The dichotomy of Rifts

[Athos]

It seems like whenever I GM a campaign, EVERYONE wants to have carte blanche with choosing their race and OCC. I get that... Rifts has a wonderful variety of classes and races to choose from and part of the fun of the game is making something unique.

It seems whenever I play in a Rifts game, there are limitation galore. No MDC races, limited magic, only CS classes, etc.

I think as long as there is this broken dichotomy in Rifts, the game will never be successful and there will only be a few of us that continue to play it (in my case for over 20 years off and on). It is my belief that there are two problems: first, it is a difficult game to GM to start with since the rules have a lot of inconsistencies, so many GMs being unsure of themselves try to limit the game down to a scope that is easy for them to challenge the PCs. I call these the "keep the PCs weak games". Second, there is so great a power diversity among the classes and races that keeping everyone on the same footing is very difficult; and when there are large variances in the power levels of the player characters, then one or two PCs tend to overshadow the rest of the group. I think we have all been in a game like this at one time or another.

Of course there are always the people who never GM that will claim that Rifts doesn't need balance. That the GM should set up challenges for all the PCs and on and on. This is simply silliness from people who have never run the game for any length of time.

As an example of what I am talking about, I point to the complete lack of "open" games on roll20. The site has like a million registered gamers and yet there are no Rifts games on this site that allow people to play many of the legal classes and races that are considered powerful. And keep in mind, as a GM, I consider myself a moderate, so a dragon hatchling or a demigod is pretty powerful to me, just so we are on the same page.

Has anyone out there found a solution to this? Players want to play varied and powerful characters and GMs want weak and ordinary PCs? The rules seem to encourage a variety of PCs, but few, if any, GMs allow all classes and races in their games. It is the reason I tend to give up on Rifts for years at a time, I love the setting and the world, but the game mechanics are so flawed, I just find it hard to get into a good game and running the game is more headaches than it is worth. Does anyone think the Savage Worlds version will solve this problem?

[Wooly]

I've always seen it as each individual GMs responsibility to explain to players what the setting and scope of a campaign is going to be.

Flying from star to star in Phase World heroic campaign will have different feel then a City Rats in Chi Town campaign.

[Lao Tzume]

I don't have a problem. I run two campaigns. It's easy for me to balance out my group. Have a normal human in the group full of Godlings and Cosmo knights? Oh look, he suddenly found this nice artifact that helps him keep up pace.

Oh hey, your super powerful Cosmo knight that's a principled alignment can wreck in combat? That's nice if the bad guys are targeting him. But what if they target that Human Rogue Scholar that he feels the need to protect because they're the brains in the group?

If you get a little creative there are ways to remedy this. And, if there aren't ways you make your own.

[Mechghost]

It all depends on the type of game the GM wants to run. I'm starting a game with friends that have never played and I'm keeping it simple to start out. New West game - low power, so basically at the present we have a Human Saloon Girl, a Battlecat Sheriff's Deputy and possibly a Human Cowboy plus 2 more undecided yet.
If you have an experienced group, who like power-gaming then run a completely open selection for characters, other wise I've found you need to cap it somewhere or you'll have that 1 (possibly 2) players who need their character to be able to slaughter CS troops by the company single handed and complain when you tell them no South American gear or Phase World gear etc. when the player is starting out in the Dinosaur Swamp as a survivor of a destroyed village for example.

[say652]

I have my players make two characters, one Munchkin of their wildest dreams and one "Normal" character.

I don't have a set power level, I also love to Gm epic power levels.

For the coalition characters, since they are weaker I let my players use 3-5 man squads.

[Boethermsbrukan]

Afternoon, cubs and elders!

Although I haven't bought many RPG books since around the time Rifts World Book 20: Canada came out (that was my last first-run Palladium game book, aside from Wolfen Empire) I got the sense that there was a concerted effort in source material for Rifts (specifically) to _not_ stay at home; that you weren't going on a dungeoncrawl through Chi-Town or fighting Coalition patrols for no other reason than their being the obvious 'bad guys'; that there was a real push to move players- and GMs- out of their comfort zones, as it were, even with the first World Book (the 1st Ed. 'Vampire Kingdoms') and many after that. A great number of canon supplements weren't in North America, and a lot of the time the 'low-powered' superfolks (in WB1's case, Vampires) were still easily capable of shrugging off mega-damage fire and putting the puny humans to shame.

