the streets of MercTown

[mercedogre]

Im assuming normal sized vehicles (jeeps, motorcycles, hovercars etc) can travel through the streets but larger military types vehicles (tanks, APCs, robots) would be to big or just not allowed, does that sound about right?

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

Pretty sure the book straight up says - not allowed. Most cities in Rifts dont let you carry MDC weapons, wear body armor, etc.

Which makes no sense to me given the nature of the setting; I can understand them being like "sidearms only" or maybe even "melee sidearms only", but you honestly expect me to walk around your dangerous frontier town with no armor on when the guy standing next to me (who looks perfectly human) might be able to smash me into pulp with one punch?

Not a chance.

[mercedogre]

At each of the city's gates there is a weapons storage vault manned by MercTown Defenders. When visitors arrive they are required to tum over
long-barreled weapons, heavy energy weapons , cannons, rail guns, explosives, power armor, robots and armored vehicles.

found this exerpt, doesn't mention anything about pistols or body armor, so ill take it as those are allowed.

[guardiandashi]

At each of the city's gates there is a weapons storage vault manned by MercTown Defenders. When visitors arrive they are required to tum over
long-barreled weapons, heavy energy weapons , cannons, rail guns, explosives, power armor, robots and armored vehicles.

found this exerpt, doesn't mention anything about pistols or body armor, so ill take it as those are allowed.

last paragraph pg8, beginning of page 9
they were surprised to find that...the local police do not confiscate weapons, as they do at most other civilized cities. Visitors are allowed to keep their body armor, energy sidearms and melee weapons. Only heavy military hardware is not permitted within city limits, such as rail guns, missiles launchers, power armor, and combat vehicles, including automatons and giant robots.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

At each of the city's gates there is a weapons storage vault manned by MercTown Defenders. When visitors arrive they are required to tum over
long-barreled weapons, heavy energy weapons , cannons, rail guns, explosives, power armor, robots and armored vehicles.

found this exerpt, doesn't mention anything about pistols or body armor, so ill take it as those are allowed.

For Merctown, that's probably correct. I haevn't read the book in a bit (its one i dont own and had to borrow). They seem to at least understand that no one who is sane would walk around un-armored in a world where guys exist that can instagib you with a fingernail.

Most other towns, though, wont allow you in even with Armor.

[Blue_Lion]

Pretty sure the book straight up says - not allowed. Most cities in Rifts dont let you carry MDC weapons, wear body armor, etc.

Which makes no sense to me given the nature of the setting; I can understand them being like "sidearms only" or maybe even "melee sidearms only", but you honestly expect me to walk around your dangerous frontier town with no armor on when the guy standing next to me (who looks perfectly human) might be able to smash me into pulp with one punch?

Not a chance.

Well it makes sense to me. A MD weapon even a side arm used in a town of SDC building would be devastating. Most towns and cities are more concerned with keeping the locals and buildings safe than a visitor being able to protect himself from a MD threat. Strangers with MD weapons are just to big a threat to public safety.

[glitterboy2098]

i'd say that allowing non-EBA armors would probably be OK in many towns, but yeah, MD weapons would be a no-no. presumably cyborgswith built in weapons would have to do something akin to the Peacebonding used for props at conventions (itself a concept derived from old traditions of sealing weapons into scabbards with ribbon/cord and wax seals.. if you needed it you could easily pull it lose, but the seal would break and show that you pulled your weapon. something like tape over weapons ports would probably suffice for borg weapons)

magic users and Psi's probably would have to sign a ton of paperwork, maybe put up some collateral/funds as a deposit towards good behavior.

[Alrik Vas]

The reason that they ask for your body armor in many towns, villages and even small cities is so you have to play nice. The peacekeepers don't want the possibility of mega-damage combat if they can avoid it.

[Blue_Lion]

i'd say that allowing non-EBA armors would probably be OK in many towns, but yeah, MD weapons would be a no-no. presumably cyborgswith built in weapons would have to do something akin to the Peacebonding used for props at conventions (itself a concept derived from old traditions of sealing weapons into scabbards with ribbon/cord and wax seals.. if you needed it you could easily pull it lose, but the seal would break and show that you pulled your weapon. something like tape over weapons ports would probably suffice for borg weapons)

magic users and Psi's probably would have to sign a ton of paperwork, maybe put up some collateral/funds as a deposit towards good behavior.

or they might not allow comat borgs in town

[Razzinold]

Im assuming normal sized vehicles (jeeps, motorcycles, hovercars etc) can travel through the streets but larger military types vehicles (tanks, APCs, robots) would be to big or just not allowed, does that sound about right?

Sound about right.

As for the weapon/armour points people have raised.

Back in the day our GM would allow M.D. sidearms in some towns and others he would not, same with armour. In towns that did allow M.D.C. armour, your helmet had to be checked in/stored in your vehicle/etc. this way the town security force/police could use neural weapons on you, or head shot you.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

The reason that they ask for your body armor in many towns, villages and even small cities is so you have to play nice. The peacekeepers don't want the possibility of mega-damage combat if they can avoid it.

I understand and even agree with the no MDC weapons in town thing, but any town that expects me to walk around unprotected when there are creatures and people that can turn me into a fine mist with a single punch if i am unarmored (and whom you cant necessarily tell are augmented or supernatural in nature) apparently doesn't want my business. That's suicide.

Surrendering weapons (or locking down borg or robot systems) makes sense. Asking people to basically commit suicide does not.

[Razzinold]

The reason that they ask for your body armor in many towns, villages and even small cities is so you have to play nice. The peacekeepers don't want the possibility of mega-damage combat if they can avoid it.

I understand and even agree with the no MDC weapons in town thing, but any town that expects me to walk around unprotected when there are creatures and people that can turn me into a fine mist with a single punch if i am unarmored (and whom you cant necessarily tell are augmented or supernatural in nature) apparently doesn't want my business. That's suicide.

Surrendering weapons (or locking down borg or robot systems) makes sense. Asking people to basically commit suicide does not.

Which is exactly why for most towns we could wear our armour so long as we removed the helmet. At least this way we had a chance against a Juicer/Crazy/'Borg/Supernatural Threat/etc.

[kaid]

Im assuming normal sized vehicles (jeeps, motorcycles, hovercars etc) can travel through the streets but larger military types vehicles (tanks, APCs, robots) would be to big or just not allowed, does that sound about right?

I believe most towns/cities have the sensible don't bring your giant arsed death wagon into the center of town policy. Most like NG have big parking lot/hangers on the outskirts of town for people to check/park/stow their heavy weaponry/vehicles.

[guardiandashi]

Im assuming normal sized vehicles (jeeps, motorcycles, hovercars etc) can travel through the streets but larger military types vehicles (tanks, APCs, robots) would be to big or just not allowed, does that sound about right?

I believe most towns/cities have the sensible don't bring your giant arsed death wagon into the center of town policy. Most like NG have big parking lot/hangers on the outskirts of town for people to check/park/stow their heavy weaponry/vehicles.

to be fair I suspect that its not necessarily always completely on the outskirts of town, but It usually would be.

think of it a lot like old world (Medieval towns) you had definite quarters or wards IE sections of towns that were dedicated to certain industries or types of stuff. like most of the farms would tend to be in certain areas, all the stinky stuff like tanneries will tend to be down wind from most of the town and similar.

What I would expect to see is segregated areas near the outskirts, but also where a number of the repair facilities (if those services are available) and storage including relatively secure lockups are available as well. so that the powers that be in the town, can better control the people who bring heavy military equipment to town, without taking/accepting excessive responsibility if issues occur.

[Blue_Lion]

The reason that they ask for your body armor in many towns, villages and even small cities is so you have to play nice. The peacekeepers don't want the possibility of mega-damage combat if they can avoid it.

I understand and even agree with the no MDC weapons in town thing, but any town that expects me to walk around unprotected when there are creatures and people that can turn me into a fine mist with a single punch if i am unarmored (and whom you cant necessarily tell are augmented or supernatural in nature) apparently doesn't want my business. That's suicide.

Surrendering weapons (or locking down borg or robot systems) makes sense. Asking people to basically commit suicide does not.

