The average town, their defenses, tech level

[drazool]

I strongly disagree with the setting default tech level, and especially the description of many towns as having roughly 1920's technology, or worse. Further, I mentioned in another thread that I would expect most adults to own at least one MD weapon, and know how to use it. In my opinion, the town descriptions bear this out, just by looking at the OCC breakdown for a given town.

Now, one could certainly argue that only some percentage of the population has an OCC, but I think that the charts cover this. For example, the cit of Wilmington from New West has 45% of the population being farmers or laborer doing livestock related work. I would accept that many of those people might not have weapon proficiencies, nor MD weapons, but I still believe that some might. Plus, within that group, 25% have some kind of psionics.

If you look at the OCC listings for any of the OCCs listed as populating these towns, the vast majority have at least one MD weapon, if not several. For many that don't come with a gun, they come with some other method to produce MD, either magically or psionically. Therefore, in the worst case that I could find, a town might have only 50% of the population armed with MD weapons.

More than that, though, is a kind of backwards proof. Canonically, these towns exist. This means that they weren't just wiped out at some point in the past 400 years. More to the point, many of these communities have been around for decades, or more. This means that they are relatively stable. How could they remain stable? How could they continue to exist? It's one thing for a few towns to be overrun by monsters, but I simply don't accept that a town of 100 people just gets destroyed when a single megadamage beast with a toothache comes to town. Nor do I really accept that towns of that size are just regularly taking losses. In a town of 100 people, there would be about 20-40 adults of breeding age, so 10-20 pairs, able to produce roughly one kid per year.

It really doesn't take too many bandit, or monster attacks to make that town start losing population. Remember, killing off adults has the side effect of reducing the number of young a given town could produce. My thinking? These towns exist precisely because they provide a level of relative safety to the common men and women who live, work, and raise families there.

Now certainly, there would be exceptions. For example, towns that have discovered some cache of weapons and tech that make them even more safe, relatively, or the opposite, towns that are under siege from outside factors, like increased prevalence of hungry MD beasts or the like. You would find some towns gradually growing, dying, or doing either of those things rapidly.

Obviously, this is all just my interpretation, but I think it produces a more compelling picture than one of little towns full of terrified peasants, who swoon and faint as soon as something scary shows up. How do people like that even survive on Rifts Earth? How do their kids survive? They don't. all of those people are dead. The ones who are left are a tougher breed. They may turn a blind eye to a gangster setting up shop near their town, as long as they wasn't killing townsfolk, but monsters or evil men who try to invade their towns, kill their citizens, or steal their hard earned supplies? Those folks get met with swift, and surprisingly efficient frontier justice. Never underestimate the damage output of a couple of dozen pissed off townsfolk, with home-field advantage, light megadamage weapons, and spell support (if not in the Coalition).

Just my 0.02 credits.

[Proseksword]

To lend a little support to your opinion, there's always the Creating Towns & Cities rules from the Rifts Adventure Guide, pg. 110.

Using the die roll provided, the "average" community size is the advanced village or small town, with a population averaging between 100-500 people. With 185 build points across 17 categories, that grants an average of 10 points in Weapons & Amor - 10% own MD weapons, 2 support weapons, all militia/law enforcement have light to medium MD body armor as well as homespun MD armor for 1D4% of the remaining population. The comparable point-buy for security personnel would render a militia of 10-20% of the population +1 sheriff or other law enforcement figure. All totaled, that's approximately 10-100 MD armed people in the village.

[Eagle]

I'd imagine that your average town in Rifts can probably support "Amish" level of technology on their own. They can build barns, grain silos, make iron tools, that sort of thing. Think a Revolutionary War era lifestyle. If you were to completely seal them off from the outside world, that's the kind of life they can maintain. Their knowledge base will be higher than this, but they don't have the population or the infrastructure to do better than that. Not on their own. Take 1000 people from modern day Earth (intelligent, capable, healthy people) and put us in the middle of Planet Wilderness. Assuming we don't die out, for the next hundred years, an Amish-style community is probably about the best that we're going to get.

Now, on top of that baseline, you've got more advanced tech that comes from elsewhere. Some of that stuff is pretty conventional. The little one room schoolhouse that looks straight out of Little House on the Prairie could have solar panels on the roof, a 1950s era overhead projector, and a Kindle with 10,000 books on it. The whole class can follow along together and get something along the lines of a modern technical education, even with no printed books. Half the farmers in the area probably have some type of rickety old tractor that they use on their farm. They can't build it locally, but ol' Joe the blacksmith can sometimes make a part that halfway fits, so they do an alright job of keeping it running. 1920s tech wouldn't be that unusual (most of the US didn't have electricity during that time, neither will most of Rifts Earth), and while most towns can't produce it, they can maintain it okay. "1920s" is of course a rough estimate, you're really looking at stuff that can be repaired with hand tools with parts made in a guy's garage.

On top of that, you've got modern electronics and MDC weapons and materials. Now, the MDC stuff is probably easier to get than you'd think. Lots of MDC monsters are out roaming the countryside. You could wait until something kills one of them and then scavenge body parts. But most of this stuff is going to be imported from the bigger cities. I'll bet older equipment never gets thrown away, it just gets resold to smaller and smaller towns. A rifle that does 1D6 MD is going to get casually dismissed by players, but give it to some rinky-dink village and they'll give it to some guy standing guard. If nothing else, it'll make short work of any bandits who don't have MDC equipment. Right there it probably eliminates half the raids you might suffer.

I think most town guards are probably going to be a posse of volunteers who wear MDC hide armor and use the cheapest weapons available. One on one, they aren't that dangerous. But if you get 20 guys, all wearing a dinosaur hide trench coat (15-20 MDC, cost: zero because they made it themselves), and using shotguns with MD grenade rounds (Juicer Uprising, pg 73, cost: 150 per round), you can have a pretty effective force for not much money. Give each guy 5 or 6 rounds, and together you can drop a couple of bandits, or a big monster, no problem. They won't hold up in a sustained firefight with the Coalition, but they aren't supposed to. Let a family of Psi-Stalkers live on the edge of town, or maybe a friendly-ish Line Walker, and that will be all the defenses most towns need.

