New GM needs help with a Campaign idea

[Squadfather47]

Evening everyone! Long time fan and player, but new GM here. I've got an idea for my first campaign for Rifts. I could use some help and suggestions though.

The majority of the campaign will be going up against the Coalition and the Vampires. So I'm thinking it'll be centered around Texas/Mexico (plus the surrounding states). My first question... What books would you recommend using for this campaign? I don't want to get overwhelmed with like 15 different books?

My second idea... What ideas would you use if you were running the Campaign?

Thank you guys for any help or suggestions you can provide. I appreciate it.

[Warshield73]

Evening everyone! Long time fan and player, but new GM here. I've got an idea for my first campaign for Rifts. I could use some help and suggestions though.

The majority of the campaign will be going up against the Coalition and the Vampires. So I'm thinking it'll be centered around Texas/Mexico (plus the surrounding states). My first question... What books would you recommend using for this campaign? I don't want to get overwhelmed with like 15 different books?

My second idea... What ideas would you use if you were running the Campaign?

Thank you guys for any help or suggestions you can provide. I appreciate it.

So first, I will give you some books.

Now this book is not technically a must have but if you are a first time GM then it should help
-Rifts Adventure Guide
This will help plan your campaign and really gives some great Rifts specific adivce
I would also recommend How to be a Great GM Youtube channel. I have really enjoyed his stuff and it has really helped me to sharpen those GM skills since I have not been able to run a game in over 3 years.

Must haves
-Rifts Ultimate Edition
-WB 13 Lonestar
-WB 1 Vampire Kingdom revised

This is all you need to run a very good campaign, but these would be good addons and I am listing them in order of usefulness
-Vampire Kingdom SB (this book is almost a must have to me)
-WB 14 and 15 New west books (I don't like the OCCs in these books but they have some great world info)
-WB 28 Arzno
-Rifts Black-market SB
-WB 10 Juicer Uprising (Kingsdale, Los Alamo, and Newtown are ll in the area you want and the uprising itself is great for conflict with the CS
-Any of the RIfts Mercenary books are good for adventures, OCCs, vehicles and equipment
-CS War Campaign - This follows on from Juicer uprising
-The Adventure SB the Vanguard - This details a group of mages that help the CS from the outside, great villains, antagonists or sometime allies
-SB 4 CS Navy
- Note: Any CS book is a good one to get but you don't need them right away
-If you need weapons, equipment and vehicles for your characters the two Northern gun books work great
-Monsters and other races can be found in the 2 conversion books, D-bees of NA, and the Bestiary

As for the campaign I want to stress that you should use the books.
-In Lone Star you have Desmond Bradford and it has adventure ideas for him. You also have The Pecos Empire and all those Bandits
-A good starting place for you campaign is Houstown. There are basic stats for it in WB 13 but someone on these forums actually did a map and added some stuff. Can't remember but if you search my posts you should find it reasonably fast.
-The two vampire books are loaded with places and people to interact with
-Your players can get hired to escort someone from Housetown to El Paso and Ciudad Juarez.
-While there you can interact with street gangs, dirty cops, good cops, local businesses. You could campaing for months on just what is in those two cities.
-From there your PC's could get hired or find information that would lead them south into the kingdoms looking for treasure or magical artifacts. This is a great time to bring in an NPC who needs help collecting an item, maybe from the Yucatan. He/she could end up being a member of a vampire hunting group, a Lemurian (you would want WB 32 Lemuria for this), priest of a Dark God (Pantheons of the Megavers book is good for this) or a member of the Vanguard.
-Returning up north you could get involved in Juicer Uprising which would lead to events in CS War Campaign and CS Navy

Really once you buy a few books the problem isn't finding an adventure it is choosing which ones you will use.

I recommend when you sit down with your players at your session zero you get a feel for what kind of adventures they want, and you can build from there. I always have my players as individuals write a reason why they are adventuring and then as a group why are they together. This way you can start with the PCs knowing each other a little and helps you make adventures.

Hope this helps and good luck. Let us know how it goes.

[Squadfather47]

Thanks! That list helps out a lot.

[Rifter_GM]

What he said!

Here's a video to help people with this question as well.

https://youtu.be/oLOM95nchf8