From: cwagner@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Christian Wagner)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp
Subject: Rifts (was Re: Ars Magica, the best game yet?)
Date: 23 Jul 92 03:31:00 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX

In article <1992Jul22.085229.11688@usceast.cs.scarolina.edu> gil@smtc21.engr.scarolina.edu (Gil Young) writes:
>cwagner@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Christian Wagner) writes:
>>Oh Gods, not Rifts.......
>>My reaction to the Rifts "world" combined with that Palladium psuedo-system
>>would have to be placed on alt.tasteless.......
>>Is it just me, or does Rifts seem an awful lot like someone's attempt to 
>>get several popular genres into one game, in order to increase sales? To whit;
>Flame?  Me?  No.  Don't take this as a flame, just an attempt at a
>discussion.  How 'bout it, Robert?

Robert? I was -responding- to Robert. My name is Christian. 

>First off, Rifts is a complete world.  More than complete, one would
>say.  Tasteless?

I never said that RIfts was tasteless. In fact it's rather tame compared to 
some of the stuff I've played before. I said -my response- would have to be
posted to alt.tasteless, because it deals with the expulsion of bodily fluids
out my primary food intake orifice.

>I feel that it has a texture and feel all its own, and
>many of my friends share this opinion.  But your opinion is your
>opinion, and I'm not going to bother trying to change it.  As for
>several different genres, Rifts is a genre all its own... Complete
>Extradimensional Intermingling.

Unfortunatly, these dimensions have different rules that don't merge very 
well.......

>Sure, Torg has a lot of different
>dimensions, but it doesn't even approach the Rifts world.  Rifts is
>unique that way.

Torg? Who brought up Torg? Completely different concepts here. 
And it has nothing to do with -quantity-. 

>>1) Battletech style giant robots
>Oh, pshaw, Robert.

Christian. :>

>Thinking Battletech was the first to come up with
>giant robots.

No, but they pretty much defined, for the American market, the "walking tank"
style of mecha. I much prefer Anime-style mecha, but Battletech has a certain
charm (not unlike a grisly car accident) (thanks to Matt Howarth for the 
metaphor.)

>Rifts robot vehicles aren't even as big as Battletech
>robots.

But they have the same big, clunky, walking-tank style and feel. Again, size
and/or quantity ain't important. 

>>2) Magic and fantasy critters from any fantasy game on the market
>Double pshaw, Robert.  Fantasy games, for the most part, draw on
>fantasy literature and acual legends for their critters, and there
>are a *lot* of creatures in Rifts that have *never* been seen any-
>where else.

Yeah, and there are lot of things that are common as dirt. Walking insects? 
Dragons? Demons with strange powers? Giant animals? I saw nothing in Rifts
that was original, save possibly for the beastie on the cover.

>>3) Cyberwear and other "dark SF" type stuff
>Don't forget bionics all the way up to full conversion and techno-
>wizardry, something either unique or rarely seen on the gaming 
>scene.  Rifts does have a lot of unique material, Robert.

You aren't playing the same games I've played. Full-conversion cyborgs are 
bloody common in fiction and in any game system without a "CyberPsychosis" or
"essense" rule, and techno-wizardry, i.e. gadgeteering, is a staple of 
cinematic superhero games. Nothing original there.....

>>It's like someone tried to splice AD&D, Gamma World, and ShadowRun, and got
>>something that had none of the good parts of any of them...... 
>That, IMHO, is an unfair conclusion.  Rifts is nothing like any of the
>above systems.  Sure, it has things in common, but it probably has 
>something in common with every game on the market.  That's the point.

Like I said, it's completely unoriginal. It's a splice job, with nothing new.
It has -so- much in common with other games, that when I read the books, I
could literally point out which other games each bit came from.

>>Ecccch..... A completely and utterly worthless product. I'd rather play AD&D
>>or (gag) Shadowrun than play Rifts......
>If that's your opinion, so be it, but I still think it's unfair.
>It looks to me like you found a copy of it (maybe in the store?) and
>leafed through and looked at the pictures to get an idea of wha it
>was like, and came to this conclusion without so much as reading 10
>pages of text.

No, I own the main book and the first supplement. A friend was involved with
a campaign, and it looked vaguely interesting (the art was neat), so I picked
up a copy. I read them both, started the campaign, quit, put the books away,
and haven't touched the game since.

>Maybe the authors just thought, "Hey, what if we make a game world 
>where the players can be *anything* they want to be!" and went to
>work on a complete world where this took place.

Well, they did a bloody awful job, IMHO.

  And who cares
>about their marketing strategy? 

I don't. I didn't bring it up. I just complained that there wasn't anything 
in the game that I haven't seen before; their marketing strategy is far 
better than, say, TSR's......

 I'm not in RPG's to read their
>quarterly reports.  I play games because I think they're fun and
>interesting.  If you're buying material because you want to putt
>money into the coffers of game companies for what you think are
>the right reasons, I think you're missing the point.

What point? I happen to think the game sucks. I don't play it, and I decided
to let my opinions be heard. I have nothing against the authors (besides the
fact they made a cruddy game), or the game company (even though the -do- have
the license for Robotech, a godawful piece of crap). 

>But to each his own.  If you're having fun, great.
>><flame all you want, I'll make more>
>Since I didn't use foul language, make cheap shots at you or anything
>you endorse, or just rant about your opinions mindlessly, I don't
>think this is a flame...

No, it's not. Thanks for being restrained. :> 
-- 
It is better to be     |      Christian Wagner      | I may make you feel,    
quotable than honest.  | UT - Austin, CS Dept. (UG) | but I can't make you
  - Tom Stoppard       | cwagner@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu | think. - JT, "Taab"