Palladium Books, as a matter of publisher and editorial intent, is a strong advocate for taking the rules and content that they publish and making it into something that you are willing to run and your players be willing to play. In short, Palladium Books' policy is friendly towards using all the house rules that you desire. However, Palladium also has a history of being skittish about sharing the home-brewed stuff due to a fear of law suits over conversions of properties that they neither own nor have a license to use. There shall be no such things in this series of posts.
Instead, I will talk about something more fundamental, and that is making the rules of RIFTS conform to what results you and yours want them to produce. I will start with the most fundamental rule mechanics, and then I will slowly wind my way out from that core towards subsystems like Magic and Psionics. I will talk about making sense of the gear creation (lack of a) system, inter-system dependency (and when you should use it), and other things of this nature- all with an eye towards keeping the results of your home-brewing on target with your intended objectives.
In doing this, I will explore the whole of Palladium's published corpus of rules and content (with a focus on RIFTS, of course). We'll take a good look at what Palladium offers, and see how these things work when run as-written, so we have something to compare our house rules against- and I expect that we may find that some of you will be satisfied with what already exists in some respects (or even across the board). This should be a fun and useful series, and I hope that you get a great deal of value out of it.
Next week, we will take a look at the core mechanics--and there is more than one--at the heart of Palladium's games and how they are applied. This will prove to be illuminating. See you then.
Showing posts with label Introduction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Introduction. Show all posts
Saturday, October 18, 2014
Saturday, October 4, 2014
Common Campaigns in RIFTS: The Intrigue Campaign
Let me be clear and honest up front: Palladium Books' role-playing games are terrible choices for campaigns of political intrigue, and especially so with RIFTS. They are derivative of Dungeons & Dragons, and that is a game build around exploration and high adventure- political intrigue was the endgame, not the game's default mode of play. With that kept in mind, we can make it work- but it won't be easy.
Cloak & Dagger play allows for players to choose to play characters of less-powerful (or less obviously powerful) Occupations and have that mean something. It is a campaign paradigm that favors social skills, interpersonal networks, and other things that Palladium's game engine doesn't do very well. Whether you're taking inspiration from The Godfather, Homeland, Three Days of the Condor, or even Ghost in the Shell (which, for this game, should be the go-to example) you're talking less about payloads and MDC ratings and more about connections and clues. Hell, you might even bother with tools and weapons that don't do Mega-Damage at all.
Because Palladium's game engine is a D&D derivative, your intrigue campaign is best handled as a blend of tense character interaction punctuated by sudden, fierce, and brutal explosions of violence. (Sort of like being on a U-boat during wartime, so go watch Das Boat and you'll get the feel we're after here.) The GM will have to be careful to ensure that attacks vs. defenses are not balanced, but clearly in favor of attacks; the whole idea is that pulling a blaster means You Done Fucked Up up to the moment when shooting is actually a necessary and vital part of the plan (as this sort of campaign does include examples inspired by classics such as Where Eagles Dare and The Eagle Has Landed, as well as the James Bond series).
You will have to account for magic and psychic powers, in addition to real-world tradecraft as applied via speculative technologies. Finding ways to thwart or divert supernatural means to acquire intelligence and properly process it is a thing in a RIFTS campaign, and those who fail to do so lose--and hard--to those who do. (Which, of course, is Yet Another Reason for why the Coalition can't beat Tolkeen as-written.) Making this a major part of a campaign is a very viable initial objective, and should be the go-to option for institutions facing potent supernatural threats of any sort. Plundering real-world tradecraft manuals, existing spy games, and all of the spy fiction (however mundane or fantastic) is necessary for a GM with any serious intention of making this work.
There is another option. This is the Lame Bond Movie option, where you play your bog-standard action/adventure game and just add intrigue bits as plot coupons; add together enough and exchange them for a campaign-shifting event where the players go up against the targeted NPC. You may well be better off doing it this way instead.
Cloak & Dagger play allows for players to choose to play characters of less-powerful (or less obviously powerful) Occupations and have that mean something. It is a campaign paradigm that favors social skills, interpersonal networks, and other things that Palladium's game engine doesn't do very well. Whether you're taking inspiration from The Godfather, Homeland, Three Days of the Condor, or even Ghost in the Shell (which, for this game, should be the go-to example) you're talking less about payloads and MDC ratings and more about connections and clues. Hell, you might even bother with tools and weapons that don't do Mega-Damage at all.
