I use to play a few years back with a friend of mine who had most of the books. I always greatly enjoyed the game and the system.
I really really love the setting. It is one of the freshest and most intriguing settings out there. The art on the covers of the books is just phenomenal and paints the world you just want to rush out and play in.
The rules, on the other hand, are a train wreck. Everything is based on percentile skills. If you don't have a skill--there is just no way to resolve an attempt to do whatever it is. A lot of the skills are really weird anyway--like four different kinds of radio use but no spot check. The stats are rolled like D&D, 3d6, but you get to keep rerolling whenever you get a high enough stat (over 16) so for the most part rolling a D20 off an attribute just can't happen for high attribute characters--because they have numbers that run way higher than 20. Yuck. Oh and some of the character classes are pretty dumb too--basically just humans with different gear. Pretty sad.
If you're willing to tool out a series of good homebrew rules to get past the layers and layers of bizarre mechanics (or better yet just run the thing using D20 Future mechanics!) then the setting is pure gold. It's really good stuff.
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Well, I'd just pull it out of my magical dungeon master bag wrt untrained skills,...anyway, what I liked about the skills is you get so many; it's not like D&D where you know how to do 3-4 things worth a crap, unless you're a social miscreant or rogue or what-have-you, who for some game balancy reason is the only person that knows how to do 9-10 things worth even trying to do them.
It also gets around the "low level wizard/caster" problem in D&D where you get 3 spells a day then stand around trying to run away from anything dangerous.
The thing that always annoyed me was the mega damage crapola. It always seemed like a test to rationalize why this or that item/monster/what-have-you could dish out and/or take mega damage.
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The setting in and of itself is excellent. As for the mechanics ... suffice it to say I am willing to play them, but it takes a particularly dedicated GM to really pull off a good RIFTS game and actually make thier mechanics work. I've met one that fits the bill since its inception in ... what, 1989? 1990?
Played in several campaigns over the years. The world is a refreshing change and well thought-out. The mechanics . . . worse than the afore-mentioned train wreck in many cases. Skills are a pain. There's no concept of balance between classes (should that be your thing-I'm rather indifferent to it in Rifts). Combat was OK, not great. Magic and psionics mesh well, but magic gets a whole lot more love. Highly enjoyable under some circumstances, but not all.
Rifts is a fantastic game!
But there are a few "rough spots." The system is decent... Not much worse than 2nd Edition D&D.
But here are a few things to look (out) for:
Power Creep: The "further" from the main book you get... The more powerful the classes get. This may not be a problem, if every one plays from the same source book though.
Front Loaded Classes: Really, after the first level, you don't get a whole lot for your "trouble." Especially considering the slow leveling curve (compared to 3.x D&D).
No Multi-Classing: This isn't a problem to me... Especially if you consider the Front Loading. But you need to be certain you pick a character concept you like. There really isn't any way to change it in game.
Backflip, Backflip, Backflip-ing your way to Second Level: The XP rules can be a bit wonky if the GM lets them be. And when the players realize just how long it can take to level up, they may start trying this crazy tactic.
Everything else is based off of the GM. I had some real horrible ones that made the game more work than fun... But I still liked the games themselves.
Our GM made rules for multiclassing that worked out well for our group, since there are enough NPCs with multiple classes floating around that it made no sense not to let us do it. Front-loading is still an issue, though.
I'm lucky enough that my hubby runs a Rifts game for us every other week (I run my FR campaign in the other week). Power creep can be an issue *cough* South America *cough*, but for the most part, it's a non-issue if the GM reigns it in. Spot and Listen-style rolls are normally covered by a Perception roll, and if your GM is generous enough (like mine is on occasion), you can try to cover a skill check that you don't have with a similar one, albeit with a penalty.
Oh, and the Critical Hit Deck works pretty well in this system. :D
I am currently running a group through a rifts campaign. I have found that I have to creat some house rules but all in all I do not have to fudge too many rules. I also created some Multiclassing rules but we will see how that works
I like the Juicer Uprising book best of all.
That one is a good book as is the Cyber Knight sourcebook; the Coalition War Campaign and Dark Conversions.
Heathansson, my character in captramses' campaign is a Vanguard Waylayer. That's right...Coalition-lovin' magic user, though the character's faith in them is a bit shaken. Okay, a lot shaken.
Rifts is a fantastic game!
But there are a few "rough spots." The system is decent... Not much worse than 2nd Edition D&D.
