Playing God vs Rifts
Compare Playing God and Rifts side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Playing God | Rifts | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Post-Apocalyptic, Scifi, Fantasy, Horror, Superhero |
| Tags | Collaborative, Diceless, GM-Less, High-Power, One-Shot Friendly, Roleplay-Heavy, Sandbox, Solo-Friendly, Superpowers, Worldbuilding | Character Building, Combat-Heavy, Crunchy, Fear & Stress Mechanics, Gonzo, High-Power, Mana Points, Mecha, Superpowers, Tactical |
| Core Mechanic | Playing God uses no dice for its core resolution: players choose from the minor and major wonders allowed by their divine rank, and each wonder takes effect without a success roll. Devotion plus History determines divine rank, which expands the number and scale of wonders available each age. The optional Deck of Fate adds uncontrollable mortal events, while avatar battles use a separate card-hand procedure or another system chosen by the table. | 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 | Diceless | d20, d100 |
| Complexity | Medium | Very High |
| Accessibility | Medium | Medium |
| Runnability | Low | Very High |
| License | ORC License | All Rights Reserved |
| Third-Party Publishing | Commercial publishing allowed — ORC License | Noncommercial only — Palladium Books Internet Policy limited license |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | $ | $$ |
| Publisher | Gnome Made Games | Palladium Books Inc. |
| Year | 2025 | 2005 |
| Best For | Groups who want to create a shared mythology across ages, either as a standalone campaign or as a foundation for another RPG setting. It also suits solo players and GM-less tables that enjoy negotiating divine alliances and rivalries. | 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 | Each of the 23 domains grants a distinct wonder and modifier, making a god's portfolio mechanically consequential. Wonders permanently alter the shared multiverse, producing a usable mythic setting as play advances. Lower-ranked deities can pool their allotments to perform major wonders they could not enact alone. | 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 | Play centers on choosing and narrating godly wonders, with little direct support for character-scale action. Avatar battles use a brief card-hand procedure or another game chosen by the table, so the core book does not model positional combat. The optional Deck of Fate can impose Devotion losses or dictate a deity's next wonder, trading player control for unpredictable mortal events. | 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. |