B
That is a really dark outlook. Being without your gear is not anything like committing suicide. Sure means you can't pick a fight (which they want) it also means they do not have some stranger shooting up their town. But then again is part of the reason you came to town to get your gear fixed hard to patch your gear that you have on.

Makes me wonder what you did that some random SN threat is going to attack you and risk fighting the town guard.

Typically you need the town more than they need you, you are a threat to their safety the dragon that lived there for 100 years without problems is part of the town. Any town that takes your gear also has some system in place to provide basic level protection for its people and you while in the town.

What you said amounts to claiming it is suicide to walk around a town without a bullet proof vest because some random guy with a gun can kill you.

[HWalsh]

The reason that they ask for your body armor in many towns, villages and even small cities is so you have to play nice. The peacekeepers don't want the possibility of mega-damage combat if they can avoid it.

I understand and even agree with the no MDC weapons in town thing, but any town that expects me to walk around unprotected when there are creatures and people that can turn me into a fine mist with a single punch if i am unarmored (and whom you cant necessarily tell are augmented or supernatural in nature) apparently doesn't want my business. That's suicide.

Surrendering weapons (or locking down borg or robot systems) makes sense. Asking people to basically commit suicide does not.

They reference a lot where people can't wear MD armor in most towns. A town without MD weapons while people are in MD armor would be bad.

They even reference that in towns it's time to be human again. The best way to avoid getting misted? Don't pretend to be a bad mamma Jamma.

It's the advantage to being a Cyber-Knight, or 'Borg, or Psychic. It's only suicide if you regularly get into fights in town.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

The reason that they ask for your body armor in many towns, villages and even small cities is so you have to play nice. The peacekeepers don't want the possibility of mega-damage combat if they can avoid it.

I understand and even agree with the no MDC weapons in town thing, but any town that expects me to walk around unprotected when there are creatures and people that can turn me into a fine mist with a single punch if i am unarmored (and whom you cant necessarily tell are augmented or supernatural in nature) apparently doesn't want my business. That's suicide.

Surrendering weapons (or locking down borg or robot systems) makes sense. Asking people to basically commit suicide does not.

They reference a lot where people can't wear MD armor in most towns. A town without MD weapons while people are in MD armor would be bad.

They even reference that in towns it's time to be human again. The best way to avoid getting misted? Don't pretend to be a bad mamma Jamma.

It's the advantage to being a Cyber-Knight, or 'Borg, or Psychic. It's only suicide if you regularly get into fights in town.

Right, because Cyber-snatchers, gangs, criminals, and other undesireables are NEVER in town, right? Again, it's a deathwish. I'm not saying you need to walk around town buttoned up in EBA, but "no MDC armor" is just another one of those things in the setting that makes no sense (along with no literacy + high technology, and other idiocies of the setting). There are FAR too many threats even in "civilized" towns (not necessarily major cities like CS fortress cities) and settlements (guys that look like normal humans but arent, mages, psychics, any criminal smart enough to have obtained a contraband weapon) for it to make even the slightest bit of sense to force "normal" people to walk around defenseless.

Like i said, i agree with the "turn in your guns" thing - the town doesn't want people leveling the town with MDC firearms, but "make yourself defenseless"? Yeahno. Its not like being in MDC armor makes you a threat to the law enforcement.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

The reason that they ask for your body armor in many towns, villages and even small cities is so you have to play nice. The peacekeepers don't want the possibility of mega-damage combat if they can avoid it.

I understand and even agree with the no MDC weapons in town thing, but any town that expects me to walk around unprotected when there are creatures and people that can turn me into a fine mist with a single punch if i am unarmored (and whom you cant necessarily tell are augmented or supernatural in nature) apparently doesn't want my business. That's suicide.

Surrendering weapons (or locking down borg or robot systems) makes sense. Asking people to basically commit suicide does not.

That is a really dark outlook.

Have you ah, actually read any of the setting material? It's a dark world.

Being without your gear is not anything like committing suicide. Sure means you can't pick a fight (which they want) it also means they do not have some stranger shooting up their town. But then again is part of the reason you came to town to get your gear fixed hard to patch your gear that you have on.

And if i cant be safe while im doing it, then i'm not going to come to your town. Ill go to a town with more sensible laws.

Makes me wonder what you did that some random SN threat is going to attack you and risk fighting the town guard.

Random? Read the setting books. Half the established towns have supernatural threats in them already. Two of the Baronies have established Vampire populations that prey on travellers.

And if im dead, who is going to call the guard, exactly? I'm dead, so it isn't going to be me. You seem to be assuming theyre just going to come up and off me in broad daylight or something.

Typically you need the town more than they need you, you are a threat to their safety the dragon that lived there for 100 years without problems is part of the town. Any town that takes your gear also has some system in place to provide basic level protection for its people and you while in the town.

What you said amounts to claiming it is suicide to walk around a town without a bullet proof vest because some random guy with a gun can kill you.

I wasn't aware we lived in a post apocalyptic magic, supernatural and psionic filled wasteland where murder, rape, death and destruction are common. So, yeah, it really doesn't.

Again, nowhere have i said that asking people to turn in/lock down th eir guns and other high tech weapons is a bad idea. Towns in the Wild West had the same kinds of laws, for the same reasons. Makes perfect sense. What towns in the wild west did NOT have was people that could tear down buildings with their bare hands and knives that could carve through a building in seconds.

Asking people to go unarmored in a setting where any random jamoke on the street could cut them in half with a knife is stupid.

[kaid]

Im assuming normal sized vehicles (jeeps, motorcycles, hovercars etc) can travel through the streets but larger military types vehicles (tanks, APCs, robots) would be to big or just not allowed, does that sound about right?

I believe most towns/cities have the sensible don't bring your giant arsed death wagon into the center of town policy. Most like NG have big parking lot/hangers on the outskirts of town for people to check/park/stow their heavy weaponry/vehicles.

to be fair I suspect that its not necessarily always completely on the outskirts of town, but It usually would be.

think of it a lot like old world (Medieval towns) you had definite quarters or wards IE sections of towns that were dedicated to certain industries or types of stuff. like most of the farms would tend to be in certain areas, all the stinky stuff like tanneries will tend to be down wind from most of the town and similar.

What I would expect to see is segregated areas near the outskirts, but also where a number of the repair facilities (if those services are available) and storage including relatively secure lockups are available as well. so that the powers that be in the town, can better control the people who bring heavy military equipment to town, without taking/accepting excessive responsibility if issues occur.

Yes I assume repair bays/mecha dealer hangers probably are also on the edge of the town as well and for specific reasons like that you could bring your vehicle to those specific areas but overall no city is going to really want/allow robot vehicles/tanks into their city. If for no other reason those things are going to rip your roads up like crazy.

[Shark_Force]

wearing MDC armour tends to require that law enforcement use MD weapons if you cause problems, and makes you easily able to attack anyone who doesn't have MDC armour with relative impunity. collateral damage becomes a major concern as well, since every missed shot is probably leveling buildings or destroying vehicles, potentially killing one or more people standing nearby, and so forth.

it's sensible from *your* perspective to wear MDC armour in town. from the town's perspective, hell no it isn't sensible to let some random schmuck they've never met or heard of into the town wearing armour that makes them immune to basically any attack that couldn't cause massive property damage or seriously injure or kill people if even the slightest mistake is made. particularly when we're not just talking about letting some random average person in, but some random person who in all likelihood tends to solve problems with violence. if you and your dumb SDC hide get drunk and start a fight in a bar while not wearing armour, a few guys can probably disable you, maybe break a table and smash some glasses, but the chances of people getting killed in the process of dealing with you are pretty slim. not the case with MDC armour involved.

quite frankly, allowing MDC armour only really makes sense for local law enforcement if everyone local (or at least, everyone law enforcement cares about) can afford it, and all the buildings (or just the ones law enforcement cares about) are made of MDC material. that's fine in merctown, but most places won't have average citizens walking around in bushman armour to go to work.

although i do like the "no environmental armour" rule above. that could work, since neural maces (and iirc there's an arrow version somewhere as well) could allow them to much more easily restrain you without causing huge problems. i would say that might make sense in towns where the local law enforcement is less powerful (as in, not powerful enough to really stop much of anything from happening). but seriously, people are going to have some major reservations about letting strangers walk around in armour that can stop anti-tank weapons even in those towns...

