Black Market Review

[Cybermancer]

So a little over a week ago I finally got the Black Market which is why this review so late in coming. This is actually my first review of a Palladium book and the reason for this one is because of how impressed I was with the book over all. It's been awhile since I liked a Rifts book quite this much. I can see me getting a lot of use out of it.

Obviously there will be spoilers.

Now for the review.

What I liked.

For starters, they made the Black Market several large syndicates and a lot of bit operators in between. And that's just in North America. They gave a good over view of what Black Market actually means and described various levels of black marketeering. I had concerns about this and am quite relieved that they were not realized. Furthermore, the syndicates they describe are interesting and plausible for the setting. They managed to give each of the big five its own feel.

Description of the smuggling routes and methods was also well thought out and well done.

The section on how to play a black marketeer was mostly good. I sort of felt that characters who were criminals before this book came out may be getting the short end of the stick by wanting to join the Black Market now. A GM should be willing to handle things retroactively in order to give established characters a fair shake. I also think that perhaps the benefits might be a bit too easily revoked if someone leaves the Black Market. If you have a friend, they're a friend. And if someone owes you a favor, they owe you a favor. This is one of the things I would definitely do differently in any campaign I ran that involved Black Market characters.

I like the Black Market enterprises. I'd like to see more rules about running businesses and the like on the side. Not every player or GM likes that sort of thing but there are many that do. It was also nice to see that these things could actually turn a profit, just as any business can. If anything, it might be too easy to make a profit. But given the expense of being an adventurer in the Rifts world, that may be a feature, not a bug.

The O.C.C.'s are about what you'd expect but don't really stand out to me. They're good but I'd just as soon play a City Rat. I might use them for NPC creation though.

I loved the section on traveling merchants and market towns. Oh, and the bar/club generation rules. It'll be handy the next time I have a group start a bar fight as a precursor to burning a place down. Ah, the innocent fun of ye olde tavern brawls.

Very meh about the the random contraband finds. There's some okay ideas there but giving random rolls for something like this is sorta clunky and unnecessary in my opinion.

Palladium can go ahead and NEVER publish the rules for traveling circuses again. At this point it's just wasted pages.

Do yourself a favor and take a black magic marker to page 136. As this is mostly a positive review, I won't repeat the rant that this one page elicited from me. It is a bit of a black mark on an otherwise very excellent book. Besides, I believe there have already been threads discussing the price issues on this page.

Now we have the toys. Loved them. They're all great. I think the energy weapons were especially nice looking and make good product on their own right for their prices and appearance.

The MM-16... so the four missiles rule is actually part of the observable physics of the Rifts world.

Some of the vehicles are sort of wonky. Definitely an individual taste sort of thing. I liked the Road Hammer Transport, except the last paragraph about how you shouldn't drive it near CS territory. *Sigh* Apparently the CS has a grudge against unarmed transport trucks. Yeah, I know, it's against the manufacturer but still, there is no real reason for this. I'm certainly going to ignore it.

LOVED the walker bike. Just loved it. If I were in the Rifts world, I would make it my mission to own one of these. For real. Any guesses what my favorite Robotech mecha is?

I also like the Wrangler Riding armor quite a bit. Almost too much. And the picture was just amazing.

The Shadow Boy was cool but I think the main body M.D.C. was a little shy. I would have liked to see it go to 385.

Liked the look of the Mole prospecting Robot. I see it as a project robot for those who want to make a combat robot on a budget. Again, very nice picture.

Smuggling the illegal goods in robot dinosaurs was actually a pretty brilliant idea. And it's the only way there will ever be M.D.C. dinosaurs in any Rifts game I run.

The Pegasus Robot Steed was neat. The Monster Pegasus was awesome and is one step away from being a dragon robot mount, which I think is awesome.

I can see uses for the Raptor robot aside from steed. I'm sure I'll have players that will want to ride one.

