Reflections on editions and changes over the years - D&D Next

New editions cause angst to many players. We all realize that WOTC isn’t going to come collect your books and that you can keep on playing past the “deadline” – and some of us do just that – but there’s a psychological factor for many people (myself included) when your game is “dead” that decreases interest in playing it. I’ve come to recognize it and I am pretty good at working past it though it tends to be easier with older games for some reason – maybe a few years have to pass and then they achieve classic status in my mind. I notice that so far WOTC is being very careful not to call it “5th Edition” as that very name implies a 6th Edition (probably about 2015 at this rate). As the lifespan of each edition has decreased, long term players have commented that they are not getting their money’s worth out of the books they buy and that they are tired of learning the rules all over again. I find this an eminently sensible position – if a game works and I like it, why should I buy all those same books all over again every 5 years? I know how it benefits the company but what problem are we solving here for the player? If it doesn’t make the game better in some clear way then why should I spend that money and time on the new version when I could instead keep right on playing with the old one?

Thus, my two biggest concerns with The New Thing:

One of the stated goals of Next is to never require a new edition. I think that’s a questionable goal. From a business perspective, the easiest money you can make is from printing a new Player’s Handbook. Why would you explicitly state that one of your design goals rules this out? Because on the flip side the players know how that works, and we see it as an unlikely scenario and that leads us to conclude that someone is not being honest about their plans. Looking for nuances, if the plan is to print an updated PHB for what is technically the same edition at set intervals, well, that’s not exactly “not” a new edition if I’m still going to need to buy a new book every few years now is it? Either way it looks a lot like a deceptive approach and I hope someone is thinking this through. If the company was to go to an annual update model (2012 PHB, 2013 PHB, etc.) as I suggested when Essentials came out then I think most players could be convinced of the benefits if they would just be upfront about the plan! They also need to keep it cheap. Additionally, something similar was said about 4th Edition and we can all see how that turned out.

The other goal that concerns me is to present a set of rules that caters to players of every edition and “unifies the game”. It’s a noble goal, no doubt, but it puts constraints on the design that I don’t think a new edition needs. Some of the biggest differences between players of each edition are mechanical ones – they don’t like the way one edition handles things compared to another edition's approach. How is one set of rules going to reconcile something as basic as ascending vs. descending armor class? How about a complete lack of skills (OD&D) vs. a few class‐specific skills (Thieves in 1E) vs. a full‐blown universal skill system (3E) vs. only encounter‐relevant skills (4E)? How about Feats vs. no Feats? Racial limits? Wizards and armor? Clerics and edged weapons? Multiclassing –is it for demi‐humans only? Is it per‐level‐mix‐and‐match‐as-desired like in 3rd? Is it handled via Feats? Prestige classes? Paragon paths? I just don’t see a way to integrate these different systems in a coherent game system short of including them all and saying “pick which one you want”! Guess what? I can already do that! I have Basic! I have 1E! I have 2E‐3E‐4E! I can pick which edition I want to play and start up a new campaign any time I want to! Thanks to the miracle of the Internet so can anyone else! Between PDF sales and eBay there’s a ton of material easily and cheaply available for nearly any edition of any game! Beyond that we have retro clones in a multitude of flavors plus Pathfinder, the biggest “retro‐clone” of all! So to me this new edition is now not just competing to be better than 4E – it’s attempting to be better than all of the prior editions to all of the people that think their chosen edition is the best. That’s a very high bar to set, one unlikely to be overcome IMO.

Additionally I don’t really want the mechanics of the 2013 edition to spend a whole lot of time looking backward to the Cleric vs. Undead tables of 1978 – I have that already, and anyone who doesn't probably doesn't care! If you don’t have something new to say about it then I don’t need a new set of rules. I don’t even need a simple refinement of 4E as my 5E – I’m willing to take a look at a completely different approach if it makes for a good game. What I don’t automatically agree is healthy is the appeal to disgruntled players. Looking at their concerns, sure. Bending the game backwards 20+ years, not so good. Do you think the kids learning to play this decade care how wizards worked in the 80’s? Is that relevant to them at all? Let me tell you from experience – no! Should their interests and expectations be a part of this process? I’d say at least as much as the guys who stopped at 1E and possibly more! The 1E guys have their edition, and in 3 updates since then they’ve said “No thanks”, to the point that some brag about how it's been 20 years or more since they purchased a D&D product! So quit poking them with the edition stick and let them go!

