The Short Version: (Feel free to only read this section and the application section) I'm looking for players to play in a series of one-shot games over the course of the next 6 months (Edit: Starting this weekend) to playtest some rules I'm working on. I'd like to recruit a player pool of 10-15 players. Each game would last a few hours and be set up for a particular date and time (Typically between 1:00pm - 2:00am GMT Monday-Sunday) along with a required number of players and from there anyone in the campaign player pool is free to sign up to a specific session. These will appear in blocks, so one week might have 4 sessions - each player taking part in one of them, then all will go quiet for a couple of weeks while I go back to re-writing bits. After this another block of sessions would appear focusing on another aspect of the rules and new pre-genned characters. As such, joining up doesn't place a specific burden on your time - if you're able to attend most of the sessions that's great, if only some then that's also fine. Once I've got a pool of players we'll do some form of voting on the best time to schedule sessions. To start with, all the characters will be pre-genned and you'll likely have a new character and class each time but towards the end of the play test I'd like to add a system involving some form of continuity and leveling a character up across several sessions. Extra bits: (Not vitally important - just included because I like the tapping sound my keyboard makes) For the last year I've been converting the Dark Heresy rules to make them suitable for the Rifts campaign setting. Since first playing Rifts I've loved the setting, but never really appreciated the rules - either as a player or GM. The new rules include a magic system, power armour, mechs and tanks 12 character classes and Rifts weapons. In the long term, I'm looking to run a campaign (probably starting once my current pathfinder campaign has reached it's conclusion in just over a year from now). However, in the mean time I'm looking to run one-shots and possibly mini-campaigns to test the rules and tweak them as needed. For the campaign I'd prefer to run with people who don't have experience or knowledge of the Rifts setting. This is because one of the features of the Rifts world is that most of the characters are unlikely to know very much about the world. As such this is something I'm going to try and recreate in the campaign by trying to recruit players who know very little or nothing about the campaign setting. This means that the only way you (as players) discover more about the setting is through the characters actions in the campaign. However, the one-shots are open to both Rifts virgins and old-hands alike. - The amount of lore and background associated with these one-shots will be fairly limited however as I'm intending to save the more lore related ideas for the main campaign. The Setting: Adapted from Palladium Books 'Rifts Ultimate Edition'. "The end of human civilization came without warning. One moment all was right in the world, the next moment absolute chaos reigned. Every single ley line around the world surged and exploded with energy, erupting and spewing forth destruction each at the same time creating a wave of destruction that washed over the entire world. Great storms swept the planet one after another, tidal waves, earthquakes and tornadoes toppled the great cities as if they were made of paper. Mountains heaved and shattered, the oceans rose up to swallow the coast and billions of people perished in a matter of hours." As well as the magical storms the Great Cataclysm also summoned rifts into the world, huge swirling inter-dimensional portals which seem to connect to random points in space and possibly time.Through these portals come many horrifying creatures, from dragons and vampires to daemons and aliens. Humans are now extinct on most of the planet and spend every day fighting to saves their lives. Over the course of a single day earth went from being an insignificant planet to an inter-dimensional transport hub. Application: There is no need to be familiar with the Rifts setting (for reasons explained above it's actually preferred that you don't know all that much) and you don't need to be familiar with the Dark Heresy rules either. Everything can be explained during the first session(s). If this sounds like something that would interest you please head over to the recruitment forum . The sticky there has an application template. All you need to do is post a new topic with your name as the title, copy and fill in the brief questionnaire. If you have any questions please feel free to ask them here, or PM me. Best wishes, Stephen.
