This week, rather than ploughing through the book in order and foolishly expecting the core notions to be somewhere near the front, I've done what I arguably should have done in the first place and checked out the contents pages, which place such esoterica as 'How to Role-Play' and 'Notable Game and Rifts (R) Terms' on page 274 and onwards.
Okay, okay, I promise that's the last time I'll bang on about the poor layout of this poorly laid-out book. Let's skip the Dragons, the Psi-Stalkers and the Glitter Boys for now, and get on with the bloody rules.
Ahh, this is more like it. Characters in Rifts (R) (I'll stop doing that when Siembieda stops doing it) are framed by eight statistics; Intelligence Quotient, Mental Endurance, Mental Affinity ('charisma' to you and me), Physical Strength, Physical Prowess ('dexterity', apparently), Physical Endurance (stamina, durability, and... hmm... perhaps we might say 'constitution'), Physical Beauty and Speed. And a bunch of stat-derived tables that interrupt the flow of introducing these stats and discuss implications before... no, no, I said I wouldn't do this any more! Let's just keep going.
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| This section also includes a hilarious image of well-adjusted, intelligent- and creative-looking people playing Rifts (R). |
One thing I will say while I'm here is that Siembieda's little insert-essays on how an RPG works, and why you might want to play a character with an IQ that would disgrace bog-mould, and how you can redeem the random generator's cruelty through clever play, are actually pretty good. Once again, I get the feeling that there's an interesting system-neutral book about RPGs and the ideas we explore in them buried under the weight of Rifts (R).
Of course, he also goes into crushing levels of both mechanical and descriptive details about the effects of low and high stats, with three brackets of penalties and whole pages' worth of bonuses defined and outlined for each stat. I... suppose it's nice to see all the bonuses and penalties collected together in one place, but I'd have thought a two-line descriptor and some faith in the GM would have done the job just as well. Rifts (R) is evidently one of those "two million rules a day keeps the incompetent GM away" RPGs...
Anyway, after he's described how being a supernatural creature with a high P.S. is quantifiably different in terms of bonuses offered in various circumstances to being a human with a high P.S., he's courteous enough to give us an explanation for the terms those bonuses are described in. Rifts (R) has clearly had a lot of thought given to damage, as there's a whole section on damage ratings. Apparently, we as humans or other creatures of flesh and bone have S.D.C. (whatever that is) and Hit Points, but we need to understand what M.D.C. or 'mega-damage' is. I wonder if S.D.C. is standard-damage, or something like that? No... buried in the paragraphs describing it is the term 'Structural Damage Capacity'.
S.D.C. seems to be all about the non-life-threatening kind of damage, while Hit Points are used to deal actual wounds. The GM is cautioned to use common sense with these, and it's pointed out that diving on top of a grenade will skip S.D.C. and go right to the Hit Points. Personally, I think it should skip the Hit Points and go right to re-rolling your character, indestructability notwithstanding; I've always thought that Hit Points represent non-life-threatening damage and that running out of them did a perfectly good job of indicating something serious, but whatever, it works for Star Wars d20 (well, actually, I thought it was a pointless layer of book-keeping to prevent us having to reappraise our understanding of concepts there as well, but I realise not everyone wants to sit up late at night discussing how their concept of Hit Points works. For some reason.)
Mega-Damage Capacity, meanwhile, covers taking the kind of of superhuman damage that can utterly annihilate a human like that, hit points or no hit points. A factor of 1:100 is mentioned in comparing S. to M., so this is clearly serious buis... wait, what? There exists personal armour that affords M.D.C.? Okay, I... suppose that makes sense... I mean, I've played second edition 40K, I remember Terminators shrugging off lascannon shots (3+ on 3d6, whippersnapper, and we had to do sums to work out our armour saves in them days, and I was ten when I started playing and did my sums gladly, kids these days rabble rabble), so it's not completely without precedent in my mind. And Mr. Siembieda (R) is clearly up to speed on his GMing, in that he explicitly points out that you can't live inside a suit of armour indefinitely, so don't get cozy.
Our characters also have a random chance of having psychic powers, or we can pick an Occupational Character Class that has them built in - we have to choose a Good, Selfish or Evil alignment and a sub-alignment (Good divides down to Principled and Scrupulous, for instance). There are no neutrals in Mr. Siembieda's (R) world - he's of the opinion that 'a character with an absolute, true neutral position could not make a decision... or take any action of any kind without leaning toward good, evil or self-gratification', and therefore he has eliminated neutrality as 'one of the very few definitive, unbending rules' in Rifts (R). Fair play to him, dude's got a principle and he's sticking by it.
Anyway... dude bangs on defending experience levels for a page or three before eventually deigning to explain that reaching a new level gives your character an extra d6 Hit Points and some other stuff framed by their O.C.C., and also includes quite a nice little list of things you might award experience for and how much you might award for particular ways of doing it. Fighting that's just to show off, or gets the rest of the group in trouble, or derived from being too proud to stand down, awards no exper...
Hang on. So playing a headstrong, proud character who refuses to back out of a fight means I fiddle myself out of XP? This... is not the wild and unfettered realm of infinite choices I was promised, Mr. S. I mean, I could just about take 'there's no neutrality, only selfishness or moral choice', but now you're saying that there are actual roles which I might play in your role-playing game which the game itself dismisses as not valid? I mean, at least you offer points for playing in character when circumstance or powerful temptation beg otherwise, so I suppose I could angle for 100 XP not for the fight itself but for being stupid enough to get into it... but I still feel judged here, Kev. I'll be honest.
There's a percentile chart for disposition, family origin, attitudes toward various political and social groups, but curiously we're allowed to pick our age. I think I'd rather have a random age and be able to choose my character's own political and social perspectives, but whatever, let's see if there's actual gameplay to be had anywhere in here.
Ah. No. First, there's a skill system. Skills from the O.C.C. covering essential training, skills related to the O.C.C. but learned on the job, and secondary skills from your character's additional interests. So far, so Call of Cthulhu. Skills appear to be expressed as percentiles, except for weapon proficiencies, which you either have or you don't. Naturally, each skill has a few paragraphs of additional mechanics detailing how it's to be used, and many of them appear to be inherently possessed to a degree by all characters.
Bear in mind that it's not yet been made clear to me whether I want to roll low or high to use these skills, or anything like that - in fact, I'm still no clearer on how the basic mechanics of Rifts (R) work than I was when I started. There's pages upon pages of rules for insanity, how to randomise different obsessions or fears or other kinds of craziness, but it's not until the beginning of the combat rules that I actually see the ghost of a core mechanic staked out in explicit terms.
Oh, crud. I'm doing it again, aren't I? Probably time for a break. There'll be a short interruption to service while I'm off at Fly Another Day, the charity tournament/auction that my old gaming club in Gloucestershire runs every summer, and then I'll come back and have a stab at combat in Rifts (R) the week after.
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