#190 – Rifts World Book 14 New West

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Next up on our review of Palladium Rifts worldbooks, we're coming to New West. Arguably one of the most divisive books in the Palladium line. It seems like almost everyone has an opinion about it, and it seems to be pretty evenly split between yes or no on whether the people like it or not.

Yeah. I would give a quick summation of this book as everything you ever wanted to know about Rifts Colorado, and here's a bunch of character classes and guns.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That, that, that sums this book up in, in, in pretty succinct statements.

That said, whenever I introduce new players to Rifts, I start with the New West. Everybody has seen a Western movie. Almost everybody has seen a samurai movie. Mixing the two, plus making them watch the Muse music video for Knights of Cydonia, that—

For me, this book really jumped Rifts forward, and it really like added a bunch to the areas that you didn't get a— you had very little information about. As Lone Star showed you Texas, this showed you half of the continental North America. And it goes through and it goes bang. Here's what's going on here. Here's what's going on here. Here's these states. Here's these areas. We're going to break it down for you. You could choose to run a 20-year campaign in any one of these locations and never run out of information.

Yeah, I will debate that. I will say you can run a 20-year campaign in Colorado.

Okay.

With maybe a few tourist stops in some of the other places, but this is largely the Colorado book. They call it the New West. It does give some mention to places and other places, but again, this is Colorado. Like the two, the biggest focus is on Silverino and the Colorado Baronies. If you're wanting to explore places. Now, the information that they give you on those places is really good. Those are fully fleshed out settings.

You start out with, you know, as we were saying, a bunch of state breakdown, then talks about Arizona. There's a part of me that really giggles that Prescott, Arizona is now filled with wormwraiths. Um, the Grand Canyon, uh, Flagstaff is a volcano now, which makes me giggle. I think the The first problem that maybe I have with this book is the Lyn Surael, the Sky Knights. Context-wise, they're the only things I think in this book that don't fit.

They, yeah, I will agree with that. They seem odd. I feel as if they would have fit better if they had saved that and put it into the Spirit West as part of that book, because it would fit better with the profile that that book was going for. I want to take a step back though. First, Apocalyptic Cavalry.

Oh.

There's only maybe 4 pages of content here. This faction in 4 pages just gives you enough to know what these guys are about. So much that I've seen these guys appear in multiple campaigns run by other GMs. I've used them. in my own games. It just looks like sort of a throwaway thing wedged between 2 sections of the book. And yet they keep getting mentioned over and over throughout this book and the next one so much that you get an idea of them as a faction as you read. And I think that's well done.

Yeah, very much so. Lots of little hooks. They're supported by the CS as a proxy in a region that the CS isn't ready to go to yet, which is awesome as a GM. Just awesome fodder there.

But as for the Lin Sreol, they don't quite fit the theme of the book. However, I think they're pretty cool. I do like the powers that they have, and I love it when Palladium introduces yet another magic system. Something we didn't go into when we talked about Syscape is the brand new magic system of bubble magic that was introduced there by one of the factions, one of the The races. One of the races that lived in the Syescape place. Like, I love it when they're just like, okay, what else? What else can we do?

That said, not a fan of cloud magic.

Oh, really?

Yeah. I'm not just, just doesn't grab me.

Fair enough.

One of the things I found interesting in this book that's just kind of thrown in there, The Trouble with Credits by Kevin. And he basically goes over the economy and I have a feeling that he had gotten bombarded with, you're in a post-post-apocalyptic world. How do credit chips work? How do credits work? There's no central bank. And he's like, well, you know what? I'm going to tell you how they work. And I'm going to tell you how they work in most of North America. But when you get to the New West, you're going to be bartering and trading for stuff. And you're going to be exchanging services because really you're in the New West.

Yeah.

And no one's going to trust your stack of black credit cards.

Yeah.

But it's still, it's, when I read this, I was like, oh, this is, without knowing it, these are Bitcoin sticks. Right? These are, these are like before blockchain was blockchain in '97 when this book came out, basically you have these permanent chips. And as long as you ignore that you can't hack them, it's a cool way to handle that kind of economy thing. And then really reinforce you're going to be bartering for things, which automatically leads into really cool role-playing ideas when you're exchanging things. And I thought it was a nice little nod to kind of like, okay, stop yelling at me about the economy. This is how it works.

So now we get to Colorado. Colorado, as I was saying, the largest amount of world data is on the Colorado region here. We start with the town of Silverino. I have set many games in and around Silverino. Silverino is a very well-fleshed-out town. We don't get much of— we don't get a map at all, but you get an idea of who runs it, the story behind those people, the factions behind the scenes, crime, the presence, how Silverino's economy works, a list of a handful of places that you can take your adventures to.

Yeah.

I've spent way more time than a sane person should in figuring out where Silverino is. And I will gladly share that information with anybody who asks. It took a lot of research. It would be too long to explain, but Silverino, actually all of it makes sense given the silver mines, all of the the various aspects of the town, I'm pretty damn sure I know exactly where it is on a modern-day map of the world.

And I, I love the mayor and how she has made kind of a Faustian bargain with some vampires. Yeah, but these are the most low-key Riffs vampires on the planet, right? They're literally helping the town keep villains and criminals and riffraff out. Her sheriff Whispering Wind, Jacob Whispering Wind, doesn't trust her. Doesn't trust her at all. But he doesn't know why. But he figured out that she's MDC now. He doesn't understand. She's a human. How did she become MDC? Like these just little points and clicks.

It's classic Palladium.

Yeah. Very classic Palladium.

And then we have Isai Ramirez. This picture is one of my favorite in the entire Palladium catalog. It's again, it's not constipated leaping with a sword at damnation. It's not a battle picture. It's, it's just, it's, it's a suave man dancing with a sexy woman surrounded by skulls. This is, uh, it's—

Dr. Xander Gerrymander on a date night.

