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So far my Rifts games have focused on the great outdoors, with characters going from quest to quest. Don't get me wrong, I like that; it's in my comfort zone. What I'm not so familiar with is adventuring within one of the tech cities. For my purposes, I've chosen Cologne as my city, since it's actually several cities in one. As for the content, I'm looking at a Black Market-style game, with the PCs being members of an organized crime ring of some sort, or maybe just in a gang connected to it.

My question: How much mileage would I get out of the Black Market book? I own it, so it isn't about money, but it's not readily available right now. I know it's focused in North America, so I think I could only use the OCCs and maybe some of the random tables. Am I missing something? Opinions?

ETA: Actually, a lot of what I'm looking for seems to be in the Mercenaries book. Knowing that is the Black Market still worth digging out?

ETA: After some thought, I decided to move my game to Japan, so I could take advantage of the Crime & Punishment in Rifts Japan from the Rifter # 29. Since I was digging out books anyway, I looked through the Black Market book and though I could use some of the random tables the rest of the book is pretty specific to North America and therefore of little use to me. Oh well.

If nothing else, it will help you come up with ideas.

I don't know how buried it is, but if it's not too horrible I'd say it's worth digging out.

After some reading here and there, I've decided to move this game back to the NGR. Japan just didn't have what I was looking for at the moment. I have some ideas, but they'll have to wait until I do some more research into Triax 2. I just wanted to leave this thread open for when I have a more solid foundation. Thanks for reading.

Quick question: do all PCs get the minimum skill packages for citizenship and/or previous military experience, or those primarily for NPCs? Thanks.

Primarily meant for npcs without an OCC, but it would be reasonable to include them for PCs (at least the baseline basic math, computer operation, and the language and literacy skills) if a character was raised as an NGR citizen but their OCC doesn't cover those for some reason (I didn't bother to double check if they all do).

Thanks for your reply. I agree with your solution wholeheartedly. It comes up because I think I'm including a Rifts' Priest (from Pantheons of the Megaverse) as one of my NPCs, and they may not get the basic citizenship package presented in Triax 2 (I haven't checked yet).

Another question: would it be worth it to me to get my copy of Rifts Australia to have access to its mutants? Triax 2 mentions them, but doesn't provide stats for them. I'd like to use one or two in my game, but shelf space is limited. Again, like the Black Market book, I already own it, so it isn't a matter of money, I just have to get it out of storage and find a place on the shelf to put it.

As an aside, I also own and have immediate access to Heroes Unlimited's Mutant Underground. Would that be good enough?

Thanks again for looking.

Die Linke Hand (The Left Hand) is the name of my initial criminal gang, operating out of Cologne. They deal mostly in providing vices for the city's industrial laborers. They're muscling in on other gang's drug and prostitution businesses, but every move they make against them seems to be anticipated by the police. There's a good reason for this: the leadership of Die Linke Hand are all corrupt cops! They leave the actual grunt work to other criminals while protecting them from police interference. Their contacts in the police force help keep the competition under control, though they're loathe to rely on their fellow cops too much for fear that they'll be discovered.

That's what I have so far. More to come.

The men behind Die Linke Hand may be the police, but without Holf Gunnarmann it may not have happened at all. See, Holf is a psychic sensitive, with, among other things, the ability to See Auras. He used this gift to determine which of his fellow policemen might be open to a criminal enterprise. His clairvoyance has helped him foresee when trouble (mainly from other gangs) and head it off while his sixth sense has saved him at least once from a possibly untimely end.

So what motivates a cop to go bad? Credits. Lots of them. His first drugs he sold came from evidence rooms. Now he employs street chemists to make his supply. The prostitution was easy; work for me and I'll make sure you never get busted. He's considering what other avenues of revenue he could safely pursue.

While the other gangs are wary of taking on the police, they're also getting tired of Die Linke Hand acting with impunity. An alliance is being considered. Holf knows something big is about to happen, but he doesn't quite know what. He'll figure it out though he figures. Why should this premonition be any different than the others?

What do you want out of the mutants? Mutants Underground has the minor issue of converting to Rifts, and needing access to other HU books for most of the powers. It is also gives some info on a sort of underground railroad that might be useful. I don't see Australia being all that useful.

You are right, Australia wasn't much help, unfortunately. I wanted the mutants because Triax 2 said they were there and I wanted something other than D-Bees to populate the "something weird" category. Of course, I wanted a Priest of Loki there too, but that didn't pan out either. I found something on mutants in The Rifter #26, but it too kind of required either HU2 or Skraypers, which was unfortunate. I have both books at my disposal, and I'm not loathe to bring a little HU2 into my Rifts game, so I guess it's okay, just inconvenient.