Now despite these misgivings I am interested in seeing what comes out of this whole operation. I've moved along (eventually) with every new edition of D&D and in general I would expect to do the same here. I do see some early signs that have me concerned about the direction of the game but I'm willing to give it a chance. I'd  like to see them look backward for inspiration, but look forward for the design. Don't concentrate so much about pleasing all former and current fans - think about the future and make the best D&D that you can make. Impress us.

Reflections on editions and changes over the years - D&D Fourth Edition

By 2007 I had been running 3E games almost continuously since 2000 with a pretty stable group of players and I was seeing more of the flaws in 3rd Edition than I liked. Monster stat blocks were incredibly dense and I found that they had more abilities than I was ever going to use (assuming I could remember to use them in the first place), plus many of them were pointless things for an enemy designed to be killed off in 10 rounds or less. Building new opponents was more complicated than I liked, too much so to do it on the fly and it was limiting my reaction time. The final straw was when people started finding numerous errors in the WOTC monster statblocks in their own monster manuals – if you’re going to come up with a complicated system for monster building for your game then at the very least you should stick to it in your official supplements for that game! If your own design team can’t keep up with it then maybe that’s a hint that something’s wrong! Now looking back, I will grant you that a dragon missing 3 points of Craft skill is not really a problem but by this time I was burning out on 3E in general and these kinds of things only fueled the fire.

So when they announced 4th Edition I was happy to hear it. I felt like we had gotten nearly a decade out of 3rd and I assumed 4th would be a refining and clean up of what had gone before. There was not as much pre‐communication as what we had before so things were a little murky, but what I was hearing sounded good. I preordered the books and waited. Then once I got them I read part way through the Player’s Handbook and hated it, totally and completely. I put it back on the shelf.

Time passed ...

The main reason I picked it up again was my kids. They were old enough to play  so I got them started on the old Moldvay Basic set and we had a really good time. Later,  I decided that as much fun as it was, why load them down with the baggage of all the previous versions of the game? Why not give the “modern” one another try and see if we could have fun with it and let them have their own game instead of making them play mine. So I looked at it again with a new perspective and found some strong similarities to the design approach used in the oldest editions of the game ‐ not 3rd‐ and finally had a breakthrough – I’ve been happy with it ever since.

Now there was a pretty big backlash with 4E. Actually there was a pretty big backlash with 3E and a lot of older players bailed out then, sticking with their 1E/2E/BECMI games, but a lot of people forget about that. There was at least as much change in the 2E to 3E transition as there was in the 3E to 4E transition, and quite a few people hated that – and there’s nothing wrong with it. Any edition change for any game gives people an opportunity to say “I’m done” and bail out. I think a lot of 1E players bailed out at or during the changeover to 2E and went out and played other games. By the time 3E was released, and after hearing that it was good, at least some of them came back in. With 4E I think a similar thing happened – people were unhappy with the change and saw a reason to go play something else. This time there was also the new wrinkle of Paizo’s Pathfinder, giving current players a new option somewhere between standing pat and moving to a new edition and it remains to be seen what the long term impact of that is – we know it helped divide 3E players when it came time to move to 4E, but time will tell how it will factor into this new edition.

Reflections on editions and changes over the years - D&D Third Edition

When 3E was announced I had a very strong “sure, whatever” attitude as while we had a 2E campaign running I was pretty sure it was petering out and we were headed for other things. However a funny thing happened over the course of 1999 – 2000. Each month Dragon had an article about some aspect of the new system and each one I read made more and more sense to me. By the time it was released I was ready to fire up a new game and go! Once again, careful and consistent communication wins over a skeptical customer! After reading those previews it felt like they really undertook a serious analysis of what had come before and changed all it all for the better! The unified d20 mechanic made a lot of sense and felt like the game was keeping up with innovations made over the last 10 years. Ascending AC was so obvious – why didn’t we think of that before? Unlimited multi classing! A logical arrangement for saving throws! So many little changes that made the game fresh and fun to play again!

Third Edition quickly became our dominant game once again and stayed there – I was still playing 3E (well, 3.5) in 2009 and I know plenty of people who are still playing it. Now over years of playing a certain system you will find some rough edges and with things moving into the established internet age those edges get uncovered a lot faster than they did in the 80’s. So sure, we got 3.5 in 2003. I can tell you we pretty much ignored and only incorporated it in our ongoing campaigns as players picked up the books and asked to use parts of them. I know some people got pretty agitated about the changes and the timing, but we never really ran into the issues that it solved as we tended to run at lower levels and my guys aren’t really powergamers or trying to break the system. As a result, we never treated it as a mandatory upgrade and that made the whole thing a lot less stressful for everyone.

