Threads that make us Laugh, Cry, or Both, Continued

[erik]

1189821967[/unixtime]]


At least the creator of Rift wasn't a pretentious ass.

Is Rift something different from Rifts? Because Simbieda was (and most likely still is) certainly a pretentious ass.

In my opinion of course.

[JonSetanta]

Rift = Rifts, just a typo.

oh and btw I was introduced to Shadowrun by my friends; at first I didn't like it but it sorta grows on you...

[Voss]

My favorite Siembieda moments is when he openly mocks players for not understanding the rules in the 'questions' portion of the Rifts Conversion book.

And of course, when he gets on his wife case for being a bad role-player (in one of the sourcebooks) and strips her Priestess of her powers for getting snippy and annoyed during a session.

It isn't that he isn't a perfectionist... he honestly doesn't make the effort, and gets condescending when people don't understand his 'masterworks' And yeah, he is a pretentious ass.

[Leress]

oh, what source book was this? I though Rifts was bad because it was a broken system and it was having a power creep every time a new book came out. It also being in financial trouble...well you learn something new everyday. I didn't know he mocked the people in his books.

[JonSetanta]

It also took so fucking long to level that in the same amount of play time, racking up by-the-book XP per appropriate encounter, a player could hit L20 in the time it took to get L5.

That's also assuming no arbitrary RP bonuses, random favor handouts, or the DM declaring "OK fuck this, Rfits XP chart is broken so let's just say you all level up."

In short, it was the worst of AD&D combined with some guns and power armor.
And while I thought MDC was cool at the time (12 years ago), I see now that it's damned retarded.
About as much as 'adamantine', only in a scifi setting where some have it and some don't without any clear definition as to WHY!

[JonSetanta]

Speaking of Simbieda or whatever his name is I found this on ENWorld just now in a search for old D&D 1e and 2e art...





I never knew KS was an artist for TSR!

[Voss]

1189829528[/unixtime]]oh, what source book was this? I though Rifts was bad because it was a broken system and it was having a power creep every time a new book came out. It also being in financial trouble...well you learn something new everyday. I didn't know he mocked the people in his books.

The first was in the Rifts Conversion book (for all the other Random Palladium Crap)

The second... not sure if it was in the Palladium RPG or the RIFTs god book (whatever it was called- Oh. Pantheons of the Megaverse). He grabbed up a bunch of real world pantheons and violated them in all sorts of inappropriate ways. It was an example of what not to do when playing a priest, which came across as 'Look at my wife. Isn't she a dumb bitch?'

Rifts never had 'power creep' as such. Everything was fvcked from the word go. If you weren't playing a class on the MDC scale (and getting free extra attacks from Power Armor), you almost always sucked. The height of magic power was gluing people to the floor. Direct damage sucked (and I mean really sucked. A glitterboy pilot could destroy entire buildings and hundreds of people in a single round and a wizard could singe someone lightly), and mind control didn't work if the target was in power armor.

[Leress]

Oh yeah...the glitterboy, that was ridiculous on how powerful it was. I remember playing a Scarecrow Glitterboy pilot. That wasn't pretty so we decided to just play the Robotech Pallidium books (no it wasn't any better there)

[Koumei]

Saving throws were indeed pretty shocking. Skills were a complete pain in the ass, too. Also, the annoyance of attributes* combined with the fact that they rarely even make a difference. Especially things like "If you don't have Supernatural Strength, it doesn't matter what the number is at all, because your bonus damage is only normal damage, not mega-damage, and every man and his dog is a mega-damage creature, immune to normal damage."

Some of the ideas, too... in the "Splynn Dimensional Market" book, there's a picture of a python smoking from a hookah. It has been decided that the python is Kevin's editor.

"Hey, Kev, what should the new monster be?"
*snorts some coke* "Talk... to the python."
"Hiss....." *takes a puff* "A giant rhino with a spiny scrotum, give it at least 1,500 MDC!"

But at least he's enthusiastic about his own game, and not a pretentious fuckwit.

*originally, 15 or less meant nothing, and 16 meant nothing except it gave you a bonus die to add and 17+ meant something. Now, less than seven has two degrees of penalties involved depending on how bad it is, but gives bonuses to other attributes. 7-15 means nothing, 16 is a small bonus but gives you a bonus die to add, and 17-30 are where the bonuses are at.

[Voss]

I always found the skill system to be insultingly horrible. There are so many skills that you don't even have a reasonable chance of success at until you are level 10+.
A first level character trained as a radio operator, has a significant chance of failing to use it...

'Course I didn't realize how stupid a lot of the system was until I got into a campaign around the time the Atlantis book came out. And realized that my Tatooed Man, being an MDC creature, couldn't cut his own goddamn fingernails without special equipment.

[RandomCasualty]

1189896960[/unixtime]]

'Course I didn't realize how stupid a lot of the system was until I got into a campaign around the time the Atlantis book came out. And realized that my Tatooed Man, being an MDC creature, couldn't cut his own goddamn fingernails without special equipment.

