Back in the early 80's, Kevin Siembieda started a company that grew into a massive collection of various role playing games. Every game from his company, Palladium Books, uses the exact same rules system, a first for RPGs. Kevin also set a standard by publishing every new game book in soft cover, trade paperback form in order to make his games more attractive by having a lower price at the stores than the other games who published everything in hardback releases. It wasn't very long before Palladium Books was a fairly well known game company and Kevin then tried to make a periodical that would cover a different game each issue. The idea was sound, but the market wasn't there and the idea failed after a mere eight issues.
But when the Rifts game took the RPG stores by storm, Palladium Books suddenly found themselves in the center of a huge following of fans who wanted more from the company than it could reasonably produce each year. In answer to this, Kevin at last announced that he would be trying the periodical idea once more. It was in this way that The Rifter was given to us in January of 1998.
Even though I had spoken with Kevin, Maryann (his wife), and several of the creative staff at Palladium Books during the course of the first issue being assembled, neither I nor any other fan had any idea of what to expect for this gaming magazine. I know that it would be a quarterly release, I knew that it would cover various topics in each issue, and I knew that it would cost $25 a year for a subscription or $7.95 if bought at the gaming stores. I assumed it would be around 40 or 50 pages per issue and have maybe one or two really good things that I could use in my games.
I was WRONG! To call The Rifter a magazine would be like calling Hamlet a one act play. This periodical is more along the lines of a rules book for the games. The biggest difference is that it is much more affordable and covers several games at one time. Not to mention some other really neat stuff.
In the first issue, you will find some great gems. One of the most impressive (to me) was a little article by Erick Wujcik about how to come up with good names for your games. Just in case you don't know, Erick was the man who created a little something known as the Dragonwright Campaign, the very game that the entire Palladium system was play tested with. Erick also currently has his name on the cover of more Palladium Books titles than anyone except Kevin as the author.
Another item that appeared in The Rifter for many issues was the Knights of the Dinner Table comic strip. I was sad to see it leave last year. Each issue also has a little something from Kevin about what is being planned for the company in the following months. This is where you will find the most up to date info about that new book you have been hearing about. If there is a release date, this is where it will be. If there isn't an exact date, then you will be able to get an idea of when to expect it.
Of course, each issue will have some stuff that isn't a standard. For the first issue, there is a great deal of new information and material for the Rifts game, new super powers for the Heroes Unlimited game (most were later made a permanent part of Heroes Unlimited 2nd Edition), new rules for Nightbane and the companion game Beyond the Supernatural.
That's a lot of info to squeeze into 50 or 60 pages, right? First off, that's not even everything. Each issue has one or two stories in it that are based on the games themselves. In fact, there is even a serialized novel that continues until around the fourth year of publication. I haven't taken the time to read that yet because I am waiting for it to finish so I can read it all at once. Now, here's the kicker. Issue #1 is 120 pages long! That's almost three times the length of the fifth book of the Palladium Fantasy RPG for the same price!
As it happens, the length is not a fluke. It remains fairly consistent, ranging from 100 to 200 pages each issue for the entire run of the series. The price has remained the same for the entire time as well. There are almost no ads whatsoever in each issue, on the average only four or five pages are devoted to ads and those are all about Palladium Books products, so it doesn't really count. I don't know how they do it, but I sure am glad they do.
I also know that as long as this product is on the market, I'll be buying it every time a new one is out. In fact, I have had a subscription since before Number One was released. I just called up Jim Osten at Palladium Books and asked if they had a price for a year's worth. He had a brief talk with Kevin and Maryann and then they came up with a rate. I suspect I was one of the first to ask that one.
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