Trash RIFTS

You know Rifts?

art by jez gordon

Originally: dope setting of post-apocalyptic intergenre chaos, incomprehensible rules. Now: same dope setting but kinda not evolved much, rules by noted sexual harasser?

So we need better rules.

This is Rifts for high-trust RPG environments like FLAILSNAILS, home games etc. Play with a GM you like.

TRASH RIFTS

When in doubt, resolve things as your D&D of choice.

Stats: 

3d6 6 times.
Assign them to stats. What stats? ANY STATS YOU WANT TO INVENT
But if you invent a stat the GM thinks is stupid then you lose the stat and the number--no replacement.

So: Strength, Psi power, Wizardry? Fine. You put a 17 in "Winning"? Meh sorry, you lost that stat.

If it turns out you need a stat for something and don't have it? You suck at that. You have a -3 modifier to it.

Instead of hit points:

Hits come off a random stat.  Two stats at zero and you're unconscious.  Three and you pick up a terrible wound.  Four zeros you're dead.

(This rule is Jeff's idea.)

Skills:

You get 10 skills, they are each linked to a stat and work like that stat + your Level. Right now that's +1.

What skills? ANY SKILL YOU WANT. This is a good opportunity to world-build--if you get "Technomancy" congratulations you just put technomancy in the setting.
But, like stats, if you invent a stupid skill the GM doesn't like--in the bin. No replacement.

Items:

Items: you get 2d6 items, you must be able to carry them and find a picture of them in a Rifts book. They cannot be a unique artifact. Once rolled, you will lose d6 random ones.

No repeats.

Specials:

You get d4 Special things. Mutations, innate powers, spells, claws, vehicles whatever it is that makes your kind of race/class interesting.
Again: if you invent a stupid one, the GM can veto it.

Skin: 

Whatever you like. If it's stupid, the GM is allowed to reskin you into a pre-existing Rifts base class (psi-stalker, cyberknight, etc) of their choosing.

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Here's the first ever character for Trash Rifts, made by Jeff Gameblog:


Skizzo McGirk, drifter Stats Dumb Luck 16 Charm 13 Ingenuity 13 Deftness 13 Brute Force 11 Common Sense 9
Skills Drive Wicked Cool Land Vehicle (Deftness) Jury-Rig Stolen Equipment (Ingenuity) Punch Goon (Brute Force) Avoid Automatic Gunfire (Deftness) Lay it on Thick with the Ladies (Charm) Survive on a Scavengers Diet (Brute Force) Make Promises You Can Actually Keep (Common Sense) (I may veto this one) Recruit Banditos for Daring Raid (Charm) Turn Death into a Fighting Chance For Survival (Dumb Luck) Sneak like a Fucking Ninja (Deftness) Specials Flunked out of Skull Boy officer school but still knows a lot of their protocols and procedure Used to run a bloodmobile on the Mexican border - friendly with several draculas Never met a drug he didn’t like Parselmouth Equipment Vibro-Claws (if you think I’m going to pass on a small chance to be Megadamage Wolverine, you are crazy)
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And one by Geist.

Giles De Rais MK 2
Summoner Low Cunning: 10 Willpower: 8 Social Competence: 6 Violence: 10 Self Esteem: 6 Luck: 12 Summon (Luck) Compel Obedience (Low Cunning) Barter (Social Competence) Argue (Self Esteem) Dodge (Luck) Avoid Consequences (Luck) Lie (Willpower) Smash Someone in the Teeth (Violence) Know About Demons (Low Cunning) Communicate with Ghosts (Willpower/Social Competence) Items: Summoning Gear Skull Bedecked Body Armor SMG Megadamage Samurai Sword Demon summoning tome Splurgoth Staff
Special: Immediate Comprehension of Written Word Psionic Manta Ray Mount

art by shawn cheng

And one by me:

Slith —serpent mutant Stats Agility 15 Cleverness 12 Investment in this situation 8 Reassuringness 7 Lifting thingss 7 Noticing stuff 6 Skills Clossssse combat 16 Sneaking 16 Fixing things 13 Tending woundsss 13 Hunting beastss 16 Pilot things 13 Sabotagery 13 Grappling 8 Seek Bargains 8 Scavenging 7 Equipment Pair of vibro katanas Specials Chameleon Skin Regeneration Congealing spit (medical) Grappling bite


Rift on.

