Looking for negative feedback

[parkhyun]

It's okay - I can take it!

Long story short: I thought my Korea setting/campaign was great, but I'm admittedly biased, since I wrote it. I'm probably more biased toward my ideas and writing than most people are. That said, I'm kind of surprised that only a couple of people liked it. I thought it managed to do a bunch of things that people wanted more of in Rifts:

- Present a setting that goes back to the post-apocalypse atmosphere presented in the original game
- Tie several Worldbooks together (Japan, Russia, China)
- Present OCCs and situations that make players actually care about the SDC of their characters
- Encourage intrigue-based gaming, rather than "kill, loot, repeat"
- Develop a long-running campaign easily scaleable for level or party size
- Introduce NPC monsters suitable for a techno-horror genre, and of various threat levels
- Integrate real knowledge of a foreign (that is, "foreign" if you're not Korean) culture, making it an integral part of the setting rather than just using stereotypical imagery to trick out armor and weapons

The response was... less than enthusiastic. A couple of regular posters were encouraging and supportive, and I'm grateful for that. Mostly, people weren't really interested. And instead of being offended by that, I'm genuinely curious. What in the above list do you disagree with, generally? What would you add to the list? What might you agree with in the list, but think doesn't work or isn't interesting in a Korea setting? What Worldbook setting do you think might better accomplish these objectives?

Please feel free to reply without reading the Rifts: Korea thread. This isn't an attempt to drum up more attention for my own posts. I'm just interested in what posters here really do want to see more of in Worldbooks and how they want it done.

[Glistam]

I had zero interest in Korea as a setting, so I never looked at it. I already know too much about the rest of the world and have plenty to do in those places. Nothing personal, but that's why I didn't even look.

[parkhyun]

I had zero interest in Korea as a setting, so I never looked at it. I already know too much about the rest of the world and have plenty to do in those places. Nothing personal, but that's why I didn't even look.

Thanks! Perfectly valid answer. Let me ask you: were there any Worldbooks you didn't think you'd be interested in (Africa, South America), but wound up liking? What did you like about them?

[Killer Cyborg]

I had zero interest in Korea as a setting, so I never looked at it. I already know too much about the rest of the world and have plenty to do in those places. Nothing personal, but that's why I didn't even look.

Pretty much that, yeah.

[Killer Cyborg]

I had zero interest in Korea as a setting, so I never looked at it. I already know too much about the rest of the world and have plenty to do in those places. Nothing personal, but that's why I didn't even look.

Thanks! Perfectly valid answer. Let me ask you: were there any Worldbooks you didn't think you'd be interested in (Africa, South America), but wound up liking? What did you like about them?

On my part, no, not so far.
I was downright irritated that the Africa book had such an important event take place on another continent, with essentially zero discussion of how the PCs were even supposed to GET there.
The South America books had some cool stuff... but nothing that I could really use, except for an adventure where I had the Lizard Men nation set up a military base in the Dinosaur Swamps (the PCs were CS troops sent to take it out), and another adventure where I had the PCs fight the Arkhon on Mars.

Rifts Japan was another one that I found SOME use for... but only as fodder to update The Foot Clan, as part of a North America campaign.

One of my long-standing (nigh ancient) gripes with Palladium is that they created a setting where it's easier to travel between dimensions than it is to travel long-distance cross-country, much less across oceans, and yet they spend the vast majority of their time spamming out World Books for difficult-to-get-to corners of Earth, instead of fleshing out the infinite megaverse of other dimensions.

One of my friends once hit on the idea (which I fully endorse and repeat) that most of the Rifts World Books should really have just been dimension books.
New West would make more sense as a desert world where a bunch of humans got rifted to during the apocalypse.
Rifts Japan (originally described as having been destroyed) would have made more sense as another dimension where a Japanese city or two got Rifted to during the Apocalpyse.
Same with England, or even Australia.
Leave the original feel of Rifts Earth as being nearly completely depopulated of human life, and open up the possibilities created by all the.... (wait for it).... RIFTS
that PCs can encounter or create.