The Techno-Wizard power armor was pretty neat. I think it's good when nifty magic toys are included.

Overall this book leaves me looking forward to Northern Gun book coming out. Well, that and the teaser available on Drivethru RPG.

My recommendation is buy this book. There are a few flaws but they can be ignored or changed to taste. And the majority of the book delivers the sort of writing, background information and story that I love about the Rifts world.

*EDIT*

It's just been brought to my attention that the EX tables were left out and will be published in Rifter #62. I find this to be a disappointing decision on the part of Palladium as the errata should be released for free on this site. I still love this book but this is a negative mark against it that is worth mentioning.

[Snake Eyes]

Do yourself a favor and take a black magic marker to page 136. As this is mostly a positive review, I won't repeat the rant that this one page elicited from me. It is a bit of a black mark on an otherwise very excellent book. Besides, I believe there have already been threads discussing the price issues on this page.

Your point?

As a GM i use this page quite a lot

[Cybermancer]

Do yourself a favor and take a black magic marker to page 136. As this is mostly a positive review, I won't repeat the rant that this one page elicited from me. It is a bit of a black mark on an otherwise very excellent book. Besides, I believe there have already been threads discussing the price issues on this page.

Your point?

As a GM i use this page quite a lot

My point is that everything is grossly over priced. There's an e-clip recharger in Merc Ops for 790,000 credits compared to the 65 million credit one listed on this page. The prices for an internal combustion engine of the size described are also outlandish.

[krate]

Thank you for the review. It was an interesting read. 'Preciate it.

[Cybermancer]

Thank you for the review. It was an interesting read. 'Preciate it.

Glad you liked it.

[Snake Eyes]

Do yourself a favor and take a black magic marker to page 136. As this is mostly a positive review, I won't repeat the rant that this one page elicited from me. It is a bit of a black mark on an otherwise very excellent book. Besides, I believe there have already been threads discussing the price issues on this page.

Your point?

As a GM i use this page quite a lot

My point is that everything is grossly over priced. There's an e-clip recharger in Merc Ops for 790,000 credits compared to the 65 million credit one listed on this page. The prices for an internal combustion engine of the size described are also outlandish.

I apologize for sounding snippy before........I guess everything is greatly overpriced because you're buying from the black market.....

[Cybermancer]

Do yourself a favor and take a black magic marker to page 136. As this is mostly a positive review, I won't repeat the rant that this one page elicited from me. It is a bit of a black mark on an otherwise very excellent book. Besides, I believe there have already been threads discussing the price issues on this page.

Your point?

As a GM i use this page quite a lot

My point is that everything is grossly over priced. There's an e-clip recharger in Merc Ops for 790,000 credits compared to the 65 million credit one listed on this page. The prices for an internal combustion engine of the size described are also outlandish.

I apologize for sounding snippy before........I guess everything is greatly overpriced because you're buying from the black market.....

That is a possible explanation, I agree. Though it still seems an order of magnitude too pricey to me.

Now, I suppose you could make a case for it being prices out west where the demand is high and availability scarce. But I would still probably divide the prices by at ten.

[Snake Eyes]

Thats a good point, especially since in the new west we have Wilk's and Northern Gun, which are locals. Though for imports like Triax, i'm sure the prices would be steep

[kaid]

Do yourself a favor and take a black magic marker to page 136. As this is mostly a positive review, I won't repeat the rant that this one page elicited from me. It is a bit of a black mark on an otherwise very excellent book. Besides, I believe there have already been threads discussing the price issues on this page.

Your point?

As a GM i use this page quite a lot

My point is that everything is grossly over priced. There's an e-clip recharger in Merc Ops for 790,000 credits compared to the 65 million credit one listed on this page. The prices for an internal combustion engine of the size described are also outlandish.

I apologize for sounding snippy before........I guess everything is greatly overpriced because you're buying from the black market.....