[guardiandashi]

The reason that they ask for your body armor in many towns, villages and even small cities is so you have to play nice. The peacekeepers don't want the possibility of mega-damage combat if they can avoid it.

I understand and even agree with the no MDC weapons in town thing, but any town that expects me to walk around unprotected when there are creatures and people that can turn me into a fine mist with a single punch if i am unarmored (and whom you cant necessarily tell are augmented or supernatural in nature) apparently doesn't want my business. That's suicide.

Surrendering weapons (or locking down borg or robot systems) makes sense. Asking people to basically commit suicide does not.

That is a really dark outlook.

Have you ah, actually read any of the setting material? It's a dark world.

Being without your gear is not anything like committing suicide. Sure means you can't pick a fight (which they want) it also means they do not have some stranger shooting up their town. But then again is part of the reason you came to town to get your gear fixed hard to patch your gear that you have on.

And if i cant be safe while im doing it, then i'm not going to come to your town. Ill go to a town with more sensible laws.

Makes me wonder what you did that some random SN threat is going to attack you and risk fighting the town guard.

Random? Read the setting books. Half the established towns have supernatural threats in them already. Two of the Baronies have established Vampire populations that prey on travellers.

And if im dead, who is going to call the guard, exactly? I'm dead, so it isn't going to be me. You seem to be assuming theyre just going to come up and off me in broad daylight or something.

Typically you need the town more than they need you, you are a threat to their safety the dragon that lived there for 100 years without problems is part of the town. Any town that takes your gear also has some system in place to provide basic level protection for its people and you while in the town.

What you said amounts to claiming it is suicide to walk around a town without a bullet proof vest because some random guy with a gun can kill you.

I wasn't aware we lived in a post apocalyptic magic, supernatural and psionic filled wasteland where murder, rape, death and destruction are common. So, yeah, it really doesn't.

Again, nowhere have i said that asking people to turn in/lock down th eir guns and other high tech weapons is a bad idea. Towns in the Wild West had the same kinds of laws, for the same reasons. Makes perfect sense. What towns in the wild west did NOT have was people that could tear down buildings with their bare hands and knives that could carve through a building in seconds.

Asking people to go unarmored in a setting where any random jamoke on the street could cut them in half with a knife is stupid.

which is an argument /selling point for the people making the MDC plainclothes armor ... sure it only has ~5-10 ish MDC but its MDC clothing, so you go to the town checkpoint, and they insist you get rid of your obvious MDC ARMOR sidearms and etc. so you go into the "changing room" and change into your MDC tee shirt, MDC blue jeans, and MDC psudo or real leather jacket, and the guards wave you on into town. sure if you had something like Bushman Plate you went from ~60MDC full environmental armor to ~10 MDC cloth armor but some random pistol shot isn't going to blow huge holes in your body.

[kaid]

Stuff like this is why the NG2 mdc cloth armor and hover bike riding armor stuff makes a lot of sense. Light non environmental body armor. Nobody wants to get in a serious fire fight wearing this stuff but it would protect you from a sneak attack by a MDC hold out pistol or vibro knife long enough to call for help or run away or defend yourself.

[Blue_Lion]

The reason that they ask for your body armor in many towns, villages and even small cities is so you have to play nice. The peacekeepers don't want the possibility of mega-damage combat if they can avoid it.

I understand and even agree with the no MDC weapons in town thing, but any town that expects me to walk around unprotected when there are creatures and people that can turn me into a fine mist with a single punch if i am unarmored (and whom you cant necessarily tell are augmented or supernatural in nature) apparently doesn't want my business. That's suicide.

Surrendering weapons (or locking down borg or robot systems) makes sense. Asking people to basically commit suicide does not.

That is a really dark outlook.

Have you ah, actually read any of the setting material? It's a dark world.

Being without your gear is not anything like committing suicide. Sure means you can't pick a fight (which they want) it also means they do not have some stranger shooting up their town. But then again is part of the reason you came to town to get your gear fixed hard to patch your gear that you have on.

And if i cant be safe while im doing it, then i'm not going to come to your town. Ill go to a town with more sensible laws.

Makes me wonder what you did that some random SN threat is going to attack you and risk fighting the town guard.

Random? Read the setting books. Half the established towns have supernatural threats in them already. Two of the Baronies have established Vampire populations that prey on travellers.

And if im dead, who is going to call the guard, exactly? I'm dead, so it isn't going to be me. You seem to be assuming theyre just going to come up and off me in broad daylight or something.

Typically you need the town more than they need you, you are a threat to their safety the dragon that lived there for 100 years without problems is part of the town. Any town that takes your gear also has some system in place to provide basic level protection for its people and you while in the town.

What you said amounts to claiming it is suicide to walk around a town without a bullet proof vest because some random guy with a gun can kill you.

I wasn't aware we lived in a post apocalyptic magic, supernatural and psionic filled wasteland where murder, rape, death and destruction are common. So, yeah, it really doesn't.

Again, nowhere have i said that asking people to turn in/lock down th eir guns and other high tech weapons is a bad idea. Towns in the Wild West had the same kinds of laws, for the same reasons. Makes perfect sense. What towns in the wild west did NOT have was people that could tear down buildings with their bare hands and knives that could carve through a building in seconds.

Asking people to go unarmored in a setting where any random jamoke on the street could cut them in half with a knife is stupid.

It is clear you look at the world of rifts through a very dark lenses that is not standard. Murder death and rape are not any more common in most towns as the towns as they are in real life other wise towns would seize to exist shortly(lower population levels common death and murder have a greater affect not that there are not places that there are no places that it is not common but most towns it would be uncommon or rare for random person kills you for no reason). Heck the books point out that MDC gear is not common to most people and humanity survive in in towns without with out being in MDC gear. The town defenders/enforces may have said gear and there job is to protect every one without it. If some one attacked you while you did not have your gear with MD attacks then that person is a threat to every one and would be targeted by the defenders. Randomly attacking some one just because you can kill them is stupid and not common in most towns.



Your point of view in this is warped, it is not stupid to ask some one to go around without military grade gear on par with a modern tank inside most towns. It is stupid to just let any one come into your town with said gear. Odds are unless you do something to cause it most towns are no threat to you but You are a threat to every town.

It can be said that rapes and murder are common in our society.
1 in 6 women gets raped in her life time. That seams very common. There is a murder every minute. That seams quit often.

So yes your statements reflect a level of paranoid veiw that says you care stupid not to where a bullet proff best every where you go as you are basically committing suicide.
(it almost sounds like you have listened to CS propaganda.)

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

Stuff like this is why the NG2 mdc cloth armor and hover bike riding armor stuff makes a lot of sense. Light non environmental body armor. Nobody wants to get in a serious fire fight wearing this stuff but it would protect you from a sneak attack by a MDC hold out pistol or vibro knife long enough to call for help or run away or defend yourself.

Right. At no point did i advocate rolling around town buttoned up in EBA.

All of my characters have always had a set of light non-EBA for kicking around dangerous towns in.

[kaid]

Although ironically merctown is actually one of the places listed as accepting people rolling around in EBA. But still when one is in town best not to look like one is dressed for mayhem because you may wind up triggering that reaction.

[Blue_Lion]

Stuff like this is why the NG2 mdc cloth armor and hover bike riding armor stuff makes a lot of sense. Light non environmental body armor. Nobody wants to get in a serious fire fight wearing this stuff but it would protect you from a sneak attack by a MDC hold out pistol or vibro knife long enough to call for help or run away or defend yourself.

Right. At no point did i advocate rolling around town buttoned up in EBA.

All of my characters have always had a set of light non-EBA for kicking around dangerous towns in.

I would think towns that take your gear are not dangerous as the people taking your gear protect the town and you while you are in it. The ones that are dangerous are not likely to take your gear as they lack a protection enforcement force to keep the town safe or take your gear.