Meanwhile, we STILL don't have a decent worldbook on Chi-Town or the other CS cities, nor on Shaedo, nor on a lot of the stuff outlined in North America, in the main book.

[flatline]

One of my friends once hit on the idea (which I fully endorse and repeat) that most of the Rifts World Books should really have just been dimension books.
New West would make more sense as a desert world where a bunch of humans got rifted to during the apocalypse.
Rifts Japan (originally described as having been destroyed) would have made more sense as another dimension where a Japanese city or two got Rifted to during the Apocalpyse.
Same with England, or even Australia.
Leave the original feel of Rifts Earth as being nearly completely depopulated of human life, and open up the possibilities created by all the.... (wait for it).... RIFTS
that PCs can encounter or create.

I had a GM that basically did this. His gripe (that I agree with) was that the ease of dimensional hopping made Rifts Earth as described in the books totally untenable since virtually all the obstacles that made Rifts Earth interesting had easy solutions available from other dimensions. To counter this, we wrote rules to make large scale dimensional hopping more difficult so that reasons existed to explain why armies and infrastructure from other dimensions didn't dominate Rifts Earth.

--flatline

[The Beast]

I had zero interest in Korea as a setting, so I never looked at it. I already know too much about the rest of the world and have plenty to do in those places. Nothing personal, but that's why I didn't even look.

Thanks! Perfectly valid answer. Let me ask you: were there any Worldbooks you didn't think you'd be interested in (Africa, South America), but wound up liking? What did you like about them?

On my part, no, not so far.
I was downright irritated that the Africa book had such an important event take place on another continent, with essentially zero discussion of how the PCs were even supposed to GET there.
The South America books had some cool stuff... but nothing that I could really use, except for an adventure where I had the Lizard Men nation set up a military base in the Dinosaur Swamps (the PCs were CS troops sent to take it out), and another adventure where I had the PCs fight the Arkhon on Mars.

Rifts Japan was another one that I found SOME use for... but only as fodder to update The Foot Clan, as part of a North America campaign.

One of my long-standing (nigh ancient) gripes with Palladium is that they created a setting where it's easier to travel between dimensions than it is to travel long-distance cross-country, much less across oceans, and yet they spend the vast majority of their time spamming out World Books for difficult-to-get-to corners of Earth, instead of fleshing out the infinite megaverse of other dimensions.

One of my friends once hit on the idea (which I fully endorse and repeat) that most of the Rifts World Books should really have just been dimension books.
New West would make more sense as a desert world where a bunch of humans got rifted to during the apocalypse.
Rifts Japan (originally described as having been destroyed) would have made more sense as another dimension where a Japanese city or two got Rifted to during the Apocalpyse.
Same with England, or even Australia.
Leave the original feel of Rifts Earth as being nearly completely depopulated of human life, and open up the possibilities created by all the.... (wait for it).... RIFTS
that PCs can encounter or create.

Meanwhile, we STILL don't have a decent worldbook on Chi-Town or the other CS cities, nor on Shaedo, nor on a lot of the stuff outlined in North America, in the main book.

Two things:

1 = The Foot Clan? Really?

2 = I don't recall a Shaedo. What is it and what book is it in?

Petty tyrants thrive when they have authority backed by vague regulations.

[Proseksword]

Dear Parkhyun,

The reason I wasn't particularly interested in your setting is because I have the exact opposite view of RIFTs as Killer Cyborg. I love the hyper-frenetic over-the-top warring-states setting as it stands now, where everything is hyper-technologically advanced, supernatural, or as good as dead. Creeping around upper Michigan with a ramjet round-loaded shotgun trying not to be ganked by an owl-thing ain't my idea of a good time. Quite frankly, RIFTs as it was presented in the main book was a painfully generic post-apocalyptic RPG of the type that can be found all over the place written and presented much better (*looks at Mutant Zero*). What I've always loved about RIFTs is that zany sort of ultimate cross-over of everything aspect. It's a place where the equivalent Gandalf, Luke Skywalker, the Predator & the Punisher not only could meet at a bar, but they actually do, every Thursday at 6pm. A stand-alone Korean setting that doesn't meaningfully interact with Japan and China and doesn't add to the wow factor of East Asia really isn't going to resonate with me.