But here are a few things to look (out) for:
Power Creep: The "further" from the main book you get... The more powerful the classes get. This may not be a problem, if every one plays from the same source book though.
Front Loaded Classes: Really, after the first level, you don't get a whole lot for your "trouble." Especially considering the slow leveling curve (compared to 3.x D&D).
No Multi-Classing: This isn't a problem to me... Especially if you consider the Front Loading. But you need to be certain you pick a character concept you like. There really isn't any way to change it in game.
Backflip, Backflip, Backflip-ing your way to Second Level: The XP rules can be a bit wonky if the GM lets them be. And when the players realize just how long it can take to level up, they may start trying this crazy tactic.Everything else is based off of the GM. I had some real horrible ones that made the game more work than fun... But I still liked the games themselves.
As everything in the way of rules is pretty much based on the GM a good GM will handle any power creep issues.
I am real sure I do not agree with the Front-Loaded Classes statement but once again it is based on the level of communication between GM and player.
The Multi-classing issue is indeed an issue especially since there are NPC's which are obviously multiclassed but I think it could be resolved by the GM and the Players.
The Rule book specifically states that the XP guidlines are just that: Guidlines: I try to stick to them to a point and I have been known to increase the total amount based on a formula.
But ultimately it is going to depend on the GM's preference.
Basically I adopted a race/class archetype familiar from D&D(though I called them RCC and OCC as an homage).
RCCs (taken from the flavor text in the core book)
Human
Mutant
Robot
Alien (Race from one of the rifts)
Hybrid (Half-animal)
I created a random list to roll off of for every race. Some of the things on the list were mild bennies. Some were huge benies. Some were mild disadvantages. Some were awful disadvantages. You get to roll however many times you wanted.
OOCs (synthesised from the book OOCs)
Mystic (Cleric or cultist)
Headhunter (Soldier)
Rogue Scholar
Fixer (Medic)
Operator (Mechanic)
Wilderness Scout
Vagabond (Homeless rogue)
Most of the rest of the classes involved the right person getting the right stuff. Wanna' be a glitterboy? Be a headhunter or whatever and find a suit of glitterboy armor. Best of luck!
Plus I threw in a random table for psionic potential. About 40% of people had no capability. About 4% were psi-stalkers. Of the rest about 33% had minor powers and the other 23% had major powers.
I also had people write their first stat rolls down with their total stat in brackets--like P.P. 17 [23]. That way rolls can still be made off the base stat, but bonuses are determined based on the total stat. Skills had to be totally reimagineered. I kept most of the original skills from the skill list, but allowed people only so many skill raises per game session (rather than level) and they could elect to sacrifice two and pick up a new skill. I also allowed added a lot of skills as they turned up and became really necessary--though it helped a lot that people could also abort to an Attribute roll.
Oh and I also made body SDC only work against subdual damage. Lethal damage directly depletes HP. That way weapons weren't just worthless and battles didn't drag on forever as endless wood-chopping contests.
I guess I haven't bought that book...
It's right here. Good chewy flavor stuff in there, there's a section about using the Vanguard as the bad guys and then as the good guys. Fun stuffs.
In our last campaign, Heathy, I played the Achilles Neo-Human out to save all the mutants engineered in the CS labs at Lone Star. We had a baby dragon hatchling, a freaker from Australia, a Sniffer Dogboy (Doggirl), and a Battle magus.
That character, BTW, is one of the reasons I am condemned to eternal life. Something about dropping the People's Elbow on a CS Special Forces operative while inside my Predator, another incident involving my supernatural form+a headbutt vs. an SDC target, and my general efforts to help small power armor suits "park" via hyperkinesis. Plus a few chokeslams and a Rockbottom while in supernatural form. Too much property damage, at least till the dragon got into a few ugly fights. Did you know that luggage carts are second only to high heels as deadly weapons? I didn't, not until this campaign.
Oh and I also made body SDC only work against subdual damage. Lethal damage directly depletes HP. That way weapons weren't just worthless and battles didn't drag on forever as endless wood-chopping contests.
You must not be playing Rifts. :-P
Rifts "damage of choice" is MDC. It is rare to have an SDC battle... At least in my experience.
Well human vs. MDC damage isn't "too long a fight" it's more like zZzorTch! SPLAT....*sizzle*
oh yeah, love Rifts; my 18th level temporal wizard is close to solving my gm's time saga quest so am hoping i can get him to run it again :) my character is the tuffest wimp in the group; hehe in every fight I buff and sheild myself and by the time I am ready to fight; everything has been killed by all the other players unless we are fighting some boss type; still if a great game concept and very fun.