It is most towns do not want you walking around in your gear not all.

In most towns(even the dangerous ones) unless you stir up trouble you are relatively safe as the town would not last long otherwise.

[The Beast]

Stuff like this is why the NG2 mdc cloth armor and hover bike riding armor stuff makes a lot of sense. Light non environmental body armor. Nobody wants to get in a serious fire fight wearing this stuff but it would protect you from a sneak attack by a MDC hold out pistol or vibro knife long enough to call for help or run away or defend yourself.

Right. At no point did i advocate rolling around town buttoned up in EBA.

All of my characters have always had a set of light non-EBA for kicking around dangerous towns in.

I would think towns that take your gear are not dangerous as the people taking your gear protect the town and you while you are in it. The ones that are dangerous are not likely to take your gear as they lack a protection enforcement force to keep the town safe or take your gear.

It is most towns do not want you walking around in your gear not all.

In most towns(even the dangerous ones) unless you stir up trouble you are relatively safe as the town would not last long otherwise.

I think the bigger problem with these towns that don't allow MD armor/weapons is a GM that would remove said MD armor/weapons from the players and then throw them into MD combat.

[Blue_Lion]

Stuff like this is why the NG2 mdc cloth armor and hover bike riding armor stuff makes a lot of sense. Light non environmental body armor. Nobody wants to get in a serious fire fight wearing this stuff but it would protect you from a sneak attack by a MDC hold out pistol or vibro knife long enough to call for help or run away or defend yourself.

Right. At no point did i advocate rolling around town buttoned up in EBA.

All of my characters have always had a set of light non-EBA for kicking around dangerous towns in.

I would think towns that take your gear are not dangerous as the people taking your gear protect the town and you while you are in it. The ones that are dangerous are not likely to take your gear as they lack a protection enforcement force to keep the town safe or take your gear.

It is most towns do not want you walking around in your gear not all.

In most towns(even the dangerous ones) unless you stir up trouble you are relatively safe as the town would not last long otherwise.

I think the bigger problem with these towns that don't allow MD armor/weapons is a GM that would remove said MD armor/weapons from the players and then throw them into MD combat.

Yes the problem a GM like that does that Just because should not be running groups. It is one thing if a PC picks a fight another if the GM just throws random MD fights when the PCs do not have their gear.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

Stuff like this is why the NG2 mdc cloth armor and hover bike riding armor stuff makes a lot of sense. Light non environmental body armor. Nobody wants to get in a serious fire fight wearing this stuff but it would protect you from a sneak attack by a MDC hold out pistol or vibro knife long enough to call for help or run away or defend yourself.

Right. At no point did i advocate rolling around town buttoned up in EBA.

All of my characters have always had a set of light non-EBA for kicking around dangerous towns in.

I would think towns that take your gear are not dangerous as the people taking your gear protect the town and you while you are in it. The ones that are dangerous are not likely to take your gear as they lack a protection enforcement force to keep the town safe or take your gear.

It is most towns do not want you walking around in your gear not all.

In most towns(even the dangerous ones) unless you stir up trouble you are relatively safe as the town would not last long otherwise.

I think the bigger problem with these towns that don't allow MD armor/weapons is a GM that would remove said MD armor/weapons from the players and then throw them into MD combat.

Either way, you're ending up with the GM altering canon in some way.

Most of these towns have MD threats on their streets. The Colorado Baronies dont let you into town with MD weapons, for instance. Two of them have fairly established covens of vampires and street gangs and cyber-snatchers.

What it really comes down to is - what is the more absurd piece of canon that should be ignored? My vote is for the one that made no sense of any kind on its face - not allowing people to wear at least medium grade armor in town.

Otherwise, your GM is altering the setting in major ways by removing supernatural and mundane threats that are clearly spelled and statted out in the books.

[HWalsh]

Stuff like this is why the NG2 mdc cloth armor and hover bike riding armor stuff makes a lot of sense. Light non environmental body armor. Nobody wants to get in a serious fire fight wearing this stuff but it would protect you from a sneak attack by a MDC hold out pistol or vibro knife long enough to call for help or run away or defend yourself.

Right. At no point did i advocate rolling around town buttoned up in EBA.

All of my characters have always had a set of light non-EBA for kicking around dangerous towns in.

I would think towns that take your gear are not dangerous as the people taking your gear protect the town and you while you are in it. The ones that are dangerous are not likely to take your gear as they lack a protection enforcement force to keep the town safe or take your gear.

It is most towns do not want you walking around in your gear not all.

In most towns(even the dangerous ones) unless you stir up trouble you are relatively safe as the town would not last long otherwise.

I think the bigger problem with these towns that don't allow MD armor/weapons is a GM that would remove said MD armor/weapons from the players and then throw them into MD combat.

Either way, you're ending up with the GM altering canon in some way.

Most of these towns have MD threats on their streets. The Colorado Baronies dont let you into town with MD weapons, for instance. Two of them have fairly established covens of vampires and street gangs and cyber-snatchers.

What it really comes down to is - what is the more absurd piece of canon that should be ignored? My vote is for the one that made no sense of any kind on its face - not allowing people to wear at least medium grade armor in town.

Otherwise, your GM is altering the setting in major ways by removing supernatural and mundane threats that are clearly spelled and statted out in the books.

Yes, and no.

The Colorado Baronies, for example, also have police officers and it is the job of the police officers to keep that under control. The fact that there ARE Baronies means that canonically, in the setting, that someone is keeping it under control. The fact is the authorities can deal with the threats, what they don't want to deal with is letting every Tom, Dick, and Harry coming in thinking that they are better than everyone else and pulling MD weapons.

I mean, let's face it, these are PCs they are talking about.

PCs are well known for being wholly unreasonable people. I have seen two PCs walk into a shop in a fantasy game, one of them having black skin (being a specific kind of elf as it were, where being that kind of elf is commonly looked down on, if not thrown out) and the shopkeeper saying, "Don't usually see none of your kind around here. Don't much like it, but as long as your gold's good I'm willing to sell to ya." Only to have it end when the PC killed the man where he stood for, "Being disrespectful." Then claiming how it wasn't fair when the city guard arrested him.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

Yes, and no.

The Colorado Baronies, for example, also have police officers and it is the job of the police officers to keep that under control. The fact that there ARE Baronies means that canonically, in the setting, that someone is keeping it under control. The fact is the authorities can deal with the threats, what they don't want to deal with is letting every Tom, Dick, and Harry coming in thinking that they are better than everyone else and pulling MD weapons.

I mean, let's face it, these are PCs they are talking about.

PCs are well known for being wholly unreasonable people. I have seen two PCs walk into a shop in a fantasy game, one of them having black skin (being a specific kind of elf as it were, where being that kind of elf is commonly looked down on, if not thrown out) and the shopkeeper saying, "Don't usually see none of your kind around here. Don't much like it, but as long as your gold's good I'm willing to sell to ya." Only to have it end when the PC killed the man where he stood for, "Being disrespectful." Then claiming how it wasn't fair when the city guard arrested him.

Actually, in one of the Baronies, the Sheriff is on the take from the vampires (and is trying to help them expand into the others) And, again, formthe four hundredth billion time... No one is suggesting you let them go about armed. "No guns" makes complete sense. "Walk around totally defenseless in our not-very-safe border town where people go missing on a weekly basis" does not. At all.

There are plenty of cities, described in the world books, where danger is rampant. The Idea "its a city, so someone is making it safe", is provably false on its face. The Burbs are 'civilized' and have been settled in some cases for decades, and are still murderously dangerous even in the best neighborhoods, with crime, cybersnatchers, muggers, and supernatural menaces/predators being a huge problem.

The very fact that the PCs are adventurers makes them even MORE likely to be the target of crime/predators (no one to miss them, and they are very likely to be a lot more wealthy than the non-adventuring locals).

