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Author Topic: Review of Rifts Lazlo Raw Edition  (Read 2669 times)

Chris24601

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Re: Review of Rifts Lazlo Raw Edition
« Reply #15 on: December 06, 2020, 09:41:41 PM »
A blanket ban on all literacy on the other hand is nonsensical, since you need someone sufficiently-educated to build and maintain your giant skull robots.
Good thing thd CS NEVER had such a ban in place then. Even the first Rifts book gave their Technical Officers and Military Specialists literacy. They also made clear that they’ll happily recruit Rogue Scientists and Scholars willing to basically buy into the party line and use their knowledge only for the benefit of the CS elites.

Sometimes it feels like a lot of the complaints are not with Rifts as written, but Rifts as they’ve been told it’s written.

Oh, and the reason a dragon army doesn’t teleport into the Emperor’s bathroom and murder him is A) you have to know where his bathroom is. B) The Vanguard.

In case you’re not aware of the Vanguard, they’re a secret society of magic-users (mostly Ley-Line Walkers) who are descendants of Chi-Town’s original Magic Division and whose mission is protect the CS from magical threats it can’t even acknowledge exist.

See before the whole Federation of Magic fiasco around 100 years back, Chi-Town and the other CS city-states had their own magic forces. When they got made illegal, the Magic Division, who were still loyal to the Coalition States, went underground and became The Vanguard and just continued their mission even if the CS could never acknowledge them.

This is another of those “there’s actually a fracking reason... its just likely buried in an obscure corner of one of the 40-ish books in the series.”

oggsmash

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Re: Review of Rifts Lazlo Raw Edition
« Reply #16 on: December 06, 2020, 11:19:13 PM »
And I am also assuming just a dragon popping into the bedroom.  Why would a shifter not be able to just open a portal and we have a whole army of demons and dragons come piling into the bed with the good emperor.  Who effectively has NO countermeasures to magic.  You even said, they can just put a tac nuke in his room, and he is done.  The whole idea of a war against such a force is just dumb.

The whole idea of such a force that can teleport whatever, whenever is just dumb. Shifters tossing tac nukes around to smite their enemies. Monsters teleporting in and out on a whim. No one and no thing would be safe, unless they had powerful magic defenses, and in short order there would be a tiny handful of such shielded sites, and everyone else getting crapped on. Like I said, it's not magic, but specifically the teleport spell/ability that's the problem.
  It actually makes perfect sense in a logical understanding of rifts/magic/etc.  For game balance, yes no sense, and we can say it is dumb or the problem or whatever, but the fact is it is a thing and KS put it in there.  He basically created the most destructive ability for an insurgent force imaginable.  A superpower rarely has to deal with another superpower, insurgents are where they get their guff, and here the insurgents have tools the superpower has zero counter to and no way to monitor or prevent.   Tell KS, he got a lot crazy with the rule of cool and here we are.

oggsmash

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Re: Review of Rifts Lazlo Raw Edition
« Reply #17 on: December 06, 2020, 11:33:28 PM »
A blanket ban on all literacy on the other hand is nonsensical, since you need someone sufficiently-educated to build and maintain your giant skull robots.
Good thing thd CS NEVER had such a ban in place then. Even the first Rifts book gave their Technical Officers and Military Specialists literacy. They also made clear that they’ll happily recruit Rogue Scientists and Scholars willing to basically buy into the party line and use their knowledge only for the benefit of the CS elites.

Sometimes it feels like a lot of the complaints are not with Rifts as written, but Rifts as they’ve been told it’s written.

Oh, and the reason a dragon army doesn’t teleport into the Emperor’s bathroom and murder him is A) you have to know where his bathroom is. B) The Vanguard.

In case you’re not aware of the Vanguard, they’re a secret society of magic-users (mostly Ley-Line Walkers) who are descendants of Chi-Town’s original Magic Division and whose mission is protect the CS from magical threats it can’t even acknowledge exist.

See before the whole Federation of Magic fiasco around 100 years back, Chi-Town and the other CS city-states had their own magic forces. When they got made illegal, the Magic Division, who were still loyal to the Coalition States, went underground and became The Vanguard and just continued their mission even if the CS could never acknowledge them.

This is another of those “there’s actually a fracking reason... its just likely buried in an obscure corner of one of the 40-ish books in the series.”
  You still need grunts able to read, factory workers, etc. And he does say the rank and file citizens are not literate, and that is just stupid.  You also need to educate the masses to find those 1 percenters out there who may not be in the places you expect them, especially if your counter to world shaking magic is technology.   The Nazis were extremely literate and promoted literacy and competence with mathematics.  That is who KS tries to model the CS on, which is insane given the world IS BEING INVADED BY ACTUAL ALIEN DEMONS AND MONSTERS, the CS only has to use the *slightest* effort with propaganda.   Nazis did not have to forbid learning to read, they just told people what they could read, made a few examples and were ruthlessly efficient at getting Germans to do what was "best for Germany".  I daresay with a backdrop of actual demons, baby sacrificing cults, necromancers, etc there is little need at all to worry even a second about people being able to read.  If the nazis could work their ethnic propaganda so well with grandiose exaggerations and lies, I dont think the CS is going to have any trouble at all getting every human to look at anything from another dimension/planet with a wary eye.   Its way over the top is my point, and beyond cartoonish. 

oggsmash

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Re: Review of Rifts Lazlo Raw Edition
« Reply #18 on: December 06, 2020, 11:40:57 PM »
I should say though, I do not know of anyone who ran the CS exactly as written.  I use them as sometimes interesting encounters that can go a  lot of ways, I treat them as the 'Federals' from firefly. 

