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From the most recent Weekly Update:

Maybe it's just me, but that seems awfully ominous. The last indefinite hiatus I can remember being announced was for the Warpath RPG.

Honestly it seems like a smart move. They need to get more full products out the door and palladium being a small company something like the rifter takes a non trivial amount of their time/effort which impacts how fast they get other products produced. Until/unless they can start cranking out more products on a more consistent basis it makes sense to not distract themselves with the rifter.

Agreed

I understand why they need to do so, but I had more stuff to write!

One word: Sourcebook!

The Rifter was the very last thing from Palladium I stopped buying regularly and I still pick up an issue here and there. I will miss it. There were some interesting, fun, and quirky contributions that we'd never see in an official publication.

I like the Rifter. I hope it comes back in two years.

...meaning I think you should write one, zerombr!

Hah I'd love to, but I dunno how to write one. I'd need assistance on that front!

Just write. Make it a netbook. Create a personal wiki and post material as you finish it.

First, have a vision or goal for what you want to make and set some rules / guidelines. For example, the PDF project Glen Evans and I are working on is focused on providing the GM with tools and information to enrich the experience of the game for all involved.

Second, start small and focus on short-term, workable objectives you can draft in a day, like writing a single HLS adventure or create an NPC. Don't try to do the whole thing in one fell swoop.

Third, take a break, like a few weeks off, before you go back to edit what you've written. Right after you draft a piece, you'll be blind to your own mistakes. There are some tricks to getting around this (try reading it out loud, for instance) but there's no substitute for stepping away for a while.

Finally, don't do this alone. Your work will be far better if you bounce it off other people. Find a person or two who you can trust to give useful, constructive criticism.

If you mean "how" as in writing style, a few general tips can help:

First, the number one rule of good writing is "show, don't tell." Exposition is inevitable in RPG writing, but you should minimize it. If someone is evil, you should show that person to be evil by describing evil things the person does, not by declaring the person to be evil.

I could describe a 50 ft tall combat robot as big, or powerful; I can give values for its rifle damage; I can talk about how it's the most powerful robot that the gargoyles have. However, if I talk about how it feels to be attacked by one, to see your squad picked off from long range so you have to hide, how you feel the earth beneath you tremble more and more as its tank-sized feet pound the ground towards you, how your buddy poofs into a pink mist after he panics, breaks cover, and runs... that is far more compelling. Kevin sometimes talks about the "wow factor," and that factor is largely built on showing, not telling.

You should also ask yourself something with everything you write: "so what?" If what you write isn't important for a game or its setting, then it probably isn't worth putting out there.

I've got an article made, its just that I don't know how much 'padding' really is needed for certain things, you know? Like, how many people care about the entire history of a place? How indepth to get about areas, and most importantly my nemesis NPC Stat blocks. -.-

I'm trying though!

I'd be more than willing to help support a fan-based unofficial Rifter. I have had several ideas for it but never submitted. Email me at idahobeef@yahoo.com if you guys want to try and fool around with it

The question is....in regards for a fan rifter, do it as a "magazine" or just post articles to a site?

Who is decides quality or if an article is "worthy" or not? Etc.

preferably someone with the full version of Acrobat to make .pdfs

That can still be done without producing a "magazine"

So the question remains....magazine or website where articles are listed, with all proper web policy items covered, and articles as individual pdfs?

I've had good results replicating the standard Palladium publishing format for PDFs using Scribus, which I like better than Acrobat. Layout can be a little tedious, but it isn't difficult; Once I had all the articles and artwork, I could probably put something like a Rifter together in about a day. That said, there's a lot more than layout to consider. Writing, editing, and getting artwork takes a lot of time and work, and asking someone to do that for an unofficial periodic Rifter is probably asking too much.