This is— oh my God, you are so right. This is Xander and Dr. K.

100%.

Yeah.

And this is that reference, like, um, when I, when I describe vampires from Rifts, I go, have you seen From Dusk Till Dawn? The first one? That's it. Those are the vampires.

A little less snaky, but yes. Yeah.

A little less snaky. Funny you say that because we mentioned that directly to Kevin in our discussion about Rifts vampires. He's like, no, there wasn't any connection there, but actually he should look into it or something. But yeah, we're just like 100% the movie From Dusk Till Dawn. I mean, it's like a Rifts campaign.

Yeah, I will say that vampires in Rifts are pulling from a zeitgeist that exists in From Dusk Till Dawn and from Vampires the movie and—

Based upon Vampires the book.

Yeah.

By John Steakley.

Uh-huh. And so it's— I, it's not— I would never ever claim it's a one-for-one ripoff, but there was something going about vampires in the Southwest in the '90s that was just floating around out there and multiple people through multiple media tapped into the same thing.

Well, Dussaudun is '96, so maybe someone got a hold of a Rifts vampire book and we're actually getting it backwards.

But yeah, that's what I asked him. It's like, did you have a chat with Robert Rodriguez about his use of your vampires in a movie?

But, uh, no, these 2 literally lovers who ran away from home and became vampires and still are fanatically loyal to each other. Like, great story.

I like that it also transcends certain aspects of the nature of vampires, that their love could be maintained despite them having basically lost all aspects of their former selves and become, you know, man-eating demons. But still it was so strong. It persisted into their new personalities. Oh God. I love, I love, I love Palladium vampires so much. Anyway, lots of stuff here on Silverino. Again, I've, I found Silverino to be a very excellent town. I've used it in many campaigns. Everything you need to know right here. This plot happening in the background. It's a good setting. The Colorado Baronies I found to be very divisive in people's opinions. I know, Jacob, I don't think you're a big fan of the whole techno wizard thing.

Well, yes, please see our previous episode on why that is. I will say that the Colorado Baronies really outline what I feel techno wizards should be rather than how they're often portrayed at the table.

Yeah, and to be fair, the book mentions a lot of techno wizard stuff being used here, but then doesn't really show much of it. in action. You don't get a sense, through the art at least, of how techno wizardry works in the common lives of non-adventuring characters, right? Despite them saying repeatedly that the ley lines connecting the, the Barrenies are like techno wizard heaven.

And the other point I would make with the Barrenies compared to how techno wizards are discussed in books previous to this is they really, really lean into it's an artisanal, your local blacksmith style production rather than the more almost assembly line context they give it in earlier books, which is how I feel techno wizards need to be portrayed.

And unfortunately that assembly line thing kind of comes back later when, yeah, pretty much so many of these Rifts books will come out and, you know, So it's plenty, it's Rifts. You're going to have a faction, you're going to have some OCCs, you're going to have some gear. And the last few pages of that gear is going to be techno wizard gear because you gotta, you gotta appease everybody. And sometimes it just feels like, okay, there's like 5,000 of these were made on the assembly line kind of thing.

Yeah. And, and so much of it, it's just touching the surface and it This, this, this is probably, in my opinion, the weakest portion of this book is the Colorado Barneys.

Yeah. They're not well presented.

Yeah. Um, they did such a good job with Silverino. Silverino.

Yeah.

Um, they even did more, in my opinion, with, um, what was going on in Arizona and the Grand Canyon.

Yeah.

But yeah, there could be so much more here. Yeah.

And too much of the pages, I think, are devoted to not just artwork, but I think too many of the, uh, of these breakdowns of these areas is devoted to the racial breakdown, which is to me always the least fascinating part of what the presentation of an area. I, and I appreciate it sometimes because, you know, sometimes it's kind of cool to be like, oh shit, why is this place 3% Fernande or something? But when half of the description of a place is that.

Yeah.

Yeah, a little wasted space, but worm rodeos are pretty cool.

Have you ever thought that it'd be cool to take the movie Tremors and turn that into a rodeo? Well, we got you covered.

Yeah. The traveling shows.

I really like the traveling show section, to be perfectly honest.

I like that they didn't reprint the how to create a traveling show rule for the 60th time.

Well, this book is 200-some pages. They just didn't have the space to do that otherwise.

I mean, the reality is, is when you think about how the New West is described, traveling shows make a ton of sense in the region. There's very, very few places where you could go. Yeah, it's totally done.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So finally, we get to what I think for many people is one of the most contentious parts of the New West, and that is the introduction of the cowboy skills.

Oh, Jesus.

Some people love them, some people hate them, but they, from this point, they became such a topic-worthy thing that they even got added as the skill category in the Ultimate Edition. Yep.

Hmm. These, it's cool. It's great flavor. It really adds some neat aspects to New West.

Yeah.

But I'm pretty sure a lot of these already existed from other source material outside of maybe Rifts. They could have been part of the original thing, but maybe not because of when Rifts was done.

Yeah.

So this was the first opportunity they had to slide these skills into The game.

I think what for me it triggers is that final, okay, there's something wrong with the Palladium skill categories acceptance. When cowboy skills become their own category, you suddenly realize you finally have to stop and step back and listen to that voice that has been in your head since you first started reading the, the core, the, uh, the Butts Edition, and you're like, technical? What does that mean? Okay, whatever, I'll just handwave it. Because technical literally is the category that they shove every other skill that they can't figure out where to put something else.

Right.

So suddenly you get a brand new skill category. You're like, okay, I need to stop and think this over. Yeah, because this doesn't make any more sense.

What?