There are so many characters classes I have yet to try; liked several I have played, hehe like the juicer and the lay line walker; but wanna play some from Wormwood and some of the Supers are really cool, but the gm really has to watch those builds.
hehe and I agree with Grim; if your SDC in a MDC fight; you better be hiding in a Death's head transport or have some MDC armor or your history faster than I can spit.
I used to play a lot of RIFTS. I quit when my cousin (our GM) died. Mark, my brother, and I played almost every Palladium game there was throughout the early nineties.
Even non-Megaversed Recon.
Oh and I also made body SDC only work against subdual damage. Lethal damage directly depletes HP. That way weapons weren't just worthless and battles didn't drag on forever as endless wood-chopping contests.You must not be playing Rifts. :-P
Rifts "damage of choice" is MDC. It is rare to have an SDC battle... At least in my experience.
Actually sir this is not totally true. Example. Inside the City State of Chi-town where no MDC weapons are allowed by the civilian population. Any combat would be determined by SDC. The same might be considered true for any campaign done in the NGR or any of the city states of Japan.
Actually sir this is not totally true. Example. Inside the City State of Chi-town where no MDC weapons are allowed by the civilian population. Any combat would be determined by SDC. The same might be considered true for any campaign done in the NGR or any of the city states of Japan.
Seeing as how my experience never took me inside Chi-Town, the NGR, or Japan...
My statement still holds as true.
And I don't see the appeal of playing a civilian in Chi-Town anyway... It seems too much like Paranoia and Beyond the Supernatural to me. And I loathe playing those games.
But to each their own.
Our group never went into CS cities, nor the NGR or Japan either. For us, it was an MDC world with 3 characters that were SDC. Admittedly, I was MDC part-time, but I still lost a lot of body armor in that campaign. That said, you can have occasions where SDC weaponry is useful. We had to extract someone from a small city in Lone Star who wasn't operating in their right mind and we wanted alive, so SDC weapons were the way to go. One simple Wilk's Laser Pistol would have killed her outright, so we were prepared to use SDC weapons for that one. Luckily, we could do fairly hefty amounts of SDC damage unarmed.
Man, I wish our GM would run Rifts again. Blowing up that train was one sweet bit o' fun . . .
hehe chi town; one quick mdc spell and there is not enough evidence left to complain about; am gonna conquer chi town someday :)
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hehe chi town; one quick mdc spell and there is not enough evidence left to complain about; am gonna conquer chi town someday :)
I'll join you for that trip. You go left, I'll go right, we'll meet in the middle of the rubble.
Actually sir this is not totally true. Example. Inside the City State of Chi-town where no MDC weapons are allowed by the civilian population. Any combat would be determined by SDC. The same might be considered true for any campaign done in the NGR or any of the city states of Japan.Seeing as how my experience never took me inside Chi-Town, the NGR, or Japan...
My statement still holds as true.
And I don't see the appeal of playing a civilian in Chi-Town anyway... It seems too much like Paranoia and Beyond the Supernatural to me. And I loathe playing those games.
But to each their own.
Actually there are a lot of adventure ideas that can take place inside Chi-Town proper that have nothing to do with either BtS and/or Paranoia but it ultimatly up to the GM to create the flavor of the adventure. The Coalition War Campaign and most of the material dealing with the Coalition discuss the 'Coalition Laws.' Once you get passed the whole Futuristic setting you realize that there is a lot of potential for a variety of adventure types.
The final determining factor; as in any game is the level of communication between the GM and players. A good GM will discuss with the players the type of campaign he or she wants to run and the players will have input and determine whether or not they want to play.
hehe chi town; one quick mdc spell and there is not enough evidence left to complain about; am gonna conquer chi town someday :)
LOL; hope you're ready to deal with NTSET and Psi-Battalion :)
Psi-Stalkers love Magic Users.....for dinner!!!!!
I just played a game of Rifts last week. A minor character of mine was transformed into a major demon. In most games, you would hand the character over to the GM to become an NPC. Instead, the GM told me I gained a level and he expected me to play the character next session. The world is awesome...the rules are clunky...it's an over-the-top game that requires an over-the-top GM.
Rifts: A great concept hobbled by a very clunky and unbalanced set of rules. Power creep is a huge issue, also. I'd recommend sticking with RIFTS, Rifts Sourcebook I (for detail on the Coalition), and Rifts Conversion Book (for filling in the blanks for the rest of your personal campaign world).