2 = I don't recall a Shaedo. What is it and what book is it in?

Shaedo was a rumored Dragon ruled town in Wisconsin. I imagine its description may have been preempted by the latest Chaos Earth sourcebook, but I could be wrong.

[parkhyun]

Dear Parkhyun,

The reason I wasn't particularly interested in your setting is because I have the exact opposite view of RIFTs as Killer Cyborg. I love the hyper-frenetic over-the-top warring-states setting as it stands now, where everything is hyper-technologically advanced, supernatural, or as good as dead. Creeping around upper Michigan with a ramjet round-loaded shotgun trying not to be ganked by an owl-thing ain't my idea of a good time. Quite frankly, RIFTs as it was presented in the main book was a painfully generic post-apocalyptic RPG of the type that can be found all over the place written and presented much better (*looks at Mutant Zero*). What I've always loved about RIFTs is that zany sort of ultimate cross-over of everything aspect. It's a place where the equivalent Gandalf, Luke Skywalker, the Predator & the Punisher not only could meet at a bar, but they actually do, every Thursday at 6pm. A stand-alone Korean setting that doesn't meaningfully interact with Japan and China and doesn't add to the wow factor of East Asia really isn't going to resonate with me.

Thanks! I see what you mean. It appears that there's a real divide in the types of settings players like, and you're on the side of over-the-top gonzo genre-mashing. That may be the more popular side.

[Alrik Vas]

I liked your crunch. The mechanics, the interesting OCCs. Most of that stuff was A-OK. I didn't get into your setting at all, possibly because I assumed I knew what it involved (having been exposed to a lot asian culture in my life). That could be my bad, but honestly I just prefer North America.

[parkhyun]

I liked your crunch. The mechanics, the interesting OCCs. Most of that stuff was A-OK. I didn't get into your setting at all, possibly because I assumed I knew what it involved (having been exposed to a lot asian culture in my life). That could be my bad, but honestly I just prefer North America.

It has occurred to me that most players prefer North America (for obvious reasons). I wonder how the other Worldbooks rank in popularity - Mexico, Germany, Russia, Madhaven, in that order?

[Alrik Vas]

It has occurred to me that most players prefer North America (for obvious reasons). I wonder how the other Worldbooks rank in popularity - Mexico, Germany, Russia, Madhaven, in that order?

I don't know how they're ranked with the major population of the game's fans/players. I like North America, then Atlantis, then the NGR setting. Though seeing as how each area is huge and you can have anything you like in any of them because of...well...Rifts, it often doesn't matter much, really.

[glitterboy2098]

in my experience with RPG forums, if you don't get people trying to rip it apart it usually means that it's good. bad stuff tends to elicit a lot of discussion as people try to pinpoint what is bad about it and how they'd fix it, but good stuff tends to get a lot of silence because there is little to nitpick. on the other hand excellent stuff tends to get a lot of discussion as people gush over best to start using it in their own games.

[taalismn]

The reason I wasn't particularly interested in your setting is because I have the exact opposite view of RIFTs as Killer Cyborg. I love the hyper-frenetic over-the-top warring-states setting as it stands now, where everything is hyper-technologically advanced, supernatural, or as good as dead. Creeping around upper Michigan with a ramjet round-loaded shotgun trying not to be ganked by an owl-thing ain't my idea of a good time. Quite frankly, RIFTs as it was presented in the main book was a painfully generic post-apocalyptic RPG of the type that can be found all over the place written and presented much better (*looks at Mutant Zero*). What I've always loved about RIFTs is that zany sort of ultimate cross-over of everything aspect. It's a place where the equivalent Gandalf, Luke Skywalker, the Predator & the Punisher not only could meet at a bar, but they actually do, every Thursday at 6pm. A stand-alone Korean setting that doesn't meaningfully interact with Japan and China and doesn't add to the wow factor of East Asia really isn't going to resonate with me..