OSR Domination Progress Report

Preview Edition of Luka Rejec's Witchburner Adventure . Luka did the best One Page Dungeon and it looks to be a nice Warhammer-style adventure a little off the beaten path. Full of interesting NPCs. And....I won't give it away. But it's got a good twist.


Murder Snackers:

A new OSR D&D podcast...

Our aesthetic ideal is The Eric Andre Show plus Hard to be a God plus I Hit It With My Axe. Episodes will never have ads, will never be longer than an hour, and will always contain vulgarity, disregard for plot, and whimsical acts of pointless violence.

Vertical Slum is no joke. A weird sci-fi city in exotic detail featuring "The God Who Dreams in Pillars and Is a Boy" "The God Which Pulses Quivers And Collecs" and more. A bit like Carcosa meets Vornheim?  I'm liking it and trying to figure out how to adapt it for my game. And I dig the character sheet.

Someone's doing a solo run-thru of Maze of the Blue Medusa on YouTube--she's got some interesting solo mechanics.

In Cute Twitter News, our party's Angry Goth Rogue is also the werewolf on Curious Creations of Christine McConnell and cosplayed Domino which lead to Gail Simone having a double take:

On The Reliability of Magic

In fairy tales magic is reliable: if the leprechaun wants you to be a donkey, you're gonna be a donkey. No save.

Magic in that context is just the continuation of Nature by other means. And Nature is, if not exactly Good, then at least implacable and to be respectd.

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In D&D, it's somewhat less reliable--the sufficiently tough, clever or spiritually advanced can escape it, sometimes you even have to target it and land a hit as if it were a mere superpower, like Superman's heat vision.

It's still way more reliable than combat (as "caster supremacy" conspiracy theorists are quick to point out).

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In classic pulp stories and in games that try to emulate them like Dungeon Crawl Classics, magic is extremely unreliable. It is Things Best Left Untouched By Mortals. Results go all over the place, they can fizzle or backfire or result in discoveries.

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As usual, the Rosetta Stone here is Tolkien vs classic pulp (Lovecraft, Lieber, Vance, etc):

Tolkien lays out a fairytalish paradigm of magic as primarily a moral force: creatures who use it are in tune with higher things. Magic does what it says on the tin because it is the tin: the way the world is supposed to be working itself out. Magic only goes wrong and becomes weird when in the hands of the unworthy (like The One Ring). (As the OSR Discord reminds me, Dr Strange, Dr Fate and The Force in Star Wars also all work on this paradigm.)

The pulp paradigm doesn't so much posit a difference in magic itself as a difference in who a protagonist of a story could be: the unworthy--for whom magic is a risky proposition--are generally the focus.

So you have Lovecraft characters trying to use forbidden lore to gain knowledge and power, Lieber has the morally somewhat Grey Mouser as a sorcerer's apprentice who can't always get a spell right, and Vance has the inimitably amoral Cugel as much abused by-, as using-, magic.

Tolkien might agree they were getting what they deserved from magic, he just might not agree they were fit subjects for a story. At least not one of his.

In that context, it's easy to see why the game with the famously unreliable magic is also the one where it says right there on the book that you're no hero.

Question: Does this mean cleric spells should be inherently more reliable than wizard ones? My instinct is yes.

You Probably Want To Make Yourself One or Two Of These

A Digital DM Screen

Ok, so using Angus Warman's new toy, you can turn a page of your blog into a custom DM screen for any setting or module you happen to be running. I shall demonstrate. Right now I'm running Maze of the Blue Medusa, so...

In less than 5 years, if they're smart, every WOTC module will have one of these available on mobile designed specifically for that product (in Ravenloft? Here's an encounter table full of werewolves and pitchfork villagers and a treasure table with coffin nails on it). And in less than 12--if they're smarter--they'll have a simple template to build your own with graphics and little buttons with pictures of potions and crap on them. Until then: DIY.