Rifter 60: content and critique

[Hendrik]

Hi there,

Rifter 60 is out. As per usual, I am really looking forward to get my hands on it.

1. Rifts® Black Market™ – Trust and Intimidate: A Way of Life for operatives, thugs and dealers in the Black Market.
2. Rifts® Sorcerer’s Forge™ – A hidden community of Techno-Wizards with more than one secret to conceal. Many new and unique TW weapons, power armor and gear, as well as details about the place and some of the interesting inhabitants.
3. Splicers® – House Pandorum is one of the Splicer clans making moves. Get details about the house itself and a host of new Splicers weapons, armor, mutants and monsters.
4. Heroes Unlimited™ – Superhero adventure that starts in space and brings a cadre of erstwhile alien heroes and their spaceship to Earth.
5. Modern Horror, Short Story – A tale of intrigue and mystery.
6. Gaming with Children – Step by step suggestions on how to introduce role-playing games to children.

I have not got my Rifter yet as the mailman has to cross the Atlantic for that. I am dying to know what you think of the contents. I will be honest, of course, my interest also comes from really wanting to know what you think about my article "Gaming with Children". However, I am sure that the other contributors will be just as happy to get feedback and constructive critique.

Kind regards
Hendrik

[Icefalcon]

For myself, there was only two article of interest for me in this issue. Of course, I skimmed through all of the articles as soon as I got it. Then I wen back and read all of the news before settling in to read the articles that interested me. Of course, the one I wanted to read first was "Gaming with Children". Even though it was geared mostly towards Palladium games (an observation, I am not judging), the principles can be applied to teaching children any system. I really liked the idea of introducing the kids into the game world via portal (like Narnia, which was mentioned in the article or even the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon, which was not mentioned in the article) and then to become the characters the kids had envisioned earlier.

The second article I spent a lot of time with was "Rifts: Sorcerer's Forge". Seeing as how I love some Techno-Wizard items, this article was appreciated. The only complaint I could have was that it was one or two pages too short. I would have liked more info on the area and people but that is a minor issue.

As for the rest of the issue, I was not interested in the HU article because I do not play HU. Of course I saw that most of that article could be converted but I also do not us published adventures. I felt that the Splicers material was too much for the Rifter and maybe should have been split into two issues. I am not a fan of Splicers and I feel that they are pushing that line a little too hard in the Rifter. I could have done without the Black Market article all together. We do not need those extra rules to bog down a session with.

All in all, I would give this entire issue a 6 out of ten (only because of the two articles that I liked otherwise it would have been 3 of 10).

[Sir Dellis]

As usual, it lacks PFRPG content...saves me money

[drewkitty ~..~]

[reordered to the way they appear in the book]
1. Gaming with Children – Step by step suggestions on how to introduce role-playing games to children. (All the bullet points are good. Bullet point 3.1 Is the one that most of the PB writers have lost sense of in there current writings. They make assumptions in the newer books that the people reading the text have legacy knowledge of the 1st ed and 1ed revised books. So they do not repeat some necessary text (needed for understanding of the concepts presented) in the newer books.

2. Splicers® – House Pandorum is one of the Splicer clans making moves. Get details about the house itself and a host of new Splicers weapons, armor, mutants and monsters. (yada yada yada, will let someone interested in splicers deal with the review)

3. Trust and Intimidate: a cross PB game system support text. ¿black market?....only cause Org. Crime greatly involved with (dis-)trust and intimidation. Don't know why they had to hype it up as something just for rifts.

4. Rifts® Sorcerer’s Forge™ – A hidden community of Techno-Wizards with more than one secret to conceal. Many new and unique TW weapons, power armor and gear, as well as details about the place and some of the interesting inhabitants. (This is the best example anywhere in the books about what Techno Wizardry is. Integrating magic into tech devices, instead of making Magic devices out of tech housings.)

5.Heroes Unlimited™ – Superhero adventure that starts in space and brings a cadre of erstwhile alien heroes and their spaceship to Earth. (just skimmed, reserve judgement)

6..Modern Horror, Short Story – A tale of intrigue and mystery. (It's short, only 2.5 pages, haven't read yet.)

[Hendrik]

Icefalcon, I am glad that you enjoyed my article!

Drewkitty, thank you for your comments. Thank you also for reordering, I guess, I just used the order as used in the shop's description on the magazine.

Cheers
Hendrik

[Icefalcon]

No problem Hendrik. Your article presented some very good ideas I had not considered for introducing my own children into the gaming that they see around here all the time. My daughter (aged 7) is already looking through my gaming books and wanting to play. She has even gone as far as "making characters" (she uses her composition book to right down descriptions and personalities of her characters alongside her weapons and "powers").