That is a possible explanation, I agree. Though it still seems an order of magnitude too pricey to me.

Now, I suppose you could make a case for it being prices out west where the demand is high and availability scarce. But I would still probably divide the prices by at ten.

The prices roughly make some sense if you look at the by the book costs to recharge eclips and how much money a recharging station that can do multiple clips at once could generate. All the black market charges seem to try to keep the cost to time to break a profit for the charging stations somewhat stable time wise. All that said while I understand what their thought process was it really does not make any sense game wise or compared to anything else in game.

Seriously I don't care how uber your eclip charger is it is not worth the cost of 10+ nuclear powered power armor suites. When you have shown you can run a charger albeit a slow on off of solar than any source of electricity will provide enough juice to recharge eclips. Basically any nuke power plant should be more than capable of a fairly simple power cable hookup to an eclip charger. It is not black magic you are not modifying the reactor or doing anything crazy you are simply doing a standard electricians job of making a power converter.

I would say 2 million tops for an eclip charging station the price stated for a power armor sized nuke plant is 1 million maybe throw on the second million for mark up and the nice fancy eclip charging station and that would still be massive amounts of profit for the makers of these things.

At 65 million there seriously is no reason for adventurers to ever adventure. Steal one of these bad boys sell it and you are set for life. The ones in merc town seem pretty reasonable that is for a one clip charger for under a million so a multi clip comercial charger for a couple mil is perfectly reasonable but not 65 mil.

[Cybermancer]

The prices roughly make some sense if you look at the by the book costs to recharge eclips and how much money a recharging station that can do multiple clips at once could generate. All the black market charges seem to try to keep the cost to time to break a profit for the charging stations somewhat stable time wise. All that said while I understand what their thought process was it really does not make any sense game wise or compared to anything else in game.

Seriously I don't care how uber your eclip charger is it is not worth the cost of 10+ nuclear powered power armor suites. When you have shown you can run a charger albeit a slow on off of solar than any source of electricity will provide enough juice to recharge eclips. Basically any nuke power plant should be more than capable of a fairly simple power cable hookup to an eclip charger. It is not black magic you are not modifying the reactor or doing anything crazy you are simply doing a standard electricians job of making a power converter.

I would say 2 million tops for an eclip charging station the price stated for a power armor sized nuke plant is 1 million maybe throw on the second million for mark up and the nice fancy eclip charging station and that would still be massive amounts of profit for the makers of these things.

At 65 million there seriously is no reason for adventurers to ever adventure. Steal one of these bad boys sell it and you are set for life. The ones in merc town seem pretty reasonable that is for a one clip charger for under a million so a multi clip comercial charger for a couple mil is perfectly reasonable but not 65 mil.

I think the book prices for e-clip recharging are too high as well. Again I divide the number. For a new e-clip I divide by ten. For a recharge, by 100.

The cheapest nuclear power plant I know of is found in the one Chipwell Assault suit from Rifts: Mercenaries. The suit costs 250,000 credits and comes with a five year nuclear power supply.

I have occasionally wondered of a Chipwell sales rep would object, be offended or even especially surprised if after purchasing one of these suits, someone immediately started to strip it down. Right on the showroom floor.

[Cybermancer]

The cheapest nuclear power plant I know of is found in the one Chipwell Assault suit from Rifts: Mercenaries. The suit costs 250,000 credits and comes with a five year nuclear power supply.

I have occasionally wondered of a Chipwell sales rep would object, be offended or even especially surprised if after purchasing one of these suits, someone immediately started to strip it down. Right on the showroom floor.

"Wait...why is the Geiger counter going off? WHAT THE &%$@?! This reactor doesn't even have its own shielding - they were just using the outer armor of the suit for that purpose! We're all dead. DEAD!"

Heh.

You wouldn't want to pilot one of these things if that were true.

Personally, I'm sort of a fan of Chipwell. And not just because of bargain nuclear power plants.