Okay, so why do cowboys get their own thing? Okay, what about— okay, uh, this is the accountant skill category. Okay, this is the Linewalker skill category. At this point, we are now making— we have created a brand new category of skills for a very small portion of the Megaverse's society.

And there's nothing in here that couldn't have fit in technical or in piloting or in like, it didn't need to be its own category.

Correct. Breaking, taming wild horses, put that under wilderness. Roping, uh, make it a weapon proficiency or put it under, uh, physical. Uh, you know, whittling and sculpting, make it domestic or, or technical.

Yeah, it's okay. Yeah, but yeah, it could have been done better. And I'm wondering, I'm wondering what their thought process was.

I've just seen so many online conversations about how the cowboy thing, it's like, well, why stop at cowboy? Why don't we just add this culture and then this culture and then this thing? It, yeah.

And it's something you could easily fix and they could have fixed it in Ultimate Edition by just folding them into those other categories as opposed to creating the cowboy category and doubling down.

But yeah, they doubled down. They did.

Okay. Some cool skills are in here that aren't in the Cowboys. Some expansion of military skills and expansion of some of the medical stuff, which, you know, it's nice to have some extra skills. I mean, it's Palladium. You have skills for everything. And if you don't yet, we will tomorrow.

The trap skill under military might just be the first actual publication of rules for traps.

Yeah.

I don't think they were present in Fantasy.

I don't think so either. I mean, rules for a specific trap were, but not for—

Question.

Yes.

As someone who is an expert on a particular supplement game that I am not in Palladium.

Recon?

Are they in Recon?

Uh, get back to it.

The answer is yes. And we will go into that in detail whenever I have my moment of victory.

All right. But yeah, I mean, if you want to know how to make any sort of improvised crafted trap, the rules are here.

And I got to say, they're pretty cool. And I've used them. It's a great, it's a great skill. It's a skill that gets 2 whole pages worth of content.

Although putting it under military again is like one of those I could see my way to seeing it under wilderness as well.

It might also be under wilderness because a lot of wilderness, a lot of the skills get, yep, it is.

Yeah.

A lot of the skills get multiple categories. Okay.

Okay. Pass the skills, right?

Let's get to the classes.

Oh boy.

Oh, this is, this, in my opinion, this is where the book shines. The new classes. You've got some really cool men-at-arms classes, but you also have some of the best, most interesting and versatile non-combat OCCs in, in I think all of the Risk books.

Or borderline combat in the case of the mining Borg.

Exactly. Yeah.

Uh, you, you start off here with the Code of the New West.

Yeah.

As if there's this monolithic code that all the lawmen and gunfighters fight, but it's kind of the— again, it's part of that feeling. As you said, if you've watched any cowboy movie, any Western, there's some undertones there and we're setting a stage. And then we immediately go into the bandit because everyone needs a bandit.

So if you, if you, like me, were a teenager when this book came out, you might also remember a cartoon that was new. And I think only lasted maybe 1 or 2 seasons at the same time. Because I remember, I have this deep memory of when this book came out and I was reading The Code of the New West and immediately thinking of the theme song to The Cowboys of Moo Mesa.

Oh, that's where you went. See, I go a completely different direction. What?

Brave Star. Brave Star.

Oh, yeah, yeah, no, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but for me, like, Mumesa was like, had just been out at the time, and I think I was one of 8 people that watched it.

Yeah, I think you are. I remember it, but I didn't watch it. I don't think I had the ability to. So Bandit.

I mean, I don't know. It's cool. It's a neat class. It's just, you know, it's a thug. It's a bandit. Then you also have the highwayman. And I like that they separate the two of them because one is just like the thug and the other one is very specifically the robber.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Bounty hunter is a really cool one with the bounty hunter. The first one that does it. Okay. Where is it? Where is it? We've got, there is a class skill who introduces it. I think it's the gunfighter. The gunfighter.

Yeah.

The gunfighter, which is fascinating because there's a gunfighter and a gunslinger.

Mm-hmm.

But they both introduce a skill called Quick Draw Initiative.

Mm-hmm.

Or a class ability. And if we scroll back to the skills, I believe there was the gunslinging skill that does this too. So here's This, I think these might be the only occurrence of this in Rifts, of a skill or ability that isn't based on your level, but is instead based on an attribute.

Yeah, I thought there were some in Coalition Manhunters as well, but I could be wrong on that.

I'm not familiar with that one. But so for those unfamiliar, how this works again, We're gonna start with a gunfighter. Quick Draw Initiative. You get a +1 to initiative for every 2 PP points above a 16 to a maximum at physical prowess of 30. So it doesn't matter your level. All that matters is your physical prowess stat.

And that becomes really interesting because raising attributes Uh-huh. In Palladium is not something that happens usually much after character creation.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Gunslinging does the same thing. There's a handful of these that increase either initiative or I think it's a strike, but it's gonna be based upon your physical prowess in a certain situation. My approach to this, and I've talked to other people who do this as well, is to convert it to Levels.

Hmm. Okay.

So where it says, and it's a pretty direct conversion. So for every 2 physical prowess points above 16. So what that would mean is at level 16, but let's make that level 1. So every 2 levels above 1.

Right.

So at level 3, 5, 7, and so on, then you get the +1.

Got it.

Or you could just start it at level 1 and then do every 2 after level 1. I've done this multiple games and it works very well and it makes it so it's not immediately front-loaded as well.

Yep.

That's my biggest complaint about the character classes in this book and I've never seen it happen since. Right.

I, yeah, it, it throws a whole monkey wrench in and I'm familiar with the solution you've proposed, but then it has a knock-on effect of like, do we need to re-examine boxing and some other skills? And so it's, yeah, it opened a can of worms that maybe didn't need to be opened.

Yes. Boxing is kind of the sacred, the sacred icon of this game. Like, we, you were to recommend getting rid of boxing suddenly, like, I would say 90-plus percent of the pop, of the fandom would like rise up and just beat you in an alley.