Campaigns rolled forward and gave us some of the best characters and adventures we had ever had. Our games were both all-new (Scarred Lands!) and retro (Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, White Plume Mountain, The Monastery) and between the regular stream of supplements and the contents of Dragon and Dungeon we had more material, especially adventures, than we were ever able to play. Thank you Goodman Games! Thank you Necromancer Games! Thanks Green Ronin for Freeport! Thanks Paizo for your stewardship of the magazines and the first few adventure paths! Thanks Monte for Arcana Evolved! So much good stuff! So much good stuff still unplayed! Nonetheless, all good things as they say. Maybe there's room for one last 3.5 campaign in my future somewhere...

Reflections on editions and changes over the years - AD&D Second Edition

When the time came around for 2nd Edition there were some things we thought could be handled in a better way: Level Limits were too low. Unarmed combat was a mess, initiative as written was a mess,and other parts of the combat system were largely ignored because they didn’t work for a lot of people. Also, after playing Traveller & Champions & GURPS, James Bond 007, and other games many of us thought the lack of a skill system was a glaring omission. So our issues were mostly mechanical ones – we wanted a cleaned up 1st edition with some new things bolted on – like a skill system – and that’s pretty much what we got. The classes were revised, spells were cleaned up, and the combat system worked better – all good. 

It was handled in a pretty good fashion at the time with several articles and surveys in Dragon and then finally a preview pullout section of what was coming ...

... it was a pretty decent way to keep the players up to speed on what was coming.

I know some people were incensed at the content changes - no assassins, no half-orcs, no demons and devils, but we didn't really care - we never cared much for evil characters anyway, and the demons and devils weren't all that common of a monster anyway. Later as we added in the brown books and the Tome of Magic it felt like we had more material than we had ever had in the AD&D days and more customization of characters and just "more" in general so we didn't miss that stuff, and a lot of it ended up coming back later in 2nd Edition anyway.

So we spent the 90’s playing 2nd Edition as our main game –  D&D has always been our main game among my friends, and I suspect that will never change – and it kept us very satisfied for years. It did, however, have some hard edges – cleric weapon restrictions, magic‐user gear restrictions, humans couldn’t multiclass while demi‐humans still had racial limits (even if they were higher than before), lots of save or die effects – and those hard edges began to wear on us as time went on to the point that by the mid 90’s other games just felt like they played better and our time spent on the game began to decrease as other games crept into the rotation. Among other things we played a lot of Shadowrun, which has a very different feel in play than 2E. The biggest indicator of this decreased tolerance for 2E’s quirks is that we still played a lot of fantasy but we were doing it with Fantasy Hero, GURPS Fantasy, and RuneQuest and not just 2E because we liked the way those systems handled things compared to the game we had effectively been playing for 15‐20 years at that point. Dark Sun and Spelljammer seemed like square pegs in round holes. We greeted the Player’s Option books with a yawn – I think only one guy bought them and we only tried them once. Heck, Gamma World 4th edition (1992) seemed like a revolution in system mechanics compared to 2E! TSR flaming out in the late 90’s didn’t help as it was starting to feel like the time for our game had come and gone and we were prepared to move on to other things like Deadlands or Underground or the new version of Shadowrun, keeping other games for our fantasy fix.

Reflections on editions and changes over the years - Basic & AD&D

I started with a Holmes Basic Set that I bought in a K-Mart in Tennessee in 1979. I quickly became aware (throgh the toy store in the mall) that there was an Advanced version and over the next two years I started procuring those - it's a longer process when you're running on allowance, lunch money, and Christmas and birthdays - but we typically start off characters in Basic and then moved over to Advanced once every had things figured out. I moved a few times in those years so I started a new group more than once.


I know that at the time I didn't see Basic to Advanced as a different system or an edition change the way we see them now. I saw it as a natural progresssion - Basic covered the basics, Advanced added in the rest. Of course once the Moldvay sets came out, especially Expert, that was clearly not the case, but I was mostly playing AD&D by then anyway. I was happy to play in a Basic or Expert game if someone ran one, but considered my self an AD&D player first and foremost.