"Bring on the zombie hordes. I got this."(ominous hummmmm)

[Killer Cyborg]

I had zero interest in Korea as a setting, so I never looked at it. I already know too much about the rest of the world and have plenty to do in those places. Nothing personal, but that's why I didn't even look.

Thanks! Perfectly valid answer. Let me ask you: were there any Worldbooks you didn't think you'd be interested in (Africa, South America), but wound up liking? What did you like about them?

On my part, no, not so far.
I was downright irritated that the Africa book had such an important event take place on another continent, with essentially zero discussion of how the PCs were even supposed to GET there.
The South America books had some cool stuff... but nothing that I could really use, except for an adventure where I had the Lizard Men nation set up a military base in the Dinosaur Swamps (the PCs were CS troops sent to take it out), and another adventure where I had the PCs fight the Arkhon on Mars.

Rifts Japan was another one that I found SOME use for... but only as fodder to update The Foot Clan, as part of a North America campaign.

One of my long-standing (nigh ancient) gripes with Palladium is that they created a setting where it's easier to travel between dimensions than it is to travel long-distance cross-country, much less across oceans, and yet they spend the vast majority of their time spamming out World Books for difficult-to-get-to corners of Earth, instead of fleshing out the infinite megaverse of other dimensions.

One of my friends once hit on the idea (which I fully endorse and repeat) that most of the Rifts World Books should really have just been dimension books.
New West would make more sense as a desert world where a bunch of humans got rifted to during the apocalypse.
Rifts Japan (originally described as having been destroyed) would have made more sense as another dimension where a Japanese city or two got Rifted to during the Apocalpyse.
Same with England, or even Australia.
Leave the original feel of Rifts Earth as being nearly completely depopulated of human life, and open up the possibilities created by all the.... (wait for it).... RIFTS
that PCs can encounter or create.

Meanwhile, we STILL don't have a decent worldbook on Chi-Town or the other CS cities, nor on Shaedo, nor on a lot of the stuff outlined in North America, in the main book.

Two things:

1 = The Foot Clan? Really?

2 = I don't recall a Shaedo. What is it and what book is it in?

1. Yup. I like mashups and crossovers.

2. It's mentioned in the RMB.

[parkhyun]

"Bring on the zombie hordes. I got this."(ominous hummmmm)

Taalismn knows I prefer morlocs to zombies.

[Blue_Lion]

Remote island state nations do nothing for the core of the setting NA and typically just isolated 2 book campaigns. Rifts japan is only useful for playing in Japan it might as well been a dimension book.


There was no draw to me for the location. Nothing about Korea really calls to me, it does not have a big cultural draw to make me buy the book.(like japan did) So I start with 0 interest, as it will not be useful for a NA it gains none there.(Triax is useful because they sale in NA, not because I run games there) It would be a low priority purchase just for a complete collection (no real desire for it just wanting to have all the books) if I was going for that and well behind most of other books and Rifters.


Material that interacts with the the core of the setting tends to get the highest priorty from me, as it is a book that I can use with the the other books for the area.

A book that drops something that GMs and players can use in NA would have more of a connected purchase drive.

[parkhyun]

Remote island state nations do nothing for the core of the setting NA and typically just isolated 2 book campaigns. Rifts japan is only useful for playing in Japan it might as well been a dimension book.


There was no draw to me for the location. Nothing about Korea really calls to me, it does not have a big cultural draw to make me buy the book.(like japan did) So I start with 0 interest, as it will not be useful for a NA it gains none there.(Triax is useful because they sale in NA, not because I run games there) It would be a low priority purchase just for a complete collection (no real desire for it just wanting to have all the books) if I was going for that and well behind most of other books and Rifters.