I don't think this was done (if it was intentional) to put down any players who wanted a Monty Haul or two; if anything the rewards of getting through one of these campaign-sized adventures was considerable gaming experience and oftentimes you got a nice tidy 'profit' on top of it. It could _still_ be Monty Haul, but there was little question the surviving party members (and to be fair, the warriors who didn't make it) earned what they brought home. Bringing home a lot of loot would be a little adventure in itself.

I think what splits groups in different directions is something like Phase World or Splicers or Wormwood, that have a tenuous connection (Dimensions rather than somewhere on Earth) to Rifts Earth, but treating each like a campaign world with characters designed and beginning in those worlds eased that down a bit. In the handful of Rifts games I've been able to play, I found the range of OCC/PCCs and races to be hard to pick from, simply because of the variety involved. I still had fun, tho'! ^_^ Having such a wide range of choice, again, encouraged me out of my 'comfort zone' when it came to gameplay style. While TORG, for example, often got the credit for being the 'original Gestalt RPG', I don't think it's unreasonable to call Rifts a gestalt RPG at all. Most of the main canon material is set on Earth, of course, but would it be too much of a reach to suggest parts of Rifts Earth are transplanted elements from their source dimensions, over and above the creatures themselves who ended up there?

The big two reasons I like Rifts as much as I do, and have stuck with it as a longtime fan, are thus: 1) There is no clear right and wrong, or at least no absolutes thus. The Coalition is definitely a 'bad guy', but they're not some collective hive mind and there are many citizens and troops who have their secrets, whatever the moral nature of their secrets are. 2) No one battle decides the overall fate of the planet; there's simply no army or nation that could kick _everybody's_ kiester (while there are, of course, some that could make a pretty good try at a big chunk of it) with the kind of raw coverage a Rifts nation's army would need to apply. The Coalition couldn't do it, the New German Republic couldn't do it, and I doubt Atlantis/The Splugorth could do it; while all three mentioned could _try_, there would be enough 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' going on to mess things up for multiple somebodies making the effort. And clever players would know how to do this!

For now, Lazlo's a nice quiet place with streetcars. ^_^

-Boe.

[Alrik Vas]

Usually, when someone wants to play something super powered, it's because they don't have much experience with a GM who isn't their enemy. A lot of groups claim to get along fine, and everyone has their unique snowflake character with all sorts of rules wonky going on, but really they're just using the numbers and rules to try and control the world around them.

If people trusted their GMs more, character power level wouldn't really be an issue.

[Lao Tzume]

Usually, when someone wants to play something super powered, it's because they don't have much experience with a GM who isn't their enemy. A lot of groups claim to get along fine, and everyone has their unique snowflake character with all sorts of rules wonky going on, but really they're just using the numbers and rules to try and control the world around them.

If people trusted their GMs more, character power level wouldn't really be an issue.

That's a really good point.

[Killer Cyborg]

Usually, when someone wants to play something super powered, it's because they don't have much experience with a GM who isn't their enemy. A lot of groups claim to get along fine, and everyone has their unique snowflake character with all sorts of rules wonky going on, but really they're just using the numbers and rules to try and control the world around them.

If people trusted their GMs more, character power level wouldn't really be an issue.

That's a really good point.

Indeed.

[Bill]

Has anyone out there found a solution to this? Players want to play varied and powerful characters and GMs want weak and ordinary PCs? The rules seem to encourage a variety of PCs, but few, if any, GMs allow all classes and races in their games. It is the reason I tend to give up on Rifts for years at a time, I love the setting and the world, but the game mechanics are so flawed, I just find it hard to get into a good game and running the game is more headaches than it is worth. Does anyone think the Savage Worlds version will solve this problem?

The thing I find most difficult about running an open character concept game is reconciling the why of how these characters got together in my own mind. That's what motivates me to restrict things most of the time; I just want things to make a little more sense.

Mechanically, the game isn't so complicated that I can't manage a mega-hero, a psychic mutant animal, a paranormal investigator, diabolist, and juicer in the same group. And most of the problems that I've had come up in the 24 years when I've had a weirdly mixed group of characters has come from not adequately preparing the players for the disparity in their abilities. I've had a couple players charge out alongside their more capable fellows and get vaporized for their trouble. Usually a quick conversation to make sure that everyone understands what everybody else can do clears that up. I think it's a worthwhile practice for all groups and all games, really.