Although I did develop a group of techno-mage cyborgs with techno-magic cybernetics (fun, fun)...
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Oh, and another thing while we're on the subject of rifts...
I've always hated their "official"character sheets. I'm not a huge fan of a lot of them I've seen on the web either. I am a HUGE character sheet nit-picker. I like them functional and nice looking.
Anyone know where I could snag some good Rifts sheets?
I ran a Rifts campaign for over three years straight about 6 years ago, but after moving away from the east coast, the only thing my new players want is D&D. So I don't get to play Rifts anymore, but I still have the books. But the same could be said of other gaming systems as well, Have the books, no player intrest.
Anyone know where I could snag some good Rifts sheets?
DD, send me an email and I'll send you the ones I've been using for years. :)
Rifts...Palladium...Damn those old days (Am I a Grognard even if I am not even 30 years old, though have been playing RPGs for 22 years...?).
The system is freaking horrible. It's like a return to old 1st edition AD&D. Sure we had fun with that system too....like in the mid 1980s, when we had fun with 80-86 PCs, LARN, and Apple IIs (not sure there really, never been an apple guy). I mean Kevin really needs to badly update things.
I played basically every Palladium system, even collected the rare ones (like the original Mechanoids books, and the pre-revised Heroes unlimited supplement...Justice something...can't remember). But lets be honest, they stink.
I mean, I had to just wake myself up one day and admit that the whole thing stinks. In fact I think the only game they ever made that did not stink, by modern standards, was TMNT, and some dink friend of mine borrowed all the books and never gave any of them back (I had all of them...). I guess Robotech was pretty cool too. But then again it gave Simbedia the idea of M.D.C., so maybe it was not in the end.
I mean Rifts...great idea! Post-Apocalyptic world where everything meets. Magic, high tech sci-fi, techno-magic, psionics, dragons, cthulhu...I mean Spluggorth, and a few other settings where lawsuits were involved (Manhunter, Wormwood?, Nightspawn..I mean Nightbane...damn didn't Clive barker write that...Oh right that was Nightbreed).
But really in practice their books were culturally insensitive (Native Americans in the Spirit West, Japan, Africa)...(of course this being from the people that brought you Vietnam War the game!), totally lacking of imaginative or interesting recasting of settings (I mean Chi-town is just modern slang for Chicago), and generally laughable (England, Rifts Undersea, South America 2) or they were a somewhat interesting book that was really all about the power creep (Mercenaries, Juicer Uprising, Phase World OMG!).
After reading a few of these books I can discern the following:
A. No one who ever wrote these books has ever left a 100 mile radius around Chicago.
B. They check out books from the library, maybe even just read encyclopedia entries on a place and then write a sourcebook on it.
C. They figure culture will not change or adapt over the next 300 years, especially if world wide apocalypse occurs. I mean real cultural development, like referencing anything that happens after circa 1990. Or names of cities like Ishpeming, Michigan or Chi-Town. Star trek has the same problem, I have heard treckies joke about it.
In fact I would place the majority of the Rifts books so far (at least the ones I read, I stopped a few years ago) into one of four categories:
Good: Rifts Main Book, Source book 1, Source book 2: Mechanoids (maybe I can't remember frankly), World Book 2: Atlantis, World Book 13: Lone Star (maybe...can't remember again), Dimension Book 1: Wormwood (I really liked this one),
Racist: World Book 1: Vampire Kingdom, World Book 4: Africa, World Book 6: South America (and according to others Power-Creep too!), World Book 8: Japan (also a total Power-Creep book!), World Book 15: Spirit West ( I mean OMG this is such a damn racist book towards Native cultures).
Power-Creep: Rifts conversion book 1, Rifts Mercenaries, World Book 5: Triax and the NGR, World Book 10: The Juicer Uprisings (good otherwise), World Book 11: Coalition War Campaign (Power-Creep for the coalition, they had not been keeping up), World Book 16: Federation of Magic (Power-Creep for Magicians!, Finally!!), Dimension Book 2: Phase World (Oh boy!), Dimension Book 3: Phase World Source Book (Holy C**P, It's a Power Creep supplement for a Power-Creep supplement!), World Book 12: Psyscape
Laughable: Rifts conversion book 2: Pantheons of the Megaverse, World Book 3: England, World Book 7: Rifts Undersea, World Book 9: South America 2 (also Power-Creepy), World Book 14: The New West, World Book 17: Warlords of Russia (hell, this one is probably racist too, I just remember the art sucked!!), Dimension Book 4: Skraypers, Rifts Manhunter (if just for it's bad organization and editing).
