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Ok, so you'd like to know about rifts... well, one of the first tihngs you'll notice is that it's really not too similar to D&D as far as the mechanics work, but the basic concept of HAVING FUN RPING stays the same of course...

Below you'll find some basic info on Rifts, and if anyone thinks of anything else that should be included I'll be happy to include reference on that topic...

"races" and "classes"

Races in Rifts are typically referred to as RCCs (racial character classes)
and Classes are called OCCs (Occupational Character classes)

For starters, I'd just like to say if you've never played rifts before it's probably best to stick with the base class of human...

now moving on from there,

There are a number of fairly common classes which are usable everywhere, however, there are also some classes which will only be found (typically) in certain Regions/countries...

Some examples of OOCs are: (these examples are all found in the Chaos Earth sourcebook)

Chromium Gaurdsmen: Pilot of a high powered Power Armor (basically a small mech)...

Silver Eagle Pilot: similar to above, but the power armor is flight capable, and smaller...

NEMA Soldier, peackeeper: No particular specialty, though as many potential focuses for skill selection, as there are jobs in the military...

NEMA Fire and Rescue: Guess what he's good at? Excellent at rescue missions, skilled as a paramedic, and given "enhanced body armor" these guys can get through the thick of things and usually get the vic' out alive

NEMA Field Engineer: You break it (or maybe "confiscate" it) he can make it work. they tend to have some fighting skill, but are better at building or fixing things really...

NEMA Para-Arcane: These guys in all honesty are, well "us" they're the people who for whatever reason, be it mythology, movies, or even RPGs, seem to have some idea how the paranormal works... groups like NEMA use them as resources on identifying, and finding weaknesses in supernatural and other such beings... They are sometimes sent into the field with a team to assist them along the course of a mission...

NEMA Demon/witchhunter: Similar to the above, only these people seem to have a vendetta against all things "unnatural" or evil, so they tend to be more than happy to take a part of the battle when the time comes, and many often BEFORE the time comes, which has caused some rather unpleasant feelings toward them from the military, though this is sometimes overlooked for they're knowledge...

Ok, so there's some examples... but in all honesty this game has an amazing variety of OOCs...

The break-up is basically,
engineers,
Pilots, (aircraft, ground-craft, watercraft, mech, and power armor...)
Infantry,
bionic,
magic,
psionic,
espionage

of course there's plenty of variations to each...

Now as for races... The base race is of course;
Human
then there's others, like, (example races from "New West" sourcebook)

Cactus People: The real name of this race can not be humanly pronounced... they are called this because they are cactus green, and they seem to require large amounts of sunlight, and edible greens to survive. they're mostly passive, and tend to try and avoid trouble. they also have little regard for possessions, typically a few favorite things, but otherwise nothing...
Fennodi: Another "DB" like the above. These beings are another peaceful race which tend to wander the west and tend herds of livestock... another thing shared between these beings and the above is that they're primary "predator" is other DBs and the occasional human that wishes the death of all DBs or just likes killing them for sport...
Keepers of the Desert: These are the descendants of those once lived in Salt Lake City, and who survived the "great apocalypse"... well, sort of. Of the survivors, a number were mutated physically (still human in appearance but mangled... if you've seen it, picture the hunchback from 300... he could pass as one of these guys). The other survivors ran these people out into the desert (then through a series of unfortunate events those same people were all destroyed as was their city...). Over a few generations, these deformed people became aware of new powers/abilities... they became capable of controlling magic, (some even considered "creatures of magic" as far as stats and whatnot go)... they as ugly and deformed, but not hateful toward humans for past regressions...
Mountain Giant: a "race which seems to have shown itself only in the last 15 years... there are believed to be less than 500 overall, though there is not a reliable count really... These beings are hulking, and fight like a cross between a charging bull and insane lion... they also seem willing to always eat their kill, regardless of what that may be. Despite these tendencies they are very protective of children whether their own or otherwise, stories exist in which they fight to the death to save a child or baby which they may have never seen let alone will ever see again...

There are many many other RRCs, but the most common on Rifts earth is of course Human, as stated before...

Bionics, Magic, Psionics, etc...

Still more, stuff to come??

Rifts is extremely vast, and detailed but that makes it a little slow to make characters and a little more complicated with combat and PC/NPC interaction. But this also means that if you willing to tweak the character concept a little to work with the GM, literally ANY sort of character concept is possible usually with an established class even or race. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help I've got a very large rifts collection (trying to get everything on north america) and know the rules inside and out.

what books do you have for north america... I've got about 57, (i think that's right?) books, and I'll be happy to give you a PDF version of any america books i might have that you don't...

and thx for your comment about the combat... it is indeed more complicated, and with how rarely some of the guild posts, combat could be VEEERRRYY slow. One of my empty posts will have to be on char creation, and combat mechanics...

any chance you know of a place with online char sheets. I've never heard of any so I'm thinking if a game ever did come together, the players would all have to email in their sheets as it is now...

anyway thx again for your comment, and I hope you can continue to make maore as i have chances to complete the page

what really gets confusing is when you throw in races cause some races are that race and a class all in one, others can take other classes, or multiclassing. Though honestly with how open the system is and if you have a DM that feels like being nice, you don't really need to multiclass. Anyone new to the game should just be human or one of the human psychics until they have the hang of it. Besides humans rule anyway ;p