[Alrik Vas]

There's also issue with certain characters being more normally based on travel while others are completely unrestricted.

A teleport happy character working with an operator with a large vehicle that houses all their tools and other gear causes conflicts of convenience, for instance.

[Nightmask]

Usually, when someone wants to play something super powered, it's because they don't have much experience with a GM who isn't their enemy. A lot of groups claim to get along fine, and everyone has their unique snowflake character with all sorts of rules wonky going on, but really they're just using the numbers and rules to try and control the world around them.

If people trusted their GMs more, character power level wouldn't really be an issue.

That does tend to cover the majority of my GM over the years, including the last game I tried getting into. The GM REALLY wanted to be sure he could kill or at least cripple my character and that left me with zero trust in him.

[Incriptus]

The problem is that when you can play anything, ... everyone can play something different.

Rifts this is doubly a problem because it's not "primarily" a sword & sorcery game ... or a cyber punk game ... or a space opera game ... or a soldier game.

Imagine walking into a D&D game claiming you want to play a computer hacker from D&D modern ... Somehow that would be an obvious "no" ... being told "no" you can't be a cosmoknight in a Chi-Town Street game is somehow borderline obscene

[Alrik Vas]

To me it isn't obscene at all. It would be obscene for the person wanting to play the Cosmo Knight.

Think about the ways a game like that could go...seriously.

[flatline]

Usually, when someone wants to play something super powered, it's because they don't have much experience with a GM who isn't their enemy. A lot of groups claim to get along fine, and everyone has their unique snowflake character with all sorts of rules wonky going on, but really they're just using the numbers and rules to try and control the world around them.

If people trusted their GMs more, character power level wouldn't really be an issue.

This isn't always the case. My group preferred GM fiat for most things because it was faster than trying to apply rules and we still preferred medium and high powered characters.

Having power allows you to gloss over the small stuff so you can focus on the big stuff.

I've played games where we worried about where our next meal would come from or where it was safe to sleep, but that's not generally the kind of game I'm looking for.

[Alrik Vas]

Well, you're talking about something different. Your groups tended to trust the GM and be on the same page from the sound of it.

My comment was talking about how PCs that want super powered characters have a tendency to want to control the game, rather than let the GM do so.

[michael silverbane]

The thing I find most difficult about running an open character concept game is reconciling the why of how these characters got together in my own mind. That's what motivates me to restrict things most of the time; I just want things to make a little more sense.

I usually leave that up to the players...

Bob, how does your Battle Magus know Jim's Cosmo Knight? Jim, why are you hanging out Sam's this Cyber-Doc? And so on...

[Bill]

That absolutely can work, and I've frequently done it. It's faster and easier to offer everyone some context though.

[say652]

My favorite way to introduce varied characters is.

A large battle vs some supernatural menace.
Sitting in lock up.
They show up for the same job.
Met back in '85.
Etc.

[Killer Cyborg]

It seems like whenever I GM a campaign, EVERYONE wants to have carte blanche with choosing their race and OCC. I get that... Rifts has a wonderful variety of classes and races to choose from and part of the fun of the game is making something unique.

It seems whenever I play in a Rifts game, there are limitation galore. No MDC races, limited magic, only CS classes, etc.

I think as long as there is this broken dichotomy in Rifts, the game will never be successful and there will only be a few of us that continue to play it (in my case for over 20 years off and on). It is my belief that there are two problems: first, it is a difficult game to GM to start with since the rules have a lot of inconsistencies, so many GMs being unsure of themselves try to limit the game down to a scope that is easy for them to challenge the PCs. I call these the "keep the PCs weak games". Second, there is so great a power diversity among the classes and races that keeping everyone on the same footing is very difficult; and when there are large variances in the power levels of the player characters, then one or two PCs tend to overshadow the rest of the group. I think we have all been in a game like this at one time or another.

Of course there are always the people who never GM that will claim that Rifts doesn't need balance. That the GM should set up challenges for all the PCs and on and on. This is simply silliness from people who have never run the game for any length of time.