A sustained attack by horrible monsters will go right through the town, but that's what adventurers are for. And in "civilized" lands, those town-destroying attacks are rare enough that the area still have a stable population. The town of Drywater (pop: 350) gets wiped out by some group of monsters. But then a Cyber-Knight and his friends show up and stop the monsters from rampaging further. And there are a dozen similar towns within 50 miles of Drywater, so within 6 months, it's been kinda resettled (new pop: 85). By the time another town gets destroyed (ten years later), Drywater's got 200 people. The population of the area would kind of fluctuate up and down, but not enough to really endanger humanity. That's in civilized lands, where there's a continuous human presence. Further out, the attacks would get too high to maintain.

[TeeAychEeMarchHare]

The Official Party Propaganda about small-ish communities and the alleged rarity of MD weaponry is more proof that there is a whole lot besides just weapons and machines that the writers don't understand or know anything about. Also KS is obviously really, REALLY big on "All PC's should be Lawful Stupid heroes of the highest order". Half of the population are just victims waiting to be saved by the PC's, the other half are blatantly evil. There's very little middle ground. You know, I lived in the 80's too, and it sucked, and I'm glad we've moved on from there. Sure, I still listen to some of the music, but overall the 80's needs to stay buried.

As you pointed out, if the average small-ish settlement had a grand total of one or two laser rifles and a guy in Gladiator armor, they'd be wiped out the first time a (one; singular) brodkil came calling. A Xiticix scout by itself would be enough to eradicate a community of several hundred people. There would be no trappers, farmers, fishermen, loggers, etc, that weren't full conversion borgs, or working under the watchful eye of an actual military (CS, Tolkeen, Arnzo, etc) or mercenary unit.

This is another thing I intend to remedy next time I run a game. The crap thing is, there is a LOT that needs to be re-written, modified, or just outright deleted (about half of the Coalition mechs and aircraft....DHT and Spider/scorpion walkers are some of the dumbest things I've ever seen).

[kaid]

The tech level also gets weirder in that MDC stuff is so durable that a village that maybe at overall amish level of tech capability may have a 200 year old laser rifle for defense and some nema era trucks that have been repaired for so long they are barely recognizable.

Overall it actually makes a lot of sense that most communities probably wind up being really small resource extraction type communities either farming or mining/forestry. That kind of activity can be done with minimal tech and can be maintained but the people who can do that simply do not have what is required to actually make new high tech stuff. The reason they have high tech stuff at all is once it is acquired it tends to last a long time. The whole premise of the operator originally was wandering super mechanics that could come into these types of communities and help build/maintain tech for them. Mcguyver stuff together enough to tide them through until they get their next visit.


It also is pretty cannon that even fairly major settlements get destroyed somewhat frequently. But the converse is also true that even a handful of well equipped law men/defenders could potentially take out some pretty major threats for a town. I think it also should be mentioned that a lot of what exists outside the major population areas tends to be tribal/nomadic in nature between simvan/native americans and the residents of the south east dinosaur swamp type areas. They augment what tech they have by using magic/fetishes/ecowizardy to allow them to use materials they do have access to for defense. Also being nomadic has the advantage of being able to pick your stuff up and run the hell away if you get word of some major threat.

[kaid]

I forgot to mention though that a lot of the original MDC stuff being rare kinda goes out the window once hodge podge dinosaur hide armor became canon. If you can get one big dino killed and skinned chances are you now have MDC armor for an entire tribe or more. While everybody may not have MDC weaponry in the more primative communities with native americans/dinosaur swamp folks pretty much all of the tribes warriors ARE equipped with at least some MDC capability.

So while tech communities may have more issues with defense the ones that "went native" tend to be better positioned to defend themselves.

[Killer Cyborg]

I strongly disagree with the setting default tech level, and especially the description of many towns as having roughly 1920's technology, or worse.

Any images that you have in your head of how things are in the Rifts setting are necessarily incorrect if they conflict with canon.

Further, I mentioned in another thread that I would expect most adults to own at least one MD weapon, and know how to use it. In my opinion, the town descriptions bear this out, just by looking at the OCC breakdown for a given town.

Palladium doesn't write about average towns; they write about places that are above-average and/or interesting.
Keep that in mind when trying to use what is in the books as a gauge for what is normal.
Just like HU; the stuff they focus on isn't the baseline for the setting.

It's one thing for a few towns to be overrun by monsters, but I simply don't accept that a town of 100 people just gets destroyed when a single megadamage beast with a toothache comes to town. Nor do I really accept that towns of that size are just regularly taking losses. In a town of 100 people, there would be about 20-40 adults of breeding age, so 10-20 pairs, able to produce roughly one kid per year.

You don't have a town of 100 people, though.
It's not a town unless there is not only a population base of various families, but also a number of businesses that offer goods and services. Even still, you have to have a larger population than 100 people.
I don't know if Palladium sets a specific number, but I can tell you that in the real world, the village that I grew up in had <450 people.
NOT enough to be a town.

It really doesn't take too many bandit, or monster attacks to make that town start losing population.

Well, that depends on a lot of factors, starting with whether or not the bandits or monsters in the area even WANT to kill anybody.

Obviously, this is all just my interpretation, but I think it produces a more compelling picture than one of little towns full of terrified peasants, who swoon and faint as soon as something scary shows up. How do people like that even survive on Rifts Earth?

First, read the books.
Start with SB1 The Roots of Civilization, pages 13-16, then move on to the Rifts Adventure Guide's tables for building communities/towns/cities/etc.
Then skim around Erin Tarn's stuff in the RMB and RUE, and any other place that talks about average folk.

THEN ask yourself how you'd survive if you didn't have any MDC armor or weapons, but were stuck on Rifts Earth.
If all you can come up with is that you'd quake in fear, then die, start over and try again.

[Killer Cyborg]

if the average small-ish settlement had a grand total of one or two laser rifles and a guy in Gladiator armor, they'd be wiped out the first time a (one; singular) brodkil came calling.

Let's look at this scenario.
-Why's the brodkil there?
-What's he want?
-Why would he wipe everybody out?

[dreicunan]

The Official Party Propaganda about small-ish communities and the alleged rarity of MD weaponry is more proof that there is a whole lot besides just weapons and machines that the writers don't understand or know anything about. Also KS is obviously really, REALLY big on "All PC's should be Lawful Stupid heroes of the highest order". Half of the population are just victims waiting to be saved by the PC's, the other half are blatantly evil. There's very little middle ground. You know, I lived in the 80's too, and it sucked, and I'm glad we've moved on from there. Sure, I still listen to some of the music, but overall the 80's needs to stay buried.