Material that interacts with the the core of the setting tends to get the highest priorty from me, as it is a book that I can use with the the other books for the area.

A book that drops something that GMs and players can use in NA would have more of a connected purchase drive.

Well, that makes me wonder about the two Russia books, the China books, Australia, and so on. It does seem as though the North America setting is prime territory, and yet there's a lot of material for places that have really no interaction with it at all.

I certainly understand that lots of people aren't familiar with Korea, and that it's a smaller country that most of the other ones used for sourcebooks. I had hoped that if a sourcebook is interesting enough, on its own terms, the place it's set will matter less that the material it offers. There's also the possibility - unique to Korea, I think - that by "filling in the gap" between several other World Books, a second "core" area emerges for Rifts. That is, the North America setting is very rich, so it's a great place to campaign, even if you can't travel too much outside of it. East Asia could be another similar such setting. Would that solve the problem you had with the Japan book?

[Proseksword]

Well, that makes me wonder about the two Russia books, the China books, Australia, and so on. It does seem as though the North America setting is prime territory, and yet there's a lot of material for places that have really no interaction with it at all.

The biggest problem with most of RIFTs' non-North American settings is that they are rather poorly fleshed out, which limits the amount of tools a GM has to work with.

South America is a complete setting, but also the one which clashes most with the feel of the rest of the setting and with the fewest opportunities for independent adventurers and ne'er do wells.

Europe is the closest in both tone and detail to North America, but it's more like three isolated settings that don't really interact (low-power mystic England, the Heinlein with gargoyles NGR, and the bionic barbarian hordes of Russia)

Japan is largely self-contained and playable, but it's one book is just that - a single book

Australia & China are missing books that are supposed to detail major aspects of their setting which make using those regions virtually impossible without extensive house-rules.

Africa was more of an adventure book than a world book.

So there's something of a self-perpetuating problem with non-North American sourcebooks where they don't sell as well as books that further flesh out North America because non-North American settings aren't as fleshed out as North America. Short of a push by Palladium to build-up Europe or another location at the cost of NA books that would probably sell a bit better, the problem is unlikely to resolve itself.

[parkhyun]

Well, that makes me wonder about the two Russia books, the China books, Australia, and so on. It does seem as though the North America setting is prime territory, and yet there's a lot of material for places that have really no interaction with it at all.

The biggest problem with most of RIFTs' non-North American settings is that they are rather poorly fleshed out, which limits the amount of tools a GM has to work with.

South America is a complete setting, but also the one which clashes most with the feel of the rest of the setting and with the fewest opportunities for independent adventurers and ne'er do wells.

Europe is the closest in both tone and detail to North America, but it's more like three isolated settings that don't really interact (low-power mystic England, the Heinlein with gargoyles NGR, and the bionic barbarian hordes of Russia)

Japan is largely self-contained and playable, but it's one book is just that - a single book

Australia & China are missing books that are supposed to detail major aspects of their setting which make using those regions virtually impossible without extensive house-rules.

Africa was more of an adventure book than a world book.

So there's something of a self-perpetuating problem with non-North American sourcebooks where they don't sell as well as books that further flesh out North America because non-North American settings aren't as fleshed out as North America. Short of a push by Palladium to build-up Europe or another location at the cost of NA books that would probably sell a bit better, the problem is unlikely to resolve itself.

We're on the same wavelength. One of the things I really tried to do with the Korea thread was connect what is really a backwater part of the world to three major World Books. After all, Korea is in real life at the nexus of Japan, Russia, and China, so why not exploit that to create a major sci-fi region in the Rifts world?

Another thing I do wonder about is to what degree the visuals/art is important for generating player interest. For instance, the Mudang O.C.C. sounds kind of interesting, but how much more interested would you be in the O.C.C. and the setting itself if you had a full-page color painting of a possessed woman shaman frying a jury-rigged SAMAS with bolts of electricity while her eyes glowed red with the spirit of a 4,000-year-old general?