[Shark_Force]

except that the great majority of the regular people living in those places are not getting killed. yeah, there's bad stuff happening. what's your point? there's gun crimes in most major cities in the united states on a semi-regular basis. how many people do you know that absolutely insist on wearing bulletproof vests everywhere they go? practically speaking, you have no particularly good defense against some guy walking up and shooting you if you aren't wearing one (even if you have a gun, it relies on you noticing that the person is going to shoot you for that to be of any defensive value), and neither do the hundreds of thousands (in some cases millions) of other people living in those cities. far more of them survive just fine without any sort of armour, which suggests that you can probably do the same in most cities on rifts earth. because if the place was literally so dangerous that you couldn't survive without MDC armour, nobody would be living there.

[eliakon]

I think a huge issue here is the level of 'random killing' that a game has.
If your GM is a 'killer GM' who is the type to go around killing players randomly because "hey you were vunerable, I had to take it" then your going to view the world a LOT differently than if your GM is not one.
Put another way, most of North America is claimed by multiple factions and often a battle ground...
...but just because that means that their logically therefore could be a military sniper team in any given tree ready to take a headshot the second you take off your armor, doesn't mean that their should be one. Its not impossible to claim that their couldn't be a CS ranger team anywhere. I mean there are Ranger teams on every continent and, apparently even in other dimensions so one in position to notice your group and shoot little old you isn't impossible. But the game is going to be radically different if the group has reason to believe that the GM will do that every time they take of a helmet.
Same thing here. There are threats in these cities sure. But since they exist obviously the threats are manageable enough that they haven't wiped out the town...
...I would venture to guess that one of the ways that they manage those threats is to make sure that the local law enforcement/military has a monopoly on force. That means that you don't get to carry weapons that can harm their armor, and you don't get to wear armor that can stop their weapons. The result is that when there is a situation the police can respond to it and deal with it, quickly and firmly. If people have MDC armor that turns into "long duration battles in the street with heavy weapons" where even the simplest arrest will result in massive death and destruction. That may be fine in some places (those that don't restrict armor...) but some places are not willing to do so and are willing to take the lower risk that an unknown menace might sneak in and possibly get someone against the sure risk that every incident of resisting arrest will turn into a bloodbath.

[HWalsh]

I think we, as players, sometimes forget how rare a lot of the things we take for granted.

We sit back and think, "Man, there are Godlings and all of the MDC creatures out there and powerful mages and..."

And most of the time normal people in Rifts never see those things. I doubt that your average city goer has ever seen a Godling, or an Great Scaled Wyrm, or a Demon. To the point that if they ever saw one then they would crap themselves. So I think when you walk into a small city and they are like, "Hand over your weapons and we don't allow armor in here." A character who responds with, "Forget that! What happens when a Full Borg pops a vibro blade and cuts me in half?!?" That you get strange looks.

Here is why:

Your argument is, "This could happen, so I am not making myself vulnerable."
Their argument is, "We haven't had a murder by a supernatural being in like 2 years. Are you out of your mind?"
Then you reply, "The book says that..."
Then the GM smacks you across the head with a rulebook and says, "Stop metagaming."

Basically put, unless you have been told about this stuff, you have no reason to suspect it. If the town seems peaceful, and they order the armor and weapons outside, then one can generally assume that the town is more or less safe. The fact that it isn't safe is part of what lets the GM run an adventure that is dramatic. What happens when your character is weaponless and armorless and you find out that there is an MDC being stalking you?

That is drama! That is excitement!

Unless your GM is a total and complete jerk then you have no reason to think that this is obviously an ambush. A smart GM will even have multiple times where people visit towns and NOTHING unusual happens. Where taking off armor and weapons is NORMAL and common before they spring it on you.

[Killer Cyborg]

I think we, as players, sometimes forget how rare a lot of the things we take for granted.

We sit back and think, "Man, there are Godlings and all of the MDC creatures out there and powerful mages and..."

And most of the time normal people in Rifts never see those things. I doubt that your average city goer has ever seen a Godling, or an Great Scaled Wyrm, or a Demon. To the point that if they ever saw one then they would crap themselves. So I think when you walk into a small city and they are like, "Hand over your weapons and we don't allow armor in here." A character who responds with, "Forget that! What happens when a Full Borg pops a vibro blade and cuts me in half?!?" That you get strange looks.

Here is why:

Your argument is, "This could happen, so I am not making myself vulnerable."
Their argument is, "We haven't had a murder by a supernatural being in like 2 years. Are you out of your mind?"
Then you reply, "The book says that..."
Then the GM smacks you across the head with a rulebook and says, "Stop metagaming."

Basically put, unless you have been told about this stuff, you have no reason to suspect it. If the town seems peaceful, and they order the armor and weapons outside, then one can generally assume that the town is more or less safe. The fact that it isn't safe is part of what lets the GM run an adventure that is dramatic. What happens when your character is weaponless and armorless and you find out that there is an MDC being stalking you?

That is drama! That is excitement!

Unless your GM is a total and complete jerk then you have no reason to think that this is obviously an ambush. A smart GM will even have multiple times where people visit towns and NOTHING unusual happens. Where taking off armor and weapons is NORMAL and common before they spring it on you.

Yes.
That's something that's easy to lose sight of; just because something exists doesn't mean that it's the rule.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

I think we, as players, sometimes forget how rare a lot of the things we take for granted.

We sit back and think, "Man, there are Godlings and all of the MDC creatures out there and powerful mages and..."

And most of the time normal people in Rifts never see those things. I doubt that your average city goer has ever seen a Godling, or an Great Scaled Wyrm, or a Demon. To the point that if they ever saw one then they would crap themselves. So I think when you walk into a small city and they are like, "Hand over your weapons and we don't allow armor in here." A character who responds with, "Forget that! What happens when a Full Borg pops a vibro blade and cuts me in half?!?" That you get strange looks.

Here is why:

Your argument is, "This could happen, so I am not making myself vulnerable."
Their argument is, "We haven't had a murder by a supernatural being in like 2 years. Are you out of your mind?"
Then you reply, "The book says that..."
Then the GM smacks you across the head with a rulebook and says, "Stop metagaming."

that people go missing only a weekly (or daily) basis in places like the Baronies, Burbs, Old Bones, Juarez, etc, is commonly known. As in, anyone who travels from place to place knows that. Hell, in the burbs, dozens or more people go missing every day, and dozens or hundreds more are subject to high-tech robery (Cyber-snatching) or criminal activity.

It doesn't take a demon to pulp you. A Wolfen can do it (Augmented Strength for some dumb reason in CBR1r), or a Juicer, or any psychic with access to master psionic powers, or a mage (simple low level spell that gives you Supernatural Str of 35). And the "Average" person in these towns has definitely seen one or all of those things, given that 25% of the human and human-like DBee population is psychic, and in a lot of these places, literally hundreds or thousands of people are magic users of some type.

Basically put, unless you have been told about this stuff, you have no reason to suspect it.

Except for the general part of the setting that NONE of these frontier towns are safe. In the Baronies, nearly HALF THE POPULATION are magic users. Same in Arzno. In Arzno, most civilians have at least a basic set of armor and a light MDC weapon, as well as anti-vampire weapons (seriously, its right there in the book).

If the town seems peaceful, and they order the armor and weapons outside, then one can generally assume that the town is more or less safe. The fact that it isn't safe is part of what lets the GM run an adventure that is dramatic. What happens when your character is weaponless and armorless and you find out that there is an MDC being stalking you?

That is drama! That is excitement!

Unless your GM is a total and complete jerk then you have no reason to think that this is obviously an ambush. A smart GM will even have multiple times where people visit towns and NOTHING unusual happens. Where taking off armor and weapons is NORMAL and common before they spring it on you.

I think you and I have a totally different idea of the Rifts Earth setting and how safe any given town is. You're focusing on the broad strokes of the setting where it erroneously tells you "towns are safe!" - im focusing on the provided details of the canon settlements, which are decidedly NOT,and the fact that they aren't safe isn't exactly hidden - its common knowledge.

This isn't the first, or second, or third, or twentieth thing in the books that outright contradicts other things in the books or makes absolutely not one iota of sense of any kind (Illiterates piloting high tech war machines and reading complicated sensor readouts springs readily to mind, or the CS not having wiped Kingsdale, Arzno, and the Colorado Baronies off the map) and defies even suspension of disbelief.