I, too, lived through the 80s, and they were awesome. You've also given about the most extreme caricature of Rifts that I've ever seen. The population is most definitely not just half people waiting around to be saved by PCs and half blatantly evil, as even the most cursory reading of the books would show. There is a whole bunch of middle ground, like the vast majority of the population of the coalition states (definitely bot waiting around for PCs to save them unless you are playing CS characters, and also not blatantly evil). For someone who casually throws around the term lawful stupid all the time, you sure seem to be missing a lot of the nuance in the Rifts setting.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

I strongly disagree with the setting default tech level, and especially the description of many towns as having roughly 1920's technology, or worse.

Any images that you have in your head of how things are in the Rifts setting are necessarily incorrect if they conflict with canon.

Which doesn't excuse the canon being unplayable and unworkable at a fundamental level. I mean, i know you love to white-knight for Kev, but it's getting super old and unsupportable.

Further, I mentioned in another thread that I would expect most adults to own at least one MD weapon, and know how to use it. In my opinion, the town descriptions bear this out, just by looking at the OCC breakdown for a given town.

Palladium doesn't write about average towns; they write about places that are above-average and/or interesting.
Keep that in mind when trying to use what is in the books as a gauge for what is normal.
Just like HU; the stuff they focus on isn't the baseline for the setting.

Seriously, you're still trotting this provably false statement out? Or are you implying that the statted-out towns that litter the books are the "rare" towns and that there are thousands of towns out there that are "normal" - where the hell are they? You'd be FALLING over them theyd be so damn common. Not to mention, in books like Arzno, New West, etc, (the areas where a lot of these wilderness towns are said to exist), we're told straight up that the towns surrounding each Baronial capital city have roughly the same OCC and population breakdowns as the capitals. I.E. plenty of MDC capable people.

It's one thing for a few towns to be overrun by monsters, but I simply don't accept that a town of 100 people just gets destroyed when a single megadamage beast with a toothache comes to town. Nor do I really accept that towns of that size are just regularly taking losses. In a town of 100 people, there would be about 20-40 adults of breeding age, so 10-20 pairs, able to produce roughly one kid per year.

You don't have a town of 100 people, though.
It's not a town unless there is not only a population base of various families, but also a number of businesses that offer goods and services. Even still, you have to have a larger population than 100 people.
I don't know if Palladium sets a specific number, but I can tell you that in the real world, the village that I grew up in had <450 people.
NOT enough to be a town.

You dont get to define that, though. In fact, right neaer Palladium's headquarters are several examples of how much you are wrong and dont get to define it: Milford Village has 3x the population of Milford Township. (Milford Village is a small downtown area, Milford Township is a much larger rural area that surrounds it; they are separate political entities with separate officials). What defines a village and township and city is what it decides to call itself. Just north of the Milford(s) is the City of White Lake - that adds up to maybe 1/3 the population of the Milfords. What a municipality is called is not based on its population. It's based on what it called itself when it formed. There isn't any universal standard. (There's also a township just to the south of Palladium's headquarters that has less than 120 residents and has had several lawsuits filed against it for being a speed trap that the local populace was actually profiting from via corruption; i believe the State is now looking into forcing them to become defunct.)

It really doesn't take too many bandit, or monster attacks to make that town start losing population.

Well, that depends on a lot of factors, starting with whether or not the bandits or monsters in the area even WANT to kill anybody.

Obviously, this is all just my interpretation, but I think it produces a more compelling picture than one of little towns full of terrified peasants, who swoon and faint as soon as something scary shows up. How do people like that even survive on Rifts Earth?

First, read the books.
Start with SB1 The Roots of Civilization, pages 13-16, then move on to the Rifts Adventure Guide's tables for building communities/towns/cities/etc.
Then skim around Erin Tarn's stuff in the RMB and RUE, and any other place that talks about average folk.

THEN ask yourself how you'd survive if you didn't have any MDC armor or weapons, but were stuck on Rifts Earth.
If all you can come up with is that you'd quake in fear, then die, start over and try again.

The setting doesn't make sense on its face. We all know it.

Why you continue to try to defend it as workable in any way eludes me, other than you just like to argue. I mean, i get that. I often argue for positions i dont necessarily agree with, but this guys' interpretation isn't any more wrong than the canon, and yeah, it IS possible for canon to be wrong. When it doesn't work and contradicts itself near constantly, its wrong.

If there's a canon statement (MDC is ultra rare) that is then utterly disproven by example after example showing that it is not, in fact, in any way even remotely rare, then the canon is wrong.

For a lot of people they can just turn a blind eye to it or not notice it (i didn't notice it until i started writing my own material for LARPing, my own tabletop settings, etc) - a decade or more after i first picked up a Rifts book.

For a lot of detail-oriented people, it's game-breakingly unbearable.

[Killer Cyborg]

I strongly disagree with the setting default tech level, and especially the description of many towns as having roughly 1920's technology, or worse.

Any images that you have in your head of how things are in the Rifts setting are necessarily incorrect if they conflict with canon.

Which doesn't excuse the canon being unplayable and unworkable at a fundamental level.

It doesn't.
But it's not.

Further, I mentioned in another thread that I would expect most adults to own at least one MD weapon, and know how to use it. In my opinion, the town descriptions bear this out, just by looking at the OCC breakdown for a given town.

Palladium doesn't write about average towns; they write about places that are above-average and/or interesting.
Keep that in mind when trying to use what is in the books as a gauge for what is normal.
Just like HU; the stuff they focus on isn't the baseline for the setting.

Seriously, you're still trotting this provably false statement out? Or are you implying that the statted-out towns that litter the books are the "rare" towns and that there are thousands of towns out there that are "normal" - where the hell are they?[/quote]

I have no idea how you're confusing "statted" with "there."

You'd be FALLING over them theyd be so damn common.

Yup.
And you do.
They're typically in the "You travel uneventfully for 10 days" bits that GMs toss you.

Not to mention, in books like Arzno, New West, etc, (the areas where a lot of these wilderness towns are said to exist), we're told straight up that the towns surrounding each Baronial capital city have roughly the same OCC and population breakdowns as the capitals. I.E. plenty of MDC capable people.

If you say so, then yeah, that's some crappy writing that doesn't fit the setting.
So adjust it to fit the norm, complain about it, and move on.

You don't have a town of 100 people, though.
It's not a town unless there is not only a population base of various families, but also a number of businesses that offer goods and services. Even still, you have to have a larger population than 100 people.
I don't know if Palladium sets a specific number, but I can tell you that in the real world, the village that I grew up in had <450 people.
NOT enough to be a town.

