Tomorrow We'll Be At War
Not that anyone could tell you which tomorrow, of course.
Conflict has felt inevitable between Chi-Town and Tolkeen since either place recognized the existence of the other (one supposes that a mutli-cultural state of D-Bees, magical creatures & magic users of all sorts was never going to make a good neighbor for a fascist imperial human supremacist state), but it has only been in the last few months that outright open warfare between the two states has seemed a likely, looming possibility.
Some are doing everything they can to prepare for it, some are doing everything they can to avoid it, you... you are doing everything you can to make a living from it. As is only sensible.
Welcome to the World of Rifts!
Rifts is a sci-fantasy post-apocalyptic setting created by Palladium Games, mixing magic & dungeon crawling with laser guns & space ship dog fighting. The setting is fantastic, but unfortunately (in my humble opinion) the RAW & math aren't very good, so we'll be using homebrewed rules to run the game.
The gist of the setting is this: modern civilization worldwide was terminated at an unknown date (because the old records are difficult to find or interpret & record-keeping largely stopped for at least a few decades, perhaps as much as a century) by a nuclear war. The thermonuclear warhead explosions killed so many people at once that their mental energy created a series of feedback pulses across the Earth, ripping-open 'rifts' in the fabric of reality. People & technology from alternate times & dimensions were carried through these rifts and deposited onto the Earth, and many of the rifts themselves become violent tornadic storms that permanently transformed their vicinity (many in the hearts of old cities, which had the highest death tolls & thus provided the strongest feedback) into time and reality-twisted no man's lands.
The above is mostly just a narrative excuse to have dragons, cyborgs, fighter jet pilots & superhumans team up to go adventuring, but also has a number of interesting meta-plot hooks baked-in for good measure.
Making Your Character
We can do this a few ways:
If you're already familiar with Rifts and know what OCC / RCC you'd like to play, just let me know and I'll cook-up your character sheet. Don't go through the trouble of making it yourself; the rules we'll be using are going to be different enough that most of your work will be for nought.
I'll have a few characters ready-made for the game, and you can pick from those.
Tell what what kind of character you'd like to play as, and what type of playstyle you typically enjoy, and we can talk to put together something that should be fun for you.
Some Ground Rules
No PVP combat. In a game with mostly other strangers, I really think this is a poor idea that could ruin people's fun.
Please keep focused on the game until the session is over. I appreciate that not everyone is equally engaged during every session (and this is probably less of a problem when playing online), but distracted players take other people out of the experience & can ruin their fun. If you're not feeling engaged on a regular basis, we can talk about how to improve your experience & get you more involved.
The Schedule & Tools
I intend to run this once a month, maybe twice a month, during the evenings (to accomodate school & work schedules). We'll be using discord to communicate, so you'll need that as well as a mic.
Pay to Play & GM Experience
I'm hoping to be able to build a career out of this, and that means I do charge for my GMing services. The cost is $12 per month per player, and that will get you at least one 4+ hour session (in a group of 4 players) as well as support in building / developing your character (if people have time, you might get two sessions per month - but at least one 4+ hour session is guaranteed).
Payment must be made up front. I'll take either PayPal or an eTransfer (though would encourage use of the former for the sake of your protection). A full refund will be available to you for your first session if you do not feel the experience was worth your money.
I've been GMing games on and off for most of my adult life, and probably put the most hours into 4E D&D (my favorite edition, no matter its unpopularity). I've GM'd GURPS, a bit of Traveller, both traditional & homebrew Rifts & TMNT, and for a little while got really into Legend of the Five Rings. I'm a huge Critical Role fanboy, for better or worse, and this is my first foray into GMing for strangers over the Internet. This game will require payment to the Game Master at a rate of $12 per month per player, which guarantees at least one 4+ hour session for that month. A full refund is available to any player who feels unsatisfied with the experience they recieved. Roll20 is not responsible for any payment transactions and cannot enforce any private arrangements. <a href="https://app.roll20.net/lfg/listing/137759/rifts-uncle-sam" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/lfg/listing/137759/rifts-uncle-sam</a>