For me, the 1st edition of AD&D was a time of excitement – there were new adventures on a regular basis,there was new stuff in The Dragon every month, and my friends and I were doing this all for the very first time! There was a lot of cross‐pollination back then as there were articles on Traveller and Champions in a magazine that was mainly about a different game. We played it for years, constantly playing around with new rules from the magazine or things we thought up or trying out some of those rules we had always ignored before like weapons vs. armor type or the as‐written unarmed combat system, so while it was really never in a completely settled state we always thought of it as the same game and we loved it.



So we spent the 80's playing AD&D as our #1 game and we played it a LOT. Multiple characters, multiple gameworlds, multiple DM's, rules tweaks wise and unwise, and it filled out summer vacations and our weekends and any other days off and even some after school time. We played other games too, but AD&D was the center of it all. I doubt I have played any other game as much, and I doubt I ever will. I like to think we get more out of them now with the background and the understanding that we have now. but I'm not absolutely sure about that. We played a lot, and quantity has a quality all it's own.


As good as it was, by the late 80's there were a lot of things people saw as flaws in the game and when word got out that a new edition was in the works there was both excitement and concern but we were young and eager to soak up any new set of rules - even one for AD&D.

Motivational Monday

ICONS Supporting Cast #1 - Billy Mack

(A lightning strike of inspiration during a drive into work this week)

Billy Mack -  A Detective Down in Texas

Prowess - 4 (Good) He's a tough customer

Coordination - 3 (Typical) Average in this regard

Strength - 4 (Good) He's a big guy

Intellect - 4 (Good) He's not super book-smart, but he's canny

Awareness - 5 (Excellent) He has good instincts and senses from years on the job

Willpower - 5 (Excellent) he doesn't give up easily

Stamina - 9

Determination - However much the DM says

Origin - Natural

Specialties - Investigation (Expert)


Powers
None!


Qualities
"Knows Exactly What the Facts Is" - He's a non-nonsense kind of guy who has a knack for cutting right to the heart of things. This can be tagged to help figure out a mystery or to for a flash of insight to get out of a dead end or even when hit by some kind of beguling power

Connections: Texas Law Enforcement

Motivation: "Ain't Gonna Let Those Two Escape Justice" - He is a determined, dogged pursuer of criminals and does not give up easily

Challenges
Enemies: Billy Joe and Bobbi Sue, a pair of armed and dangerous criminals

Bad Luck: Somehow sometimes his quarry just slips away

Description: He's a Texas detective so this is pretty simple: Suit, bolo tie, boots, cowboy hat. He carries a pistol and a badge and drives a Chevy Tahoe police model. For a younger version use Timothy Olyphant, for an older one Tommy Lee Jones pretty much defines the role.

Points-wise he's under 30 so he's more of a connection or a personified opponent for a hero who's brushed up against the law somewhere. He could also serve as a sort of rival who comes into town on a case that the heroes get involved with, starting some kind of competition to see who can solve it first.

Thoughts on the 40K RPG's

Apparently these are pretty popular right now and I've had a chance to look through the first three:

Dark Heresy: You're a fairly low-powered group of characters working for an Inquisitor rooting out heresy inside the Imperium. This does very little for me because while Inquisitors and their personal retinue are interesting, the guys that work for them at this level don't do as much for me. Plus, the things that you're investigating can get very powerful in a hurry and I suspect this would play out a lot like a Call of Cthulu game. I'm sure some peoepl would be interested in that but not me, and I think the popularity of this game was largely due to it being the first 40K RPG ever released rather than the awesomeness of the premise. Beyond this, I just don't think the spirit of 40K is in sneaking around uncovering mysteries - that's too much 90's conspiracy x-files game. The 40K part of the story begins after the planetary governor has turned to chaos and declared a rebellion and the sky fills with marine drop pods streaking towards the planet.

Rogue Trader: You're the command crew of an an interstellar trading ship sent to the borders of the Imperium with a warrant to trade and interact with Xenos cultures. Now this one is interesting - tons of freedom to do as you wish, enough power to not be overwhelmed the first time you find something interesting, and all of the cool background of the 40K universe to play in. It does have a bit of the Star Trek problem in that one player is supposed to be the ROgue Trader and theoretically in charge, but I don't think this would be a major issue most of the time. I like this one a lot.