Because Palladium's game engine is a D&D derivative, your intrigue campaign is best handled as a blend of tense character interaction punctuated by sudden, fierce, and brutal explosions of violence. (Sort of like being on a U-boat during wartime, so go watch Das Boat and you'll get the feel we're after here.) The GM will have to be careful to ensure that attacks vs. defenses are not balanced, but clearly in favor of attacks; the whole idea is that pulling a blaster means You Done Fucked Up up to the moment when shooting is actually a necessary and vital part of the plan (as this sort of campaign does include examples inspired by classics such as Where Eagles Dare and The Eagle Has Landed, as well as the James Bond series).
You will have to account for magic and psychic powers, in addition to real-world tradecraft as applied via speculative technologies. Finding ways to thwart or divert supernatural means to acquire intelligence and properly process it is a thing in a RIFTS campaign, and those who fail to do so lose--and hard--to those who do. (Which, of course, is Yet Another Reason for why the Coalition can't beat Tolkeen as-written.) Making this a major part of a campaign is a very viable initial objective, and should be the go-to option for institutions facing potent supernatural threats of any sort. Plundering real-world tradecraft manuals, existing spy games, and all of the spy fiction (however mundane or fantastic) is necessary for a GM with any serious intention of making this work.
There is another option. This is the Lame Bond Movie option, where you play your bog-standard action/adventure game and just add intrigue bits as plot coupons; add together enough and exchange them for a campaign-shifting event where the players go up against the targeted NPC. You may well be better off doing it this way instead.
Saturday, September 27, 2014
Common Campaigns in RIFTS: The Exploration Campaign
Five-year missions, expeditions into the unknown, seeking the Northwest Passage- these are stories of exploration and RIFTS has plenty of room for those who seek to make known what is unknown.
The core of a campaign focused upon exploration is that the players assume the roles of individuals who are either trained for exploration, or they are specialists of a different--but necessary--sort assigned to such a task. The specific venue varies widely--overland, oversea, undersea, space, planar, etc.--but the format is the same: a team of explorers forms to investigate what, if anything, lies beyond a given threshold. This can be a mountain range or other significant terrain feature, space itself- you get the idea. Adventures are built around penetrating this threshold and then seeing what is there; making first contact with locals, mapping the territory explored, and preserving this information long enough to report back to their patron(s) so follow-up expeditions can be made with the benefit of that knowledge.
Exploration campaigns, therefore, are mixtures of diplomacy and adventure on a dangerous and unknown frontier. Players should be working with low amounts of information, dealing with material scarcity due to being at the tail end of a long logistical train (so they can't operate at optimal efficiency or effectiveness most of the time; this is "count your rations and arrows" territory), and have to deal with constraints that players in other campaigns either don't have to worry about or never even realize exist. Figuring out how to compensate for these scarcity issues, often by interacting with the locals and learning their methods, is part-and-parcel of a properly-executed exploration campaign.
The other issue with an exploration campaign is that what often follows is either exploitation of natural resources, or population movements into colonial settlements, and either development not only strains extant relations with the locals but--unless reversed--inevitably pushes back the frontier as Civilization (i.e. whom the explorers represent) comes in to fill the void that a frontier represents. You can either end a campaign when this phase of exploration arrives, or you can roll with the punches and take the opportunity to shift the campaign in a different direction; each primary exploration expedition, each first contact situation, each push into the unknown presents an opportunity to find something heretofore unseen and unknown to the players. New mysteries to solve, new cultures to interact with, new lands to investigate- this is the feature that keeps it fresh for years on end. Exploit this feature whenever things start to flag.
Exploration campaigns are best done the old-fashioned way: the sandbox. The GM should decide on the region to explore, and set up initial sets of circumstances (including what Occupations, technologies, etc. are allowed to players), and then let them interact without any concern for narrative logic of any sort- the players will, without fail, fill in all such voids with their own notions and thereby succeed or fail without so much as a word out of the GM's mouth. (And that is the other side to all of this: expeditions fail, often disastrously. If they want to be the Donner Party, let them.)
This is a model where your Men-at-Arms will not be so heavily represented, and your Men-of-Magic/Psychics will be likewise reduced in prominence, in favor of Adventurers and Scholars. You need Wilderness Scouts, first and foremost, and then Scholars and Scientists (including medical experts and technicians) with focuses on field operations (which is done by skill selection and equipment choices; someone that needs a big-city lab is not the sort to send on such things, unless it's based out of something like a starship, and that likely means such an individual will be a NPC). Generalists will be more prized members, speaking of Armsmen and Magicians/Psychics, over specialists and time-limited augmented individuals like Juicers are bad choices- as are those tied to logistical trains (Cyborgs) or already unstable (Crazies). (This, again, is where the magical sorts have an advantage so long as magical power is in sufficient abundance.) Problems are better solved by talking or fixing than by fighting, most of the time, and running is not a bad idea- players cannot presume that whatever they face they can handle.
