The Madness Spiral

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 8:55 pm

Palladium is the competition to D&D. D&D never did well in the sci-fi market. Rifts is the dumb competition to GURPS or some crazy Champions setting or something.

-Crissa

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 11:29 pm

Yes, I should have said Palladium. But all of Palladium can play inside of Rifts, which is why I was getting muddled up.

And I'd say Palladium *was* the competition. That torch has been passed several times since those days.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 11:34 pm

the thing is that that is one of the things that makes Rifts fun, and gave it so much potential as a setting. It's a post apocalyptic world with high tech and magic side by side and anything from anywhere can show up. I had a friend play the farmer from Harvest Moon, for fucks sake. That's the potential and the one really fun thing about the world. But the shitty system makes it so it cannot be anything more than just a beer and pretzels game.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Tue Jun 15, 2010 12:02 am

Prak_Anima wrote:the thing is that that is one of the things that makes Rifts fun, and gave it so much potential as a setting. It's a post apocalyptic world with high tech and magic side by side and anything from anywhere can show up. I had a friend play the farmer from Harvest Moon, for fucks sake. That's the potential and the one really fun thing about the world. But the shitty system makes it so it cannot be anything more than just a beer and pretzels game.

Yeah, though I mean, the system is so unbalanced that you really can't play anything from anywhere.

Well... you can, you'll just suck so hard and since it's like effectively a single class system, it doesn't seem possible to go from a farmer to a mecha pilot.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Tue Jun 15, 2010 12:14 am

People actually played Rifts? I thought it was some kind of weird DM punishment. Like, 'dammit, Bob, if you don't stop trying to get your CE Barbarian a katana we're going to play RIFTS! Then you're going to get it!' and all of the players would have a good laugh and spill the bowl of corn chips.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Jun 15, 2010 7:11 am

Nah, it seriously can be fun. I bet Frank can tell you some great stories about it, though all I remember is his mention of the TMNT game where they were mutant wolverines? from the moon, with magic and a spaceship and lasers. From the moon.

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Wed Jun 16, 2010 12:00 am

TMNT was wacky fun. I know lots of people who enjoyed playing that setting.

We used to play a lot of Robotech, but never much Rifts. We'd agree on power level (no MDC characters) and then some asshat wold go make a Juicer just to destroy the game balance and the game would end before it began.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Jun 16, 2010 12:42 am

TheFlatline wrote:We'd agree on power level (no MDC characters)

Well there's your problem. People like Rifts because it's high-power everywhere. Also, a laser pen will one-shot you if you're not MDC, and armour doesn't cut it: you don't seem to get much actual stuff aside from your crazy expensive starting gear, and armour gets chewed up pretty quickly. You want natural MDC, for the regen-factor.

Say "MDC only" and see how it goes. Try a Dragon, Mega Juicer and Tattoo'd Man, for instance.

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Wed Jun 16, 2010 12:55 am

We would. And then someone would inevitably decide to play a farmer and bitch and complain.

Granted, all of this was done back in high school where the players went out of their way to be disruptive to the game.

It's not a specific Rifts issue. It's an issue whenever you want to run a certain power level or certain focus of the game. In Shadowrun I ran a game where one player was a simsense DJ/star, and it was a completely non-combat game that worked fantastic. Three players tried to join, and after explaining how the game was completely, 100% non-combat, pure roleplaying, all three made combat monkeys and then complained that there was nothing to do.

Some players just want to play what they want to play, to hell with the rest of the group.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Jun 16, 2010 10:37 am

Round 2: Fight!

OK, that is a pretty low blow. Now granted, Trion just deflected an obviously spurious lawsuit from Palladium and Palladium vowed to fight forever to the bitter end. So perhaps Trion going after the bitter end is reasonable. Still. Ouch.

-Username17

Wyzzard · Post by **Wyzzard** » Wed Jun 16, 2010 11:29 am

I take it Kevin Siembieda hasn't watched The People vs. Larry Flynt?

"Countersue!"

Ganbare Gincun · Post by **Ganbare Gincun** » Thu Jun 17, 2010 12:23 am

I won't shed a single tear if Palladium Games gets sued out of existence. Whenever you throw frivolous lawsuits around, you're bound to eventually get burned. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Thu Jun 17, 2010 12:52 am

Ganbare Gincun wrote:I won't shed a single tear if Palladium Games gets sued out of existence. Whenever you throw frivolous lawsuits around, you're bound to eventually get burned. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Yeah, frankly I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Thu Jun 17, 2010 1:53 am

Ganbare Gincun wrote:I won't shed a single tear if Palladium Games gets sued out of existence. Whenever you throw frivolous lawsuits around, you're bound to eventually get burned. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Amen to this. Hope the RIAA is next on the chopping block.

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Thu Jun 17, 2010 2:40 pm

Jason Richards wrote:Palladium announced at the outset of these legal troubles they they are in talks with developers of MMO games to finally bring Rifts to video gamers, everywhere. (...)
Palladium also recently announced that they are pursuing Rifts applications for Facebook and the iPhone and other mobile devices.

I bet no plans were made outside of "what if" and Siembieda is trying to pull a Langdell here.