Rifts vs Those Who Wander

Compare Rifts and Those Who Wander side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Rifts	Those Who Wander
Genre	Post-Apocalyptic, Scifi, Fantasy, Horror, Superhero	Fantasy
Tags	Character Building, Combat-Heavy, Crunchy, Fear & Stress Mechanics, Gonzo, High-Power, Mana Points, Mecha, Superpowers, Tactical	Heroic, High-Fantasy, Character Building, Classless, Tactical, Worldbuilding, Vancian Casting, Crunchy
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.	Roll d20 + ability bonus + proficiency bonus against a Difficulty Score. Abilities use direct modifiers (−1 to +5) instead of base scores, removing a calculation step from every roll. Character progression replaces classes and levels with a 20-step path: at each step you choose between two or more diverging features, and prerequisites gate later options.
Dice	d20, d100	d20
Complexity	Very High	Medium
Accessibility	Medium	High
Runnability	Very High	High
License	All Rights Reserved	Proprietary (free Essential Rules quickstart)
Third-Party Publishing	Noncommercial only — Palladium Books Internet Policy limited license	Not yet researched
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Cost	$$	$$
Publisher	Palladium Books Inc.	Gnome Made Games
Year	2005	2022
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 familiar with d20 fantasy who want deeper character customization, inclusive design covering any parentage pairing and accessibility for disabled characters, and long campaigns where each hero's 20-step path diverges from the rest of the party.
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.	Parentage system inherits traits from any two birth parents across 15 peoples (dwarven, elven, human, halfling, avian, celestial, draconic, genie, gnoll, gnomish, goblin, kobold, infernal, orc, plus Complex Parentage) for hundreds of pairing combinations. Accessibility rules treat Blind and Deaf characters as mechanically viable heroes and integrate prosthetics and wheelchairs as part of the character. The 20-step branching progression replaces classes and levels: each step is a choice between two or more features that gate further specializations. Awakening heirlooms (weapons, armor, trinkets) gain new properties as characters take steps, growing in power and personality alongside their owner.
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.	477-page rulebook with substantial mechanical innovation in character creation requires significant reading before a first session. No adventures are included in the core rules: GMs must design their own scenarios or source from d20-compatible content. The steps system departs from familiar level/class structure, so players coming from d20 fantasy must learn a new progression model. No native rolled initiative: the storyteller chooses one of four ability-based turn-order methods at the start of each combat.