It might be better to produce something like a Palladium Wiki rather than have a single person collect, edit, assemble, and post a Rifter-like product. 1d4chan is a good example of a fan wiki done well (it has a few short articles on Rifts, RRT, and Palladium Books). If we created a WikiPalladium, then aspiring fans could jump in and write, edit, do up some artwork, et cetera.

Creating such a wiki is pretty trivial; Wikia makes it really easy. If Kevin is willing to consider issuing a blanket rejection of all unpublished Rifter submissions after #84 is written, we could establish a pretty robust amount of content in fairly short order. At that point, we could put together a special category for articles that meet standards of quality, interest, popularity, et cetera (1d4chan does this with the "awesome" category).

That brings us to the following questions:

Who and how many people will run it?

Who decides what "makes the cut"?

Who has access to add and edit articles? (allowing anyone and everyone who contributes will be, not might be, a disaster in waiting)

Do we want some sort of unofficial "blessing" from KS/Palladium or does it matter as long as it is ensured that their online/internet policy is followed properly?

Do we expect artists to contribute as a donation of sorts? (I did not include writers because obviously they are willing to just give their work away to Palladium to begin with sans compensation but artists are a another matter especially in this scenario)

Should this discussion even continue here or should it be taken off these boards in order to not break some form of rule?

1. It would probably be best to have a board of superfan directors like Megaversal Ambassadors or some such.
2. Making the cut could either be a board of superfan decision or a popular vote (possibly here?)
3. The Wiki approach is prone to some vandalism/drama, but the results are generally pretty decent. Having some basic ground rules for writing, editing and feedback/discussion is good. People who vandalize others' work can get kicked.
4. Kevin would have to give some kind of blanket rejection for all unpublished Rifter submissions in order for them to be posted on such a page (or anywhere, for that matter; that form that submitters sign is very restrictive otherwise). Otherwise, discussing a potential webpage of fan-made Palladium stuff seems like something that Palladium encourages.
5. Plenty of artists don't mind people posting works from the artist's web page or DeviantArt gallery, as long as there's a link back to said web page / gallery. This would go back to the ground rules.
6. If this discussion has broken a rule, I'm unaware of it.

Bummer to hear about The Rifter going on hold. A lot of great content has come out of the issues that I've read.

At the same time its always great to get new dimension books.

A brief list of things I wouldn't mind seeing in the future
-new psionics or phase powers
-more on wormwood
-Atlantis/SplynnDM 3 and 4
-space races
-UWW magic spacecraft

I personally would like a Rifter magazine style. I dislike having to search through websites to find content or new articles. I can easily do the PDFs, the full version of Micrsoft Office gives you that option (oh and its only $5 a month for a MS Office subsription now). Original art isnt a problem for me either; I have several artists working for me now (take a peek at my Flickr account to see). Keep me in the loop?

PS: its good to see people like Visgar posting what they want more of, in regards to more content.

well if we get something going, I can contribute. I think I want to get the Ascending Hero set up

It might be useful to set up some kind of peer or public review process for picking articles to go into such a PDF publication. I'd be willing to contribute writing and art to such a thing.

This sounds a lot like the old Palladium Think Tank site from years ago. You might want to reach out to Jason Richards and Carl Gleba for their insight as they were the runners of it (along with Todd Yoho, but I don't believe he is involved in/with Palladium anymore)

I see it as a death knell for Palladium books. I'm a pessimist though, they could bounce back, lord knows I didn't think the company would last this long.

I was at the very first POH after the Crisis of Treachery when KS was living above the offices in the old offices. When we left the VIP Friday my friend Fred and I were talking about how we expected the company to fold within the year.

After Promise of power and all the Robotech nonsense the company is still standing or at least crawling along.