You dont get to define that, though.

And I don't.
Otherwise I'd have grown up in an Empire of 400+ people, and I'd have been emperor.

In fact, right neaer Palladium's headquarters are several examples of how much you are wrong and dont get to define it: Milford Village has 3x the population of Milford Township. (Milford Village is a small downtown area, Milford Township is a much larger rural area that surrounds it; they are separate political entities with separate officials). What defines a village and township and city is what it decides to call itself. Just north of the Milford(s) is the City of White Lake - that adds up to maybe 1/3 the population of the Milfords. What a municipality is called is not based on its population. It's based on what it called itself when it formed. There isn't any universal standard. (There's also a township just to the south of Palladium's headquarters that has less than 120 residents and has had several lawsuits filed against it for being a speed trap that the local populace was actually profiting from via corruption; i believe the State is now looking into forcing them to become defunct.)

It sounds like you're confusing "township" and "town."

The setting doesn't make sense on its face. We all know it.

I'll just counter that with "The setting does make sense. We all know it."
Whew.
That was easy.

Why you continue to try to defend it as workable in any way eludes me, other than you just like to argue.

I don't like to argue.
I like everybody to immediately acknowledge that I am right, and that any previous thoughts or views that they might have had that conflict with what I just told them were obviously and regretfully incorrect.
This doesn't happen, and argument is often the result, but argument is not ever my goal nor my desire.

it IS possible for canon to be wrong. When it doesn't work and contradicts itself near constantly, its wrong.

Sure... but in this case it works, and contradicts itself only somewhat, due to Kev's penchant for using writers that miss the big picture.

If there's a canon statement (MDC is ultra rare) that is then utterly disproven by example after example showing that it is not, in fact, in any way even remotely rare, then the canon is wrong.

We've been over this.
There are no examples showing that MDC is not rare.
Again, just because HU focuses on superheroes and villains does not mean that being a superhero or villain is the average or standard for the setting. Ditto with N&S, and so forth.

[Nightmartree]

If there's a canon statement (MDC is ultra rare) that is then utterly disproven by example after example showing that it is not, in fact, in any way even remotely rare.

hmmm does this mean that SDC items are totally common? I would like 10 Tons of nitroglycerin please!

(promptly proceeds to drop it dealing 4d4x640,000 points of sdc or 6,400 mdc of damage to everything within...probably more than the listed 20 feet, should we just count damage radius as the closest 20 posts to this one?)

and if you go by the HU pricing it only costs about 12,800,000 dollars or the rifts equivalent

[Thom001]

I strongly disagree with the setting default tech level, and especially the description of many towns as having roughly 1920's technology, or worse. Further, I mentioned in another thread that I would expect most adults to own at least one MD weapon, and know how to use it. In my opinion, the town descriptions bear this out, just by looking at the OCC breakdown for a given town.

Now, one could certainly argue that only some percentage of the population has an OCC, but I think that the charts cover this. For example, the cit of Wilmington from New West has 45% of the population being farmers or laborer doing livestock related work. I would accept that many of those people might not have weapon proficiencies, nor MD weapons, but I still believe that some might. Plus, within that group, 25% have some kind of psionics.

If you look at the OCC listings for any of the OCCs listed as populating these towns, the vast majority have at least one MD weapon, if not several. For many that don't come with a gun, they come with some other method to produce MD, either magically or psionically. Therefore, in the worst case that I could find, a town might have only 50% of the population armed with MD weapons.

More than that, though, is a kind of backwards proof. Canonically, these towns exist. This means that they weren't just wiped out at some point in the past 400 years. More to the point, many of these communities have been around for decades, or more. This means that they are relatively stable. How could they remain stable? How could they continue to exist? It's one thing for a few towns to be overrun by monsters, but I simply don't accept that a town of 100 people just gets destroyed when a single megadamage beast with a toothache comes to town. Nor do I really accept that towns of that size are just regularly taking losses. In a town of 100 people, there would be about 20-40 adults of breeding age, so 10-20 pairs, able to produce roughly one kid per year.

It really doesn't take too many bandit, or monster attacks to make that town start losing population. Remember, killing off adults has the side effect of reducing the number of young a given town could produce. My thinking? These towns exist precisely because they provide a level of relative safety to the common men and women who live, work, and raise families there.

Now certainly, there would be exceptions. For example, towns that have discovered some cache of weapons and tech that make them even more safe, relatively, or the opposite, towns that are under siege from outside factors, like increased prevalence of hungry MD beasts or the like. You would find some towns gradually growing, dying, or doing either of those things rapidly.

Obviously, this is all just my interpretation, but I think it produces a more compelling picture than one of little towns full of terrified peasants, who swoon and faint as soon as something scary shows up. How do people like that even survive on Rifts Earth? How do their kids survive? They don't. all of those people are dead. The ones who are left are a tougher breed. They may turn a blind eye to a gangster setting up shop near their town, as long as they wasn't killing townsfolk, but monsters or evil men who try to invade their towns, kill their citizens, or steal their hard earned supplies? Those folks get met with swift, and surprisingly efficient frontier justice. Never underestimate the damage output of a couple of dozen pissed off townsfolk, with home-field advantage, light megadamage weapons, and spell support (if not in the Coalition).

Just my 0.02 credits.

Well I guess I'll clarify my explanations to my groups style of play. First of all everything is centered around the idea that half of the avg citizens of towns are illiterate. Internet can't exist because there is no world wide web (except in places equivalent to the CS, which would be a megalopolis or metropolis, not a city, not a town). That town may have an intranet (a digital database of all their collected knowledge) if they are a more advanced town, again illiterate people don't use computers.
Walls and defense- If the town is in an area that was written in rifts main book (not rue) as "wiped clean" and there is no update from further book stating otherwise that area is still "wiped clean" meaning all new construction. So during their building of their town, and depending on how long that town has been there, there may or may not be walls and defenses. Also towns have the benefit of not usually being important enough to send a whole force in just to destroy.
Guns- As I said most towns every citizen has a weapon, mostly SDC. This is because not every citizen is a member of the militia or a lawman etc. Obviously, if you are militia or lawman you would have a MDC weapon or two. Also some rulers are evil. To keep the citizens in the town only those loyal to the leader would have advanced weaponry.
less than a 1000 people- We play that less than a 1000 people is a village, places with 150-300 people is a settlement, and 1-150 is little better than a camp or an outpost. Villages and less survive by being in proximity to kingdoms that have patrols, ex. living is a patrol route of the CS would keep the village mostly safe from monsters, bandits, and magic users. They would have to deal with bad CS soldiers but that would be preferable to not living there. Same kind of thing in the magic zone. If they aren't near a protective city or bigger, than odds are the village etc has not been there that long, because they wouldn't survive it and they will not survive much longer. That being said there have been plenty of "towns, villages, etc" our group has run across that are empty because something wiped them out.