Spike

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Re: Review of Rifts Lazlo Raw Edition
« Reply #19 on: December 07, 2020, 06:53:50 PM »
Weirdly I was going through a Rifts kick for a couple weeks not very long ago, and while going over my Coalition War and Dimensional Outbreak books I had a small epiphany of sorts that is relevant.

Kevin writes a lot of stuff that involves 'don't do this, don't do that', anti-magic and anti mutant militaries everywhere yadda yadda, but the books are full of, well, magic and mutants (Aliens, whatever). 

Kevin appears to write from 'tone' or 'feel', not from logical rationality.  I can garauntee his games (the ones he runs, or ran) are FULL of all kinds of crazy shit, like the most permissive GM ever, and that there are hardly ever any repercussions for all the negative consequences that supposedly accompany these choices.  Its all about the FEELZ of being a wanted rebel against The Man, man.  that's one reason why so many books focus on playing the Coalition... if you don't have those how can you play a Coalition Soldier who secretly thinks, hey, Mutants are people to and you know what? Magic CAN be used for good!... if there are good playable rules for the Coalition?

Think of the RIFTS setting as a painted backdrop on a theater stage.




Of course, my other epiphanies (It was a deeply spiritual two weeks, I tells ya) involved realizing that Kevin had been creatively bankrupt for probably 15 or more years and is just going through the motions without any soul (to be very, very brief), and also.... shit, I forgot the third one.  Oh well... no, wait, its come back to me... fuck me if he isn't the worlds nerdiest homebody. Sure, he's written dozens of world books, but somehow the center of the universe is Chicago. Prove me wrong.
For you the day you found a minor error in a Post by Spike and forced him to admit it, it was the greatest day of your internet life.  For me it was... Tuesday.

For the curious: Apparently, in person, I sound exactly like the Youtube Character The Nostalgia Critic.   I have no words.

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Ratman_tf

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Re: Review of Rifts Lazlo Raw Edition
« Reply #20 on: December 07, 2020, 07:54:34 PM »
shit, I forgot the third one.  Oh well... no, wait, its come back to me... fuck me if he isn't the worlds nerdiest homebody. Sure, he's written dozens of world books, but somehow the center of the universe is Chicago. Prove me wrong.

No argument there. I'll go you one further and say that his world building is from the perspective of a nerdy 80's teenager living in Chicago, making his own comic books and RPGs and putting as much ZAP! POW! ZOWIE! in there as possible.

That's part of the charm of Rifts. It's both earnest and goofy. But there's also no one to rein in Siembieda when he goes off the rails.

« Last Edit: December 07, 2020, 07:58:08 PM by Ratman_tf »
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Shasarak

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Re: Review of Rifts Lazlo Raw Edition
« Reply #21 on: December 07, 2020, 09:02:56 PM »
fuck me if he isn't the worlds nerdiest homebody. Sure, he's written dozens of world books, but somehow the center of the universe is Chicago. Prove me wrong.

The Dresden Files are based there and I think it is a major city in Vampire.
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Ratman_tf

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Re: Review of Rifts Lazlo Raw Edition
« Reply #22 on: December 08, 2020, 12:22:16 AM »
And I am also assuming just a dragon popping into the bedroom.  Why would a shifter not be able to just open a portal and we have a whole army of demons and dragons come piling into the bed with the good emperor.  Who effectively has NO countermeasures to magic.  You even said, they can just put a tac nuke in his room, and he is done.  The whole idea of a war against such a force is just dumb.

The whole idea of such a force that can teleport whatever, whenever is just dumb. Shifters tossing tac nukes around to smite their enemies. Monsters teleporting in and out on a whim. No one and no thing would be safe, unless they had powerful magic defenses, and in short order there would be a tiny handful of such shielded sites, and everyone else getting crapped on. Like I said, it's not magic, but specifically the teleport spell/ability that's the problem.
  It actually makes perfect sense in a logical understanding of rifts/magic/etc.  For game balance, yes no sense, and we can say it is dumb or the problem or whatever, but the fact is it is a thing and KS put it in there.  He basically created the most destructive ability for an insurgent force imaginable.  A superpower rarely has to deal with another superpower, insurgents are where they get their guff, and here the insurgents have tools the superpower has zero counter to and no way to monitor or prevent.   Tell KS, he got a lot crazy with the rule of cool and here we are.

You tell him. I don't write the damn thing.
The notion of an exclusionary and hostile RPG community is a fever dream of zealots who view all social dynamics through a narrow keyhole of structural oppression.
-Haffrung