The problem I see is simple, I don't care. I used to love palladium books, I cherished every book Kevin signed and was excited to see what was coming. Hell I even paid for the pre-release of the Beyond the Supernatural expansions, but they never came. Then the expansions for other games I was interested in dried up, and we were told to look to the Rifters for new content outside of the Rifts flagship. My FLGS stopped carrying their books since they didn't know when anything would arrive, people I played with moved away and we started playing on the chat rooms but it was never the same. The new groups I found had no interest in palladium books and/or didn't want to learn a system other than D20. I gave away a lion's share of my books to people who seemed interested, keeping a few of my favorites to myself. Now they sit in the corner of a closet, covered with bags of baby clothes my youngest has outgrown. In the future, maybe, I'll haul them out and show my oldest how we used to play games in the old old days. I won't buy anything new from palladium, there is no point. Technology has gotten to the point where I can download pirated copies of the books I gave away. Buying new expansions, like Byzantium, have no interest to me. For me palladium books died out a long time ago. I still come by here once or twice a year to see if the lights are on, but it seems like morbid curiosity than anything really. Palladium Books worst enemy was itself in the end, the delays in release dates, broken promises of new content, and it's multiple failures on securing products lines outside of pen and paper books has set it's course to eventual oblivion. They used to sell fantastic etched glasses, hoodies, amazing proofs of original art and now they sell Rift pens. Something I would end up misplacing after a month. Today I had made a few changes to my profile, on there I could see my old ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger and AOL messenger accounts. When I made those accounts I thought those apps would be around for forever, and I used to think the same thing about Palladium Books.

For all the cool things the Rifter offered, there was one major problem with it in my opinion... and I know I'll probably be in the minority on this one: It was a grab bag full of surprises the were hit or miss. What I mean is there was a ton of material for games that not only do I not play, but I don't like (Rifts, Nightbane, Rifts, Dead Reign, Rifts, Splicers and oh, yeah... Rifts). I remember being disappointed on more than one occasion when I'd get a Rifter in the mail as part of my subscription I bought and the vast majority of stuff was utterly unusable. Ya, ya, ya.. it's the Megaverse, you can convert it, blah, blah, blah. What if I don't want to convert it? The only MDC game I ever played and liked for that matter, was Robotech. I don't want to make the square peg fit into the round hole.

Unrelated gripe... why create 2 Rifts beastiaries and not include SDC stats? Oh ya, we can CONVERT THEM. Silly me. Before people start preaching about how simple it is to convert the stats, then why are there whole books written that are dedicated to conversions?

Sorry... I'm back from my trip to Tangent Island. Anyway, I always enjoyed reading articles for Heroes Unlimited, Beyond the Supernatural and Palladium Fantasy. I will miss those. The rest is completely lost on me and if I wanted to read about zombies, Nightbane thingamajigs or Coalition whatchamawhozits, I'd buy those games and source books. That's what it comes down to. Sourcebooks. I don't believe this spells the end for Palladium. I think in the long run, it's good business sense. With limited resources, they just can't support all the lines they have.... too many in my opinion. Do I want a new Rifter that contains 75% worth of material in it that doesn't apply to the games I play or do I want them to eventually release Beyond Arcanum for Beyond the Supernatural so that it's a complete RPG? (BTS without magic is incomplete, no matter how many times I'm told it's playable without it). I vote for the sourcebook!

No matter the genre, I will miss seeing articles authored by the many friends I've made through meeting them at cons or at the Open House. When I open a Rifter and see a friend's article published, I do get excited. Reading someone's submission is like having them open up their home to you. They invite you into their imagination and create something for you to enjoy during your adventuring. For that, I thank every one of you who have ever submitted something, whether I play your game or not.

This is an exceptionally good point! I too found most of the Rifter material useless. Its why I never got a subscription. I did however go back and buy some that had important material I could use (especially Rifter #49, 55, 79, and 81). Too bad you cannot create a PDF platform that only downloaded material that you were interested in, sorta like a feed. I myself (physically) cannot spend hours and hours searching websites for information or material, so a downloadable PDF is exactly what I would want. Anything to save people time will be valuable.

