Game Prep Part 1

Or You Must Be Crazy!


I have begun the preparation for a new Rifts campaign I have Titled Blue Lines (hence the name of this blog). I have not run nor prepared a Palladium game in a few years, I have been back in college for my BA in IT and Network Administration, so I have been a little busy. In the next few posts I will be going over my process and decisions, as well as the reasons behind them in the hopes of both making it easier for other game masters and to help organize my own thoughts.

The first thing I did was think about Rifts in general, and what I might be interested in doing with the system and possibilities of the game. With a setting/system like Rifts, there are so many things possible that it is far easier to decide what you want to do and what you want to avoid long before you even begin talking to your players. If you tell your group straight away that you are planning on a Rifts game, and that character creation will be open, you will come back with a Glitterboy (giant, walking, laser-proof tank), a dragon (a literal dragon), a Mind Melter (master psionic character who can mentally control machines, people, the weather, whatever), and a Vagabond (normal Joe with no real abilities other than being a blood stain-in-waiting). In that scenario, no one wins. Someone always feels slighted or left out.

I decided on a New West setting, with mercenaries. This narrowed the pool down. The players talked and discussed possibilities between themselves and me, and the three concepts I was presented with led to a very cohesive character background. I have a Coalition States Special Forces character, a Psi-Operator, a Dog Boy (anthropamorphic dog mutant trained and bred as disposable shock troops by the Coalition), and a Glittergirl Pilot. The Coalition and Free Quebec (where the Glittergirl Occupational Character Class is from) are strained allies on  the brink of a falling out in the canonical time I am running, and the Coalition, while hating all things inhuman and magical, tolerates psionics as an evolution of humans. With a little work and talking and cooperation, I was able to get a compelling connection between the characters.

The group was on joint maneuvers between Chi-Town (the capital of the Coalition States) and Free Quebec. The commanding officer of the Coalition forces felt that a few Glitterboy units would sell for enough to make his retirement VERY comfortable, and he could say the Glitterboy pilots, always known for being mavericks and loose cannons, attacked the troops and defected to the enemies of the State. He worked with the Quebecois communication officer, offering to cut him in on the sale of the stolen units, and presumed his own men would fall in line, as a good soldier ought.

When the deed went down, the Coalition Special Forces character saved the psi-operator and dog boy, who were out of their vehicles to check on maintenance, and the Glittergirl was the only one from her unit to escape. As they left the radio jamming field, they head the Coalition Major reporting on the defection and assault by the Glitter troops, assisted by the Coalition Special Forces member, who had fled with prototype gear.

Flash forward 8 months to the beginning of the campaign, The group has been laying low in a mid-sized prosperous mining town on the New West frontier, and that is where we will be starting our sessions once we get that far.

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