A Geek History of Time - Episode 279 - Paladium Games Part IV - Riffing on Rifts

Episode Date: August 30, 2024

We were saying that we were going to get into the movies. Yeah, and I'm only going to get into a few of them because there were way too goddamn many for me to really be interested in telling you this clone version or this clone version in the early studio system. It's a good metric to know in a story arc. Where should I be? Oh, there's Beast. I should step over here.

At some point, I'm going to have to sit down with you and force you, like pump you full of coffee and be like, no, okay, look. And are swiftly and brutally put down by the Minutemen who use bayonets to get their point across. Well done there. I'm good, Damian. And I'm also glad that I got your name right this time.

I apologize for that one TikTok video. Men of this generation. Wound up serving the whole lot of them as a percentage of the population because of the war, because of a whole lot of other stuff. Oh, yeah. And actually, in his case, it was pre-war, but, but you know, I was joking. Did he seriously join the American Navy? He did. This is a Geek History of Time. Where we connect nerdery to the real world.

My name is Ed Blalock. I'm a world history teacher here at the middle school level in Northern California. And I am now halfway through the rough draft of writing my first genuine term paper in half my lifespan. And man, am I rusty. And man, am I rusty. First of all, I'm having to use Chicago style citation, which I have not used before. When I was in school, most of my professors wanted me to use APA, which I know, but I have not, I have, so I'm learning Chicago and I'm, I'm getting, I'm getting the hang of Chicago style citation, but just the process of writing the paper is so much more laborious for me than it was like my senior year of college.

I could knock it out. It would take me an hour then to get done what it takes me two or maybe two and a half hours now. Just because I am so far out of practice and it is kicking my ass, but I'm getting there I'm getting it done and the rough draft is due To my professor in this coming week, and I am confident that I mean I'm not worried about making it, but man Tell you what? How about you? Well, I'm Damian Harmony. I'm a US history teacher at the high school level up here in Northern California.

And I'm gonna ask you a couple questions about your paper in just a second. But discovered a thing about myself and I'm kind of glad to have discovered it. I recently went on a bit of an excursion with my partner and her kids and good friends. And went on a hike. Oh my God. It was so nice.

Just wonderful hike. Terrific hike. Okay. Cool. You know, a good five miler, you know, all right. Yeah. Get the blood pumping a little bit, but nothing, nothing too huge.

Yeah. All right. Um, and then the next day, uh, I guess I'd misunderstood. Uh, so I was told that there was a cave to explore that was 165 feet underground. And I thought that was horizontal. It was not. And that we were going down these very steep steps. And I somehow psyched myself out out and I ended up bailing. I was like,

no, you guys go on ahead. I will meet you at the surface. It took me a good five minutes to get my heart rate back down to a normal heart rate. Another five minutes beyond that to stop sweating. Oh man. Yeah, it was something. And I was like, okay, that's not a thing for me. And I figured out- Ele out what don't fuck with you. No, they don't fuck with me That's not a problem. Um, but here's here's what I figured out about it was that Because I was told that the the underground cave

First off so my misunderstanding of the depth versus the length right okay, and number two I was told that it was either gonna be a 45 minute tour or a three hour tour and the indefinite aspect of that Took me from a little stress, but I'm fine too. I can't handle that Okay, and so now like once I learned that it was a 45 minute one, I was like, oh, I could have done that. I probably, knowing for sure when it was gonna end,

would have been fine. Missed out on some really cool shit, unfortunately. If I ever get a chance to go, I'll go again. But it was not for me on that day. And I was actually way more okay with it. And I'm gonna date this podcast a little bit. I'm 46 years old now, and I am okay listening to my body having its limits,

listening to my mind having its limits, whether they are rational or not, and just kind of accepting it instead of like getting down on myself for what kind of a man am I and stuff like that. So I had none of those thoughts, which was nice. But yeah, that was that was the lesson that I learned. Yeah, that sounds like a pretty pretty major lesson. Yeah there. That's that's a big one. Yeah, now tell me about your paper real quick. Okay, how many pages? like a pretty pretty major lesson yeah there that's that's a big one yeah now tell me about your paper real quick um okay how many pages uh rough at least

eight and I am I am going to I'm I am I know I'm gonna overcome that and finally it's be between 12 to 15 okay OK. I'm right now thinking I'm going to be hovering somewhere around the 13 page. You'll be fine. You'll be fine because you'll get you'll get you'll be given more. Hey analyze it this way too.

Yeah. Yeah. Cool. And how many sources. Number of sources between 10 to 12. OK. Great. Oh yeah. That's going to be. Yeah, that's going to be. Yeah, that's going to be great. And did you do an outline ahead of time?