As an example of what I am talking about, I point to the complete lack of "open" games on roll20. The site has like a million registered gamers and yet there are no Rifts games on this site that allow people to play many of the legal classes and races that are considered powerful. And keep in mind, as a GM, I consider myself a moderate, so a dragon hatchling or a demigod is pretty powerful to me, just so we are on the same page.

One of the key differences between Rifts and D20 is that Rifts characters are front-loaded, getting the majority of their power up front, while D20 characters tend to start off weak, and to gain power over time.
People tend to overlook this, and to act as if a "Pick any class/race" decision in Rifts should be equal to a "Pick any class/race" decision in D&D... but it's not.
Really, a lot of Rifts OCCs/RCCs are the equivalent of starting off as a D&D Prestige Class.
A lot of Rifts games start off with the equivalent of most of the party rolling up standard classes that start at first level, and another guy picking a prestige class that has to be 10th level in order to even get the class.
That one guy might claim, "You said that I could start off as ANY class!", but nobody's buying it, because it was implied that they start off as any first level class.
In D20, you can play a dragon at first level under certain rules... but if you DO, the dragon is nerfed down to be the equivalent of any other class.
In Rifts, you can play a Godling at first level, but there's generally the understanding that it's a more powerful class than the standard, the equivalent of a much higher level character than a normal First Level character.

Basically, what this issue works out as would in D20 terms be:
"When I GM, I want to run high-level or Epic campaigns, but all the other GMs want to start people off at First Level."

The difference is that D20 is coherent enough for everything to be up-front, and in Rifts everything is a bit murkier.

[PSI-Lence]

well for picking an OCC i require they have the stats first off which limits the choices right off (you get 3d6 and that's it, no throwing away low rolls)

PCCs/RCC's i'm pretty much open to anything

but in all cases i'll want a history of the character and how/why they came to the setting
IE if someone is a Glitter Boy Pilot how did they get the armor? Rogue Scholar, how did they learn what they know? juicer/borg, how did they get the augmentation (for juicers also how long ago)?

the more and more leaps it takes to make a connection the less likely i will ok it (a dragon hatchling glitter boy pilot? not very likely unless you got a damn good convincing story)

[Tor]

Having a Cosmo-Knight in Chi-Town doesn't seem that illogical, Rifts Earth seems like a place the Cosmic Forge would want justice brought to. If anything, we need some kind of unwritten reason why there aren't more Cosmo-Knights operating on Rifts Earth, since we know how they (or a lot of Phrase World tech, even the SAMAS-equivalent flying power armor of the CCW) would wreck a lot of the big powers.

SA2 even establishes there are 4 Cosmo-Knights working with the Inca Nation. A 5th was even explicitly on Rifts Earth and got shot down by kill-sats trying to leave orbit. Not sure if the surviving 4 were actually on the planet or if the Inca Gods are using them in other dimensions.

[Alrik Vas]

Ok, I'll bite. You're the GM, Tor. You're running a CS burbs game. 3 players are city rat, headhunter and rogue scholar, the 4th is a cosmo-knight. The first time a psi-hound or dog boy sniffs the CK's massive PPE base, what happens?

[say652]

Oh oh oh oh, I know.

Ten thousand armored cs troops launch fifty thousand missiles and destroy everything in a two mile radius.

[Jorick]

Ok, I'll bite. You're the GM, Tor. You're running a CS burbs game. 3 players are city rat, headhunter and rogue scholar, the 4th is a cosmo-knight. The first time a psi-hound or dog boy sniffs the CK's massive PPE base, what happens?

I think the CK would have to leave or be responsible for a lot of death.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. It is a bad thing only if the players want to play a story only in the burbs. This can be resolved two ways: one, dog boys don't come close/the CK knows to be careful (like the many other high ppe people that inhabit the burbs apparently); 2, no CKs are allowed. The story the group wants to tell determines limitations.

Point is, Rifts is story based. There is no balance 'cause story is more important than battle. Players should be able to play a rogue scholar traversing the world with her bodyguard. That's a cool story. Or, like, the halfling farmer/vagabond can join the dwarf warriors and the godling magician. That seems to work as a story too.

The limitation is that everyone be down for the story. To be clear, I agree with pretty much all of the responses here (including the one I quoted--not trying to argue that it isn't at all complicated--it definitely can be if folks don't agree). I think understanding things this way (story first) gets rid of any sort of "dichotomy" in the game.