[HWalsh]

that people go missing only a weekly (or daily) basis in places like the Baronies, Burbs, Old Bones, Juarez, etc, is commonly known. As in, anyone who travels from place to place knows that. Hell, in the burbs, dozens or more people go missing every day, and dozens or hundreds more are subject to high-tech robery (Cyber-snatching) or criminal activity.

You are missing the point I think. In real life, in my town, TOWN, we have about frequent assaults, killings, and robberies. I'm poor, I live in a poor neighborhood. Its super dangerous here people get assaulted and such. Guess what? From when things were going better I actually own a suit of armor. I have a full coat of plates with arms and legs.

I'm a chubby Jewish guy, living in a bad part of town, in the South, I have even been mugged personally.

I don't wear my armor when I walk to the store.
I don't carry a sword. I have one of those too.

I am in, at least, as much danger as you are in when a character visits a settlement.

It doesn't take a demon to pulp you. A Wolfen can do it (Augmented Strength for some dumb reason in CBR1r), or a Juicer, or any psychic with access to master psionic powers, or a mage (simple low level spell that gives you Supernatural Str of 35). And the "Average" person in these towns has definitely seen one or all of those things, given that 25% of the human and human-like DBee population is psychic, and in a lot of these places, literally hundreds or thousands of people are magic users of some type.

Actually, according to RUE pg. 297 only 10% of the human population is psychic (Random roll between 76-85), unless they are one of the OCCs that specifically get it. So the average person still hasn't seen the type of Psionics that you are referring to. Really those come from Cyber-Knights, Mind Melters, and Bursters. Yes there are other classes, but they are very rare.

As for Magic Users, yes, they are much more likely to be capable of what you describe. That is why magic is scary. The argument though, that basically you don't want to walk into a place where you are at a disadvantage, is basically a part of life in Rifts. Hundreds of thousands of people do that each day in those cities and are fine.

On adventurers disappearing:

Sure. They might have disappeared in the town, or they might have disappeared on their way to the town, or they might have been sucked into a random rift and deposited on Phase World. There is no long distance communication in general so it isn't like you know what happened to these people.

Except for the general part of the setting that NONE of these frontier towns are safe. In the Baronies, nearly HALF THE POPULATION are magic users. Same in Arzno. In Arzno, most civilians have at least a basic set of armor and a light MDC weapon, as well as anti-vampire weapons (seriously, its right there in the book).

And most likely in Arzno they don't take your armor or weapons.

I think you and I have a totally different idea of the Rifts Earth setting and how safe any given town is. You're focusing on the broad strokes of the setting where it erroneously tells you "towns are safe!" - im focusing on the provided details of the canon settlements, which are decidedly NOT,and the fact that they aren't safe isn't exactly hidden - its common knowledge.

They are trying to increase the chance of people being safe. One way of doing that is to disarm people that they don't know.

This isn't the first, or second, or third, or twentieth thing in the books that outright contradicts other things in the books or makes absolutely not one iota of sense of any kind (Illiterates piloting high tech war machines and reading complicated sensor readouts springs readily to mind, or the CS not having wiped Kingsdale, Arzno, and the Colorado Baronies off the map) and defies even suspension of disbelief.

Also, remember, that not everyone resorts to MD weapons. If you are, say, kidnapping someone then you aren't likely to do it with MD weapons. They are more likely to do it with the other kind of weapons. You know, things that hurt SDC, that stuff 99% of people are made out of.

[eliakon]

I think we, as players, sometimes forget how rare a lot of the things we take for granted.

We sit back and think, "Man, there are Godlings and all of the MDC creatures out there and powerful mages and..."

And most of the time normal people in Rifts never see those things. I doubt that your average city goer has ever seen a Godling, or an Great Scaled Wyrm, or a Demon. To the point that if they ever saw one then they would crap themselves. So I think when you walk into a small city and they are like, "Hand over your weapons and we don't allow armor in here." A character who responds with, "Forget that! What happens when a Full Borg pops a vibro blade and cuts me in half?!?" That you get strange looks.

Here is why:

Your argument is, "This could happen, so I am not making myself vulnerable."
Their argument is, "We haven't had a murder by a supernatural being in like 2 years. Are you out of your mind?"
Then you reply, "The book says that..."
Then the GM smacks you across the head with a rulebook and says, "Stop metagaming."

that people go missing only a weekly (or daily) basis in places like the Baronies, Burbs, Old Bones, Juarez, etc, is commonly known. As in, anyone who travels from place to place knows that. Hell, in the burbs, dozens or more people go missing every day, and dozens or hundreds more are subject to high-tech robery (Cyber-snatching) or criminal activity.

Ummm
This is one reason why the three places you mentioned that have regular disappearances.. (Burbs, Old Bones, Juarez) are not on the list of "surrender your weapons and armor" settlements.
Using examples of places where it is too dangerous to disarm, so no one does... proves nothing when talking about anyplace else. Its just a red herring. Its like saying that dogs bit a lot of people, so no one should get a cat. Totally unrelated.

I can't find support for the contention that people go missing weekly, let alone daily in the Baronies can you direct me to it?

[The Beast]

I think we, as players, sometimes forget how rare a lot of the things we take for granted.

We sit back and think, "Man, there are Godlings and all of the MDC creatures out there and powerful mages and..."

And most of the time normal people in Rifts never see those things. I doubt that your average city goer has ever seen a Godling, or an Great Scaled Wyrm, or a Demon. To the point that if they ever saw one then they would crap themselves. So I think when you walk into a small city and they are like, "Hand over your weapons and we don't allow armor in here." A character who responds with, "Forget that! What happens when a Full Borg pops a vibro blade and cuts me in half?!?" That you get strange looks.

Here is why:

Your argument is, "This could happen, so I am not making myself vulnerable."
Their argument is, "We haven't had a murder by a supernatural being in like 2 years. Are you out of your mind?"
Then you reply, "The book says that..."
Then the GM smacks you across the head with a rulebook and says, "Stop metagaming."

that people go missing only a weekly (or daily) basis in places like the Baronies, Burbs, Old Bones, Juarez, etc, is commonly known. As in, anyone who travels from place to place knows that. Hell, in the burbs, dozens or more people go missing every day, and dozens or hundreds more are subject to high-tech robery (Cyber-snatching) or criminal activity.

Ummm
This is one reason why the three places you mentioned that have regular disappearances.. (Burbs, Old Bones, Juarez) are not on the list of "surrender your weapons and armor" settlements.
Using examples of places where it is too dangerous to disarm, so no one does... proves nothing when talking about anyplace else. Its just a red herring. Its like saying that dogs bit a lot of people, so no one should get a cat. Totally unrelated.

I can't find support for the contention that people go missing weekly, let alone daily in the Baronies can you direct me to it?

I'm not sure of the page, but I recall reading that the vampires tend to target transients so as not to arouse suspicion about high numbers of missing people.

[HWalsh]

I think we, as players, sometimes forget how rare a lot of the things we take for granted.

We sit back and think, "Man, there are Godlings and all of the MDC creatures out there and powerful mages and..."

And most of the time normal people in Rifts never see those things. I doubt that your average city goer has ever seen a Godling, or an Great Scaled Wyrm, or a Demon. To the point that if they ever saw one then they would crap themselves. So I think when you walk into a small city and they are like, "Hand over your weapons and we don't allow armor in here." A character who responds with, "Forget that! What happens when a Full Borg pops a vibro blade and cuts me in half?!?" That you get strange looks.

Here is why:

Your argument is, "This could happen, so I am not making myself vulnerable."
Their argument is, "We haven't had a murder by a supernatural being in like 2 years. Are you out of your mind?"
Then you reply, "The book says that..."
Then the GM smacks you across the head with a rulebook and says, "Stop metagaming."

that people go missing only a weekly (or daily) basis in places like the Baronies, Burbs, Old Bones, Juarez, etc, is commonly known. As in, anyone who travels from place to place knows that. Hell, in the burbs, dozens or more people go missing every day, and dozens or hundreds more are subject to high-tech robery (Cyber-snatching) or criminal activity.