Exploration campaigns are also easily transitioned into and out of because the core of the campaign's paradigm is inherently unstable, and thus temporary, so you can use an exploration phase as a change-of-pace for another campaign when you see the need for such a thing. If you start as exploration, but the players are not interested anymore, it is not hard to let the frontier shift away from them and let them take up positions in the emerging post-exploration communities that arise in the wake of successful exploration expeditions. When devising what to do with a game of RIFTS, don't count exploration out; even as just a temporary phase, you can really get to the heart of what makes tabletop RPGs special by returning to the origin of the hobby- exploration of the unknown, be it for gold, for glory, or for getting away from where they came from.
The core of a campaign focused upon exploration is that the players assume the roles of individuals who are either trained for exploration, or they are specialists of a different--but necessary--sort assigned to such a task. The specific venue varies widely--overland, oversea, undersea, space, planar, etc.--but the format is the same: a team of explorers forms to investigate what, if anything, lies beyond a given threshold. This can be a mountain range or other significant terrain feature, space itself- you get the idea. Adventures are built around penetrating this threshold and then seeing what is there; making first contact with locals, mapping the territory explored, and preserving this information long enough to report back to their patron(s) so follow-up expeditions can be made with the benefit of that knowledge.
Exploration campaigns, therefore, are mixtures of diplomacy and adventure on a dangerous and unknown frontier. Players should be working with low amounts of information, dealing with material scarcity due to being at the tail end of a long logistical train (so they can't operate at optimal efficiency or effectiveness most of the time; this is "count your rations and arrows" territory), and have to deal with constraints that players in other campaigns either don't have to worry about or never even realize exist. Figuring out how to compensate for these scarcity issues, often by interacting with the locals and learning their methods, is part-and-parcel of a properly-executed exploration campaign.
The other issue with an exploration campaign is that what often follows is either exploitation of natural resources, or population movements into colonial settlements, and either development not only strains extant relations with the locals but--unless reversed--inevitably pushes back the frontier as Civilization (i.e. whom the explorers represent) comes in to fill the void that a frontier represents. You can either end a campaign when this phase of exploration arrives, or you can roll with the punches and take the opportunity to shift the campaign in a different direction; each primary exploration expedition, each first contact situation, each push into the unknown presents an opportunity to find something heretofore unseen and unknown to the players. New mysteries to solve, new cultures to interact with, new lands to investigate- this is the feature that keeps it fresh for years on end. Exploit this feature whenever things start to flag.
Exploration campaigns are best done the old-fashioned way: the sandbox. The GM should decide on the region to explore, and set up initial sets of circumstances (including what Occupations, technologies, etc. are allowed to players), and then let them interact without any concern for narrative logic of any sort- the players will, without fail, fill in all such voids with their own notions and thereby succeed or fail without so much as a word out of the GM's mouth. (And that is the other side to all of this: expeditions fail, often disastrously. If they want to be the Donner Party, let them.)
This is a model where your Men-at-Arms will not be so heavily represented, and your Men-of-Magic/Psychics will be likewise reduced in prominence, in favor of Adventurers and Scholars. You need Wilderness Scouts, first and foremost, and then Scholars and Scientists (including medical experts and technicians) with focuses on field operations (which is done by skill selection and equipment choices; someone that needs a big-city lab is not the sort to send on such things, unless it's based out of something like a starship, and that likely means such an individual will be a NPC). Generalists will be more prized members, speaking of Armsmen and Magicians/Psychics, over specialists and time-limited augmented individuals like Juicers are bad choices- as are those tied to logistical trains (Cyborgs) or already unstable (Crazies). (This, again, is where the magical sorts have an advantage so long as magical power is in sufficient abundance.) Problems are better solved by talking or fixing than by fighting, most of the time, and running is not a bad idea- players cannot presume that whatever they face they can handle.
Exploration campaigns are also easily transitioned into and out of because the core of the campaign's paradigm is inherently unstable, and thus temporary, so you can use an exploration phase as a change-of-pace for another campaign when you see the need for such a thing. If you start as exploration, but the players are not interested anymore, it is not hard to let the frontier shift away from them and let them take up positions in the emerging post-exploration communities that arise in the wake of successful exploration expeditions. When devising what to do with a game of RIFTS, don't count exploration out; even as just a temporary phase, you can really get to the heart of what makes tabletop RPGs special by returning to the origin of the hobby- exploration of the unknown, be it for gold, for glory, or for getting away from where they came from.