[Blue_Lion]

Well, that makes me wonder about the two Russia books, the China books, Australia, and so on. It does seem as though the North America setting is prime territory, and yet there's a lot of material for places that have really no interaction with it at all.

The biggest problem with most of RIFTs' non-North American settings is that they are rather poorly fleshed out, which limits the amount of tools a GM has to work with.

South America is a complete setting, but also the one which clashes most with the feel of the rest of the setting and with the fewest opportunities for independent adventurers and ne'er do wells.

Europe is the closest in both tone and detail to North America, but it's more like three isolated settings that don't really interact (low-power mystic England, the Heinlein with gargoyles NGR, and the bionic barbarian hordes of Russia)

Japan is largely self-contained and playable, but it's one book is just that - a single book

Australia & China are missing books that are supposed to detail major aspects of their setting which make using those regions virtually impossible without extensive house-rules.

Africa was more of an adventure book than a world book.

So there's something of a self-perpetuating problem with non-North American sourcebooks where they don't sell as well as books that further flesh out North America because non-North American settings aren't as fleshed out as North America. Short of a push by Palladium to build-up Europe or another location at the cost of NA books that would probably sell a bit better, the problem is unlikely to resolve itself.

We're on the same wavelength. One of the things I really tried to do with the Korea thread was connect what is really a backwater part of the world to three major World Books. After all, Korea is in real life at the nexus of Japan, Russia, and China, so why not exploit that to create a major sci-fi region in the Rifts world?

Another thing I do wonder about is to what degree the visuals/art is important for generating player interest. For instance, the Mudang O.C.C. sounds kind of interesting, but how much more interested would you be in the O.C.C. and the setting itself if you had a full-page color painting of a possessed woman shaman frying a jury-rigged SAMAS with bolts of electricity while her eyes glowed red with the spirit of a 4,000-year-old general?

By not being part of the main area you need some sort of large scale intrest to drive up sales.
Japan had ninjas and samuri to sale the book.-Big pop culture thing in the 90s.
The picture you described would look as a mage with red eyes blasting a Samas while her eyes glow red, without interest people will not get the context. Martial arts movies have generated interst in Kung-fu, and it ties into Ninjas and super spies. (Quite simply I am tired of the Samas poping up all over the place, replace the samas and you are now putting more art requirements up higher than standard that will race the cost of making the book. there is a reason most rifts art is Black and white.)

Australia was a great book that lacked the draw to sale so its second book did not come out.

Europe is the second biggest fleshed out area of rifts earth, Triax link to NA help start sales and then you link near by areas that can be crossed to and work together, England, Mind works then with some interest in our old rival we had a few books made for Russia, that could in theory tie in to stuff from Triax(do not own Russia books they are one of the gaps in my collection)

While asia most the world books are not set up to play together. Japan is isolated, china well it is china and some what isolated. Now you want to put a third Asian nation pocket setting between the two. How much interest is their in Korrea? Would it work just as well as a Dimension book that you can build on separate from Rifts earth?
Space wise Korea is a little more half the size of japan.

Looking at it from a corporate point of view.
Is there enofe interest to justify the effort, would that area not be better left for GMs to fill in, would producing such a book anger North Korea.

[Alrik Vas]

South America is a complete setting, but also the one which clashes most with the feel of the rest of the setting and with the fewest opportunities for independent adventurers and ne'er do wells.

This is actually why I liked SA. Your wandering band of adventurers is naught to me, scum! You're a tattooed man of the Minoan army now!

Or, whatever faction you prefer. Makes a great conflict setting.

[flatline]

South America is a complete setting, but also the one which clashes most with the feel of the rest of the setting and with the fewest opportunities for independent adventurers and ne'er do wells.

This is actually why I liked SA. Your wandering band of adventurers is naught to me, scum! You're a tattooed man of the Minoan army now!

Or, whatever faction you prefer. Makes a great conflict setting.

South America is the best designed setting in all of Rifts Earth from a faction point of view.

--flatline