Rifts vs The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen

Compare Rifts and The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Rifts	The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen
Genre	Post-Apocalyptic, Scifi, Fantasy, Horror, Superhero	Historical, Fantasy
Tags	Character Building, Combat-Heavy, Crunchy, Fear & Stress Mechanics, Gonzo, High-Power, Mana Points, Mecha, Superpowers, Tactical	GM-Less, Diceless, Comedy, Narrative, Improvisation, Rules-Light, Gonzo, Beginner-Friendly, One-Shot Friendly, Short Sessions
Core Mechanic	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.	There are no dice. Each player starts with a purse of coins equal to the number of players, or five each with fewer than five players. In turn, a player tells a first-person tale of about five minutes on a subject another player names just before it starts. A listener with a coin may interrupt by staking one coin on an objection. The teller either keeps the coin and works the objection into the story, or pushes it back with a coin of their own. A refused objection normally goes back and forth, one coin and one insult at a time, until one side backs down and takes the pile. A teller who backs down must then use the objection. After everyone has told a story, each player gives their whole remaining purse to the story they liked best, never their own, and the largest pile wins.
Dice	d20, d100	Diceless
Complexity	Very High	Very Low
Accessibility	Medium	Medium
Runnability	Very High	Low
License	All Rights Reserved	All Rights Reserved
Third-Party Publishing	Noncommercial only — Palladium Books Internet Policy limited license	No verified route found
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Cost	$$	$
Publisher	Palladium Books Inc.	Fantasy Flight Games
Year	2005	2016
Languages	English	English, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish
Best For	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.	Groups who want a short, GM-less party game of competitive boasting that needs only a handful of coins and quick wits, including tables new to roleplaying.
Highlights	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.	Objections are wagers, so a sharp teller invites interruptions that can be woven in and pockets each accepted stake. Appendix One gives 186 ready-made story subjects that a player can hand to the next teller. Two coin-free versions for online play let the game run asynchronously over email or a forum, or live in text chat.
Considerations	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.	A storyteller normally improvises a tale of around five minutes on a subject named moments before, which can put hesitant players on the spot. There are no advancement or campaign rules, so play suits one-off evenings rather than long campaigns. The core game assumes drinks are flowing, and a player who declines to tell a story must buy the company a round.