Saturday, September 13, 2014
Common Campaigns in RIFTS: The Superhero Campaign
RIFTS, being a multi-genre campaign, can support entire genres if (and only if) your group buys into that voluntarily. Superheroes do work well enough, and you need not have Heroes Unlimited to make this work, but some commentary with regards to melding the usual superhero tropes with RIFTS is in order.
I am not talking about someone with superpowers in a colorful costume. That can, and does, cover plenty of Occupations in this game and therefore does not make one a superhero. (Or a supervillain for that matter.) I am talking about taking a campaign that would be normative for something like Champions or Mutants & Masterminds (or, of course, Heroes Unlimited) and using it in the environment of RIFTS. This is all about the tropes and not the numbers or the gameplay options.
A superhero game in RIFTS can handle the same range of power level--from the streets and backwoods of mostly-mundane characters to the cosmic levels of Lensmen and their inspirations (Green Lantern and Nova Corps)--so that is not the issue. The issue is that such a campaign will not be the Comics Code Authority sort of castrated content; this doesn't automatically make it an Iron Age (to use comic culture terminology) setting, but it does mean that you are not making the most of what's available in RIFTS if you sanitize things.
By necessity, you should be using some form of team as your campaign template. The trick is to pick the right team for your table's needs; if you have a group that can reliably fulfill a regular commitment to show up and play for four to six hours a week playing the same characters, then you want to use a group like The Fantastic Four or one of the many Japanese tokukatsu shows (or their animated counterparts, Magical Girls and Martial Boys). For a group with a rotating attendance, you want to use a larger organization where members come and go routinely for this or that reason, such as the Legion of Superheroes or the various Avengers lineups. This also means choosing team templates means choosing gameplay templates; committed single-character groups can better exploit serial drama tropes and premises than looser groups who either lack commitment or play multiple characters, who (in turn) can better exploit episode structures and tropes.
So, that said, here's a list of things you need to do to make it work in RIFTS:
I am not talking about someone with superpowers in a colorful costume. That can, and does, cover plenty of Occupations in this game and therefore does not make one a superhero. (Or a supervillain for that matter.) I am talking about taking a campaign that would be normative for something like Champions or Mutants & Masterminds (or, of course, Heroes Unlimited) and using it in the environment of RIFTS. This is all about the tropes and not the numbers or the gameplay options.
A superhero game in RIFTS can handle the same range of power level--from the streets and backwoods of mostly-mundane characters to the cosmic levels of Lensmen and their inspirations (Green Lantern and Nova Corps)--so that is not the issue. The issue is that such a campaign will not be the Comics Code Authority sort of castrated content; this doesn't automatically make it an Iron Age (to use comic culture terminology) setting, but it does mean that you are not making the most of what's available in RIFTS if you sanitize things.
By necessity, you should be using some form of team as your campaign template. The trick is to pick the right team for your table's needs; if you have a group that can reliably fulfill a regular commitment to show up and play for four to six hours a week playing the same characters, then you want to use a group like The Fantastic Four or one of the many Japanese tokukatsu shows (or their animated counterparts, Magical Girls and Martial Boys). For a group with a rotating attendance, you want to use a larger organization where members come and go routinely for this or that reason, such as the Legion of Superheroes or the various Avengers lineups. This also means choosing team templates means choosing gameplay templates; committed single-character groups can better exploit serial drama tropes and premises than looser groups who either lack commitment or play multiple characters, who (in turn) can better exploit episode structures and tropes.
So, that said, here's a list of things you need to do to make it work in RIFTS:
- Choose a Scope & Scale: On Earth, you're best being a City Defender sort of team, even if it's not strictly a city-centric team. Tolkeen is very good for a Magical Girl/Martial Boy team, using magical armors and powers with a common theme. The Coalition would do a super-elite team in the fashion of Suicide Squad or Doom Patrol, using some varieties of Juicer and Crazy that are otherwise ridiculously powerful but burns them out really fast- faster than what is the norm for Juicers. Smaller cities would work better for smaller groups, or even motivated solo players, but should also range somewhat afield to make up for the small city space.
Out in the Three Galaxies, go cosmic. Characters should have technology or magic equal to that of starships, if not star fleets. They should be concerned about large-scale threats; planet-specific parties should be irrelevant nuisances if they are not on planets of strategic importance, and those that are not irrelevant should make the power but lack the scope of operation for some reason or another in order to prevent "Why are they not major players themselves?"