I had recently decided to move this game to Lone Star, but have now thought better of it because the Coalition has the Dog Boys and Psi-Stalkers, which kind of ruin my plans for Die Linke Hand's opposition (and Die Linke Hand itself). So I'm resetting this game back in the NGR. How embarrassing!

der Geisterdolch (The Ghost Dagger) are less of a gang and more of a death cult. Their bread and butter is assassination, and their newest target is Die Linke Hand. The cult's leader, Sophia Voigt, is a Shifter linked to the Gods of Darkness who leads rituals involving all sorts of vile acts, including human sacrifice! In fact, most of their assassination targets end up suffering this fate. Even if Voigt figures out that Gunnarmann is a dirty cop she won't hesitate to kill him; she is certain that der Geisterdolch can survive the inevitable police retaliation. Well, she's certain she can survive, most likely by shifting to another part of the NGR, where, if necessary, she can begin anew.

Der Eigensinnige (The Wayward) have banded together more for fun than any other reason. They like drinking, drugs, loud music, and fighting. They're also human-supremacist, and take the fight to the D-Bees whenever the opportunity comes up and the odds are in their favor. Other than being a violent public nuisance they aren't into other forms of illegal activity, and most of them hold down factory jobs. The police don't bother them too much, as they mostly stick to drunken brawls. Some of the members, however, occasionally work for Die Linke Hand in return for not spending a night or weekend in jail sobering up. This is always as leg breakers and bullies, and they get paid in recreational drugs in any case, which suits der Eigensinnige just fine.

Skraypers work pretty well for a little HU in your Rifts game without a ton of converting.

What do you want out of the mutants? Lonestar has ways to do little, minor tweaks that could be applied to a population, all the way to the Psi-X, which I personally dislike. Keepers of the Desert work for really weird mutants, same with Mad Haven. The Earth and Star People in England are sort of a form of mutant humans. Underseas gives us Tritonia, which covers aquatics, but could be used as a guideline for terrestrial mutant humans.

Just some random ideas.

I think all I really want is to use the Unusual Characteristics tables along with the occasional actual power. I don't need actual superheroes, as that would kind of undermine the feel of this game that I'm trying to achieve, which is kind of dark and gritty. Not saying it wouldn't work, but it isn't what I'm looking for.

This isn't helped by the fact that the term "mutant" isn't really defined. They put mutants right up there with the psychic classes, which could mean just about anything. They're kind of like D-Bees that don't get kicked around as much because they're ultimately human, which is no help at all when trying to roll one up. I'll have to look and see if Skraypers has an updated characteristics table, otherwise I'll go with the Mutant Underground.

Thanks for your help!

If you're just looking for things like "has frog eyes" or "hands like a turtle", there are old-school games like Gamma World that had tables for that kind of thing. A bit of Google-fu should bring up some tables that someone made to supplement what was in the book.

EDIT: It's been a while since I've looked at the book, but doesn't the Japan book have something similar for the Oni?

You just reminded me that I have the first edition of The Metamorphica, which is a systemless book on giving characters random mutations. I'll have to dig that up and give it a once over. Thanks!

Yeah, I remember Japan having random Oni tables. It was probably one of the coolest parts of the book.

Unusual Characteristics looks like the way to go. Even the more "positive" traits like ambidextrous combined with strange hair color or whatever could be fun. Most of the really crazy, really obvious mutations would be pushed out by many populations. Another thought is limiting most of the super powers to things that are fairly hidden. The heavy/fat guy who has Impact Resistance, or Heavy Weight as an example.

How about using the "Unusual Features sub-table" for humanoid Mutants, D-Bees, or aliens (page 18 of RMB), in combination with the "Random Psionics Table" from page 12 and/or the "Dog Boy optional tables" from page 111? Sure has spawned lots of fun weirdness to mix-&-match for my own games.


And now a bunch of additional questions and thoughts that crossed my mind re-reading the topic:



Out of curiosity, what did you feel was misssing in Rifts: Japan for the kind of game you're looking for?



Depends. If he a native from other dimension playing missionary, indeed nope.
But a NGR citizen "finding the light" and becoming a priest might be possible too.



How about Free Quebec? They are not exactly accepting of Dog Boys and Psi-Stalkers as citizens or part of their armed forces.