evilgeek wrote:so humans aren't tougher than demons... big frickin' deal. Who cares...
Dude... we're not even tougher than FLOOPERS!
wait, wait, wait... you guys can always have your characters march in protest on the continent of atlantis demandin equal rights.... carry signs, come up with a snappy slogan... or you can just not care.
Good idea... if you think the Rifts books are written in Atlantis...
I haven't got my books with me right now but I'm relatively certain the main book addresses DB races in the front of the book and says unless you have a specific race in mind you can be a DB at GM approval just roll the character up normally. So there... are you happy? all of the other races unless they are specifically addressed are created equally
You obviosly don't get the problem.
Think it over.
Why get bent out of shape in Rifts... this is way better than 2nd ed ADND in my opinion where every race is inferior to elves in nearly every way, culturally and metaphysically.
Yeah... and I left 2nd Edition AD&D because of crap like that and because their system sucked.
These days Rifts doesn't seem to be much better, but that doesn't stop me from WANTING it to be better and it doesn't stop me from discussing things online with other people and discussing ideas on how to make things better.
Are you just mad you can't invade the nearby village of "handicapped and disabled alien and monster rest home?" weilding only a pair of broken second hand dentures duct taped to a walking stick?
Nope.
It all goes to power level.
In the original world of Rifts, the way it was presented in the main book and other early books, a human with some EBA and a MD weapon was unusually powerful. Most people on the planet, and most creatures, were SDC. The standard level of power was the Vagabond OCC; that was the everyman of Rifts Earth.
Even most MDC creatures were low-range mega-damage:
A T-Rex from the main book could be killed by a CS Grunt wielding a vibro-blade without that much of a battle.
As more and more books came out, the standard switched from Vagabond to CS Grunt (or any other guy in good EBA with decent MD weapons). The writers kept pumping out more and more powerful creatures, weapons, and armor. They took old monsters (dinosaurs, xiticix, etc) and made them vastly more powerful.
Every writer wanted the race he wrote, or the new gear he added to the world of Rifts to be Cool and Unique. Unfortunately, they almost invariably seemed to think that meant the same as "More Powerful".
Players, who were often attracted to Rifts in the first place because of th high power level of starting characters, found their characters becomming less and less powerful in comparison to the average character or monster in the books.
Of course, the GMs could have just written up SDC or low MD foes themselves, but what's the point of buying books if you're not going to use what's in them? Most GMs buy books to save the time and effort of creating the entire gameworld and every possible race by themselves, so they use what is printed in the books.
And what has been printed in the books has become more and more powerful with each book after Atlantis. The only fleshing out of Rifts Earth is done by increasing the average power level of the world.
Which is why power creep runs so rampant though the game.
If the writers had expanded the low-end of the power spectrum, players would have a chance to feel powerful occaisionally without owning Rune Swords or Naruni weapons or being one of the many super-powerful MDC races out there.
IT'S RIFTS!!!! Sci-Fi, magic, psionics and HORROR! People are SUPPOSED to be an endagered species... remember....
While that's a great argument against books like New West that suddenly up the human populations of the world by ignoring previous text, it has little to do with the subject at hand.
You've never seen a horror movie where the enemy is inferior to humans?
I suggest you check out:
-Gremlins
-Ghoulies
-Any Zombie Movie
-Aliens
-the Puppetmaster films
-or any of the many, many other horror films that don't deal with creatures that are completely superior and invincible.
For that matter, our main complaint isn't that humans are weaker than their enemies, it's that humans are weaker than 90% of the PC races out there. Rifts may be a horror movie for humans, but not for dragons, pogtals, Amazons, or any number of the other munchkiny RCCs that people play.