- Cull Your Corpus: You, the GM, needs to sit down beforehand and sift through everything that is available and cut away everything that does not fit the specific superhero experience that you want. This means both what players can access as well as what the NPCs--friendly, neutral, and hostile alike--can access. By definition, a superhero is an individual whose capacities exceed the norm for his environment; if the standard soldiers or gendarmes are augmented in some fashion then being similarly augmented generally doesn't cut it- the superhero possesses an advantage of quality over the far superior quantity of the NPCs. This means that power differential is both relative and necessary to quality as "super"; Batman is super over most of what he deals with, but ordinary versus what Superman can and does contend with (which is why Batman has to rely on Writer Bias to prevail), so don't think that you can blindly employ what's in the books.
- : Get the players on the same page. You're playing a campaign that doesn't necessarily jive with RIFTS as-presented. Ensure that your players see things your way and agree with that before you start chucking dice. If this means house rules, do it. Square that away now, before any issues arise.
Saturday, September 6, 2014
Common Campaigns in RIFTS: The Military Campaign
If the mercenary campaign is the default, then the military campaign is one step removed.
The difference is that a military campaign concerns itself with the formal armed forces of a specific state, and as such character autonomy is constrained. The players do not have control over where they go or what their objectives are when they get there, which makes this a fine option for those players who are not the active sort who prefer to set their own goals or pursue their own ambitions; a military structure is excellent for the passive player who shows up with an attitude of "entertain me". The range of character options are likewise constrained, as the players' characters are all members of the same unit and therefore are going to be variations on a niche instead of a broad range of options cooperating as part of an umbrella organization.
In practice, a military campaign will have these features:
The difference is that a military campaign concerns itself with the formal armed forces of a specific state, and as such character autonomy is constrained. The players do not have control over where they go or what their objectives are when they get there, which makes this a fine option for those players who are not the active sort who prefer to set their own goals or pursue their own ambitions; a military structure is excellent for the passive player who shows up with an attitude of "entertain me". The range of character options are likewise constrained, as the players' characters are all members of the same unit and therefore are going to be variations on a niche instead of a broad range of options cooperating as part of an umbrella organization.
In practice, a military campaign will have these features:
- You are soldiers in an army akin to that of a real-world, First World army: By default that means playing a Coalition, Free Quebec, or New German Republic soldier. Your man is indoctrinated into that state's dogma, trained in their doctrine, forced to specialize into a narrow set of applicable skills, and organized into an equally specialized unit with a specific function to fulfill as part of a larger military operation that your man likely cannot perceive as the flag officers in command can. Your man is part of a hierarchy, with one character in command over the rest of the players' characters, and the range of playable activities is as narrow as your man's area of competency.
- You are playing in a procedural campaign: The sort of unit your man is part of dictates the sort of gameplay activities that you have. Contrary to one infamous example, fighter pilots don't do ground-pounding line infantry actions. Tankers don't do hotshot mechajock action. Line infantry aren't involved in fleet battles unless and until (a) they are marines and (b) boarding actions are a thing- neither of which are common at all. By choosing what sort of military unit you want to play, you also choose what kind of game structure you want to explore. Choose carefully.
- Your campaign is married to the political and economic conflicts of the state: Military forces are used to further a state's political and economic interests. That means that your unit can be, and if applicable will be, deployed to advance or defend those interests. Campaigns that fail this fundamental reality of what militaries are for are also campaigns that fall apart because the bullshit cannot be ignored.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
My Personal Take on the Coalition States
For me, the think I enjoy most about Rifts is the Coalition States. They are one of the best iconic villains in tabletop gaming, and they make the base setting of North America far more compelling than it would be otherwise. Yet I find that my specific interpretation of the States is often at odds with others I see, either in print or online, so I'm interested in sharing perspectives and the reasons for these opinions.
I see the States as being a dystopia. This human-supremacist state is, very much, a totalitarian state that generates a cult of personality rooted in the worship of the Emperor (ala 40K). It is openly, loudly and avowedly xenophobic as well as manaphobic; fear and hatred of the alien and of the supernatural is as commonplace as breathing, and common language has a lot of tropes and jargon built upon slurs against the designated targets. It is also quietly, yet openly, sexist; the States portrays itself as being in a perpetual total war, by necessity a war of annihilation, and thus (like its Nazi roots) places a great deal of value on female fertility and domesticity. It is also quietly, covertly racist; "White Anglo-Saxon" is the definition of "pure Humanity", so you will observe a bleaching of color as you look higher up the hierarchy until you reach a perfect blond-hair, blue-eyed perfect specimen as the commonplace example. (This also doubles as useful social control.)