[Hendrik]

Awesome, Icefalcon. Should you use some of my ideas, I would love to hear of your experience. Hmm, in fact: I would love to hear that in any case

[bradshaw]

Awesome, Icefalcon. Should you use some of my ideas, I would love to hear of your experience. Hmm, in fact: I would love to hear that in any case

Hendrik I really enjoyed the piece you did for this Rifter. Very nice. -N

[Hendrik]

Nick,

thank you, buddy. I am very happy that you liked it. Sorry that it took me so long to answer, I was occupied by another thread.

Kindest regards
Hendrik

[Akashic Soldier]

3. Trust and Intimidate: a cross PB game system support text. ¿black market?....only cause Org. Crime greatly involved with (dis-)trust and intimidation. Don't know why they had to hype it up as something just for rifts.

I wrote this article. It references the Black Market because I originally wrote it as a supplement for that book. I made sure it is compatible with all systems as an after thought -- because I am most familiar with Rifts. Palladium didn't do anything. I did. They didn't think "we will hype up Rifts," the article appears exactly as I wrote it.

That said, it was my hope that players and Game Masters could now build characters like James Bond or James T. Kurk, for whom a great deal of the character's arsenal comes from their personality. You know, instead of always having to rely on powerful spells or Boomguns to solve their problems.

Likewise, I wanted clear and decisive rules for people with M.A. lower than 16 inspiring Trust or Intimidation and how characters with significantly higher Mental Affinity can build cults, brain wash, or instill absolute loyalty in their followers (for good or bad).

I have gotten a huge positive review from the article, so that is a big boost to my confidence but everyone seems to agree that it was over-showed by everything else in the book. Sucks to be me. I'm kidding, I'm happy it saw print and hopefully they will print the second part Charm and Impress: The Key to Success in issue #61. Then people will be able to legitimately play celebrities and entertainers (Robotech anyone?).

[Hendrik]

Hi there,

Drewkitty, thank you for adding further comment and for what you said with respect to my article. It is much appreciated.

Panomas, thank you for your kind words. I intend to write more, but you know how it is with the best laid plans of mice and men and my other obligations have foiled my every plan to continue to write. My current thing is writing down my Open House BtS adventure before Christmas. BtS deserves lots of love; I have that for it and I will struggle hard to convey it via paper.

Now, nobody can give the Dark Elf a run for his money. If I can I would love to run with him . Dark Elf is an excellent writer (his article on canibalistic magic was grossly stupenduous), I hope to be half as good.

Akashic Soldier, I apologize as sincerly as profusely. Due to all the other stuff that has taken up 150% of my attention, I did not have a chance to read my copy of the Rifter yet. Well, I did - and I am sure you will empathise with this - take a glimpse and check if my article is really there in Palladium print and geeked out "briefly" with a happy dance, but I have not yet actually read anything. As soon as I have gotten around to spoiling myself with reading the Rifter I will give you my two cents on your article; I can tell you that I am really looking forward to it. It is harsh to have such good stuff lying on your desk but not even daring to dive into it.

Kindest regards
Hendrik

[Akashic Soldier]

Akashic Soldier, I apologize as sincerly as profusely. Due to all the other stuff that has taken up 150% of my attention, I did not have a chance to read my copy of the Rifter yet. Well, I did - and I am sure you will empathise with this - take a glimpse and check if my article is really there in Palladium print and geeked out "briefly" with a happy dance, but I have not yet actually read anything. As soon as I have gotten around to spoiling myself with reading the Rifter I will give you my two cents on your article; I can tell you that I am really looking forward to it. It is harsh to have such good stuff lying on your desk but not even daring to dive into it.

You don't need to apologize Henrik, its there to help your game run smoother. If you have not needed it, there is no reason you would had to have looked at it.

[The Dark Elf]

Although I am a subscriber I have yet to get my copy. Looking forward to the articles.

[drewkitty ~..~]

3. Trust and Intimidate: a cross PB game system support text. ¿black market?....only cause Org. Crime greatly involved with (dis-)trust and intimidation. Don't know why they had to hype it up as something just for rifts.

I wrote this article. It references the Black Market because I originally wrote it as a supplement for that book. I made sure it is compatible with all systems as an after thought -- because I am most familiar with Rifts. Palladium didn't do anything. I did. They didn't think "we will hype up Rifts," the article appears exactly as I wrote it.

That said, it was my hope that players and Game Masters could now build characters like James Bond or James T. Kurk, for whom a great deal of the character's arsenal comes from their personality. You know, instead of always having to rely on powerful spells or Boomguns to solve their problems.