I know there are a good few books I am not covering, but hey I did eventually stop buying or even flipping through them (around about Rifts Russia, thankfully before they assuredly butchered my homeland of Canada).
I guess in the end, I have for the past 17 years heard people constantly say "I really really love the setting. It is one of the freshest and most intriguing settings out there..." to quote Grimcleaver. I even had this idea bouncing around in my head for the 10+ years I was off and on again playing and running Rifts games.
But you know, no Rifts is not a good setting. It was original and intriguing in 1990, but 17 years, and 46 supplemental books later, it is a tired and frankly badly designed setting, outside of maybe 6 books.
To put it another way only 13% of the books that they produced, in my opinion, were actually any good, and had interesting/original ideas behind them.
I mean, compared to say...Shadowrun (which has terrible problems with power-creep among others), Rifts if both generally, and sometimes terribly, racist and not all that original in it's approach to what-if history. It also frankly has a lot of really stupid and laughable supplements like Rifts: England (I mean did we really need a Psychic King Aurthur?).
I hate to say it, but I really think that the setting is not all that good.
There are way better ones out there, and frankly you could probably think of a better setting yourself, if you spent sometime reading speculative post-apocalyptic fiction of the last 25 years. Really, we just need to let it die. Or finally convince Siembedia that it has to go through a complete overhaul, setting, fluff, rules, and all!
wow that is quite a post; I think the setting is more gm related than source material; it is the gm who makes the game come alive and adds any emphasis; I think the source material is great; but like any other game; I dont know of any gm's who use any of it straight by the book; everyone alters stuff to fit their campaign ideas.
and bring on the psi stalkers; i like to spread them on my morning toast. Wimps. :)
RIFTS is the game that teaches GMs how to improv. Since I havn't seen railroad tracks yet that withstood mega-damage.
hehe good point; especially considering how easy it is for many characters to shift worlds and whatnot; gm has to be able to shift on the fly.
wow that is quite a post; I think the setting is more gm related than source material; it is the gm who makes the game come alive and adds any emphasis; I think the source material is great; but like any other game; I dont know of any gm's who use any of it straight by the book; everyone alters stuff to fit their campaign ideas.
and bring on the psi stalkers; i like to spread them on my morning toast. Wimps. :)
Yeah, I get way to verbose at times.
I guess in retrospect it is just my feelings about the system. Sure anything can be made good or bad by the right or wrong GM, but I think Rifts, at least the vast majority of it, has deep and serious flaws that go well beyond rules and into the actual setting material, which is the only thing most folks say they love about the game.
wow that is quite a post; I think the setting is more gm related than source material; it is the gm who makes the game come alive and adds any emphasis; I think the source material is great; but like any other game; I dont know of any gm's who use any of it straight by the book; everyone alters stuff to fit their campaign ideas.
and bring on the psi stalkers; i like to spread them on my morning toast. Wimps. :)
Yeah, I get way to verbose at times.
I guess in retrospect it is just my feelings about the system. Sure anything can be made good or bad by the right or wrong GM, but I think Rifts, at least the vast majority of it, has deep and serious flaws that go well beyond rules and into the actual setting material, which is the only thing most folks say they love about the game.
You've not talked to the same RIFTS fans I have. Most what people like about it is the mega-damage system, the fast+furious combat system (and it's mini-free!), the cups of dice you get to roll, and the fact that you can play anything (I guess that was the setting part you were talking about, huh). Maybe that is the aspect of the setting you didn't emphasize enough on your analysis? ;)
Well, I cannot say much about the combat sytem; as a mage fight are usually over before I even get started like 3 or 4 rounds that I usually spend putting up damage shield; armor of ithan; stuff to get ready to fight; cant say much for the game in terms of game balance as there is no balance that I can see, never considered the racism angle; I just dont go around looking for such stuff in a game; will give it some idle thought - who knows, might be fun to argue about it with my friends :)
All that said; I just play RIFTS for fun; same as any game; its the story i am interested in; dont care much what rule set to use as long as it is workable.
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Ah this does make me wanna hop into Rifts again as well, maybe in a few months I can get my buddy started running again.
I kinda miss my on-the-run in Lonestar, CS Spec Force Dead Boy, who had his family killed desperado style by a vampire. It was fun torturing another vamp in the shower...anyways last he saw he was getting ready to head down south for some vamp slaying...