Everyone has to be in on it. I'm not sure Rifts works well as a one-off without pre-gen characters (or heavy story limitation). But as a campaign, everyone, players and GM, has to agree to be in on a story together, and then it works just fine, no matter what. As long as everyone says "this is who we are, and we want to make a story together" everyone will find a way to make that story (assuming the GM can read the player group at all), and enjoy it.

If the dog boy blows the CK's cover and you all have to jump through a Rift to who knows where after you made a city rat who knows nothing about anything outside of Firetown, it's cool as long as you understood that the story includes a CK, and therefore there's a good chance that the story will transform into something cosmic eventually. The story can leave the burbs, or stay, or who knows what.

If everyone wants to be sure to never leave the burbs, then only certain classes, and certain backgrounds, can be allowed. And no one will be sad about that either.

[say652]

Fallen Cosmo Knight Mind Melter from Psyscape.

[flatline]

Fallen Cosmo Knight Mind Melter from Psyscape.

How can you be from both the 3 galaxies and Psyscape at the same time?

[eliakon]

Fallen Cosmo Knight Mind Melter from Psyscape.

How can you be from both the 3 galaxies and Psyscape at the same time?

Very carefully......

[say652]

The opening of the mind eye, can be taught in ten to thirty years.
No point of going into page number paragraph bs, if you own the book look it up, because I'm correct.

[flatline]

The opening of the mind eye, can be taught in ten to thirty years.
No point of going into page number paragraph bs, if you own the book look it up, because I'm correct.

So any psychic can go to Psyscape and have their "mind eye" opened?

[say652]

Yes after the appropriate period of spiritual enlightenment. Ten to thirty years.

[eliakon]

The opening of the mind eye, can be taught in ten to thirty years.
No point of going into page number paragraph bs, if you own the book look it up, because I'm correct.

So any psychic can go to Psyscape and have their "mind eye" opened?

Yep, if you have a few spare decades sure. After all its a taught thing anyway....just being from Psyscape allows you to claim that you were taught in your youth.

[Zer0 Kay]

I have my players make two characters, one Munchkin of their wildest dreams and one "Normal" character.

I don't have a set power level, I also love to Gm epic power levels.

For the coalition characters, since they are weaker I let my players use 3-5 man squads.

A player playing a five man squad? That is more like tactical gaming that role playing as most players can't play five distinct characters at the same time. It ends up more like five clones of the same dude at least in how they act.

[Zer0 Kay]

The opening of the mind eye, can be taught in ten to thirty years.
No point of going into page number paragraph bs, if you own the book look it up, because I'm correct.

So any psychic can go to Psyscape and have their "mind eye" opened?

Yep, if you have a few spare decades sure. After all its a taught thing anyway....just being from Psyscape allows you to claim that you were taught in your youth.

Ah but a Cosmo knight taught in their youth is only a cosmoknight a cosmoknight taught after they was turned is a cosmoknight with psychic powers.

[eliakon]

The opening of the mind eye, can be taught in ten to thirty years.
No point of going into page number paragraph bs, if you own the book look it up, because I'm correct.

So any psychic can go to Psyscape and have their "mind eye" opened?

Yep, if you have a few spare decades sure. After all its a taught thing anyway....just being from Psyscape allows you to claim that you were taught in your youth.

Ah but a Cosmo knight taught in their youth is only a cosmoknight a cosmoknight taught after they was turned is a cosmoknight with psychic powers.

Yerp
Someone--forge-->Cosmoknight--fall-->Fallen Knight (picks Mind Melter)--goes to Psyscape for a few decades-->Fallen Cosmoknight/Mindmelter with open third eye.
Of course this requires that you have a Fallen Knight that fell far enough back that they could have gone to Psycsape for their training before the game starts (and that the GM is cool with this ability just getting hand waved on) or you fast forward a few decades in game time to account for acquiring it in play

[Jorick]

I have my players make two characters, one Munchkin of their wildest dreams and one "Normal" character.

I don't have a set power level, I also love to Gm epic power levels.

For the coalition characters, since they are weaker I let my players use 3-5 man squads.