All that is why I said towns are not safe. If the town is being attacked by a small force, a monster or two it probably won't get in, but anything more than that is probably getting in, giving the player group a warning signal before the attack, unlike sleeping on the ground. The ones that get better walls, weapons, defense, and most of all people will become cities.

Cities are more advanced than towns with more mdc stuff, better defenses, more walls, better trained soldiers, etc.

Also in our game if the place has been around generations it is probably a city and not a town. And when raiders or bandit come, unless they are organized they might have an md weapon on a third of them and md armor on half. Its the monsters and demons that towns and villages etc have to worry about.

Now everything I've written is for towns etc that don't have stats in books. Those places have what their defenses, walls, etc are and my group either sticks to that or throws away the place, we usually don't change it.

And the most important thing of all, this is how we play our game, because it is just a game. Play yours how you want. My group has house rules because if we don't like a rule in the book or a setup in the book we chunk it. Ex. seige on tolkeen usually never happened in our games.

[Shark_Force]

i feel like we just had this argument a few months ago. anyone remember what it was called last time?

[drazool]

I strongly disagree with the setting default tech level, and especially the description of many towns as having roughly 1920's technology, or worse. Further, I mentioned in another thread that I would expect most adults to own at least one MD weapon, and know how to use it. In my opinion, the town descriptions bear this out, just by looking at the OCC breakdown for a given town.

Now, one could certainly argue that only some percentage of the population has an OCC, but I think that the charts cover this. For example, the cit of Wilmington from New West has 45% of the population being farmers or laborer doing livestock related work. I would accept that many of those people might not have weapon proficiencies, nor MD weapons, but I still believe that some might. Plus, within that group, 25% have some kind of psionics.

If you look at the OCC listings for any of the OCCs listed as populating these towns, the vast majority have at least one MD weapon, if not several. For many that don't come with a gun, they come with some other method to produce MD, either magically or psionically. Therefore, in the worst case that I could find, a town might have only 50% of the population armed with MD weapons.

More than that, though, is a kind of backwards proof. Canonically, these towns exist. This means that they weren't just wiped out at some point in the past 400 years. More to the point, many of these communities have been around for decades, or more. This means that they are relatively stable. How could they remain stable? How could they continue to exist? It's one thing for a few towns to be overrun by monsters, but I simply don't accept that a town of 100 people just gets destroyed when a single megadamage beast with a toothache comes to town. Nor do I really accept that towns of that size are just regularly taking losses. In a town of 100 people, there would be about 20-40 adults of breeding age, so 10-20 pairs, able to produce roughly one kid per year.

It really doesn't take too many bandit, or monster attacks to make that town start losing population. Remember, killing off adults has the side effect of reducing the number of young a given town could produce. My thinking? These towns exist precisely because they provide a level of relative safety to the common men and women who live, work, and raise families there.

Now certainly, there would be exceptions. For example, towns that have discovered some cache of weapons and tech that make them even more safe, relatively, or the opposite, towns that are under siege from outside factors, like increased prevalence of hungry MD beasts or the like. You would find some towns gradually growing, dying, or doing either of those things rapidly.

Obviously, this is all just my interpretation, but I think it produces a more compelling picture than one of little towns full of terrified peasants, who swoon and faint as soon as something scary shows up. How do people like that even survive on Rifts Earth? How do their kids survive? They don't. all of those people are dead. The ones who are left are a tougher breed. They may turn a blind eye to a gangster setting up shop near their town, as long as they wasn't killing townsfolk, but monsters or evil men who try to invade their towns, kill their citizens, or steal their hard earned supplies? Those folks get met with swift, and surprisingly efficient frontier justice. Never underestimate the damage output of a couple of dozen pissed off townsfolk, with home-field advantage, light megadamage weapons, and spell support (if not in the Coalition).

Just my 0.02 credits.

Well I guess I'll clarify my explanations to my groups style of play. First of all everything is centered around the idea that half of the avg citizens of towns are illiterate. Internet can't exist because there is no world wide web (except in places equivalent to the CS, which would be a megalopolis or metropolis, not a city, not a town). That town may have an intranet (a digital database of all their collected knowledge) if they are a more advanced town, again illiterate people don't use computers.
Walls and defense- If the town is in an area that was written in rifts main book (not rue) as "wiped clean" and there is no update from further book stating otherwise that area is still "wiped clean" meaning all new construction. So during their building of their town, and depending on how long that town has been there, there may or may not be walls and defenses. Also towns have the benefit of not usually being important enough to send a whole force in just to destroy.
Guns- As I said most towns every citizen has a weapon, mostly SDC. This is because not every citizen is a member of the militia or a lawman etc. Obviously, if you are militia or lawman you would have a MDC weapon or two. Also some rulers are evil. To keep the citizens in the town only those loyal to the leader would have advanced weaponry.
less than a 1000 people- We play that less than a 1000 people is a village, places with 150-300 people is a settlement, and 1-150 is little better than a camp or an outpost. Villages and less survive by being in proximity to kingdoms that have patrols, ex. living is a patrol route of the CS would keep the village mostly safe from monsters, bandits, and magic users. They would have to deal with bad CS soldiers but that would be preferable to not living there. Same kind of thing in the magic zone. If they aren't near a protective city or bigger, than odds are the village etc has not been there that long, because they wouldn't survive it and they will not survive much longer. That being said there have been plenty of "towns, villages, etc" our group has run across that are empty because something wiped them out.

All that is why I said towns are not safe. If the town is being attacked by a small force, a monster or two it probably won't get in, but anything more than that is probably getting in, giving the player group a warning signal before the attack, unlike sleeping on the ground. The ones that get better walls, weapons, defense, and most of all people will become cities.

Cities are more advanced than towns with more mdc stuff, better defenses, more walls, better trained soldiers, etc.

Also in our game if the place has been around generations it is probably a city and not a town. And when raiders or bandit come, unless they are organized they might have an md weapon on a third of them and md armor on half. Its the monsters and demons that towns and villages etc have to worry about.