They'd probably box you to death.

They'd box you to death. A whole bunch of mid would pop up wearing Speedos and going, what, what, do you want fisticuffs?

Now, now, uh, the Quick Draw is kind of made even more interesting because they've introduced paired weapons with revolvers and pistols. Again, this— I don't know if this shows up anywhere else. And that is, that takes the paired melee weapons and makes it more complex, more weird.

You know, honestly, there's no parry. It doesn't.

Yeah.

There's no parry. It doesn't. In fact, it, it basically just mirrors that skill minus the parry. And that's it. If you, so, okay. As Jacob said, that again makes you stop. and look and reconsider prior skills such as paired weapons, which is one of the most over-explained and under-understood skills. We could go back and do another. We might've even done an episode on paired weapons. If not, we should.

We have. We actually have.

Okay. Well, yeah. Yeah. Sharpshooting.

Yeah.

A bit more straightforward. It just gives you some bonuses to your attacking.

Uh, and, and And some cool tricks you can pull off, like ricochet shots and whatnot.

Yeah.

Very cool trick shots. One of the few OCCs that gives horror factor.

Yeah.

Which is interesting. There are others that do this.

Yeah.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's, but again, it's reputation based. So it's one of those that is, I honestly, I think it's a very simple, elegant way of handling reputation. If you turn reputation into something like a horror factor roll, that's like, So is there a— GM thinks, is there a chance that they've heard of this guy? Like, you know what? They've probably heard of, you know, Betrayus the Slayer. Let's see. Boom. Oh shit. Everyone stops.

Oh fuck.

It's him. Kind of thing. I think that's a very simple way of handling reputation.

Well, and it doesn't kick in until you're level 6 to begin with.

Yeah.

Right. And then you get a horror factor of 8, which isn't horrible to like. And it, yeah, as you're saying, it's on reputation.

Right.

If Clint Eastwood shows up and he has the poncho on and the hat and the banjo plays in the back, you're like, oh shit.

What? Well, speaking of which, if you turn to page 93, Clint Eastwood has shown up with the poncho and the hat, thanks to good old Mr. Ramon Perez.

And now you know why everyone in, uh, Silverado is, uh, makes doubly sure that their stoves are protected whenever a Grislinger shows up.

All the stoves in Silverino are welded closed.

And you thought the previous class got that horror factor, this guy gets it at level 1.

Yeah, right, right.

Now, um, I, I, I, I'm— when we have the opportunity to ask questions of a certain artist I will have to do my best to not ask how exactly that revolver is drawn on page 93.

Oh, yep.

Because that is— that would be a very difficult cross draw. But anyway, we'll move on.

But not from a saddle.

Yeah.

Okay. Okay. I'll give it to you. You're right. From a saddle. Anyway, that's a nitpick. Again, they get the quick draw and the paired weapons and the sharpshooting and the reputation. They're kind of an amped up gunslinger.

They are the gunslinger.

Well, amped up gunfighter.

Excuse me.

Uh, they're an amped up gunfighter.

I'm going to give another nod to Ramon on this piece of art though.

Yeah.

Look at his belt. Yeah. The belt, the bullet belt. How many times do you see a character drawn with bullet belt where the bullets are being used?

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

The bandolier is never used.

No, the bandolier is just a fashion accessory.

Yeah, exactly.

No, this guy's been using them.

He's drawing from it right now as we speak.

He's like, my shotgun's empty.

Because I killed people and I'm gonna kill some more.

Ramone, Ramone.

Expertise with all handguns.

Yep.

Yeah, it's like, okay.

Gunslinger is— I love this class. Yeah, what I love about them is what somebody might think they're OP, but they're kind of a one-trick pony. Their real thing, the thing that makes the Gunslinger most powerful is the horror factor. Yeah, that's their thing. Like, sure, shooting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, shooting, whatever. It's the horror factor that gives them the versatility, especially in a social situation that I, I, I've seen more people play towards the horror factor aspect of the class in low combat games as a result.

Yeah.

Justice Ranger, pretty good class. Pretty good class. There it is.

Want to play a sheriff that's Hedges a little bit into the, uh, Wilderness Scout territory.

Yep. Yep.

Texas Rangers. Yeah. It says right there, similar to the Texas Rangers.

Yeah.

I have no problem. No problems with it. Just, it's a, you know.

Yeah.

And if you want to play a character even more broken than the Gunslinger, the Psi-Slinger.

Oh my God.

I remember as a teenager when this book came out, I sat and ran the numbers. Psi-Slinger, superior.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Uh, yeah, like, Seisslingers are great. Yeah.

The Saddle Tramp is one that I never got a feel for.

Oh, I love the Saddle Tramp.

It's, it's the— oh, it's right there. It's the Vagabond of New West.

Yeah, but it— but no, it's not the Vagabond of New West. This is an armsman. Uh, yeah, yeah, they— this, this is a A much more capable character. Yes.

But they don't get any of the special powers. They don't get any of the special skills selections and things.

Oh yeah. But they get that, you know, +1d4 to MA, +1 to initiative.

2d6 +6 SDC. They've been beat up.

Yeah.

They've had a couple of bad nights.

One of the shitload of OCC skills.

Yeah.

The Lawman is wicked fun. The Lawman and the Justice Ranger are an interesting one because It is the difference between having a knight and a paladin in a party.

Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

One I think is more versatile. One is more, I must defeat the evildoers kind of thing.

Yep.

And then we get to the flunky OCC.

The Barney Fife. Everyone, all sheriffs need a couple of Barnies running around.

But it's a great example of the versatility of Palladium classes.

Yeah.