Ummm
This is one reason why the three places you mentioned that have regular disappearances.. (Burbs, Old Bones, Juarez) are not on the list of "surrender your weapons and armor" settlements.
Using examples of places where it is too dangerous to disarm, so no one does... proves nothing when talking about anyplace else. Its just a red herring. Its like saying that dogs bit a lot of people, so no one should get a cat. Totally unrelated.

I can't find support for the contention that people go missing weekly, let alone daily in the Baronies can you direct me to it?

I'm not sure of the page, but I recall reading that the vampires tend to target transients so as not to arouse suspicion about high numbers of missing people.

Which would also mean then that there is no way for a player character to know about the Vampires snatching people specifically because they do it in such a way as to not tip people off.

[glitterboy2098]

i'm not following this debate very well, because i think that the sides are argueing less about armor and more about.. well everything else.


so sum it up.

what is the downside of letting people retain non-EBA armor in a town. not their weapons, just their armor.

[HWalsh]

i'm not following this debate very well, because i think that the sides are argueing less about armor and more about.. well everything else.


so sum it up.

what is the downside of letting people retain non-EBA armor in a town. not their weapons, just their armor.

Because it limits local law enforcement's ability to subdue and/or, if necessary, kill those who would cause trouble. Not every police force and sheriff has a neural weapon. Many of them have standard SDC weaponry. If you are wearing non-EBA armor, they could theoretically take you down, but it is more difficult and thus inherently more dangerous both to the citizens and to themselves. Sure, they could use MD weapons, but then they aren't taking you in alive. Most normal people don't want to kill people, not even criminals.

A character with 83 SDC and 36 HP is hard enough to take down with a standard SDC revolver. Assuming the average revolver does 3d6 SD, you are looking at 9-11 damage per shot. You are looking at someone who, on average, isn't going down until they take 12-13 rounds. Give them non-EBA MD body armor at AR 16 and that number, on average, skyrockets.

They want the capability to pull a revolver on troublemakers and have the troublemaker feel like they are actually in danger.

[Shark_Force]

i'm not following this debate very well, because i think that the sides are argueing less about armor and more about.. well everything else.


so sum it up.

what is the downside of letting people retain non-EBA armor in a town. not their weapons, just their armor.

Because it limits local law enforcement's ability to subdue and/or, if necessary, kill those who would cause trouble. Not every police force and sheriff has a neural weapon. Many of them have standard SDC weaponry. If you are wearing non-EBA armor, they could theoretically take you down, but it is more difficult and thus inherently more dangerous both to the citizens and to themselves. Sure, they could use MD weapons, but then they aren't taking you in alive. Most normal people don't want to kill people, not even criminals.

A character with 83 SDC and 36 HP is hard enough to take down with a standard SDC revolver. Assuming the average revolver does 3d6 SD, you are looking at 9-11 damage per shot. You are looking at someone who, on average, isn't going down until they take 12-13 rounds. Give them non-EBA MD body armor at AR 16 and that number, on average, skyrockets.

They want the capability to pull a revolver on troublemakers and have the troublemaker feel like they are actually in danger.

indeed.

basically, if you have MDC armour, it forces law enforcement to use MD weaponry against you. which potentially means massive property damage, bystanders being hurt or killed, much larger expenses, etc. especially if it is environmental and the few disabling options (gas, neural weapons, etc) that are likely available become much weaker or don't work at all.

anything that forces the local sheriff to pull out a plasma cannon to deal with is not something that anyone is going to want inside the town boundaries.

[HWalsh]

i'm not following this debate very well, because i think that the sides are argueing less about armor and more about.. well everything else.


so sum it up.

what is the downside of letting people retain non-EBA armor in a town. not their weapons, just their armor.

Because it limits local law enforcement's ability to subdue and/or, if necessary, kill those who would cause trouble. Not every police force and sheriff has a neural weapon. Many of them have standard SDC weaponry. If you are wearing non-EBA armor, they could theoretically take you down, but it is more difficult and thus inherently more dangerous both to the citizens and to themselves. Sure, they could use MD weapons, but then they aren't taking you in alive. Most normal people don't want to kill people, not even criminals.

A character with 83 SDC and 36 HP is hard enough to take down with a standard SDC revolver. Assuming the average revolver does 3d6 SD, you are looking at 9-11 damage per shot. You are looking at someone who, on average, isn't going down until they take 12-13 rounds. Give them non-EBA MD body armor at AR 16 and that number, on average, skyrockets.

They want the capability to pull a revolver on troublemakers and have the troublemaker feel like they are actually in danger.

indeed.

basically, if you have MDC armour, it forces law enforcement to use MD weaponry against you. which potentially means massive property damage, bystanders being hurt or killed, much larger expenses, etc. especially if it is environmental and the few disabling options (gas, neural weapons, etc) that are likely available become much weaker or don't work at all.

anything that forces the local sheriff to pull out a plasma cannon to deal with is not something that anyone is going to want inside the town boundaries.

Yeah, I mean... Imagine the following situation...

Imagine a general store. Roughly the size of say, a 7-11. It is made of SDC Materials because this is a settlement. It maybe has an MDC door in the back designed to be some kind of panic room.

Robby owns the general store, and Robby caters to recharging e-clips and that sort of thing. He also sells bullets, silver as well, not to mention food and clothing and other niceties that PCs tend to forget exist.

In walks Big John. Big John is in partial MDC Body Armor, he's a bad hombre who doesn't like lip from no tiny, insignificant, worm who recharges E-Clips. He decides he wants 2 new E-Clips but he doesn't want to pay for it. So Big John walks in and pulls a vibroblade on the shop keeper.

Sheriff Goodly sees this happening and rushes in. He draws his Wilk's Laser Pistol so he can deal with Big John's armor. Sheriff Goodly has a pretty good (for a non-adventurer) bonus to hit. He has a +3. He pulls the trigger and... Rolls a 5... For an 8... Big John dodges successfully and now it doesn't matter that Big John was going to steal E-Clips because the entire shelf containing the E-Clips just got obliterated by the 2d6 MD blast.

Big John is an Anarchist Adventurer and is higher level than Sheriff Goodly. He draws his Naruni weapon and pulls the trigger. Wham. Sheriff Goodly gets obliterated when the weapon does 1d4x10+10 MD. Due to the rules of the setting, his armor is gone, but he's still alive. He pulls the trigger one final time and scores a natural 18. That beats the AR of Big John. Big John eats 5 MD to the head. His head vanishes in a fine cloud of mist. However since Big John wasn't an MD target, the blast keeps going and puts a MASSIVE hole in the wall behind the counter where Robby ducked for safety.

Congratulations Sheriff Goodly! You saved 2 E-Clips... You did 30,000 credits worth of damage... But you saved maybe... You know... Some money... Sort of.

So yeah. That is why allowing strangers in your town with MD body armor is probably a mistake.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

i'm not following this debate very well, because i think that the sides are argueing less about armor and more about.. well everything else.


so sum it up.

what is the downside of letting people retain non-EBA armor in a town. not their weapons, just their armor.

Because it limits local law enforcement's ability to subdue and/or, if necessary, kill those who would cause trouble. Not every police force and sheriff has a neural weapon. Many of them have standard SDC weaponry. If you are wearing non-EBA armor, they could theoretically take you down, but it is more difficult and thus inherently more dangerous both to the citizens and to themselves. Sure, they could use MD weapons, but then they aren't taking you in alive. Most normal people don't want to kill people, not even criminals.

A character with 83 SDC and 36 HP is hard enough to take down with a standard SDC revolver. Assuming the average revolver does 3d6 SD, you are looking at 9-11 damage per shot. You are looking at someone who, on average, isn't going down until they take 12-13 rounds. Give them non-EBA MD body armor at AR 16 and that number, on average, skyrockets.

They want the capability to pull a revolver on troublemakers and have the troublemaker feel like they are actually in danger.

indeed.

basically, if you have MDC armour, it forces law enforcement to use MD weaponry against you. which potentially means massive property damage, bystanders being hurt or killed, much larger expenses, etc. especially if it is environmental and the few disabling options (gas, neural weapons, etc) that are likely available become much weaker or don't work at all.

anything that forces the local sheriff to pull out a plasma cannon to deal with is not something that anyone is going to want inside the town boundaries.