Strongly disagree with this. Some of the best things I have found in the Rifter are things I never would have downloaded on there own. Hell the only reason I own an Heroes Unlimted books and now frequently run them at conventions, is because of the Rifter. The Fall of NORAD, Last Street for BTS, and then a ton of Splicers stuff. I would say more than anything else the Rifter is why I went from just owning Rifts and Nightbane books in 1998 and now I own literally everything PB has printed. Have I used them all, of course not. Have I gotten tons of good ideas, NPC/Villains, equipment/spells/powers, and adventures from these books, you better believe it.

I also now by books from other companies to mine ideas from there games but that is as much Kickstarter and Drivethru as the Rifter. If you convert the RIfter to a buy just the articles you like online system all that is going to do is increase the number of articles for top Rifts and decrease it for everything else because let us be honest, Rifts is what sells.

I know it is the public school teacher in me but there is value in seeing things that you would not normally seek out. It can open your mind and change how you do things in concrete ways. My wife and I watch Rick Steves all the time and he has caused us to add places to our must see list that we never would have bothered with before. If all we did was watch his YouTube segments on places we already wanted to see we would never have added these places.

WARNING: Old Guy's Anti-Internet Rant Incoming
To me this is the single biggest problem with the internet. Just show me what I already want to see, just reinforce what I already believe, don't make me see anything new.

Again sorry for the rant.

True but some people are monomaniacs (like myself). I could care less about Splicers and some of the other stuff. I have limited time on the internet (health issues) and limited space on my brain-harddrive so I like what I like.

yeah Jack has it about the way I see it too. I just don't see the things that interest me in the Rifter generally. I have zero interest in 'yet more Rifts equipment, and guess what??!?!? its even more powerful than the other stuff? Guess how many SAMAS variants are in this one? Guess how many Boom Guns are in this one?!?!' I also have zero interest in 'yet more Rifts critters that are nearly impossible to fight', and I have only a teeny interest in 'yet more Nightbane Morphus tables'

I read the Rifter to see new content that I can port into games, like the new Martial Art Forms, new powers, new bow and arrow stuff, new ways to interpret the game I already play.

I can't be mad at the short stories, though it really depends on the setting.

I think the thing I like to see the most is stuff like 'This is how /we/ play.', you know, sort of a personal testimonial on things.

Great point. In fact, I played some Palladium Fantasy with zerombr and some of his crew in a hotel lobby at the last GenCon and was turned on to a variant of the rules that his group plays. WOW.. it was totally "off the books" and we sure had fun! So yes, I do agree that seeing how someone else plays is valuable.

To Warshield's point, I can see how it may sound closed-minded to not want to read any other material written for games I don't play. Honestly though, I simply don't have the time to scour through Dead Reign stuff to apply it to Beyond the Supernatural, for example. There will inevitably be some conversion issues. It's not that my time is more valuable than someone else's or that someone else has more time in the day than I do... it's just the way my life shakes out doesn't allow much time for me to dedicate to importing a lot of source material and being able to export something usable and succinct for ma game(s). I'm probably not as adept at converting or recognizing usable things as Warshield is, either. Someone's level of gaming experience plays into that and I'm not the greatest at game mechanics.

Lol I just sent that secret thing off to Palladium a few weeks ago Here's hoping!

Dang now I have to do that too. Just when you guys convince me to do Rifter articles they take it away... it's like it was all a plan to get me to write the book...

What I'd like to see is KS and the gang authorize a fanzine so the fanbase can continue the Rifter then I'd like to see a portion of it dedicated to... "parallel" universes made by fans. So the fans can make up stuff in the vein that Chaos Earth was supposed to be before it was released as Rifts past.

personally I like reading all that stuff.

I agree that the Rifter was hit and miss for me. Sometimes I just loved it but other times like the last one I think 82 didn't have much I enjoyed reading. I certainly hope that it going on hiatus (gone) will speed things up. I have been following Palladium for yrs asked my buddies that owned stores to carry it but bc things are not published on time or ever they wont.

