Review: Tomorrow Legion Player's Guide

"Three centuries after the Great Cataclysm nearly destroyed humankind, Earth is a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Fueled by the return of magic, holes torn in space and time act as arcane doorways to other realities." - Tomorrow Legion Player's Guide

Yes, it's Rifts for Savage Worlds. The Palladium version of Rifts never appealed to me, but since this popped out of the last Humble Bundle I bought, I was intrigued enough to read through it.

In a Nutshell: Player's handbook for the SWADE port of Rifts; every possible genre thrown into a blender. 148 page PDF from Palladium Books and Pinnacle Entertainment, available here for $15 at time of writing. This is just the player's guide, I don't have the GM guide.

Contents

We begin with commentary from Kevin Siembieda, creator of Rifts, explaining what he was trying to achieve with the game and setting and how he went about doing it.

Introduction (11 pages): Presumably you already have SWADE, as you need it to run the setting. So, this section tells you about the setting, rather than what an RPG is. The premise is that one day, a long time ago, the Earth was transformed into a chaotic mass of everything-you-can-imagine by the sudden appearance of many doorways to many different realities, called Rifts. It's all happening at once, and in many cases people, mutants and Dimensional Beings ("D-Bees") are arguing about who's in charge of what's left. Due to the vast number of Rifts products published over the years, the book needs a focus, and the chosen region is North America, where two major blocs (the technological Coalition States and the Federation of Magic) each control about a third of the population, with the rest being independent communities, beholden to neither.

As is often the case in Savage Worlds settings, we find an organisation of good guys to which the PCs belong by default; in this case, the Tomorrow Legion works to uncover and preserve the best of Earth's history, and fight for hope and justice. (See that psychic techno-paladin? That's you, that is.)

Characters (66 pages): Character creation follows SWADE, with two major differences; the Iconic Framework and the Hero's Journey. The Iconic Framework is essentially a character class, starter package, or template, however you prefer to think of it, giving you some predefined Edges, Hindrances, Skills, and Gear; the Hero's Journey is a condensed random lifepath, of which more below. There's also an additional attribute, Strain, which is derived from the lower of Spirit or Vigour and determines how much cybernetic gear you can get implanted before you develop permanent Fatigue levels.

There are a dozen Iconic Frameworks, each for an iconic character type of the Rifts setting; most of them are cyborgs, super-soldiers created by drugs and elective surgery, psychics, or some combination thereof. Oh, and you can be a dragon if you want. Note that the MARS Iconic Framework also allows you to create a PC in any other Savage Worlds setting and import them into Rifts (see sidebar p. 8).

This chapter also includes expanded rules for custom races, and ten new races, ancestries, or whatever we're calling them now. Most of them are proud, psionic warrior races.

No official Savage Worlds setting is complete without new Edges, and the Frameworks have unique Edges they can unlock as they Advance, only available to them. There are also some new Edges not linked to a Framework, of which my favourites are I Know a Guy, which lets you gain a temporary Connection once per session, and Scrounger, which lets you use Networking to acquire certain gear. Yoink!

Gear (34 pages): This chapter begins by explaining the standard starting gear; each Framework modifies this in some way, normally adjusting weapons or armour. Then it moves on into how credit cards work on Rifts Earth, what items are restricted in which areas, how to use Networking to sell your ill-gotten gains, item scarcity and how it affects purchasing. There's a selection of high-tech or arcane items, most of them weapons or armour, especially lasers and power armour; but then, Savage Worlds has always been a combat-oriented game. This section also includes new vehicles, mecha, and cybernetic implants. My gut feeling is that it's all compatible with the SF Companion, but I haven't cross-checked that in detail, what with the equipment chapters of RPGs being my least favourite part.

Setting Rules (4 pages): This setting uses Born a Hero, Conviction, More Skill Points, and Wound Cap from the core rules, and several new ones; Blaze of Glory, Blood & Gore, Death & Defeat, Siphoning PPE, Technical Difficulties, and Vehicle Fatigue. These reinforce the dangerous nature of Rifts Earth, which is arguably a survival horror setting; high-tech equipment breaks, vehicles wear out, Mega Damage weapons can really mess you up, you can gain more Power Points by ritual sacrifice, and there are several ways for PCs to evade death from Incapacitation - or lean into it and go out in a blaze of glory.

Psionics and Magic (12 pages): This explains how the usual Arcane Backgrounds and Powers are modified for the setting; this means adding the kind of Power Points they use (there are four different names, but I think "Standard" and "Normal" PP are the same, so only three different kinds), what you need to activate Powers available to that AB, and whether they can manipulate Techno-Wizardry gear. A number of the Iconic Frameworks have their own rules and are effectively new Arcane Backgrounds; sometimes you can take two different ones, but cybernetic implants give you significant penalties on casting so there is some niche protection.

This chapter also explains the effects of Ley Lines (Rifts are nodes where Ley Lines meet, and some spellcasters can draw power from them), and how to focus power by meditation and rituals. There are also six pages of additional Power Modifiers, most of which look like enhanced versions of existing modifiers; Savage Rifts doesn't offer much in the way of new Powers, but it does make existing ones more powerful.

The Hero's Journey (12 pages): A collection of lifepath tables; PCs may roll once for a narrative hook, such as a history with one of the setting's major powers, a grudging mutual respect for an enemy, or a connection to a family member. In addition, most Iconic Frameworks let you roll twice on various tables, which depending on the result might give you improved or extra gear, better skills or extra Edges.

...and we close with an Index.

What I Liked

• I'm a big fan of Savage Worlds, and TV shows like Stargate SG-1 and Sliders. This is as close to Savage Sliders, Savage Stargate, or Savage Fringeworthy as we're likely to get.
• I like the box-outs in each Iconic Framework explaining how to get the best out of it.
• A couple of the Social Edges, which I shall plagiarise shamelessly.
• The Psi-Stalker's Animal Empathy ability, which makes animals think you're one of them. It's all fun and games until you meet a solitary and highly-territorial predator.

What I Didn't Like

• Nomenclature which duplicates SWADE terms for the sake of including Rifts terminology. Why did we need to rename Heavy Weapons and Armour as Mega Damage and MDC? Why do we need to have three different kinds of Power Points, called PP in some places, ISP in others, and PPE in others still? (Yes, I know, different Arcane Backgrounds use different kinds of Power Points, but again I ask: Why?)
• Good Lord, the PCs are overpowered; between the Frameworks, the Hero's Journey and whatnot, I'd say they start at the equivalent of Veteran Rank. They were fun to read, but I'm not sure I'd want them running around loose in any of my campaigns. This is a game about superheroes rebuilding civilisation after the end of the world. It's all a bit four-colour for me.

Conclusions

Would I play it? Probably. It has a lot of stuff I'm not interested in, but the beauty of the setting is that you can be who and what you want, regardless of what anyone else is doing.

Would I run it? Probably not. It has a lot of stuff I'm not interested in, and if I'm not going to let the players have it, why not play something else? I might strip it for parts, though, there are some interesting Edges in there.