A player playing a five man squad? That is more like tactical gaming that role playing as most players can't play five distinct characters at the same time. It ends up more like five clones of the same dude at least in how they act.

I think it would be cool to have a pc with a 5 man npc squad. Gotta feed 'em and stuff. Like a minigame.

[eliakon]

I have my players make two characters, one Munchkin of their wildest dreams and one "Normal" character.

I don't have a set power level, I also love to Gm epic power levels.

For the coalition characters, since they are weaker I let my players use 3-5 man squads.

A player playing a five man squad? That is more like tactical gaming that role playing as most players can't play five distinct characters at the same time. It ends up more like five clones of the same dude at least in how they act.

I think it would be cool to have a pc with a 5 man npc squad. Gotta feed 'em and stuff. Like a minigame.

I had a CS game were everyone played a CS agent, and a mutant animal. So they had both the members of the team, and the members of the pack that supported said team.
It worked pretty well, not perfectly, but it worked well enough that I would consider doing it again.

[dedoombringer]

I always set a limit that players would be punished for going over a certain levels.

[Zer0 Kay]

The opening of the mind eye, can be taught in ten to thirty years.
No point of going into page number paragraph bs, if you own the book look it up, because I'm correct.

So any psychic can go to Psyscape and have their "mind eye" opened?

Yep, if you have a few spare decades sure. After all its a taught thing anyway....just being from Psyscape allows you to claim that you were taught in your youth.

Ah but a Cosmo knight taught in their youth is only a cosmoknight a cosmoknight taught after they was turned is a cosmoknight with psychic powers.

Yerp
Someone--forge-->Cosmoknight--fall-->Fallen Knight (picks Mind Melter)--goes to Psyscape for a few decades-->Fallen Cosmoknight/Mindmelter with open third eye.
Of course this requires that you have a Fallen Knight that fell far enough back that they could have gone to Psycsape for their training before the game starts (and that the GM is cool with this ability just getting hand waved on) or you fast forward a few decades in game time to account for acquiring it in play

You say yerp, I say derp and when asked, uh... No.

[Zer0 Kay]

I have my players make two characters, one Munchkin of their wildest dreams and one "Normal" character.

I don't have a set power level, I also love to Gm epic power levels.

For the coalition characters, since they are weaker I let my players use 3-5 man squads.

A player playing a five man squad? That is more like tactical gaming that role playing as most players can't play five distinct characters at the same time. It ends up more like five clones of the same dude at least in how they act.

I think it would be cool to have a pc with a 5 man npc squad. Gotta feed 'em and stuff. Like a minigame.

An npc squad sure. But playing five guys... Nah.

[Zer0 Kay]

I have my players make two characters, one Munchkin of their wildest dreams and one "Normal" character.

I don't have a set power level, I also love to Gm epic power levels.

For the coalition characters, since they are weaker I let my players use 3-5 man squads.

A player playing a five man squad? That is more like tactical gaming that role playing as most players can't play five distinct characters at the same time. It ends up more like five clones of the same dude at least in how they act.

I think it would be cool to have a pc with a 5 man npc squad. Gotta feed 'em and stuff. Like a minigame.

I had a CS game were everyone played a CS agent, and a mutant animal. So they had both the members of the team, and the members of the pack that supported said team.
It worked pretty well, not perfectly, but it worked well enough that I would consider doing it again.

I've done the five PCs played by on player before and though the player had MPD the characters were all the same except for ones so drastic different where it was easily discernable which one he was playing CS human and dogboy would work.

[Hotrod]

OCC/racial restrictions make all kinds of sense to me. Rifts may be a kitchen sink setting, but characters need some kind of rationale for getting together, and good campaigns tend to have underlying themes. Along those lines, it makes a lot of sense to place restrictions like "Coalition Military/Government only", or "natives of ____ region only", or "all characters must have psionics".

I'm sure I could dream up some backstory by which a group could consist of a Coalition Psi-stalker, a witch, a secondary vampire, a master-psionic cyber-knight, and a cyber-doc. Really, though, if those characters are role-played straight, it would be a terrible group. GMing or playing in such a game would likely feel like those Star Trek TNG episodes in which Q throws the bridge crew into crazy situations for the lulz.

[Tor]

The first time a psi-hound or dog boy sniffs the CK's massive PPE base, what happens?