I'm glad someone does! I just don't know how much I need to put in there, you know?

I have two criteria for all the RPG writing and artwork I make:
1. Is it something that could make an adventure or campaign more engaging, immersive, and fun?
2. Is it interesting/fun/appealing in its own right?

If it doesn't satisfy either criteria, it's probably not worth including. If it satisfies only one criteria, then I try to keep that section as short and to the point as I can. If it satisfies both, then I try to make the most of it.

The tricky thing about writing RPG setting backgrounds is that you're basically telling your story, but your audience consists of people who want to play out their stories. If the background you're telling isn't going to be immediately relevant to the GM or players, then it should be really interesting in its own right, such that the players and GM want to incorporate it into their games. Failing that, it should be fun to read or look at.

Sound words, sir. If I may summarize, 'If it can lead to interesting RP, do it, if not, make it succinct.'

I like that, that's going to help me, thank you.

While I will miss the Rifter, I am hoping, much like others here, that it will lead to more actual promised books being released.
And as to a fan run internet based version of the Rifter, that's a cool idea but what are the odds that KS will throw a Cease and Desist order at it for using his IP? We all know he has a tendency towards that sort of thing.

That works as an axiom, sure. Here's another way to think about it:

The ideal RPG element is fun, useful, and succinct.
If your product is all three of those, you've got something great. Share it or publish.
If you've got two of those, it's good. Polish it.
If you've only got one of those, it's not worth putting out there. Revise or move on.

I have to agree. As much as I like The Rifter, PB has product lines that have been sorely neglected for years... and years. I unsubscribed from the newsletter a long time ago, because announcements kept on being made about products that never materialized. I think redirecting resources to some of these projects is long over due, and a smart move.

Lawyers cost money. He doesn’t have any. Plus can he really afford to alienate the fans he has left?

On topic: I’d be glad to help with editing, organizing and so on if people want to set up a fan project. My email is diamond_spear@yahoo.com.

I just had this conversation a year ago with fans of the old Star Frontiers game When WotC asked them to stop producing their fanzine. It is their property, it is no more disrespectful to ask fans not to use your IP without permission than it is to ask your friends not to take your car without your permission. Also if you're only doing it because you perceive KS and PB as too weak to defend themselves...

With the movie rights, the agreement for Savage Rifts and the settlement for when Trion tried stealing his IP he may not be able to allow this.

I hope he allows it if he can but ultimately a fanzine is going to be more hit or miss than the Rifter ever was so not sure how big an audience it will get. I mean all the complaints above would have to apply to the fanzine and if you make it to your liking it will annoy people who liked the Rifter.

He really can’t stop fan produced work. As long as no one is violating actual copyrighted material derivative works pass muster. I certainly won’t lose any sleep worrying about a cease and desist if this project moves forward.

To address this point, I have some very definite ideas about what such a fan work should be. In brief, it is my belief that a work more focused on setting than mechanics will be much more useful and much more well received than “Here, have another OCC/RCC/Power Armor variant”. Interesting people, groups, places and plots are, again in my opinion, needed much more than anything else, especially if you set them back at the timeline presented in the original Rifts main book rather than trying to integrate them with the bloated world Rifts has become over the last couple of decades. This goes double for undersupported settings like Nightbane and BTS.

Let us get one thing straight Trion never stole his IP. It was a question of similarity in name (their game was just called Rift) much like the ridiculousness that was McFarlane threatening to sue over the name of Nightspawn. Trion threw a token sum of money for Kevin to go away. They never really changed the name of their game after the "settlement". In fact if anything the slightly tweaked name (Rift: Planes of Telara) played up the "multidimensional" aspect to a higher degree.

I won't get into how those licenses are highly unlikely to be garnering as much money as some seem to think.

Lastly, those above are not wrong in saying fan material can and is protected under "fair use" as long as Palladium's own internet policy is followed and no official published copyrighted material is used.