Adventures in Middle-earth vs Rifts

Compare Adventures in Middle-earth and Rifts side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Adventures in Middle-earth	Rifts
Genre	Fantasy	Post-Apocalyptic, Scifi, Fantasy, Horror, Superhero
Tags	Journey, Corruption, Licensed IP, Low-Fantasy, Lore-Heavy, Social Intrigue, Character Building	Character Building, Combat-Heavy, Crunchy, Fear & Stress Mechanics, Gonzo, High-Power, Mana Points, Mecha, Superpowers, Tactical
Core Mechanic	Uses the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition engine: roll a d20, add an ability modifier and proficiency, and compare the total to a difficulty number. Advantage and disadvantage, rolling two d20s and keeping the higher or lower, are the main swing on that roll.	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	High	Very High
Accessibility	Very Low	Medium
Runnability	Very High	Very High
License	OGL 1.0a; Middle-earth Enterprises license	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	Unavailable	$$
Publisher	Cubicle 7	Palladium Books Inc.
Year	2016	2005
Languages	English	English
Best For	Groups who already know 5th Edition D&D and want a low-magic, Tolkien-faithful campaign built around travel, reputation among the Free Peoples, and slow-burn corruption instead of spellcasting and dungeon loot. It suits a long campaign that plays out the Journey and Fellowship Phase cycle across in-game years more than a single one-shot.	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	The Journey subsystem resolves overland travel through assigned companion roles and branching event tables, so a trek across Wilderland produces its own hazards and pacing rather than being skipped over. Shadow points replace alignment with a tracked corruption economy that climbs from the Miserable condition to permanent madness, giving each character a mechanical moral pressure tied to their class. Audiences resolve encounters with lords and elders through an eleven-culture attitude chart and an introduction check, so a hero's standing among the Free Peoples is a concrete mechanical fact rather than pure GM judgment.	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	None of the six classes cast spells, so a group wanting a traditional wizard or cleric has to import one from another 5e game. Combat is essentially unmodified 5th Edition, so groups already tired of standard tactical D&D combat will find the same core fight rules here. Shadow adds a second per-character failure economy alongside hit points, with permanent points that never heal and must be tracked across an entire campaign.	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.