Now everything I've written is for towns etc that don't have stats in books. Those places have what their defenses, walls, etc are and my group either sticks to that or throws away the place, we usually don't change it.

And the most important thing of all, this is how we play our game, because it is just a game. Play yours how you want. My group has house rules because if we don't like a rule in the book or a setup in the book we chunk it. Ex. seige on tolkeen usually never happened in our games.

First off, to your argument that illiterate people don't use the internet, I will counter you with any three year old with a tablet. They may not be able to read, but don't confuse "the Internet" with "the world wide web". Just because the average person doesn't browse to a traditional webpage, with a mix of text, images, etc, doesn't mean that they don't use the internet.

Secondly, the second part of your explanation makes a lot of sense, and I hadn't really considered that. Being in the sphere of influence of a larger, more established force would definitely have advantages in terms of security.

[kaid]

One thing to note is the CS has a vested interest in making tech items that illiterate people can use and likely the NG as well. While people may not be up to reading novels being able to figure out well designed icons/images likely with helpful audio playing in the language of your choice and likely good voice command options means most people probably don't need to be that literate to make use of some tech that they find.

The difficulty and danger of keeping smaller towns alive/defended also helps fuel things like the burbs. As bad and dangerous as the burbs can be and as callous as the CS are it is a place where supernatural threats won't be tolerated and met with extreme force. So while not ideal it is still some better defense for people.

Things like the NG and federation of magic you see affiliated towns that at least get some patrols which allows for more safety. But once you start getting past the oasis of civilization settlements of any size become few and far between. A lot of those settlements that do exist probably live a very tennous life and the main thing keeping them from getting ransacked by bandits or worse is simply they don't have anything worth stealing. Unless something is trying to actually eat the villagers they simply lack anything worth anybody's time to steal or take over. Also I would expect a lot of settlements/villages probably wind up being semi nomadic. If you can't effectively defend an area then you better damn well be ready to head for the hills if you need to.

[drazool]

I strongly disagree with the setting default tech level, and especially the description of many towns as having roughly 1920's technology, or worse.

Any images that you have in your head of how things are in the Rifts setting are necessarily incorrect if they conflict with canon.

If you say so, then yeah, that's some crappy writing that doesn't fit the setting.
So adjust it to fit the norm, complain about it, and move on.

DISCLAIMER: I understand that I've pulled this out of context, but I think it stands alone, and especially in contrast to the previous statement.

Which am I supposed to do? Use what's written as canon, or, reinterpret what's written as canon? If I'm supposed to adjust it to fit the norm, which part do I adjust?

There are no examples showing that MDC is not rare.

Yes, yes there are. Every written up town includes a sizable population of MDC bearing and wielding townsfolk. Usually 50% or more of the population, assuming that each and every one of the population as written is level one.

Actually, the preponderance of examples support the argument that "MDC is common", and as far as I can tell, only the statement that "MDC is rare" supports that position.

In the books you referenced, even a "Family Commune or Homestead" has enough points to provide a "Well Armed" "Sheriff and Militia", which means that in addition to light MDC weapons, the town has 2d6 heavy MDC weapons. This still leaves 64 points for the rest of the town!

In literally every case that the population breakdown for a given area is described, MDC weapons would be common. If you build your own town or settlement, MDC weapons will be common.

I'm not pointing these things out because I hate Rifts, or hate the setting. Quite the opposite! I love Rifts, and I think the setting is one of the most compelling and unique settings in all of fiction! There are just some things that don't make sense to me, personally. I wrote the topic to discuss my interpretation, and solicit comment, which has happened! This will help me run my game, so thanks everyone!

[dreicunan]

I am quite certain that the fortress cities, at least, of the CS have "internet for the illiterate." It uses a lot of symbols to allow them to navigate and videos to communicate. What I can't recall is exactly where I read this, and I won't have time to search for it for a while. If anyone does recall, please let us know!

[eliakon]

I am quite certain that the fortress cities, at least, of the CS have "internet for the illiterate." It uses a lot of symbols to allow them to navigate and videos to communicate. What I can't recall is exactly where I read this, and I won't have time to search for it for a while. If anyone does recall, please let us know!

It is in the optional content in the Rifters that propose to stat out some mega-cities

[eliakon]

i feel like we just had this argument a few months ago. anyone remember what it was called last time?

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=154509

This horse was ridden around in circles then beaten to almost to death, healed and beaten some more a couple times until the Moderators stepped in mercy killed the poor thing by locking the thread. I could go back and find the other threads on it too... its a fairly common one, and the stances never change.
Side one says MDC is rare
Side two says MDC is not rare
And never the twain shall meet.

[Thom001]

First off, to your argument that illiterate people don't use the internet, I will counter you with any three year old with a tablet. They may not be able to read, but don't confuse "the Internet" with "the world wide web". Just because the average person doesn't browse to a traditional webpage, with a mix of text, images, etc, doesn't mean that they don't use the internet.

Our stance on internet in towns leans more toward if you can't read then you have no interest unless someone gives you the interest. A great example is grandparents. They can read but most still have no use for computers or the internet. They have lived without it and find no reason to change. In towns that have never experienced this have no reason to go through the time and effort to build the needed equipment to have an intranet. Especially since then they would have to get a programmer who is literate to complete coding and software to have an intranet at all. In short, there would have to be an outside influence come in and convince people they need or want this to spark the change.

The other problem is an intranet is the best that rifts earth could have. An intranet would be what large areas of civilization would have as well. This is because to have an internet there would have to be a way for information to travel from place to place across large distances of nothingness and wilderness. In rifts there are no working satellites and no telephone lines, hubs, backbones or cloud based systems in place. There is nowhere for data to transit to or from. Because of this a local network or intranet is the best available way to access information. The problem would be that each area that built their own separate intranet would only be able to access the collected information of knowledge of that area. They would not have access to knowledge outside their town,city, metropolis, etc.

[drazool]

First off, to your argument that illiterate people don't use the internet, I will counter you with any three year old with a tablet. They may not be able to read, but don't confuse "the Internet" with "the world wide web". Just because the average person doesn't browse to a traditional webpage, with a mix of text, images, etc, doesn't mean that they don't use the internet.

Our stance on internet in towns leans more toward if you can't read then you have no interest unless someone gives you the interest. A great example is grandparents. They can read but most still have no use for computers or the internet. They have lived without it and find no reason to change. In towns that have never experienced this have no reason to go through the time and effort to build the needed equipment to have an intranet. Especially since then they would have to get a programmer who is literate to complete coding and software to have an intranet at all. In short, there would have to be an outside influence come in and convince people they need or want this to spark the change.

