Author: Monkey (---.telus.net)
Date: 01-02-2006 16:53
I've been a Palladium player for years, almost to the exclusivity mentioned in the above article. I've played my fair share of RIFTS over the past fifteen years, and I think I've figured out a few of the things that make it really "work."
The fact that you can play in a world that is Earth But Different has something to do with it; it's a world we're all familiar with (some of us more than others, admittedly), and common references abound. The catestrophic events that led to the creation of the RIFTS changed quite a bit, but the familiar references stay the same; look at any map of the continental U.S. in a RIFTS book, and it's as likely to have state borders on it as it is the borders of the Coalition. In fact, it usually has both.
Genre Mash is incredibly pervasive. When I can play a fantasy/sci-fi/cyberpunk game with elements of noir/intrigue/war/mystery/exploration/whatever, I don't really need to play another game. All of my gaming needs can be taken care of in that one, all of my expectations of what a game should be are met.
Power Creep... I've never really appreciated this aspect of the game, but I have to admit that it is the one that most players seem to latch onto. The reason you buy more books for RIFTS is to get the newestbiggestbaddestfasteststrongest armor/weapons/races/classes. The world information is occasionally useful. The new types of magic are sometimes interesting. It's the power creep that makes the book. I haven't seen any of the new sourcebooks yet (my group has picked up D&D's Eberron as our campaign setting of choice recently), so I can't say if this has changed at all. I'm going to assume it hasn't.
Huge, cheap books are also a great boon to the game. Most Palladium sourcebooks come in the 200+ pages variety, for about $30 CDN. Compared to the $50 CDN I'm paying for 150-page books, and the financial decision is an easy one to make. The art isn't half bad (I love nearly anything by Ramon Perez), the writing is servicable (editing remains a problem), and the layout works (white pages, black text, two-colums to a page). They're hardly the prettiest books in existence, but for the money, they're certainly not the worst.
That's my take on it, anyway.
As for RIFTS players playing nothing but RIFTS, I've played a lot of games (everything from D&D to Little Fears to Buffy to Nobilis), and enjoyed the vast majority of them. I'm not a huge fan of RIFTS, but I'm not a detractor either. Most of the gamers in my area have also played RIFTS, and most of them have played a lot of other games as well. Perhaps we're an anomaly, but I can't say for sure.
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