Likewise, I wanted clear and decisive rules for people with M.A. lower than 16 inspiring Trust or Intimidation and how characters with significantly higher Mental Affinity can build cults, brain wash, or instill absolute loyalty in their followers (for good or bad).

I have gotten a huge positive review from the article, so that is a big boost to my confidence but everyone seems to agree that it was over-showed by everything else in the book. Sucks to be me. I'm kidding, I'm happy it saw print and hopefully they will print the second part Charm and Impress: The Key to Success in issue #61. Then people will be able to legitimately play celebrities and entertainers (Robotech anyone?).

Do not get the wrong idea. I thought the article was long in coming and badly needed due to the way Kevin has ignored talking about how the MA stat. works.

It was the Hype/Advertising that I had a Beef with. The only thing comparable I can think of was the hype/advertising around SW ep 1. And this was worse even as short as it was.

With ep 1 they hyped it up that this would be "Good Exciting Movie", and all we got was *in a extremely board drawl*"just another star wars movie".

Where with the article they said "this is something that is directly linked to the black market book".
And it turned out to be "oooh nice, this is a megavercial article that helps a lot with char interactions. With a side note that it can help with the org. crime world of the RBM book."

I give none of the blame about the misrepresentation of the article in the hype to you AS.

note: For those that didn't get it underlined was the hype and bold is what was the realality of what was given.

[Damian Magecraft]

I found Hendriks article highly informative and (on a side note) useful even with gamers who are NOT children.
All too often we forget the ROLE-play aspect of the game and his article gives us methods for introducing it back into our games (speaking as a GM).

Akashik I am sorry I have yet to read your article as time constraints have slowed my ability sit and give it the attention I think it should receive.

[Akashic Soldier]

I give none of the blame about the misrepresentation of the article in the hype to you AS.

In all fairness you probably should because that is how *I* pitched it. The article was not written for making friends using your M.A. (though it can be used that way), it was made to control, manipulate, and con others using Mental Affinity and was heavily inspired by the Confidence Artist, Information Broker, and Enforcer O.C.C.s. This was because the Black Market book has a lot on social interaction and generally functions by trying not to blow all your problems away with a Bandito Big Bore first. Again, yes it can be used for any system and in a wide variety of ways but as far as I know the aforementioned O.C.C.s are the only ones with Trust and Intimidate-based skills that are not directly tied to their mental affinity. Again, I made sure it can be used in a wide range of campaign worlds and in a wide variety of ways but you will notice that most of the examples include criminal applications and the rules for getting people to violate their belief system or surrender information they normally would not.

I'm sorry you felt deceived or that it was hyped but that fault lands entirely with me.

Akashik I am sorry I have yet to read your article as time constraints have slowed my ability sit and give it the attention I think it should receive.

Whenever is good for you Damian. Your opinion is actually one of the few I am most interested in since I know that you (like myself) are one of the few very active Game Masters/Players of the Palladium System. Hopefully my article will be an asset to you. That said, take your time and enjoy the book. I'm the first one to admit that my tiny article is mostly game mechanics with flare and so not the most interesting article in that book.

[Hendrik]

Hi there, y'all!

Finally, I could shave off some time to do something really pleasant and so I have started to read the Rifter in earnest.

Heroes Unlimited CSV New Hope
I love this article. The author gives a great "how to get into your superhero role" introductory adventure and background. The background is deep and excellent. So good in fact that it would serve similarly well as the backdrop of a space opera. If there is anything to critizise at all, it would be that the author wraps up the adventure sequence to quickly. The part when the alien (now new born) superheroes actually arrive on earth would have deserved a more spacious treatment.

Trust and Intimidate
Akashic's article is a worthy well-written read. I think the article is extremely valuable as it illustrates the "mechanics" of human to human relationships in the context of the trust and intimidate rolls. The author gives a rule extension model that I find ingenious (simple, practical, good translation of a hard to catch concept (human relations) into rules, fitting in smoothly with the basic concept), even if I will likely not use the rule itself. For me personally, the great value of the article for me rather lies in the description and categorization of human behaviour (action-reaction; trust; intimidate). Kudos to Liam: it is very hard to write about such a complex topic in such a smooth way. I am looking very much forward to the follow-up article on "Charm and Impress".

I found Hendriks article highly informative and (on a side note) useful even with gamers who are NOT children.
All too often we forget the ROLE-play aspect of the game and his article gives us methods for introducing it back into our games (speaking as a GM).

Damian, thank you very much. I am very pleased and honoured that you see it that way.