Some people might be like, well, why would I want to fucking play a deputy when I can play a sheriff? I'm like, why wouldn't you? Because the deputy is more fun. Yeah. Like, you want to be Barney Fife? Barney Fife was way more character than Andy Griffith. Who remembers Andy? Nobody. Who remembers Barney?

Everyone.

There's a reason the security guard in Half-Life is named Barney.

Yep.

Wired Gunslinger, if you want to play a crazy gunslinger.

Crazy gunslinger.

They really were just like, yeah, sure.

Why not?

Yeah.

Why not? But then we get to the adventurers. And now this is, I think, where, where it really shines. The cowboy, it's, you know, why would I want to play a cowboy when I could play a sheriff? Because cowboys are cool. Yeah. You know, why would I want to play a mining Borg when I can play a combat Borg? Because why not? Because mining, again, it's so fitting a setting.

The stories behind a mining Borg prospector, like, like so many of them were, they were a warrior. They were a fighter. They don't want that life anymore. So they trade in their guns, they get a drill, and something makes them have to go back on what they said.

Yeah.

And they aren't super OP because they've lost a lot of that military parts. I see these guys, half of these guys are CS combat cyborgs who worked their way out. They mustered out, right? And they went west. with their little bit of money and some hope, and it may not have turned out well.

This character would fit very well in a Silverino-focused campaign.

Yep.

Yep.

Yep.

Now, or a Canada campaign. I just want to throw it out there.

This, we have now my, this is my 3rd favorite character class in the game, the preacher. The preacher, it's, they just walk around and preach the good book. That's it. That's all they do. They get some pretty cool bonuses. They get— very rarely do you have mental affinity bonuses. This one gets it. They get bonuses to disarm. It's very, very nice.

Pull punch.

They get a shitload of bonuses to save versus horror factor. They get a tolerance to alcohol and—

But only the fire. There's 2 types because you kind of missed that. Are you kind of—

Fire and Brimstone.

There's Fire and Brimstone and then there's the, uh, Peacemaker. The Peacemakers. Right? But only the Fire and Brimstones get the tolerance to alcohol, which is, hmm, okay.

So this, however, comes to my favorite part of this character class's presence in the book. And you have, it starts with point 3, which is the World Engine note, but then it continues to the player character and GM note under the actual name of the class. And it talks about how, yes, this is intended to fit a stereotype from the classic Westerns of the wandering preacher of God, but it doesn't have to be. And also, you know all those things that we said that were bad at the beginning of all of our books, like drugs and demonology? Well, maybe you might want to consider religion part of that too. If you don't think religion is good, you should just not include this class in your book. I love it that they, they went there.

Mm-hmm.

Like, despite the fact that all of the Palladium, the content warnings at the beginnings have clearly had their roots in the Panic, panic.

Yep.

The fact that they would right here go and say like, by the way, including religion might also be problematic. Consider this up for your own game. It's pretty nice. Yeah.

And I could, I could see this as a character. I could see this as an NPC.

Yep.

It just, it, oh, this gives you so many fun little ideas.

I was in my early 20s when I finally got to play it. My character was the Reverend Rufus D. Hawthorne. He was a preacher. He was a fire and brimstone preacher. He had weapon proficiency Bible. It was wonderful.

Oh yeah. Um, and then you move on to the professional gambler.

My first number one. No, no, no. Sorry. This is my fourth, fourth one. I forgot my fourth favorite of the book.

The professional gambler. Again, you're like, I'm going to sit in a bar. And I'm gonna cheat everyone at cards.

We're not talking like X-Men Gambit type of cards. No, we're just talking about a guy who can play a mean game of cards.

Yep.

And survive to walk away.

Yeah.

Yeah. Because I got quick draw.

So because one of the inspirations, Kenny Rogers. Yeah.

You gotta know when to hold. You gotta know when to hold.

I think Maverick, the movie.

Yeah.

Yep. Yep. But after that is my favorite one, the saloon bum. I love the saloon bum so much. This is the character class whose whole purpose is to just hang out in bars and get drunk.

That's it. Now, I could see this being a problem in a party, perhaps, but maybe not.

Not just that, but 3 whole pages dedicated to a character whose whole purpose in the game is to hang out in bars and get drunk.

I will say that I appreciate the saloon bum, but it seemed like a really weird way to put the mechanisms of how saloons operate in a book.

Yeah, I mean, it does fit.

Yeah.

Also, one of my favorite pieces of art in all of Rifts is the saloon bum's picture on page 122. Yeah, because again, it's Rifts. It is an RPG artwork that isn't violent. It isn't, you know, crazy action things. It's a guy holding a dream bomb. One moment, one moment, just one moment.

Hold on.

Almost done. It's such— it gives you the lived-in feeling of this world.

Yep. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

The only, the only comment I really have on the Saloon Bum, I do enjoy it. It's a nice class. I almost wanted them to lean a little bit into like a little bit of Drunken Master a bit on it. But—

Well, look at it carefully.

Yeah.

Oh yeah. No, I mean, it's there. It's there.

They get an initiative bonus. You know how rare— I mean, we all know initiative bonuses. This is a hardcore barfly who's quicker than you are while drunk. You know, like that's kind of cool. You know?

And Yeah.

Yeah. I could see though leaning in maybe a little bit more.

Yep.

But yeah.

Yeah.

And then finally my second favorite class, which is the saloon girl.

Love it.

I love it simply because they put a barmaid as an actual character profession with experience levels in a game. It's wonderful.

She also gets a +2 to initiative.

She gets more initiative bonus than the saloon bum.

Yeah.

She gets a bonus to mental affinity.

Well, when your entire job is keeping saloon bums in line, Alive. Yeah.

You're going to get, you're going to pick up some quickness there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, nice bonus to Saviors horror factor. Because, you know, you work in a bar in the New West, you've seen some shit. The only thing that's missing is the bartender.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Which, I mean, you can reskin the saloon girl barmaid pretty easy to—

Sure.