The funny thing is that your MDC fingernail clipper would utterly eradicate a normal human.

[Voss]

Yeah. But then, in theory, a missed MD shot could theoretically break the Earth's crust.

[Koumei]

I'm pretty sure the planet is MDC, seeing as it's high-magic.

I also thought MDC was cool, once upon a time. But I wouldn't trust a GM as far as I could throw them so I most certainly wouldn't play a non-MDC creature (specifically, someone who dealt MD on their own, with no chance of running out of ammo (besides, Supernatural PS gets crazy good in the higher range) and who could take and regenerate MD on their own).

These days, I think it's a dumb mechanic.

Didn't know about the "Isn't my wife dumb!" or mocking players bits.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Since we're kind of on the subject, what do you guys think about Palladium Fantasy? I've got a couple books for Palladium fantasy, and I'm curious about trying it.

[josephbt]

dont go there. i played a couple of sessions. most of the time the mechanics are clunky, but sometimes its just weird.

[Crissa]

Palladium plays better than AD&D.

But worse than 3.0.

Really, it didn't get weird or hard to play with until you added in MDC and the 'supernatural, super, extra, extended' abilities. The skills make no sense in a modern method, they're designed to be part of the adventure of character creation, not a tool in the game.

It also has an advantage of being available in one book, unlike Rifts. There were literally ten years from the release of Rifts to the publishing in a book of the rules to use some of the supernatural (greater scales of) abilities they'd been handing out since the initial book.

-Crissa

[Koumei]

It's kinda' like AD&D, really. I mean, the basic system is that of Rifts. The setting is simply another generic fantasy game, more or less.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

Comments on previous threads/comments:

Rift - "You must be at least this smart to play"

2nd ed. art - That man has no feet!
(just some vague scribbles where they should be, because they can't be shadows)

[Koumei]

Rifts really does just smell like 2Ed houserules. So many elements being basically the same, most of them bad, really. Which is the norm for a lot of games, particularly those that claim to be revolutionary. It tends to mean "Different from AD&D, which is all we could find back then".

[Fwib]

1189959387[/unixtime]]2nd ed. art - That man has no feet!
(just some vague scribbles where they should be, because they can't be shadows)

I'm fairly sure that he is intended to be hovering off the ground levitation-style, wearing long foot-covering robes and that the scribbles and oval shaded area do represent shadows and an indication of the distance levitated.

Also, maybe it was drawn that way because the artist was bad at feet? A friend of mine used to be rather bad at drawing feet.

[Koumei]

Looks like levitation to me.

Also, feet are generally considered one of the hardest parts to draw. Hands are just as bad, if not worse, but feet still rank fairly highly.

[erik]

And considering Simbieda is the artist, then the artist is likely covering for inadequate skill. I was often insulted when I saw his crappy artwork mixed in with excellent artwork by the likes of Kevin Long and others (I say "others" since I can't remember anyone else's name since I haven't looked at the books in a long while).

I get insulted when an artist worse than myself gets his stuff in print.

[Rob_Knotts]

1189968840[/unixtime]]I was often insulted when I saw his crappy artwork mixed in with excellent artwork by the likes of Kevin Long and others (I say "others" since I can't remember anyone else's name since I haven't looked at the books in a long while).

Vince Martin was the artist who's stuff always jumped out at me. He's the kind of pen & ink artist who makes me wish game books would stick to B&W interior art. He seems to've fallen off the face of the earth after leaving Palladium, and I'd love to find out what sort of stupidity from Siembieda led to Martin leaving.

[tzor]

1189799824[/unixtime]]I remember a mentin in AD&D that "low ability scores should never be rewarded".

But in AD&D (ignoring Dark Sun where this rule was deliberately broken) there was a general limitation on the range of possible ability scores in the first place, with really bad all in all numbers allowing for a reroll.

And then again, in AD&D, low ability scores had their own bizzare reward. Sometimes you really need to fail a check. I'm reminded of the old Bugs Bunny cartoon where Yosememe Sam rigged the piano to explode on the last note of "Believe me if all those endearing young charms" and bugs would always play the last note either flat or sharp missing the explosive. Sometimes you really had to fail a wisdom check or a intelligence check.

Even then I did notice a kind of power creep in 2E that I would later associate with effective levels. Using better systems of attribute rolling, an average character could handle creatures that were technically a level or two above what they should normaly be dealing with. As a DM I just upped the encounters accordingly.

--

Changing the subjects because the thread tends to do that a lot

--

I got a copy of C&C along with Gygax's module at Gencon. It was in my box with all the games I had shipped and I had literally forgotten all about it. (Until I wanted to play a game of India Rails and could not find the box.) So I took a glance at the artwork in the C&C player's book.

The art is B&W. It is well drawn. It represents real characters of both genders in a very well manner. It is, to put it mildy, what every book should be doing.

[JonSetanta]

Yes high quality BnW art beats purely shitty colored any day.