Maybe the knight burned it all off making a super-big forcefield on his weapon? Does the amount of PPE you have even factor into whether or not you can be sensed?

That said, they are supernatural creatures, so simply existing would set off sensors, although I don't think they have magic or psi to use so it wouldn't be at the higher ranges.

Perhaps: the Cosmo-Knight just flies away at Mach speed as soon as there is a hint that people are on to them? Mach 1 is over a thousand feet per second, they can get themselves out of range very quickly.

Ten thousand armored cs troops launch fifty thousand missiles and destroy everything in a two mile radius.

Pretty sure the CS does not nuke the burbs any time a dog boy catches a whiff of the supernatural.

Just because Psi-Hounds can sniff a supernatural at 100ft/level doesn't mean they know the full extent of that thing's abilities.

Although there is a skill involved to identify 'the specific type of paranormal creature', that only means that they'd be able to tell that 2 Cosmo-Knight scents had something in common.

They'd still need to get experience with a 1st Cosmo-Knight to know what being a Cosmo-Knight entails, what threat it presents, before spelling other ones later on is going to send them into panic mode.

Even then, it probably would not be considered a good use of resources to nuke a cosmo-knight like that. They fly too fast and the missiles would probably just miss or get outrun. Better to send espionage agents and try to lure them into a fusion block trap, or disable them with Psi-Slayers and Mind Melters.

[Alrik Vas]

Tor, if they fly away every time, and are sensed on incoming, they don't get to really take part in the game the GM wants to run.

There are some expectations involved for that type of game which can't really be met if you're a major supernatural in the CS burbs. That's kind of my point. A Cosmo-knight would only be disruptive to the game unless the the plan was to cause a major incident. If that's the game and you want to hit and run on the CS until they corner and kill you with aircraft, cool.

[Tor]

The problem that Cosmo-Knights would experience in the burbs are the same as what other supernatural beings would, except they have the benefit of appearing human (if we go with this being their race) while not all supernatural creatures do. Even morphers like dragons have limited timespans as hatchlings. Their superior regen and flight speed and energy resistance would also help.

Are the burbs utterly bereft of supernaturals? Wasn't there some rogue Gurgoyle having fun in Firetown?

[Alrik Vas]

The problem that Cosmo-Knights would experience in the burbs are the same as what other supernatural beings would, except they have the benefit of appearing human (if we go with this being their race) while not all supernatural creatures do. Even morphers like dragons have limited timespans as hatchlings. Their superior regen and flight speed and energy resistance would also help.

Are the burbs utterly bereft of supernaturals? Wasn't there some rogue Gurgoyle having fun in Firetown?

Sure, there are plenty of magic users and supernatural creatures that hide. Most are caught, killed or driven out of town. The rest don't cause trouble so they're left alone. Though, say D-bee 1 is subjected to some violent persecution by the skullheads. Mr. CK walks on? Chats with the deadboys and tries to serve civil justice in a peaceful manner? Vaporizes the evil guys beating up a poor defenseless non-citizen?

While these are choices most characters will face, there are certain considerations involving characters as powerful as Cosmo-knights that don't necessarily apply to the majority of classes, races or whatever.

[say652]

So a Supernatural Creature could habit the burbs as long as they are not a magic user.

[Bill]

Depending on your GM's interpretation of the 'Burbs adventure series, yes. Many NPC supernatural creatures do just that. However, it's never explained exactly how they avoid the frequent psihounds and coalition patrols that are also described to do so. The reasoning that I've used in the past has been that there is a black market trade in information that can be used to learn in advance where and when a dog pack will be, enabling spell casters and supernatural beings that will play ball to remain hidden while using coalition forces to dispose of less cooperative monsters. It's not canonical, but I think it makes sense.

That might present some interesting moral challenges for a cosmo knight though.

[flatline]

So a Supernatural Creature could habit the burbs as long as they are not a magic user.

Even if you're a magic user, with a little bit of caution, you're really only detectable when casting.

--flatline

[say652]

The cs isn't dumb.
Letting a few powerhouse D-bees live in the burbs, serves several purposes.
Information.
Enforcer.
Shows that as long as you know your place subhuman trash doesn't always need to die.
Follow the rules, fight for us when needed, and never expect to be treated as anything more than a stray dog, you just might live.