I see no reason for not avoiding the hypocrisy of the inspirations. I prefer to use the Straussian concept of an Inner and Outer Elite, with the Inner Elite as hidden from both the Outer Elite and the common people alike, save for the designated points of interface (e.g. the Emperor and a few other officials) so that the true rulers can operate efficiently in the shadows away from prying eyes- literal and metaphorical alike. Certain "elite units" are put into one or the other, with the vast majority being "Outer Elite" and used as covers for Inner Elites, but most of the core Intelligence community is firmly in the Inner Elite's hands. (e.g. the Vanguard is Inner Elite)
I also see no reason for not displaying the most fantastic ideas when it comes to social control mechanisms; this is one of the few settings where it isn't fucking retarded most of the time. For example, I think that the States uses the Army to manage its population. So, I think that "citizenship" comes only after either spending 25 years on active duty (for men) or getting married and producing a large number of children (by said husband) and then raising them to draft/marriage age. Service grants citizenship, for those that endure that long and don't get cheated along the way, in the form of being able to hold land and establish a household. I think that there's an imperial DNA database that tracks genetics, that much of the free healthcare provided (by the Army Medical Corps) is really just a cover for DNA engineering that alters the vast peasantry into forms that the elite prefers, and industry is automated to a degree we would find fantastic.
The Army gets used in other ways. The Emperor's elite guard? A unit of Full Conversion Cyborgs, all of then identical, 10K strong called "The Immortals" (in knowing homage to the Persian unit of old). The Army's penal units are all Juicers, as are certain "elite units" composed of undesirables, the specific type of which are code-named along Greek lines. (The three most common are "Spartan", "Theban" and "Gorgon".) Those that survive long enough for Final Call to hit are instead transferred to the Immortals and converted into cyborgs, with mental stability ensured through active telepathic intervention.
Coalition Society, therefore, is thoroughly militarized. There are no private firms providing arms; there are design bureaus. There are no individuals, just members of households (with paterfamilias re-instituted), and most men die young fighting in one of the Coalition's many wars while most women end up married to officers and retiring NCOs as part of their husband's retirement bonuses. (And no, monogamy is not the norm.) Farming is highly automated but most farms are small, as they are grants of land given to the toughest of Coalition men: retiring NCOs around 40-45 years of age (and 25-30 years of combat experience). (This too is deliberate policy, based on Rome.) Mining is done by automated assets, as is logging, protected by military assets (this is "light duty"). The States, therefore, are on a permanent wartime footing.
Education is entirely by voice and example, using iconography and advanced animation techniques. Fathers teach and train their sons; mothers do so for their daughters. Most people never see a book or other printed media; it's all electronic and iconic, like a Star Wars movie made for illiterates. Most are also illnumerate, with mathematics limited to basic four-function teaching- only the Elites (Inner and Outer alike) get any education in any of the sciences (including math), as Coalition operations possess a lot of tools and tricks meant to get to "good enough" without properly educating people.
This brings me to the Inner Elite. These are all telepathic, which is how they maintain their dominance; they can, and do, communicate constantly in utter silence and without display. The Vanguard is entirely made up of this faction and certain other Intelligence operations work entirely through this faction. I am of the opinion that they control the States' vital institutions as well as its institutions, often invisibly in the form of being trusted advisers, teachers or others commonly in the penumbra of a leadership position: "gray eminence" is their usual mode of operation.
Finally, I prefer the Coalition to be More Dakka and Less Pew-Pew. It allows control through logistics, which in a control-obsessed society like this is very important to maintain.
I see the States as being a dystopia. This human-supremacist state is, very much, a totalitarian state that generates a cult of personality rooted in the worship of the Emperor (ala 40K). It is openly, loudly and avowedly xenophobic as well as manaphobic; fear and hatred of the alien and of the supernatural is as commonplace as breathing, and common language has a lot of tropes and jargon built upon slurs against the designated targets. It is also quietly, yet openly, sexist; the States portrays itself as being in a perpetual total war, by necessity a war of annihilation, and thus (like its Nazi roots) places a great deal of value on female fertility and domesticity. It is also quietly, covertly racist; "White Anglo-Saxon" is the definition of "pure Humanity", so you will observe a bleaching of color as you look higher up the hierarchy until you reach a perfect blond-hair, blue-eyed perfect specimen as the commonplace example. (This also doubles as useful social control.)