[kaid]

Hehe I like chipwel armor because really it does fit a needed niche. Bargin basement prices of stuff to give extra fire power for smaller cities/larger towns where your gear does not need to travel very far and still gives you better than average protection compared to normal sets of EBA. Also useful in firefighting/construction roles when not fighting.

Not everybody needs the latest and greatest armor some need just enough to get the job done and that is the niche of chipwell. It also tends to be my go to for players starting power armor/robot armor pilot characters. That way they still can fill their role in a group but actually have stuff to look forward do and things to work toward. This way when they get access to old samson suit of PA they are not going aaww its just a samson and instead go WOOOO I GOT A SAMSON!!!!111!!!

[Snake Eyes]

The cheapest nuclear power plant I know of is found in the one Chipwell Assault suit from Rifts: Mercenaries. The suit costs 250,000 credits and comes with a five year nuclear power supply.

Thats pretty cheap, considering that a 5 year nuclear power supply costs 4.5 million (robot creation rules SB1 revised.)

So, it seems that Chipwell is selling their Assault Suit for the cost of just the body/frame

[kaid]

The cheapest nuclear power plant I know of is found in the one Chipwell Assault suit from Rifts: Mercenaries. The suit costs 250,000 credits and comes with a five year nuclear power supply.

Thats pretty cheap, considering that a 5 year nuclear power supply costs 4.5 million (robot creation rules SB1 revised.)

So, it seems that Chipwell is selling their Assault Suit for the cost of just the body/frame

Or they are cutting an alarming amount of corners on the nuke plant.

[Cybermancer]

The prices for the source book can't really be applied to commercially available robots without increasing prices dramatically across the board.

[Slight001]

The prices for the source book can't really be applied to commercially available robots without increasing prices dramatically across the board.

Agreed those rules are for a one of a kind custom... not a commercially mass produced design.

[jaymz]

Nice review Cyber.

Personally I see it as more of a GM resource unless one is running a more Black Market-centric game but that's just me.

[Cybermancer]

Nice review Cyber.

Personally I see it as more of a GM resource unless one is running a more Black Market-centric game but that's just me.

I think it's a must have for GM's. It's a nice to have for players, I think.

[The Beast]

It's just been brought to my attention that the EX tables were left out and will be published in Rifter #62. I find this to be a disappointing decision on the part of Palladium as the errata should be released for free on this site. I still love this book but this is a negative mark against it that is worth mentioning.

Yeah, that's horrible customer support on Palladium's part.

[jaymz]

It's just been brought to my attention that the EX tables were left out and will be published in Rifter #62. I find this to be a disappointing decision on the part of Palladium as the errata should be released for free on this site. I still love this book but this is a negative mark against it that is worth mentioning.

Yeah, that's horrible customer support on Palladium's part.

I missed Cyber's original post quoted here. I've been saying for quite some time now that certain pieces of information should be released on here for free instead forcing people to buy a Rifter to get that information. Especially when the information is almost always not included due to "space limitations".

[Damian Magecraft]

It's just been brought to my attention that the EX tables were left out and will be published in Rifter #62. I find this to be a disappointing decision on the part of Palladium as the errata should be released for free on this site. I still love this book but this is a negative mark against it that is worth mentioning.

Yeah, that's horrible customer support on Palladium's part.

I missed Cyber's original post quoted here. I've been saying for quite some time now that certain pieces of information should be released on here for free instead forcing people to buy a Rifter to get that information. Especially when the information is almost always not included due to "space limitations".

I would have to say that it would depend on the data left out...
Xp Tables, weapon damages, etc... yes make that errata available on the site.
Additional gear, NPCs, additional info, etc.. (the stuff that does not add up to enough data that warrants another book or larger page count) that can and perhaps should be Rifter material.

[The Beast]

It's just been brought to my attention that the EX tables were left out and will be published in Rifter #62. I find this to be a disappointing decision on the part of Palladium as the errata should be released for free on this site. I still love this book but this is a negative mark against it that is worth mentioning.