Sure.

Or the saloon bum.

Yeah.

Yeah. Mix them up.

Yeah.

Okay. The ratio. We, we are 40 minutes into this and we're only halfway through the freaking book. Yeah.

I'm like, okay, um, the cactus people and the Fenodi are 2 of my favorite RCCs. The Fenodi I have used so many times. I've used the cactus person as an NPC multiple times.

That picture from Dubich on page 126 is just— there's so much happening here.

They're so happy, but disturbingly so.

You got this cactus dude with a shotgun taking a picture with his wife and the tiniest little newborn on her back. But, and he's got this big old, this look what I did grin on his face. And she's just all knobby and lumpy. And then you've got the kids hanging around, like the little one leaning against his legs down in the middle.

Playing jump rope in the back left.

Oh my God.

And its face, that look of joy.

And these don't have faces. Like, is that a smile or is that just a growth on how it works? They're plants.

You get the kids roughhousing in the back and you've got the photobomb at the bottom. Yeah.

And then the Finodi. I really liked the Finodi with the whisper dogs and like this kind of like, dude, you know, we're going to go. And yeah.

Um, I have so many questions about Keepers of the Desert. I want to sit down with Kevin and Chris Corman and—

I don't know.

So, yeah, it's not that I have any major problems with them. It's where I want to pick their brain on where they pulled this from, just because it resembles a creature of Ute legend, for one thing. The fact that basically, according to the lore, they are basically the survivors who got kicked out of Salt Lake City.

Yeah.

There's a whole lot going on here and it's like, I want to— where, where, where, how did your thinking progress to get to this point? I don't have a problem with it, but I want to know.

I don't remember the character's name, but from the movie or no, the TV, made for TV, The Stand, and the guy who was running around on the ATV with the bomb, all desert broken down. Yeah. I have visions of like, He apparently had a family and they kept going. Yeah. Yeah. It's very weird.

Yeah. Past that, we've got some things that I, the stone giants, the Lin cereal scum is going there.

A bunch of really good creatures and monsters.

We've got some cool creatures and some more dinosaurs. We like dinosaurs. We got some worms. So we have some of the more used, reused stock art from Palladium, such as the Giant dream snake. I'm pretty sure that snake appeared in Balgor Wastelands. And somewhere in here is a spider I know that I've seen in other books as well.

Oh yeah, the tree spider.

Yeah, the tree spiders. All the monsters here are actually pretty cool.

I have to say there's a special spot in my heart for the duck-billed honkers, even though if, even though environmentally they're in the wrong place.

Some of these creatures, When I look at the, like the flora and fauna that they're supposed to be living in, I'm like, ah, they probably wouldn't be here, but okay. Yeah.

The tree spiders have been reused past this point. I'm pretty sure I've seen that picture a few times.

As a different creature, I think you mean.

Yeah.

As a different creature. However, I'm going to talk about the standout enemy is the worm wraith. Holy fuck. This thing is cool. The whole concept behind it is a whole bunch of worms have gathered together. Into the spirit of vengeance that just hunts people down, guns them down everywhere. And sometimes they even work together, but it's a whole bunch of worms in a trench coat with some guns. Like, what the fuck, Kevin? What were you smoking? Or Christopher? Christopher or Kevin, one of you was smoking some shit when you came up with this. And then in Arizona, there's a whole town full of them.

Yeah.

On the same note, Chris, do you have a daughter? Is that why cyponies are a thing? I love them. I love them. Do not, do not mistake me, but oh my God.

It does. Like, seriously, that the Wormwraith, it's, it is the antithesis of every gunslinger. It is the, your gunslinger thinks he's cool, huh? Wormwraith comes into town.

Or, or for that matter, Phantasm, which explains why every OCC in this book has a bonus to horror factor.

True.

It's very true. Yeah.

And then, okay, we're not done yet. We're at 170. We have, we have now run out of the pages for Syescape, Lone Star, a number of other books. We're still going.

Now we're at the guns.

Now we're at the catalog section.

So, you know, New West, you think of, you think of the Old West, you think of guns. We got the gunslingers, but now they need guns to sling. Oh no, we got you covered.

Oh, the section that makes my heart hurt.

Okay. So Bandido Arms, it's the black market. It's one of the branches, one of the divisions of the black market. And they were just bumming around as you do, and they stumble upon Area 51. Fucking Area 51. And, uh, to their surprise, the CS didn't actually make the Samus because there were suits of Samus. Like this whole backstory of like the black market finding the same type of cache that the CS had found is really cool to me.

Oh no, no, no. Not just the cache.

Oh.

All the tech, but, but the facilities to make them.

Yeah.

Like, I think the CS like heavily reverse engineered a lot of their stuff, whereas Bandido Arms sort of like was walking along, one of them fell into a hole, that hole happened to be Area fucking 51.

Oops, our bad.

Yeah.

Like, and it's some cool stuff. I mean, you've got some new takes on things up to this point. Most of the mega damage weapons and Rifts have been energy weapons. So they try to introduce some, some actual slug weapons with the big bore.

Yep.

It's more limited than the energy weapons and that you have to go collect physical ammo and whatnot.

And real quickly, most of your characters aren't going to be able to use them because they have fairly high strength requirements because they're kinetic weapons. There's a lot of recoil with these things, but it's a great feel.

Yep, that's cool for Borgs.

Cool for Borgs. I love it for Borgs. Why the hell in the post-apocalypse are we still making break-action revolvers? Can I just— I, I need to say it once, we don't have to talk about it.

They only make them because they're cool.

Yeah, they're cool.