Deathwatch: You're a Space Marine, from one of just about any chapter, and you've been assigned to an all-star team of space marines that deals with alien threats, primarily through violence. This is the highest powered game - marines have 20 genetically modified implants and organs, extensive training, access to the best weapons, and then they get power armor - and is centered around commando raids and assaults on things. It's a very military flavored game, but it also looks to me like it would be a lot like a super team - some rely on their "natural" talents, some are gadgeteers, and some have psychic powers - where dramatically overpowered beings invstigate and solve mysteries using a lot of violence. The small size of the team, differences between the chapters, personal rivalries, and competition make this a little different than a Traveller merc unit or even a Twilight 2000 player character group.

There's a 4th game out now called Black Crusade that deals with playing chaos marines, traitor marines from a civil war a long time ago. I haven't seen it yet but I assume that (much like the Chaos Marine Army in 40K itself) it caters to those players who want all the badaceness of the Marines without having to play the "good guys" - Heh.

The mechanics are the same as the Warahmmer Fantasy RPG second edition from a few years ago so it's pretty much all a percentile-based roll-under system. It's not as flashy as some, but it works, and the DM is encouraged to use a simple list of modifiers to run the game, from a -60 (Hellish) to a +60 (Trivial). Character stats are rated on a percentile scale and then skills allow a character to use the related stat to roll for a task. There are also Talents which are similar to Feats in d20 games, allowing a character to do something outside the normal rules. The whole thing is fairly clean and for the most part does not get bogged down in a bunch of subsystems or special exceptions.

I have to say I was pretty happy to see that these were finally coming out when they were announced. A 40K RPG has been a dream of many of us who have played 40K for a long time, and many, many homebrew efforts have been made, from custom systems to GURPS to Savage Worlds. Basing it off of the WFRP mechanics keeps a certain level of flavor (since the miniatures game 40K was based on and is still similar to Warhammer Fantasy Battles) and makes it fairly easy to translate the vast list of creatures and gear from 40K over to the RPG. The vast amount of lore in the 40K fluff gives the DM a lot of material to use for a campaign too. This is especially true if one has had some of the various side games published over the years: Battlefleet Gothic yields a lot of information on how ships and systems and fleets work in the 40K universe. Necromunda covers a lot of background on Hive Worlds and Gangers. Even going back to the original Rogue Trader game book that stated the whole thing gives a lot of information on creatures and terrain and general weirdness that might be encountered. The interlocking web of support of both useful game material and background details is probably only rivaled by D&D campaign worlds and maybe published universes like Star Wars and Star Trek. There's a ton of it, and when you get out to the more fringey material like the old Realm of Chaos books, there's a pretty good chance more recent players won't know anything about it.

So am I starting up a game of one of these? I'd like to, I'm just not sure where to fit it in. It will likely become one of the rotating "when we feel like it" games with the Apprentices. We have made characters for Deathwatch, and we will do the same for Rogue Trader, and we will play at least an introductory mission to get a better feel for it. After that, well, we will see.

Thoughts on a Middle Earth Campaign

Barking Alien had a good post on Monday here, particularly the part about playing a game in someone else's universe - it's worth a read

I like the closed vs. open description, that's not a bad way to visualize it. I tend to think of it as a question of whether I can work within the movie/show/book or do I have to work around it?  Star Trek is one I can work within because there are other interesting things going on in parallel with whatever show or movie you're watching - the rest of the universe is shown, not just mentioned and the plot of the typical show or movie doesn't fundamentally change the universe. It's hard to define in specifics but LOTR in contrast, is one where I feel like I would have to work around the main story because the plot does drastically change the environment.

In the specific case of LOTR I think my best option for running a middle earth game would be to set it quite a while after the end of the trilogy. At some point within 100 years or so the wizards are gone, most of the elves are gone, and the fellowship is all gone. Set it in the time of Aragorn's son's first few years and there's a new feeling in the world and with the passing of the heroes of the third age it's time for a new generation (cue theme music). There are still plenty of nasties in the world and there are plenty of good normal folk threatened by them - who's going to stand between that lingering darkness and the innocent and defenseless? Beyond the orcs and trolls there is old magic to be rediscovered and old cities of dwarves and men and elves to be reclaimed. It's a time of expansion, rediscovery, exploration, and pushing back the frontiers!