Yeah, that's horrible customer support on Palladium's part.

I missed Cyber's original post quoted here. I've been saying for quite some time now that certain pieces of information should be released on here for free instead forcing people to buy a Rifter to get that information. Especially when the information is almost always not included due to "space limitations".

Normally I have no problem with PB doing it the way they have been. However, when something was left out by mistake that really needs to be posted in the Cutting Room Floor or Errata section of their website.

Back when WB4 was released PB at least sent a page containing the missing info to the LGS's that sold it. Forcing customers to buy a book they may have otherwise zero intent to purchase (or money available) makes it seem as if Kevin Siembieda doesn't care about his customers.

However I agree with what Magecraft said in the other thread on this topic, keep it in the book as well for those who would normally get The Rifter anyway but either don't feel like or aren't able to go to the website and download the errata.

[jaymz]

We'll have to agree to disagree then Damian. There are number of people who do not buy the Rifters since they are supposed to be "option unofficial material" and only care to have official material. Choosing to not include material due to so called "space limitations" when Kevin has repeatedly increased page counts to fit everything he can into a book, then ONLY making that material available in a Rifter is bad form in my opinion. Most things that have been left out have been no more than 10-12 pages of material. Would it not be a better move PR wise to just PDF that material and make it available right here on the website in a section they themselves created called "The Cutting room floor"? I think it would be another thing (as small as it may be) that they could do to improve their perception in the RPG community.... "Hey Palladium is putting of free official web content that didn't make it into the last book on their website" sounds and is better than "Hey Palladium is releasing official extra material that didn't make into the last book BUT you HAVE to buy a Fanzine in order to get it". Forcing people to buy a book they may not usually buy just to get a dozen pages of official material that got cut from a recent book smacks of cash grab for no other reason than they can.

[Cybermancer]

As an update, Kevin has addressed the issue of the XP tables and they will be made available for free on this site in in updated future printings of the Black Market. This is definitely a good thing. I'm sure it was just an oversight that it wasn't mentioned in the murmur that also mentioned that they were going to be printed in the next Rifter. Hopefully oversights such as these will be kept to a minimum in the future.

[kaid]

It's just been brought to my attention that the EX tables were left out and will be published in Rifter #62. I find this to be a disappointing decision on the part of Palladium as the errata should be released for free on this site. I still love this book but this is a negative mark against it that is worth mentioning.

Yeah, that's horrible customer support on Palladium's part.

I missed Cyber's original post quoted here. I've been saying for quite some time now that certain pieces of information should be released on here for free instead forcing people to buy a Rifter to get that information. Especially when the information is almost always not included due to "space limitations".

Normally I have no problem with PB doing it the way they have been. However, when something was left out by mistake that really needs to be posted in the Cutting Room Floor or Errata section of their website.

Back when WB4 was released PB at least sent a page containing the missing info to the LGS's that sold it. Forcing customers to buy a book they may have otherwise zero intent to purchase (or money available) makes it seem as if Kevin Siembieda doesn't care about his customers.

However I agree with what Magecraft said in the other thread on this topic, keep it in the book as well for those who would normally get The Rifter anyway but either don't feel like or aren't able to go to the website and download the errata.

I would agree the xp tables really should show up in the cutting room floor errata area on the website and also having them published in a rifter would be a fine bonus.