I see no reason for not avoiding the hypocrisy of the inspirations. I prefer to use the Straussian concept of an Inner and Outer Elite, with the Inner Elite as hidden from both the Outer Elite and the common people alike, save for the designated points of interface (e.g. the Emperor and a few other officials) so that the true rulers can operate efficiently in the shadows away from prying eyes- literal and metaphorical alike. Certain "elite units" are put into one or the other, with the vast majority being "Outer Elite" and used as covers for Inner Elites, but most of the core Intelligence community is firmly in the Inner Elite's hands. (e.g. the Vanguard is Inner Elite)
I also see no reason for not displaying the most fantastic ideas when it comes to social control mechanisms; this is one of the few settings where it isn't fucking retarded most of the time. For example, I think that the States uses the Army to manage its population. So, I think that "citizenship" comes only after either spending 25 years on active duty (for men) or getting married and producing a large number of children (by said husband) and then raising them to draft/marriage age. Service grants citizenship, for those that endure that long and don't get cheated along the way, in the form of being able to hold land and establish a household. I think that there's an imperial DNA database that tracks genetics, that much of the free healthcare provided (by the Army Medical Corps) is really just a cover for DNA engineering that alters the vast peasantry into forms that the elite prefers, and industry is automated to a degree we would find fantastic.
The Army gets used in other ways. The Emperor's elite guard? A unit of Full Conversion Cyborgs, all of then identical, 10K strong called "The Immortals" (in knowing homage to the Persian unit of old). The Army's penal units are all Juicers, as are certain "elite units" composed of undesirables, the specific type of which are code-named along Greek lines. (The three most common are "Spartan", "Theban" and "Gorgon".) Those that survive long enough for Final Call to hit are instead transferred to the Immortals and converted into cyborgs, with mental stability ensured through active telepathic intervention.
Coalition Society, therefore, is thoroughly militarized. There are no private firms providing arms; there are design bureaus. There are no individuals, just members of households (with paterfamilias re-instituted), and most men die young fighting in one of the Coalition's many wars while most women end up married to officers and retiring NCOs as part of their husband's retirement bonuses. (And no, monogamy is not the norm.) Farming is highly automated but most farms are small, as they are grants of land given to the toughest of Coalition men: retiring NCOs around 40-45 years of age (and 25-30 years of combat experience). (This too is deliberate policy, based on Rome.) Mining is done by automated assets, as is logging, protected by military assets (this is "light duty"). The States, therefore, are on a permanent wartime footing.
Education is entirely by voice and example, using iconography and advanced animation techniques. Fathers teach and train their sons; mothers do so for their daughters. Most people never see a book or other printed media; it's all electronic and iconic, like a Star Wars movie made for illiterates. Most are also illnumerate, with mathematics limited to basic four-function teaching- only the Elites (Inner and Outer alike) get any education in any of the sciences (including math), as Coalition operations possess a lot of tools and tricks meant to get to "good enough" without properly educating people.
This brings me to the Inner Elite. These are all telepathic, which is how they maintain their dominance; they can, and do, communicate constantly in utter silence and without display. The Vanguard is entirely made up of this faction and certain other Intelligence operations work entirely through this faction. I am of the opinion that they control the States' vital institutions as well as its institutions, often invisibly in the form of being trusted advisers, teachers or others commonly in the penumbra of a leadership position: "gray eminence" is their usual mode of operation.
Finally, I prefer the Coalition to be More Dakka and Less Pew-Pew. It allows control through logistics, which in a control-obsessed society like this is very important to maintain.
Friday, May 21, 2010
The Author Displays His Intentions
Palladium Books first published its flagship tabletop role-playing game, Rifts in 1990. Of the many tabletop role-playing games published in the history of the hobby, few of them (that are not Dungeons & Dragons) can boast being not only around but active and vigorously alive for as long as Rifts can. Regardless of what one thinks of the game, the company or the owner (Kevin Siembieda), this is a success story that cannot be denied.
It is my opinion that one of the strongest factors in favor of the game's success is the setting. A significant faction of the game's fans--including myself--do not like, and do not want to use, the Palladium ruleset for reasons that vary widely. However, that setting remains compelling enough to maintain interest, and interest in tabletop RPGs inevitably leads to sales, and that is good enough.
It is also my opinion that another of the strongest factors in favor of the game's success is that it remains open, as a matter of editorial policy, to people making of it what they want. To a certain extent, published support does facilitate this desire; unofficial support goes far beyond that official support, leading to conflicts driven in part due to third parties complaining about Intellectual Property violations and in part due to paranoia about such concerns between the publisher and the fans. I mention this because I intend, here and now, to make clear what this 'blog is about.