In fact, I think that's like, we only made these weapons to look this way because people wanted us to make them this way.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, I, I love the big bore stuff. I love the Fochette cannons. The cactus juicer. Yeah, like, I really like the feel of those. You get into the body armor and I, again, I have to ignore kind of the logistics of this stuff actually working on someone, but it just looks cool.

Yeah.

Like it just looks cool. It's like, um, it makes me feel really warm and fuzzy inside.

So what I don't understand is if you look on page 180, you have 4 really cool looking suits of armor drawn by Ramon Perez. And I think 3 of those 4 are listed as environmental armor.

Yeah.

Again, that's like—

Wait, what? But you're not wearing helmets!

Right.

Right.

Right. Um, the one thing I, you know, you were talking about CS reverse engineering. If you look on page 178, old-style CS dead boy armor, there's your answer. They have been reverse engineering and improving on old tech.

Yeah.

The, uh, you get into— now we get into the 2 Bandido Arms versions of Samus, and you have more of this backstory on page 181 of how they're like, hey, look, those are the Coalition. No, those aren't. Those look like eagles. Those are weird. You know, and they find, you know, the, the Sidewinder and the Wild Weasel. The Wild Weasel is one of the few— I don't know of any others actually— um, attempts to kind of put in your electronic countermeasures.

Yep.

Into Palladium Rifts, which is neat. Maybe not totally practical.

I mean, yeah, its whole loadout is nothing like the Samus.

No.

Like, this is definitely an up-in-your-face kind of thing.

Yep.

Also, big props to them having a fashion sense using the old style.

Yeah. Yeah. I knew you were going to say that. Well, we have, we have mining borgs. We need mining borg attachments. Yeah. We got some mining borg attachments. This is where I think the Borgs, thematically, the Borgs kind of, they are very new west the way they look, but like the tech level kind of starts kind of hurting me a little bit, but they're cool.

Yeah. Cool.

Yeah. Again, you got to handwave it.

Yeah. Yeah.

But yeah, the Borgs, this, this is it. So all the way back in Rifts World Book 8, Japan, we start seeing like different Borgs.

Yeah.

They have the Dragon Borgs and the Ninja Borgs and whatnot. These are essentially full conversion or partial conversion in some cases, options for you to take instead of the classic Borg package.

Um, the Gringo, eh.

You want a big old fucking robot tarantula because—

Oh my God. Someone watched Wild Wild West one too many times.

It's, it's the vehicle I want to love, but I can't because it just looks so stupid.

It does. But the robot horses are fucking—

Oh, the robot horses are awesome.

Everybody loves a robot horse. Robot dogs. Oh, and Wilks. Okay.

Of course.

Oh, Wilks.

Yes.

What, have you ever wanted to know the stats of every single Wilks gun ever? We got you covered.

So, okay. Up to this point, every other book talks about how Wilks is the preeminent laser manufacturer.

Yep.

And up to this point, you have maybe a handful of Wilkes weapons. And so they basically take all of the Wilkes weapons that we should have had way before this and cram them into this book.

Yes, absolutely.

19, 19 different Wilkes guns.

As, as a fellow gun fondler, do you like the quiet joke of Wilkes Remy?

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, but that reminds me, actually, there's a whole section in the beginning of the Bandito Arms that you have to go back to real quick because Bandito Arms weaponry, page 172, bullet 2, lasers are completely silent.

Oh, this one drives me up the goddamn wall each and every time.

But let's admit it, we love those special effects sounds. Consequently, Manufacturers of laser weapons may take into consideration the expectations of humans and actually build cool sound generators for enhanced psychological effect on the bigger sales. I'm like, that is—

So I literally have to pay extra for the pew pew?

Yes. No, no.

You have to pay extra to get the pew pew taken off.

Oh, okay. Well, first off, lasers are silent. What?

No, high-power lasers, the sound you might hear is the, the discharging of the capacitors, but there's no like—

Oh, I know, but there is sound and there also is recoil. I mean, it's not gonna be as, as powerful as something of a, of a firing pin, but still there is recoil simply by the fucking laws of thermodynamics. Like, it happens.

There can be either recoil or there can be heat you can get either outcome from a discharge.

So depending upon the technology, let's not go physics land.

Yep.

But it's just, this is true.

This is true. Hand wave it. Hand wave it. Okay.

Now you start getting into the Wilks weapons that I think thematically, like all of the, um, Nintendo zap gun designs.

Those are Sega Master System guns.

Okay. Sega Master System.

I know. I know they, there are some people say Nintendo, but seriously, if you take, if you If you Google the Sega Master System gun, that is the Sega Master System gun.

So those thematically could go anywhere, but then you get into the Wilkes Remy firearms and you're like, they're all cowboy guns, but they're laser guns, but they're laser guns.

Yes.

Right. And that's awesome. I love the feel thematically.

The drawback, the drawback is as cool as they look, they do not have those sweet sweet bonuses, which is why you get a Wilks gun. Yeah, one or two of them do, but even like the Wilks backup pistol has the +2 bonus to strike on an aimed shot, right? Like, that's what Wilks does best, right?

More Wilks stuff. The Wilks laser knife. I don't think—

Some conventional guns showing us that they are still being used.

And in campaigns that I've run in New West, yeah, The thing I shoved down their throats are the CFT weapons.

Yeah.

Because on page 212, basically we're gonna give you a one-shot each clip.

Yeah.

And you're gonna load up your pistol and you're, and you're, you're doing cowboy action and you're loading it. You gotta load up your revolver. They're little cartridges, one shot each. You can, so when you're broke, And you got $10, you go buy 6 rounds for your 6-shooter and that's all you got, right? I just love that feel.

The cost of each E6 round is 320 credits.

Okay, you can't buy more. You can't get them for free.

Seriously, the thing about the CFT, as cool as they are, is they are significantly more expensive than actual Eclipse. Yeah, yeah. Um, people who use them are chumps.