The other problem is an intranet is the best that rifts earth could have. An intranet would be what large areas of civilization would have as well. This is because to have an internet there would have to be a way for information to travel from place to place across large distances of nothingness and wilderness. In rifts there are no working satellites and no telephone lines, hubs, backbones or cloud based systems in place. There is nowhere for data to transit to or from. Because of this a local network or intranet is the best available way to access information. The problem would be that each area that built their own separate intranet would only be able to access the collected information of knowledge of that area. They would not have access to knowledge outside their town,city, metropolis, etc.

Oh sure, I can see that. Definitely in the canon of the setting the best you could hope for would be some kind of local database, with the extreme outside possibility of a rare connection between one or more towns or cities that are closely linked both geographically and politically.

A man can dream, though. I think that in my world, cellular and microwave technology are pervasive, and a global mesh network is in effect. For [some reason], realtime communication is impossible, but short text, audio, or video messages are regularly sent. Some regions are basically dead zones, some well connected. A message might never get sent, or take anywhere from a few minutes to a few days to reach its destination.

None of the above is anything like canon! I like it, though.

[Killer Cyborg]

I strongly disagree with the setting default tech level, and especially the description of many towns as having roughly 1920's technology, or worse.

Any images that you have in your head of how things are in the Rifts setting are necessarily incorrect if they conflict with canon.

If you say so, then yeah, that's some crappy writing that doesn't fit the setting.
So adjust it to fit the norm, complain about it, and move on.

DISCLAIMER: I understand that I've pulled this out of context, but I think it stands alone, and especially in contrast to the previous statement.

Which am I supposed to do? Use what's written as canon, or, reinterpret what's written as canon? If I'm supposed to adjust it to fit the norm, which part do I adjust?

My first statement was in the context of you essentially saying that you thought that the setting material was wrong about the setting. Which simply isn't true--the official setting only exists in the canon setting material.
Now, you are under no real obligation to stick to the canon material. You can make up your own variant version of the Rifts Earth setting, and use that. In the context of that homebrew setting, you're ultimately the only one who can be right about it, because that version will only exist in your head.
Just don't confuse the version in your head with the official material.

My second statement is about seeming inconsistencies in the official material.
That happens, and you have to just go with the most consistent and/or clear general rule over isolated cases.
In this case, one of the books apparently says "the nearby towns share the same population breakdowns as City X" or whatever.
The issues there are:
-that apparently these cities list their population as mostly consisting of adventuring Classes, but most people are NOT supposed to be adventuring classes. The isolated case indicates either a departure from the norm which does not affect the norm, OR a writer getting the setting wrong. It's the same net result as if--after countless instances of a Boom Gun damage being listed as 3d6x10 MD--some writer writes the standard Boom Gun damage as 3d6 MD.
One of these things is not like the others.
One of these things just doesn't belong.
Barring any indication that this is a deliberate exception to the rule, the logical assumption is that it is simply a mistake.
-Chalking a significant number of cities to all having population breakdowns that mimics the one city the writer has detailed is clearly just the writer being lazy. The net result is that it's most likely a mistake due to lack of consideration, with the secondary result being that each of these cities are intended to be specific exceptions to the general rules.

There are no examples showing that MDC is not rare.

Yes, yes there are. Every written up town includes a sizable population of MDC bearing and wielding townsfolk. Usually 50% or more of the population, assuming that each and every one of the population as written is level one.

Those are not examples showing that MDC is not rare.
It is possible for each and every city detailed to have significant mega-damage AND for mega-damage to be rare.
Kind of like how in the Heroes Unlimited setting, super powers are uncommon, yet most of the books detail super powers and super powered people.
Kind of like how Rune Weapons in PFRPG are supposed to be really rare... but Adventures in the Northern Wilds has like a dozen rune weapons in it.
They're still rare; they're just not rare in those particular adventures.

Actually, the preponderance of examples support the argument that "MDC is common", and as far as I can tell, only the statement that "MDC is rare" supports that position.

That's all that's needed.

In the books you referenced, even a "Family Commune or Homestead" has enough points to provide a "Well Armed" "Sheriff and Militia", which means that in addition to light MDC weapons, the town has 2d6 heavy MDC weapons. This still leaves 64 points for the rest of the town!

"Has enough points to provide" does not mean "has spent points on those things."
Meanwhile, "Good" weapons & armor consists of 10% of the population having Mega-Damage weapons. In a town of 400 people, that's 40 guys with Mega-Damage.
"Good" in this context indicates "above average."

In literally every case that the population breakdown for a given area is described, MDC weapons would be common. If you build your own town or settlement, MDC weapons will be common.

Only if somebody designing the town prioritizes having an unusually high amount of weaponry in their town.

I'm not pointing these things out because I hate Rifts, or hate the setting. Quite the opposite! I love Rifts, and I think the setting is one of the most compelling and unique settings in all of fiction! There are just some things that don't make sense to me, personally. I wrote the topic to discuss my interpretation, and solicit comment, which has happened! This will help me run my game, so thanks everyone!

I'm not saying that there isn't power creep today compared to back in the RMB.
Vagabonds originally started without any armor, now they get EBA, for example.
Writers over the years tend to get lazy, and they use adventuring classes for pretty much all characters, so it can seem like every bartender is a Vagabond or City Rat, and like every mechanic is an Operator... but that's just laziness on the part of the writers.
With statements such as "mega-damage is rare," we are directly told the vision that KS has for the setting. We're told the intent.
We're also told that Palladium doesn't write about ordinary people or places because they're not exciting.
The net result is that it's safe to assume that all the places we see in the books are extraordinary, that they're NOT normal, and that they're places that Palladium sees as "exciting" as opposed to "representing the norm."

IF these extraordinary people and places are so over-represented in the books that it seems like they're the norm, that's a mistake on the writers' part IMO.
No need to compound their mistake with our own, by ignoring Palladium's vision for the setting, and their own words regarding what kind of people and places they choose to write about.

