Happy New Year (2025)
Hello and Happy New Year to all!
It’s been a while since I last updated, so I figured I’d start the new year off with a big one. Well sorta big. Maybe “somewhat more exciting than average.” I have several updates I want to talk about:
Rifts Character Builder update
Rifts Push Button Character Generator
TotalCon 39!
Final thoughts.
Rifts Character Builder Update
Since my last update here (July!), there have been some significant updates, including new challenges.
The most notable change has to do with Cybernetics and Bionics. You see, I fundamentally misunderstood how Cybernetics and Bionics work. I thought they were the same thing, just using an interchangeable name. I was ignorant of the fact that they are different, which made me realize a huge problem with my builder.
Cybernetics were working! Do you want a cybernetic arm? No problem, you got it. A cybernetic arm can have a modest P.S. of 10-12 or whatever small range it is. Fine.
Once I had cybernetics working, I began work on the cybernetic-heavy O.C.C.s like the Head Hunter or Cyborg Soldier, only there’s one problem. Selecting Bionics is NOT the same as selecting Cybernetics. They have very different stats, costs, requirements, etc, from Cybernetics.
The difference was significant enough that I had to create a separate section for bionics, resulting in a different look-and-feel.
Adding an arm as a general Cybernetic looks like this:
Now if you’re building, say, a Heavy Machine Cyborg Soldier, building a Bionic arm looks like this:
In my opinion, the Bionics interface is cleaner and I may eventually change Cybernetics to use a similar look-and-feel.
Bionics still have some issues. One big question I’m struggling with and cannot seem to find an answer to is how to address bionic limbs with different physical attributes. Suppose your left arm has an Augmented P.S. of 20, and your right arm has an Augmented P.S. of 24. Which arm do you use for the Damage bonus? Likewise with legs: what if one bionic leg has a Spd of 18 and the other has a Spd of 24? How fast can the character go?
I used common sense for the latter: the character can move as fast as the slower leg. For arms, however, it’s trickier, so here’s what I did regarding P.S. and P.P. bonuses: your P.S. and P.P. bonus is determined by the stronger / more nimble arm. The P.S./P.P. of a leg or hand is not factored in; I only use the arm for consideration. In the absence of official rules, that is just what makes sense to me. As I’ve said before, I try not to use house rules in this app, but I can’t find any clear rules. Please let me know if anyone knows where I can find clear rules.
Also, as always, please reach out if you’d like to do some testing!
Rifts Character Generator
I had some time off around the holidays and spontaneously decided to work on a push-button generator feature of the app. It’s very much a work-in-progress. It works okay for a simple character, such as a human Vagabond. It still needs to generate a character background, equipment, etc.. but it rolls attributes, selects skills, applies O.C.C. / racial bonuses, and, when applicable, selects Spells and Psionics. It does not generate Cybernetics of Bionics yet, nor does it select Black Market abilities yet.
Here’s what is looks like:
There is a huge, glaring problem, however. Take a look at the skills it selected:
Sorry for the large picture; I had to merge three files together since I couldn’t collect it all on one page. Anyway…
This character should be a linguist because it selected a disproportionately large number of language and literacy skills. It always seems to do that, and the reason is simple: it generates a pool of all eligible skills and randomly selects them based on the O.C.C.’s rule. Well, Language and Literacy fall under the Communication and Technical categories. They’re also Secondary skills. If you look at the list of all the skills, the list of language/literacy skills is huge, so statistically, you’re going to get a lot of languages.
The other problem is context. Suppose you want to generate a Grackle Tooth Gunslinger from Arzno. The generator doesn’t know “context,” so you may end up with a Grackle Tooth Gunslinger with Language: Lemurian, Lore: Sea Creatures, and W.P. Trident. Makes no sense! I’m working with my Javascript tutor to come up with a solution to this and the language/literacy skills problem. He’s telling me we may be able to employ an AI to make an appropriate skill selection. The user would need to provide some context for the character; I don’t know how that will look yet. We’ll see!
TotalCon 39!
Total Confusion is next month! As usual, I am running three events:
The Haunted House: I mentioned this in my previous post. I’m writing a Beyond the Supernatural adventure where the players are all celebrity YouTubers who agree to go on a charity ‘ghost hunt’ of a supposedly haunted house. The players get to the haunted house, where they commit to spending the entire night. They quickly learn, however, that the house is actually really haunted! They have to solve the mystery of the haunting and survive the night.
The Stones: a Rifts adventure that I run once in a while. The party must retrieve some special pre-Rifts artifacts - ‘stones’ - before the Coalition gets to them first! I have this adventure as a downloadable module on my site. I’m re-writing it, however, so you might want to hold off on downloading it. I’m considering submitting this for consideration in The Rifter (if they publish more of them.)
Escape from Gramercy Island: this is a Heroes Unlimited adventure I ran many years ago at Arisia in Boston, back in 2015. The premise is simple: you play as supervillains that must escape from Gramercy Island, a super-max prison designed to contain supervillains. I highly recommend the Gramercy Island sourcebook if you do not have it. While you’re at it, get a copy of the Century Station sourcebook. It’s a fully fleshed-out city for Heroes Unlimited.
Final Thoughts
It’s 2025. I hope it sucks less than 2024. And I do not necessarily mean that as a political statement. There have been a lot of personal and professional challenges in 2024, and I’m looking forward to a better 2025.
One thing I am looking forward to is resuming my Rifts campaign. We missed a couple of sessions due to the holidays. The party is currently in Africa searching for a powerful, pre-Rifts artifact. However, the minions of Pharaoh Rama-Set nabbed it before the party could get it! So the party is in pursuit. One challenge I’m having with Africa is the lack of content. I am aware of the Rifts Africa World Book and have used it extensively for this, but actual world content is lacking a bit; it’s more of a story and adventure surrounding the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. My campaign takes place after all that. Conveniently, PB is selling the Valley of the Pharaohs book by Matthew Balent, which I just purchased. This contains rich content that I am translating to Rifts and use for my campaign. Don’t tell my players, though. I know at least one of them reads this, so if that’s you, forget what you just read!
That’s all I got for now. Enjoy the new year, everyone!