Yeah, well, I changed my economy. Okay, but the other part is I love about these guns is you can put regular ammo in them. Theoretically. I don't know if it specifically says it. Okay, that's always been my headcanon.

Fair enough. I like it.

I have a .45, I can put regular .45 shells in it, or I can put one of the CZ.

And hey, what do you know, last few pages of the book, Techno Wizard weapons.

And the Techno Wizard firearms in here are awesome. Yeah, I love it. Oh yeah, it has the feel right. The fact that they, for styling, they went for, uh, cap lock styling rather than Uh, traditional revolver styling on a lot of them.

Um, I will say my almost— I know, actually my favorite Techno Wizard weapon in the entire game is the TW Thundergun.

Oh, it's a great gun.

Oh, you're, you're one of them people.

I'm a big fan of the Hellfire personally.

I was going to say I'm a Hellfire person, but yeah. Um, uh, although to be perfectly honest, the Sapper has a special place in my heart.

Yeah.

When I'm evil. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

I'm a bad man.

GW glitter, the glitter mount magical horse.

It's pretty cool, but it is vastly overshadowed by the final, the, the, the capstone of this book. Goddamn techno wizard train.

Yeah. Yep.

Yes.

Techno wizard train. That, that, uh, what is it? Is it like has trapped Balrogs or something like, you know, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, it's literally like this whole book. It's building up. It's getting cooler. It's getting cooler. And it's like the author just picked it up at the very end, closed it, threw it on the ground like a mic drop and was like, Techno Wizards Train.

Yeah. It's just, it's just, it's just great. Just like, oh, um, yeah, this is probably, yeah, my favorite book.

Closing thoughts.

That's a good book.

Okay. So on, uh, you need it.

I'm going to open this one up. I'm going to say that you don't need it unless you're running in that setting. Everything here, just like in Japan, everything here is laser-focused on a certain region of the United States.

Now that they have republished the skills in numerous sources, yes.

Yeah. Yeah.

Um, I have a love-hate relationship with this book. Uh, mostly because of how many cognitive cans of worms it opened. Uh, everything from so many OCCs adding inherent to the OCC bonuses to hit and stuff, uh, attribute modifications, uh, the whole— we already discussed—

That's been happening for a while though.

Well, yeah.

That's been happening for a while.

Yeah, they really leaned into it on this one.

And now it's the standard in the Ultimate Edition.

The whole introduction of the cowboy skills and make the kind of forced rethink that you are kind of driven to with some of the other skills. That said, I love the book. I think it's a great book. It's a great setting within the Rifts world. It— I just— it hurts me as much as I love it.

So for me, this is one of the books that I recommend you buy as a brand new Palladium player.

Yeah.

All that other stuff aside, from a gear standpoint, it has some really cool stuff that, while yes, thematically fits with New West perfectly, it could fit anywhere else as well.

If you're gonna be playing in Lone Star, you should have this book.

Oh yeah.

Because like almost all of this crap should be showing up in the Pagos Empire. Absolutely.

Yep, absolutely.

Yeah.

It also has some really good scaling to it. None of the stuff in here is really crazy powerful.

Not really.

Right.

The gear, the Psi-Slinger and some of the OCCs gets pretty powerful. But again, they're not even that crazy powerful.

But we've taken steps down.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

With these, even though that they are OP, they are nowhere near as OP as the stuff from just a handful of books ago.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And it fits. It's one of the, Except for the, uh, the cloud magic not really fitting thematically with the New West feeling. It's a tight book.

Yep. Like I, me personally say you should have not just one copy of this book, but like you need one for all of your players at the table so they can all reference the things. I mean, however, the podcast host in me talking, trying to take an objective view of things. It's an awesome book. It has a lot of good content, but again, it is the New West. If you have no intention of going anywhere near the New West, probably don't need it. But as a standout book in the catalog, you should get it.

Absolutely. And if you're not going to go in the New West, then I, I, you're wrong.

Yeah.

I mean, we're probably not going to play together. No offense. You can play wherever you want, but that's where I play.

But at some point, your guy, your people are going to want to go west. They want to get out of the heat. They're going to like escape for the—

yeah, it's a big book. And you're going to want to walk into town with a pair of six-shooters on your hip and absolutely give somebody the look and they're gonna be like, stranger, we don't take too kindly to you around here. They're like, you want to step outside? And that's when you need the Rifts New West book.

Absolutely.

Thanks for listening, folks. Starships, magic, mystic martial arts, romance. All of these can be found in A Cloak of Blades by Isaac Sher. You might have heard my name before. I've done a lot of voiceover work for Breakfast Puppies. And I've recently released my first novel. It's available on Amazon as an ebook and paperback, and you can get it for free if you have a Kindle Unlimited subscription. I do hope you'll support my work as you're supporting Breakfast Puppies, and it's been a pleasure talking with you today.

Have a great day!

Have a good one. You've been listening to the Glitter Boys, a Palladium Books fan podcast. Glitter Boys, Rifts, the Megaverse, and all other such topics are the property of Kevin Sambita And Palladium Books. Please buy all their stuff and help keep them in print and making more games. You can order directly at palladiumbooks.com, and their entire catalog is available digitally at DriveThruRPG as well. Our opening music is 8-Bit Bass and Lead by Furbyguy from freesound.org. This closing music is Caravana by Philip Gross, available at freemusicarchive.org. All sound effects used are self-made or acquired via Creative Commons Zero license. If you like what you have heard, find us on Twitter and Facebook as The Glitter Boys. That's B-O-I-S. And check us out online at breakfastpuppies.com/glitterboys. And also join us on the Breakfast Puppies Network Discord at breakfastpuppies.com/discord. And if you want to help us out, please spread the word and help us build a community Thanks again for listening. We'll catch you next time.