Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition vs Rifts

Compare Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition and Rifts side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition	Rifts
Genre	Fantasy	Post-Apocalyptic, Scifi, Fantasy, Horror, Superhero
Tags	Classic Fantasy, Crunchy, Descending AC, Dungeon Crawl, Inventory Management, Random Tables, Tactical, Vancian Casting	Character Building, Combat-Heavy, Crunchy, Fear & Stress Mechanics, Gonzo, High-Power, Mana Points, Mecha, Superpowers, Tactical
Core Mechanic	Roll a d20 on combat attack matrices to determine whether an attack hits a descending Armor Class. Characters advance by class level through experience, and spellcasters memorize specific spells before using them.	Combat and saving throws use a d20 plus bonuses, with high results overcoming a target number or opposing roll. Skills use d100 and succeed when the result is at or below the character's percentage.
Dice	d20	d20, d100
Complexity	Very High	Very High
Accessibility	Medium	Medium
Runnability	High	Very High
License	All Rights Reserved	All Rights Reserved
Third-Party Publishing	Not yet researched	Noncommercial only — Palladium Books Internet Policy limited license
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Cost	$$	$$
Publisher	TSR Games	Palladium Books Inc.
Year	1977	2005
Languages	English	English
Best For	Groups who want a demanding, referee-led fantasy campaign with class-and-level advancement, resource pressure, and detailed combat procedures.	Groups who want long-form science-fantasy campaigns that move from a ruined Earth to other dimensions. The game suits tables whose GM will decide which parts of the broad setting a campaign uses.
Highlights	Class, race, level, alignment, and prepared spells establish distinct adventuring roles. The Dungeon Masters Guide supplies encounter, treasure, dungeon, and campaign procedures for referee-built play. Reference sheets and extensive tables consolidate combat, spell, and campaign data.	Occupational and racial class packages assign distinct abilities and advancement tracks, giving each archetype a different role in the party. Mega-Damage places many supernatural creatures and war machines on a separate durability scale beyond the reach of ordinary Structural Damage Capacity attacks. Rifts and ley lines make dimensional travel a standing feature of the setting, letting campaigns move between devastated Earth and other worlds.
Considerations	Combat relies on class and monster attack matrices instead of a single universal action procedure. The core delivery distributes rules across three books and reserves substantial procedures for the Dungeon Master. Optional psionics and detailed special-case rules add rules to learn before using them.	Character creation combines rolled attributes with extensive skill selection, making first-time preparation lengthy. Combat asks each player to track an action economy, active defenses, and which damage scale applies. Magic and psionics use separate point pools and power procedures, adding class-specific rules to the shared system.