[Nightmartree]

Meanwhile, "Good" weapons & armor consists of 10% of the population having Mega-Damage weapons. In a town of 400 people, that's 4 guys with Mega-Damage.

shouldn't this be 40 people? 10% of 100% is 10 out of a hundred so if you have 400 people isn't that 40 people?


also MDC being rare is probably closer to MDC being "exclusive". If you have MDC then acquiring more isn't such a big deal, but would anyone here who is town hopping looking for E-clip recharging stations and armor repairs just hand out your MDC gear that keeps you alive and safe? 1 out of 10 people in that town would have 1, that doesn't seem very common, common enough sure if you go bonkers on the place and all 40 come to shoot at you, but that leave nine-tenths of the population unarmed (at least vs MD threats) and unarmored. of course that goes up in some places and down in others, but we've also been lead to believe that many small villages and towns have a "warlord of the week" thing were someone powerful rules over the place and keeps the bad things out. So as long as you have an appropriate defensive force and all the MD is in there hands or that of the other roving warriors or super powers...then from the common mans stand point its rare, from a city goer in a high tech city with MD production capabilities then likely these numbers shoot up and suddenly MD isn't so rare, and of course PC's like going to place that can repair our toys and refuel our WMDs, you know those places where lots of PC classes loaded with toys hang out for the same reason you do, access to your needs and wants. Things you can't easily get in a small village, though minus the fear and adoration of your serfs.

[Killer Cyborg]

Meanwhile, "Good" weapons & armor consists of 10% of the population having Mega-Damage weapons. In a town of 400 people, that's 4 guys with Mega-Damage.

shouldn't this be 40 people? 10% of 100% is 10 out of a hundred so if you have 400 people isn't that 40 people?

Yup.
Failed my Basic Math check.

[Sohisohi]

Normally, for "minor" cities, I use RNG to determine MDC weapons per ever 100 citizens.
For moderate cities I RNG at ever 50 citizens.

SDC weapons and armor I've always guesstimated.

[Wise_Owl]

This has been an ongoing discussion all the way back to the early days of the Forum... I think people were having these sorts of discussions pre swanky-town for crying out loud. But in any case, let me climb down off my porch;

There are plenty of issues within Rifts in terms of conventions, genre contradictions, etc. I've found if you stop trying to devise cohesive world structures and look at it like a comic-book or Saturday morning cartoon it functions a lot more with fewer headaches.

That being said; Populations of humans are going to exist where they can garner food and protection. Nearly every town, definitionally, is going to have some Mega-Damage weaponry and defences, because otherwise they will be conquered/destroyed very rapidly. That being said, it's most likely to be in the hands of a very limited population; perhaps only a person or two. Towns that have existed for a long time are going to have more or better protectors, but there are plenty of in-world reasons to expect high-tech stuff at least to be relatively uncommon. The first of course is break-down and the cost of replication. Even with the large manufacturers you are dealing with everything basically functioning like a BMW in North America. If it breaks, you can't just make a new part, you have to get one from the supplier. Who is functionally a huge travel distance away from you? Operators, for example, become extremely important because of their capacity to service such equipment. A town away from a large trade route will atrophy some of its technology. Now certainly technologies you can replicate pretty easily and sustain for a good long while, but plenty of others are dependent on logistical factors that a single town cannot support. A village of 100 people is not going to be making chemical fertilizer; the labour required is too great and the knowledge required to do so would likely compel anyone who could do it to move to a place of better prospects.

[Killer Cyborg]

Nearly every town, definitionally, is going to have some Mega-Damage weaponry and defences, because otherwise they will be conquered/destroyed very rapidly.

I'd go with...
"Without sufficient defenses, a town might be conquered/destroyed very rapidly."
BUT not necessarily so.
This gets back to another issue that has been debated since the earliest days of the forums: how common are mega-damage monsters or bandits?
If they're an hourly occurrence everywhere, as some people seem to believe, then yeah, towns would definitely need mega-damage defenses to survive.
But if they're something that might happen every few years in some places, not so much.
If they're something that happens every few decades in some places, not so much.

This also ties into yet another issue that has been argued about for a LONG time:
What kind of MDC threats are the most common?
Because in the RMB, the monster creation tables indicated that as a rule supernatural critters tended to have vulnerabilities that could be exploited without resorting to mega-damage, reducing the need for every place to have mega-damage weapons and armor in two ways.
First, whatever supernatural predators are running around within the local ecology could be killed with mega-damage because the locals would have figured out how to kill them, and the predators would likely have figured out to avoid the village/town/etc. and/or local humans.
Second, because outsiders would be unlikely to know about the weaknesses of the local dominant predators, so they'd be more threatened by them. The predators that the town could fend off with silver, wood, or whatever, would act as a potential buffer to other predators and/or bandits.

And while it hasn't been debated much, there's another factor as well, one that hasn't been as discussed over the years:
appeasement.
Legends and fairy tales are full of stories about communities that are faced with a supernatural menace that they can't overcome through violence, so the communities appease the menace.
They stake out a virgin every so often for the dragon (or whatever) to devour, and in return the monster doesn't kill everybody. That kind of thing.
People treat Rifts like it's a "If you don't have mega-damage armor and weapons, monsters will instantly appear, and their sole motivation is to massacre everybody they see."
And if you want to treat Rifts like a video game or a particularly shallow cartoon, that's how things can go down.
But if you want to treat the setting more realistically, then there are more ways to survive than by directly overcoming dangers with brute force.

That being said, it's most likely to be in the hands of a very limited population; perhaps only a person or two.

The RMB sets up things where towns tend to have specific Defenders (i.e., a pluck PC or band of PCs or their equivalent NPC).
So yes, I agree.

Towns that have existed for a long time are going to have more or better protectors, but there are plenty of in-world reasons to expect high-tech stuff at least to be relatively uncommon. The first of course is break-down and the cost of replication. Even with the large manufacturers you are dealing with everything basically functioning like a BMW in North America. If it breaks, you can't just make a new part, you have to get one from the supplier. Who is functionally a huge travel distance away from you? Operators, for example, become extremely important because of their capacity to service such equipment. A town away from a large trade route will atrophy some of its technology. Now certainly technologies you can replicate pretty easily and sustain for a good long while, but plenty of others are dependent on logistical factors that a single town cannot support. A village of 100 people is not going to be making chemical fertilizer; the labour required is too great and the knowledge required to do so would likely compel anyone who could do it to move to a place of better prospects.

[Axelmania]

I strongly believe that lots of towns without any MD weaponry have survived the supernatural horrors from the rifts by dogs who can inflict MD with their bites to anything supernatural, ala Chaos Earth.

This still makes it hard to deal with bandits with MD weapons, but since MDC armor is so expensive to buy/repair, you can usually kill those and take their weapons.

Even if they have armor, they will take it off to bed your daughters, and that is why you give them knives to hide in their garments.