Rifts vs Vampire: The Masquerade
Compare Rifts and Vampire: The Masquerade side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Rifts | Vampire: The Masquerade | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Post-Apocalyptic, Scifi, Fantasy, Horror, Superhero | Horror, Modern |
| Tags | Character Building, Combat-Heavy, Crunchy, Fear & Stress Mechanics, Gonzo, High-Power, Mana Points, Mecha, Superpowers, Tactical | Social Intrigue, Faction Play, Urban Fantasy, Corruption, Drama, Character-Driven, Resource Management, Superpowers, Social Combat, Lore-Heavy |
| 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 attribute plus skill in d10s, counting 6+ as successes against a difficulty. Paired 10s add extra successes. Hunger replaces ordinary dice in most pools: a winning critical containing a Hunger 10 becomes messy, while a failed test containing a Hunger 1 becomes a bestial failure. |
| Dice | d20, d100 | d10 dice pool |
| Complexity | Very High | High |
| Accessibility | Medium | High |
| Runnability | Very High | Very High |
| License | All Rights Reserved | Community Content Agreement for the Storytellers Vault |
| Third-Party Publishing | Noncommercial only — Palladium Books Internet Policy limited license | Commercial publishing allowed — Community content program |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | $$ | $$ |
| Publisher | Palladium Books Inc. | Renegade Game Studios |
| Year | 2005 | 2018 |
| Languages | English | English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Russian, Portuguese, Japanese |
| 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 campaigns about vampire coteries balancing political ambition, predatory hunger, and relationships with the humans they still care about. |
| 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. | Using supernatural powers can increase Hunger, making the next hunt harder to postpone. Convictions and human Touchstones make moral compromise carry consequences beyond winning the immediate conflict. Coteries share hunting territories and social assets, giving political ambitions a foothold in the city. |
| 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. | Messy criticals and bestial failures can put predation or compulsions into scenes where players hoped to stay in control. Character creation requires choices across clans, powers, feeding habits, advantages, and human ties. Establishing the chronicle’s relationships and boundaries for mature themes takes group preparation even when using a published city. |