Rifts World Book 12: Psyscape

Rifts World Books #12

by Kevin Siembieda, Alex Marchiniszyn (Editor), Jim Osten (Editor)

Book by Siembieda, Kevin

Genres: Role Playing Games, Gaming, Science Fiction

160 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1997

About the author

Kevin Siembieda (born April 2, 1956) is an American artist, writer, designer, and publisher of role-playing games, as well as being the founder and president of Palladium Books.

Palladium Books, founded in southeast Michigan, claims to be the first to implement a role-playing system intended to work for all genres and to introduce the perfect-bound trade paperback format to the RPG industry.

Some of the role-playing games Siembieda helped produce include Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness (1985), Robotech RPG (1986), After The Bomb (1986), and Rifts (1990).

Siembieda is also an artist, best known for occasionally illustrating Palladium Books' products. In 1978, he started the now-defunct Megaton Publications in Detroit, publishing a digest style title called A+ Plus and several other titles. He also contributed art and cartography to several early Judges Guild products (for both their Traveller and Dungeons & Dragons lines).

Reviews

[Garrett Henke · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a difficult review to write. Rifts books are always FUN (with just a few exceptions) and Psyscape is no different. It has a bunch of cool character types to play and the concept of Psyscape as a city is interesting. The big enemies, the Soul Harvesters, are a generic group of Necromancers feeding on souls - the kind of plot I would come up with when I was in high school. Wait, I actually did run that plot line in high school. A huge chunk of the book is also re-printed material and then a large section on monsters in the region which doesn’t really fit the book as a whole. Overall, it’s sort of a meandering river that doesn’t really have any sort of consistent themes. Still, there is a lot of fun stuff in Psyscape which pushes it into the 3-star level, albeit barely. If there was a 2.5 star option, that’s where it would be.

[Little Timmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though the Palladium role-playing system is not the one I use in my games the source books are fantastic. Tons of great ideas and characters are scattered throughout the books. Very recommended for any gamer.

[Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of psi powers galore. An entertaining amount of monsters as well.