My kids taught me a lot. I think I have improved as a gamemaster due to the experience playing with them. I still play by the book but I am more relaxed with adapting to situations than before. It helps that I am really comfortable with the Palladium rules and think they are conductive to improvisation.

I wanted to focus on enabling them to game and see what the beauty really is, that is how I saw the game when I first played and how I was drawn in: endless possibilities, unshackled ... and not bogged down in the minutiae of tiny rule x or y .... You know, let them slowly get a feel for the game, their characters and then go rather than have to ask "how" too much. It is not about teaching a board game after all. Monopoly you should (at least start out to play) under the rules. RPGs are so much more open. A cool experience was when they started to "shape reality" with questions like, "there is a horse in that stable right". That is when you start playing ball and have to be careful how much of that you want to reign in and how much you let them do. Some things felt like Princes of Amber, which was also great. All that is before the actual details of combat. And, facing it, combat is really about rolling a D20 high and being creative about how you strike more than anything else. Not much more to tell at stage 1.

I agree, we "pros" tend to forget that and rules haggle/focus more and it may be a good idea to step out of that sometimes.

I am really happy that you can draw from the article!

Kindest regards
Hendrik

[drewkitty ~..~]

AS, whether or not, I could not see any connection in the article that connected it "directly" to RBM.
I stand by the spirit of what I said. It was wrongly advertised.

[Damian Magecraft]

Akashik I am sorry I have yet to read your article as time constraints have slowed my ability sit and give it the attention I think it should receive.

Whenever is good for you Damian. Your opinion is actually one of the few I am most interested in since I know that you (like myself) are one of the few very active Game Masters/Players of the Palladium System. Hopefully my article will be an asset to you. That said, take your time and enjoy the book. I'm the first one to admit that my tiny article is mostly game mechanics with flare and so not the most interesting article in that book.

just finished the article...
Good basic concepts.
I am unsure how I feel about the roll under but high mechanic... (but that I suspect comes from a general dislike of mechanics of that type and not your writing style).
One thing I did feel was lacking was a method of increasing the level of trust an NPC would feel towards a PC who lacks a high MA. I expected to see something to this effect in the earning trust section.
I felt the Intimidate section was well executed.
It had that same under but high mechanic that I am on the bubble over...
And the idea that chars with out High MAs cannot increase the level of intimidation is another short coming.
I also expected a few more levels of intimidation like you did with trust but that is just an aesthetics issue.
Over all I found the article informative, and good base for expanding Trust/Intimidate, and worth at least two if not three re-reads.

[Akashic Soldier]

I am unsure how I feel about the roll under but high mechanic...

I wanted to reward players for having higher attributes to reflect characters with stronger personalities are able to exert a greater influence over others... but I needed to do so without it being automatic so that Game Masters would not need to put up with someone putting a 30 on their M.A. and then just turning everyone who meets them or sees one of their speeches on video turn into a gibbering fanatic.

One thing I did feel was lacking was a method of increasing the level of trust an NPC would feel towards a PC who lacks a high MA. I expected to see something to this effect in the earning trust section.

I am sorry. I had assumed that it had worked much the same way and thought that was clear. It is addressed in the follow up article for Charm and Impress. This increase is achieved mechanically in the same manner but still requires the initial roll to be high -- however, I had assumed that most GMs would know to employ circumstantial bonuses and penalties to the roll as the situation dictated. To rectify this oversight I address this and provide a short list of bonuses and penalties.

I felt the Intimidate section was well executed.

Thank you!

And the idea that chars with out High MAs cannot increase the level of intimidation is another short coming.

In addition to the Intimidate skill that the Black Market Enforcer has, as mentioned above, situational bonuses can increase this. However, the basic concept was that if you have an unremarkable M.A. than you might be able to spook them but you're not going to keep them sitting up in bed late at night staring at the roof and jumping at shadows.

I also expected a few more levels of intimidation like you did with trust but that is just an aesthetics issue.

Thanks! I was trying to keep it as simple as possible for ease of use.

Over all I found the article informative, and good base for expanding Trust/Intimidate, and worth at least two if not three re-reads.

Well, that settles it. There was only one thing that I thought might be a little unbalanced in the article (though still based off the behavior real life cults of personalities) and no one has noted it or complained about it. So I am quite happy.

[gaby]

The Majorty of the New Hope Adventure is Great,but I think it would have been better if they give the size of the ships and a Picture of the New Hope it self,He could have give-up the space of the Russin,s vechiles for it.
I Hope Thoman Morrison will send more on the People,s Empire to Rifter,they can make good villains.
I love for H.U to have more Aliens,Ships,Techs and Planets.