This approach lets you use all of the background material and lore and the races and cultures of middle earth without that feeling of playing second fiddle to the main story. I think "what happens next" is a nice way to make all of that relevant but not confining. Plus it's customizable to taste - want more connections with the big story? Set it in the later years of Aragorn's reign, make sure Gimil is still alive and Legolas is still around and maybe a couple of the elderly hobbits are still upright. Regardless, Treebeard and TOm Bombadil are going to be present for quite a while so even if you go later they can still provide a link.

With a theme of exploration, rediscovery, and a crusade against evil you have a reason to have adventures all over the map, moving through familiar areas as you do so. A nice range of character motivations fits in here from curiousity or restlessness to greed or vengeance against those orcs that wiped out your family. The type of adventures could include anything from dungeon crawls to cross-country pursuits to discovering and hunting down a dragon that's come down out of the north.

So that's my best take on how to make a LOTR game that would work for me. I realize you aren't going to be rubbing elbows with Frodo or Boromir, but for me that's not the attraction of the world anyway. I can see the armchair Tolkien scholar having some problems with it, but they're going to have problems with pretty much any game unless they can accept some compromises, and there's really only one big compromise here; Everything you know is in the past. Once you can get past that, then it seems like we could have some fun with this.

Sandboxing Rifts

While researching for my latest mania I realized that I ran and odd kind of sandbox back in the 90's for Rifts of all things. I think Rifts might be a decent game for this kind of approach, better than I had thought at first anyway.

The concept for the campaign was that the PC's all started out in one of those quasi-coalition towns in Post-Rift Arkansas. A local mage was recruiting for an expedition to Detroit, where he was convinced that he would find some ancient magic items in the collection of a wealthy collector from the time before. The plan was to travel cross-country in a Behemoth Explorer robot (pictured above) with a crew of adventuring types, explore things along the way (and sell that information later) and then dig into the ruins of Detroit.

I gathered some real world atlas pages of the travel route, slipped them into sheet protectors, and marked them up for apocalyptic damage, rifts and ley lines, and interesting locals. I knew the course the 'bot would travel, so I stayed within 100 miles or so of that course for any kind of detail and made some notes on what else might be off the edges.

The beauty of this approach is that the trip was going to take a few months to get there and presumably that much to get back so you get many sessions of sandbox exploration -with a moving map- but there is an overarching goal at the end for players who need a plot to work off of.

The giant robot follows all the rules of a typical West Marches/Sandbox Town - it's safe and nothing really happens inside it as that's where you go to heal/repair/learn new spells/accuse each other of being idiots. The interesting twist (other than having a base that moves) is that it can be attacked! Especially if the players start some kind of trouble and lead their enemies back to it, which happened once and spurred one of the biggest fights of the campaign, leaving the bot mobile but pretty heavily damaged. They learned form their actions, but they did enjoy getting to unleash some of the big guns and bigger missiles on the thing, so secretly I don't think they regretted it.

Managing players was easy enough - somebody can't make it? They're sleeping on the bot. New character? They are passing through the same area / a local / running from the law/ suffering a mechanical breakdown and agree to help out on the expedition. There was payment up front and at the end of the mission as this was a job, but money in Rifts isn't always a huge motivator, but XP's and knowledge, gear, and interesting types of ammunition (nuclear weapons) can be.

It was an interesting array of characters like the crazy who was severely claustrophobic so she slept in a tent bolted down to the top of the robot and the glitter boy who liked to drive his own truck alongside the bot (with his suit in the back). Along the way they fought demons, raiders, giant robots, vampires, superheroes, renegade wizards, and in a gladitorial arena somewhere in what used to be Tennessee.

We did eventually make it to Detroit (and among other things they nuked Windsor - sorry, but they had a good reason) but the game fell apart before we could make the trip back.

Looking back I think this kind of game works pretty well with Rifts because the power levels are all over the place and while rapid ground and air travel is easily arranged, enemies have all of those options too. Limiting things to a set region might work too but the moving base opens up more and keeps them from mapping everything from the air on Day 1.

One thing with running Rifts of any kind is forget about balance - it doesn't really matter. In a sandbox game the less powerful characters can actually shine as the Wilderness Scouts and Rogue Scientists have an environment where their abilities are extremely useful. That said, having a giant cannon with a range over a mile and a swarm of missile with double that range ready to go is still very comforting. In fact it gives your weapon-heads plenty of room (and likely plenty of reason) to cut loose. Yes the system can be a mess but once you stop trying to fix it things get easier to live with and the DM and the players can have a lot of fun.