Then I had my Pyro who got captured by a Splugorth slave ship, brought to Atlantis, managed to run away from some Artorian Warrior women and ignite 1/4 of Atlantis as a distraction...
Ah those can be fun games. I'm more a D&D DM, but I'll play most anything. Igot a bunch of the Rifts books, Atlantis is undoubtedly one of my Favs along with psyscape.
You've not talked to the same RIFTS fans I have. Most what people like about it is the mega-damage system, the fast+furious combat system (and it's mini-free!), the cups of dice you get to roll, and the fact that you can play anything (I guess that was the setting part you were talking about, huh). Maybe that is the aspect of the setting you didn't emphasize enough on your analysis? ;)
Actually over the years I have heard way more complaints about the MDC system than probably any other part of Rifts, except for the power creep factor.
The racism. Well it is there. Trust me. Just look with a even partially critical eye and it pops up.
Africa, all a wasteland of simple tribal people. Other than the Crocodile Empire, which is not really even approached, and is what...a subsidiary for Atlantis. Like there are no engineers or other well educated people, or even a country that at one time had a thriving nuclear weapons program (South Africa). This is the typical American/Western look at Africa as a place of tribal peoples and not advanced people. I mean the continent has deep, deep, problems right now, but who knows in 60 years (or in other words at the time of the cataclysm) what might change. Instead Rifts falls back on the old standby racist approach to Africa. Why could there not have been a reborn Carthage, a African run tech empire. Oh yeah, because they can't build technology over there....aka...racism.
The West books were terrible racist towards Native American cultures. I would have to flip through the books again to find specific examples, but as I recall the vast array of native cultures (over 400 different languages alone!) are boiled down to either traditionalists, which live like circa 1800s Lakota or Shoshone, or modern traditionalists. Sure it's not as bad as Peter Pan's "What Made the Red Man Red", which is probably one of the most offensive and racist bits I have ever seen in a film, but the Rifts books are still racist for sure.
Like I said, I could go one with more examples, but these two were the first to jump out.
Sure the one cool thing about Rifts was, you could use any setting but if you published online versions of D20 rifts rules, Palladium will sue you...so maybe not so into drawing upon other settings eh? It is a cool idea, but it was developed in a very clumsy fashion.
And I still stand by my statement that the vast majority of their setting books were terrible and showed little to no development or investigation of the places that they were set it. Basically Palladium took the two or three most common myths or legends about place "X" (England, South America, Africa, the Western US, ect.) and either made power armor about them and/or monsters about them. There was no thought such as....hmmm "how would culture in this area develop and change between now and the year 2070 and from 2070 to 2300?" Or even though such as "how would the rise of magic and the cataclysm effect cultures differently and lead to different cultural reactions"? Shadowrun, Deadlands, and quite a few other post-cataclysmic games investigate these ideas as well as the variety found in aboriginal-first nations (Werewolf the apocalypse also did a decent job of the latter).
Palladium just shows a total lack of originality in their approach to settings as well as classic ignorance based, American racism.
In the 1990s this was inexcusable.
In the 2000s it is a disgrace.
This is why I strongly disagree with the statement that Rifts has a awesome setting.
It has an awesome idea.
It has some awesome settings.
But mostly the setting that was/is published is junk.
It has an awesome idea.
It has some awesome settings.
But mostly the setting that was/is published is junk.
This I can wholeheartedly agree with. I've a handful of Palladium books sitting on my gaming bookcase (some Palladium Fantasy, several RIFTS, all but one or two of TMNT, and a few Hero's Unlimited), none of them played with recently. In fact I haven't played RIFTS since high school. The game mechanics were too much for me to want run a game in, and the power creep goes out of sight. Enough for me to want to vomit. I keep the books around primarily to cull ideas from (except for TMNT, that I DO want to run). Each one has a snippet of useful info, that can be plundered for a game or two. I also keep them around (the RIFTS books) because it was an awesome idea. The problem is, Mr. Siembeda refuses to update his mechanics and do an overhaul of the setting. (That's one of the problems, lets be honest, there are many).
I know that Palladium had some financial difficulties over the last couple of years, and I'm happy they're still around. I wish, however, that the folks (Siembeda) over there would take some time though and really look at the mechanics and setting and change things for the better. Especially as they've essentially gotten a second chance from so many loyal fans.(I never caught the racism in the books but I don't, strangely enough, have the books that you mentioned. I do have Manhunter though, and despite it's shoddy organization I still think it's a pretty kicka$$ book, simply for the setting).