POLL ! Which Rifts releases would you like to see next?

[Warshield73]

What I'd truly like to see is a CS World Book. One that takes all the different information on the CS and puts it into one book that includes information on their society, i.e.; TV stations, news programs, entertainment programs, religion, laws & legal system, relative education (even the Low Levelers might receive a little education, trade school style, as far as gearing them to be "productive CS citizens"), colleges (c'mon they've got Medical Doctors and Cyber Docs for their citizens as well as military) what kind of farms they have, how they patrol their territory and how the non-city citizens (farmers) call for help when they need it, how the CS transports goods from the outlying sectors into the city.

I think most of us can agree that this should have been if not the first one of the first World Books. The CS is the primary antagonist for the Rifts setting and we know less about them than the tech cities of Australia.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:
I have a very strong active interest in there NEVER being a Rifts: Antarctica book.
That kind of thing is trebling down on one of THE worst aspects of Rifts, which is making a post-apocalyptic world where there are still people EVERYWHERE, especially in places where most PCs are likely to never want or need to go.
Let some wastelands just BE wastelands.

I understand the sentiment here, and I wish they would do other books first but if someone wanted to write it why not. The great thing about TTRPGs are that you can ignore whatever you want.

[Orin J.]

What I'd truly like to see is a CS World Book. One that takes all the different information on the CS and puts it into one book that includes information on their society, i.e.; TV stations, news programs, entertainment programs, religion, laws & legal system, relative education (even the Low Levelers might receive a little education, trade school style, as far as gearing them to be "productive CS citizens"), colleges (c'mon they've got Medical Doctors and Cyber Docs for their citizens as well as military) what kind of farms they have, how they patrol their territory and how the non-city citizens (farmers) call for help when they need it, how the CS transports goods from the outlying sectors into the city.

I think most of us can agree that this should have been if not the first one of the first World Books. The CS is the primary antagonist for the Rifts setting and we know less about them than the tech cities of Australia.

there's material on the CS in nearly every single rifts book (and possibly a few books that aren't for rifts), so i can't agree with that. i'd maybe consider a "coalition war machine revised edition" with a few things removed and the material from other books collected and formatted properly a good idea but we certainly don't need another CS book at this point. we've got a trove of material on the coalition states- it's just sprinkled everywhere.

[Orin J.]

honestly you could answer all his questions well in a page, and to a degree you can answer them with a sentence: The coalition is a fascist technocracy. TV? entertainment? nah. there's gonna be the one channel run by the ministry of propaganda, that's all they need to broadcast to their citizens. they've already mentioned there's no state sanctioned religion, which is after all the highly suspicious worship of alien beings from another world, and work education is pretty much your work educates you on what you need to do your job. they control all knowledge possible, because that's how they keep their citizens in check.

as for how they patrol their territory and how the common serfs contact them, that's been left open to most every group, hasn't it? that's really too a useful tool to the GM to not leave open.

[Killer Cyborg]

Let some wastelands just BE wastelands.

I understand the sentiment here, and I wish they would do other books first but if someone wanted to write it why not. The great thing about TTRPGs are that you can ignore whatever you want.

You CAN... but the more you have to ignore, the more work it takes to do it.
And Rifts is enough work already.
I'd like there to be LESS work, and MORE fun.

I mean, sure, I guess there are some people out there chomping at the bit to know what's happening there, for some reason, but I seriously doubt that Palladium has done any market survey beyond this kind of poll in order to see if there's actually enough customer demand for this particular product to make it worth writing, editing, buying artwork for, and publishing.
I think they mostly rely on the strength of the Rifts brand, assuming that most Rifts players will buy most books with Rifts in the title, but that brand has diminished over time in part due to bad and/or unwanted books being published.

As I've often said, it's been 30 years, and we still don't know what Chi-Town really looks like, and that's the most important city in the primary setting for the game: North America.
We only found out what Tolkeen was like when it was destroyed.
We haven't heard jack about Shaedo since the RMB, I believe.
It took forever to get a book on Madhaven.
It took forever for the Republicans to get any real description, and even then everything about them seemed to be retconned from previous mentions.
We still don't have a book on Lazlo.
We still don't have a book on New Lazlo.
We still don't have a book on Chillicothe.
We still don't have a book on The D-Shifting lands.
We still don't have a PROPER book on Psyscape, one that actually describes anything about the city or the culture.
We still don't have a book on the Gateway Arch.
We still don't have a book on Iron Heart.
We still don't have a book on most parts of Europe.
We still have ONE book on the entire gigantic continent of Africa, and it's not very informative.
We still don't have a sequel to Australia. (I understand why they don't want to use the same author's sequels, but surely they could find another author if they wanted)

There are some pretty important places that haven't been sufficiently addressed, but somebody out there wants to write a book on the Antarctic...?
I don't get it, and I don't know why Palladium would think it's a good business decision unless they've been getting a LOT more people asking about that part of the planet than I'd expect.

Also, you know what's easier for people to ignore than a World Book?
A Dimension Book.
Whatever kind of stuff they want to put in Antarctica, they could just as easily put into "Dimension Book X: Iceworld Definitely-NOT-Hoth" or whatever.
The game is called Rifts, and it's about a world with interdimensional portals... and yet that's one of the most neglected aspects of the game.

Grumble, grumble.
Bah, humbug.
Cyborg out.

[Killer Cyborg]

We literally know more about the culture of made up, large breasted, alien, androids, built by a machine intelligence that likes to fool people into thinking he's a giant brain..... than the -culture- and inner workings of the CS.

i mean- they're authoritarian fascists. we already know how this goes, they HAVE no real culture besides terminal "big brother syndrome".

All societies have culture.
We have next to no information on stuff like:
Common foods
Common religions
Slang
Forms of Entertainment
Music
Forms of art
Common types of media
Street drugs
Societal Issues of Note
Powerful businesses
Celebrities
or darned near anything else about living in the CS, or especially about life inside one of the big cities.

Even the Nazis had culture beyond goose-stepping. Their authoritarianist fascism didn't stop people from going to movies, dining out, listening to music, or anything else.
Now, it tainted all of those things, but that taint was itself part of their culture.
Just not the whole part.
They're not Daleks; they do more than just spin in circles screaming EXTERMINATE at each other.

[The Beast]

As pointed out, HoH was cut in twain FOUR YEARS ago to be split into two books but was "Finished" At the time. I want Arsenal. As HoH is only half a book with out it. New OCCs and what not with out the gear that's supposed to go with them or the entire book (Half book?) of gear for the CS to actually pitch in and do any of the stuff from HoH.

Welcome to the world of everyone who's been waiting for LotD3 and/or the two 2nd edition BTS books.

[Warshield73]

Eh after almost 30 years? Probably not.

For most people this will not be a 30 year old property, it will be a new space adventure game with giant psionic cyborgs that destroy whole star systems.

Will it sell as well as the more popular Rifts titles, probably not especially if there are no follow on books. Will it sell better than Nightbane, BTS, PFRPG almost certainly. What do I base this on, just a feeling backed by the fact that the old Mechanoids Trilogy is about to go for it's at least third printing at that is not barely a playable game.

[Warshield73]

Selling better than BTS is a pretty low bar considering BTS is incomplete.

That would be why I didn't list it alone, but I included it because they are planning to release a book for it.