This 'blog is about the opinions of one man--me--regarding the setting of Rifts and how I think it would be improved if interpreted and presented different from what is the case at this time. The reason for why I opted to flag this 'blog as Adult Content is that I will talk about things such as gender-based oppression, slavery, drug abuse, social control mechanisms, etc. in no unclear or uncertain terms. Thus, it is adult in the same way that writing about Female Genital Mutilation is adult, or that writing about using rape as a weapon of terror is adult, or how political dogma can produce personality cults that justify Crimes Against Humanity is adult, and not as a euphemism for pornography or other prurient content.
This is not a light-hearted 'blog. It is not a casual thought 'blog. This is about thinking through the premise of the game's setting, and then figuring out how to make that useful in terms of playing at the table. You won't find mechanical expression of anything, in any ruleset, here; if you're reading this, chances are that you already have your own preferences on that matter, so you need no such advice from me. This is about the other half of the hobby, the role-playing half, the part that provides that context necessary for all of the dice-rolling and resource management to actually be any fun (and not an exercise in mental masturbation).
I'm going to start with the focal element of the core North American setting of the game: the Coalition States. This is a dystopia that I think Kevin Siembieda doesn't use to its fullest effect, in part because I don't see evidence that he understands either its explicit inspiration--Nazi Germany--or the traditions that this infamous historical example built upon. In short, I intend to display a Coalition States that is far more in keeping with its premise and not just an excuse for ridiculous artwork; the Coalition I present will actually creep people out and provide that vital visceral reaction that any proper horrific villain ought to provoke from readers and players. Free Quebec will follow quickly due to its close relationship, but Triax and the New German Republic will be a while due to its location in Europe.
I hope that you appreciate and enjoy what's to come, and that it inspires you to take up the game--regardless of what ruleset you use--and play it how you like it.
It is my opinion that one of the strongest factors in favor of the game's success is the setting. A significant faction of the game's fans--including myself--do not like, and do not want to use, the Palladium ruleset for reasons that vary widely. However, that setting remains compelling enough to maintain interest, and interest in tabletop RPGs inevitably leads to sales, and that is good enough.
It is also my opinion that another of the strongest factors in favor of the game's success is that it remains open, as a matter of editorial policy, to people making of it what they want. To a certain extent, published support does facilitate this desire; unofficial support goes far beyond that official support, leading to conflicts driven in part due to third parties complaining about Intellectual Property violations and in part due to paranoia about such concerns between the publisher and the fans. I mention this because I intend, here and now, to make clear what this 'blog is about.
This 'blog is about the opinions of one man--me--regarding the setting of Rifts and how I think it would be improved if interpreted and presented different from what is the case at this time. The reason for why I opted to flag this 'blog as Adult Content is that I will talk about things such as gender-based oppression, slavery, drug abuse, social control mechanisms, etc. in no unclear or uncertain terms. Thus, it is adult in the same way that writing about Female Genital Mutilation is adult, or that writing about using rape as a weapon of terror is adult, or how political dogma can produce personality cults that justify Crimes Against Humanity is adult, and not as a euphemism for pornography or other prurient content.
This is not a light-hearted 'blog. It is not a casual thought 'blog. This is about thinking through the premise of the game's setting, and then figuring out how to make that useful in terms of playing at the table. You won't find mechanical expression of anything, in any ruleset, here; if you're reading this, chances are that you already have your own preferences on that matter, so you need no such advice from me. This is about the other half of the hobby, the role-playing half, the part that provides that context necessary for all of the dice-rolling and resource management to actually be any fun (and not an exercise in mental masturbation).
I'm going to start with the focal element of the core North American setting of the game: the Coalition States. This is a dystopia that I think Kevin Siembieda doesn't use to its fullest effect, in part because I don't see evidence that he understands either its explicit inspiration--Nazi Germany--or the traditions that this infamous historical example built upon. In short, I intend to display a Coalition States that is far more in keeping with its premise and not just an excuse for ridiculous artwork; the Coalition I present will actually creep people out and provide that vital visceral reaction that any proper horrific villain ought to provoke from readers and players. Free Quebec will follow quickly due to its close relationship, but Triax and the New German Republic will be a while due to its location in Europe.
I hope that you appreciate and enjoy what's to come, and that it inspires you to take up the game--regardless of what ruleset you use--and play it how you like it.
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