[Shark_Force]

We'll have to agree to disagree then Damian. There are number of people who do not buy the Rifters since they are supposed to be "option unofficial material" and only care to have official material. Choosing to not include material due to so called "space limitations" when Kevin has repeatedly increased page counts to fit everything he can into a book, then ONLY making that material available in a Rifter is bad form in my opinion. Most things that have been left out have been no more than 10-12 pages of material. Would it not be a better move PR wise to just PDF that material and make it available right here on the website in a section they themselves created called "The Cutting room floor"? I think it would be another thing (as small as it may be) that they could do to improve their perception in the RPG community.... "Hey Palladium is putting of free official web content that didn't make it into the last book on their website" sounds and is better than "Hey Palladium is releasing official extra material that didn't make into the last book BUT you HAVE to buy a Fanzine in order to get it". Forcing people to buy a book they may not usually buy just to get a dozen pages of official material that got cut from a recent book smacks of cash grab for no other reason than they can.

then don't buy it. if it wasn't something that kevin felt needed to go into the printed book, it probably isn't going to be a crippling loss to not have it in your campaign.

the errata should be (and is) free. extra material? well, it's extra. yes, they could release it free as a PR thing, but i don't see any reason why we should *expect* that to happen. they still had to write it, probably had to pay someone to write it, and it doesn't run itself through layout or editing. asking to get paid for work done sounds pretty reasonable to me, especially in an industry with profit margins as bad as the RPG industry.

[Cybermancer]

We'll have to agree to disagree then Damian. There are number of people who do not buy the Rifters since they are supposed to be "option unofficial material" and only care to have official material. Choosing to not include material due to so called "space limitations" when Kevin has repeatedly increased page counts to fit everything he can into a book, then ONLY making that material available in a Rifter is bad form in my opinion. Most things that have been left out have been no more than 10-12 pages of material. Would it not be a better move PR wise to just PDF that material and make it available right here on the website in a section they themselves created called "The Cutting room floor"? I think it would be another thing (as small as it may be) that they could do to improve their perception in the RPG community.... "Hey Palladium is putting of free official web content that didn't make it into the last book on their website" sounds and is better than "Hey Palladium is releasing official extra material that didn't make into the last book BUT you HAVE to buy a Fanzine in order to get it". Forcing people to buy a book they may not usually buy just to get a dozen pages of official material that got cut from a recent book smacks of cash grab for no other reason than they can.

then don't buy it. if it wasn't something that kevin felt needed to go into the printed book, it probably isn't going to be a crippling loss to not have it in your campaign.

the errata should be (and is) free. extra material? well, it's extra. yes, they could release it free as a PR thing, but i don't see any reason why we should *expect* that to happen. they still had to write it, probably had to pay someone to write it, and it doesn't run itself through layout or editing. asking to get paid for work done sounds pretty reasonable to me, especially in an industry with profit margins as bad as the RPG industry.

I have to agree with most of what Shark Force has said. Errata definitely needs to be released for free. But the Rifter is fine for bonus material. The extra product is just that, product. No need for it to be released for free.

That having been said, Palladium is a company and the answer to a complaint shouldn't be "Don't buy their product." At least, not ideally.

There are other ways that bonus material could be released in addition to the Rifter. I remember the Magic of Palladium pulp magazine that used to be released. Something about 20 pages long would be about perfect for that. Another alternative to that would be a cheap PDF file released through Drivethru RPG. Personally, I buy all the Rifters anyway, but I don't see why other product alternatives shouldn't be pursued.

But I do think it's a little much to expect free product. Would it be nice? Sure. But Palladium is a company and companies exist to make money by selling product.

[kaid]

Since kevin has already posted that they are going to be putting the XP charts up in the errata section for free I don't see any problems. It was an oopsie that it got left off in the first place and in the past as with this time when they catch something like that they post it to the cutting room floor.

Publishing it in a rifter in addition to that I think is excellent customer service because a mistake was made and this way they help get the info out to as many people as possible including those who don't come to the web page.

As for the additional material this has been pretty traditionally something that gets into rifters stuff that for whatever reason simply did not make the cut. Stuff that was interesting but not critical enough to make the cut for what went into the book. With most publishers you would never even know this stuff was out there with palladium they stick it into the rifter which allows people to enjoy the hard work of the creators of those bits that otherwise would never have been seen.