, and HU only for the “rate pockets of civilization”.

[taalismn]

Yeah, I'm finding that out too, especially for d-bee characters who don't always have a Rifts-formal lifepath.
Then, of course, I shamelessly mine the fan material for new skill programs.

[dataweaver]

I'm also thinking of handling “ordinary people” and psychics the way that Beyond the Supernatural does (but with After the Bomb education instead of BtS occupations).

[taalismn]

I'm also thinking of handling “ordinary people” and psychics the way that Beyond the Supernatural does (but with After the Bomb education instead of BtS occupations).

Rifts OCCs only scratch the surface of how people may be educated on a planet that's a dimensional crossroads.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

FWIW, in my extremely slowly going re-work of the Palladium system, i'd already settled on similar design decisions.

"Background Skills" depending on how/where you were raised, for instance.

Cutting a lot of OCCs that are superflous and merging them into basic OCCs (do we really need a CS Grunt, NGR Grunt, etc.. when all of them can be the same OCC with a bonus skill package depending on origin?)

Completely re-working the way attributes are determined. So far the best bet has been converting them to a pool of points equal to about 80% of the max. Any specific bonus (like a +4 to a roll) isn't counted and must stay on that attribute. Any attribute must have at least one point per die that it would have rolled. Otherwise, given the "actual" rules, you're likely to roll 90 characters who never have an attribute that gets a bonus.

Lowering the bonus threshold to 13 or 14 (hadn't done the math yet to see what was more useful).

Changing the way augmented, robotic, and supernatural strength do damage, and how much of that damage they apply to melee wielded/thrown weapons.

If you want to see what i consider probably one of the best character generation systems around, check out Last Unicorn Games' Star Trek or Dune games. Its super intuitive and you build your backstory as you choose skills. I'd steal more of it but it just wouldnt' fit a Palladium style game without a LOT of work.