Non-EBA forces nothing of the sort. One hit from a neural mace and you're done. Contrary to HWalsh's statement, there are ZERO canon towns where the local law enforcement carries (only) SDC weapons. Even the weakest carry MDC sidearms and wear light armor.
And.... this only discriminates against the "normal" people who have to wear armor. This is no way makes the town safer from a Master Psionic, Mage of any sort, any supernatural being that can be a PC (of which there are dozens that are common in NA), a borg, some juicers (Titan, Mega, Dragon).

Thats why it makes no sense at all. VIsitors are just as likely to be one of the people who ISNT affected by this than not.

Out of all the parties ive been in in a Rifts game, the number of "normal humanoids (SDC)" in a given party was never more than half. And even then, a lot of times part of that half was a magic user or master psychic.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

Actually, according to RUE pg. 297 only 10% of the human population is psychic (Random roll between 76-85),

Uhh... what?

Page 297 is a bunch of random charts for determining stuff you should be coming up with on your own. The roll you're talking about is "your family is psychic", basically - it even says you may or may not be psychic (which would by why there is...)

Page 289, on the other hand, has a complete character creation step: Step 4 - Determine Psionics.

Random Psionics Table
01-10% Major Psionics Select a Total of eight powers from any one category, or a total of six powers with selections made from two or three of those categories (truncated)
11-25% Minor Psionics. Select two powers from any one of the categories (truncated)
26-00% Not psychic. Sorry

25% of every race that has psionics like humans (which is a lot of them) are psionic. One in 10 is a Major Psychic! And that's not including people like Mystics or Psychic PCCs.

[HWalsh]

Actually, according to RUE pg. 297 only 10% of the human population is psychic (Random roll between 76-85),

Uhh... what?

Page 297 is a bunch of random charts for determining stuff you should be coming up with on your own. The roll you're talking about is "your family is psychic", basically - it even says you may or may not be psychic (which would by why there is...)

Page 289, on the other hand, has a complete character creation step: Step 4 - Determine Psionics.

Random Psionics Table
01-10% Major Psionics Select a Total of eight powers from any one category, or a total of six powers with selections made from two or three of those categories (truncated)
11-25% Minor Psionics. Select two powers from any one of the categories (truncated)
26-00% Not psychic. Sorry

25% of every race that has psionics like humans (which is a lot of them) are psionic. One in 10 is a Major Psychic! And that's not including people like Mystics or Psychic PCCs.

Even using that chart (I've never used that one to be honest, never even saw it) those don't give you access to the MD producing powers so the super dangerous psychic isn't really there.

[eliakon]

Big reason?
Its a trust issue.
Rifts is not a place full of trust. And frankly, when your pulling up to some town, guess who is the one that is lacking credentials here. Everyone in town knows who they are, but those people that just rolled up? Yeah, nope not a clue. So until they do know exactly who you are, you don't get to roll around town in heavy armor. If you don't like it that's cool, your welcome to go someplace else.
I will note though that the places that say that they allow armor... those are the ones where they have huge crime problems, where people die or disappear all the time, and the law is a joke. Places where they don't allow armor don't seem to have that problem. Coincidence? I think not. I think its because they are nipping the trouble in the bud and making the trouble makers go elsewhere.

[Shark_Force]

Non-EBA forces nothing of the sort. One hit from a neural mace and you're done. Contrary to HWalsh's statement, there are ZERO canon towns where the local law enforcement carries (only) SDC weapons. Even the weakest carry MDC sidearms and wear light armor.
And.... this only discriminates against the "normal" people who have to wear armor. This is no way makes the town safer from a Master Psionic, Mage of any sort, any supernatural being that can be a PC (of which there are dozens that are common in NA), a borg, some juicers (Titan, Mega, Dragon).

Thats why it makes no sense at all. VIsitors are just as likely to be one of the people who ISNT affected by this than not.

Out of all the parties ive been in in a Rifts game, the number of "normal humanoids (SDC)" in a given party was never more than half. And even then, a lot of times part of that half was a magic user or master psychic.

neural mace is not a guarantee of anything. if you're close enough, if you hit, if they don't parry, if they don't resist. it is a wonderful tool to have. it is not a guarantee.

and safer from most (whether or not most PCs are mind melters, ley line walkers, etc has no bearing on whether or not most travelers are; i expect there are a lot more man-at-arms and scholar/adventurers in the general population, and even more people who don't quite fit into any OCC as such but lack access to powerful magic or psionics or supernatural abilities etc) is still better than not safer from most. furthermore, many of those MD/MDC-capable individuals you've described are going to need to spend an action to set up any defense, are fairly likely to be noticeable (and can receive extra attention from the local law enforcement, since they don't need to be prepared for every single visitor to be invulnerable to reasonable attacks they don't need to perpetually have an entire army mobilized to deal with internal threats), and are still less of a problem if they don't have MDC armour (especially environmental armour).

again, practically speaking, numerous people in the real world have no meaningful personal protection from just being shot. even in the most dangerous parts of the world, and again, i'm talking about the real world that we live in, so you know that whatever happens in it by definition plausibly happens in the real world, most of those people with no meaningful protection from being shot with a gun manage to survive on a regular basis for a reasonably full lifespan (adjusting for where you are, of course... most places where people get shot fairly often are also places that don't have great medical care in general, so don't expect to live to be 90 there whether you get shot or not).

if it can happen in real life, it can happen in rifts.

[HWalsh]

Non-EBA forces nothing of the sort. One hit from a neural mace and you're done. Contrary to HWalsh's statement, there are ZERO canon towns where the local law enforcement carries (only) SDC weapons. Even the weakest carry MDC sidearms and wear light armor.
And.... this only discriminates against the "normal" people who have to wear armor. This is no way makes the town safer from a Master Psionic, Mage of any sort, any supernatural being that can be a PC (of which there are dozens that are common in NA), a borg, some juicers (Titan, Mega, Dragon).

Thats why it makes no sense at all. VIsitors are just as likely to be one of the people who ISNT affected by this than not.

Out of all the parties ive been in in a Rifts game, the number of "normal humanoids (SDC)" in a given party was never more than half. And even then, a lot of times part of that half was a magic user or master psychic.

Whoa. Hold on.

I never said they carried "Zero" I said they don't want to USE THEM unless they have to. I also outlined in a perfectly normal example (It is actually similar to the one from books) why they don't want to. The law has MD weapons, the law has MD armor. The Citizens? They usually don't. Not in the "safer" towns.

One hit from a Neural Mace? Good luck. Seriously, good luck. Melee is much harder to hit with than ranged weapons. Much easier to dodge. MUCH easier to parry. Then they could just resist it.

That isn't a sure thing.

As to the comment that the number of "Normal Humans" in a given party was never more than half... That depends on the type of game you play. I play pretty vanilla Rifts where I don't usually allow things like Godlings. So, looking at the book that is the example, namely RUE, here are the normal OCCs.

Combat Cyborg - MDC "being" as it were
Crazy - SDC
Cyber-Knight - SDC (though has MDC Cyber-Armor and MD Psi-Sword(s) and may have a Psychic Body Field)
Glitterboy - SDC (the pilot is anyway)
Headhunter - SDC
Juicer - SDC
Merc Soldier - SDC
Robot Pilot - SDC

Not a single one of the "Adventurers and Scholars" are normally MDC.

None of the core practitioners of magic are either.

None of the normal Psychics.

So that leaves Dragons as the only MDC being.

So from the core book, which represent the most common adventurers, like 2 are MDC beings. There are a couple who can Magically or Psychically do it, but they are still SDC creatures.

Of the 29 of them (not counting the CS ones) only 2 are MDC, 'Borgs and Dragons. Everyone else is a squishy.

Yes, there are other books, with other creatures OCCs, RCCs, and such in them, however they are a minority with the world at large. So, for the setting, if you have a bunch of MDC beings, then you aren't a common group, and you are assuming that the rest of the world is like your group, and it isn't. This we can even see from the published stories and adventures.