One of the steps, one of the milestones for the course was putting together an annotated bibliography, OK, which is kind of taking on the role of my outline. Okay. Which is kind of taking on the role of my outline. Cause the way I'm doing it is I'm, I'm going source by source. I've, I've mentioned this to you, but the topic is, the historiography associated with John Brown and Potawatomi as opposed to, or John Brown, Potawatomi and Harper's

Ferry. And the thing is my thesis basically states that the earlier you are there is a very pronounced regionalism between people who want to emphasize Potawatomi and minimize Harper's Ferry or minimize the effect of Harper's Ferry on the popular consciousness. And then on the other side, people who want to rant and rave about Harper's Ferry and John Brown being a martyr to freedom and kind of want to like... Elide past power to work Eli pod with Tommy and that then as time goes on the the depiction of him becomes more shaded and

more nuanced generally speaking sure you know to the point of you know analysis of you know would we consider him a terrorist and right looking at him as a revolutionary and That kind of stuff so And I have I have like a whole lot of stuff like off off air to share with you about

You know because I'm sure you'd find some of the stuff. I'm reading fascinating. Oh useful to my class, so yeah, yeah So yeah, that's that is that is what the paper is It gives me the opportunity to dunk on lost cause and dunning school assholes Which you know I'm always up for doing ink well spilled. Oh yes, so yeah awesome Well-spilled. Yes. So, yeah. Awesome. So, a couple things, just as a guy who's done this,

as a guy who literally teaches writing history now. Yeah, yeah. At a more advanced level than, this is what an intro sentence is. Yeah, yeah. Well, ostensibly at a level. Ostensibly at a level more, yeah. We've, yeah.

We start there. We've griped and level more of, yeah. We've, yeah. We start there. We've griped and complained about that, yeah. But strongly recommend just looking at what you've got right now and outlining it as an exercise because then you can see where you've got some areas that are uneven and that'll help you thicken it up. Also Chicago is so fucking nice. Oh my God, I love Chicago. It's so good. It's

so easy. It's so like it is laborious. Don't get me wrong. But honestly, if you're discussing the same source, you can copy paste that motherfucker and then just change the page number. Yeah, I bet. Yeah, it was my friend. That's only if it's on the same page. Yes. Yeah. You know, so I strongly recommend even if you have an annotated bibliography after that Yeah, you've done all the research. You know what you're able to prove Yeah, make an outline of that bitch because then you there's nothing that you'll forget and there's nothing that you'll short Like yeah, oh I didn't do enough on this subject like there's nothing nothing you'll shorten. Everything will have equal weight. So those would be my recommendations as somebody who did not learn how to write in an organized fashion until he had to revise his master's thesis. I had

to pay money to be bad at writing. So. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I understand that. Yeah, sympathize. So anyway, yeah last we spoke Yes, we were talking about converting characters from one genre into the other through these rifts that would happen. Yeah Um, and I was talking about how like Darth Vader could probably beat the shit out of Batman Yeah, buddy get tabled by like Peter Parker yeah so yeah and actually I'd pay money to watch Peter Parker beat the shit out of Vader yeah just because Vader is is so operatic about everything just watching just watching Spidey matter of factly and him his ventilator and with And and with I was gonna say his own teeth, but yeah, I mean, you know that works better

And and doing it with the snark that Spidey does against operatic villains. Yeah, it's so much extra. Yeah, so yeah So mm-hmm. Yes, so rifts rifts allowed for like if you wanted to figure out how to do that Mm-hmm The one the one issue that you'd run into there Because it'd be pretty easy to use the heroes unlimited rules and then the conversion manual to do Spidey The problem is some somebody like Vader is really hard to encapsulate in Yeah in the palladium system that would be tough to do but now I kind of want to try like there's this part of it it's like you know what I That might be what I do to you know try to try to untangle my brain after I get done. You know talking about

Stereography yeah, but So You're talking about historiography, but So The conversion book came out in order to try to make it In order to streamline the process of like, okay We know if you're gonna be bringing stuff out of Robotech It's gonna be massively outclassed if you bring one of your characters in from the super spies Like here's what you need to do. Sure what I wound up doing at one point in college is I actually had a Group of my friends playing a palladium fantasy game, and I was like okay

So it was traditional that our DM in the Dungeons and Dragons game We played every year would send us to Ravenloft for a quarter Which I fucking hated okay? But it was like oh, hey, we're going to Ravenloft And we do one long ass module in raven loft and then we get to leave and I was like, you know what? He does that to us all the time. I'm gonna throw you all a drift. That's gonna be a shit ton more fun. Okay and so I Think I had so that's the source book came out and allowed you to do that.

A second source book came out where CMB-8A got to introduce the mechanoids into Rifts and say, here they are, you know them, you love them or hate them, whatever. Mechanoids are No, the mechanoids remember were the psychic cybernetic aliens from the very first role-playing game That he had published. Oh, right. Right. Right. Okay. Okay, so he brought back the mechanoids. Okay and then The second world book came out so. So there's differentiation in the whole series of books published for Rift. There are dimension books, which is these are alternate universes. These are parallel universes that stuff can get sucked through into earth, or you can throw

your post-apocalypse characters into these universes. Oh, okay. So like you could be Ash and get taken to... Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Kettled. Yeah. And it's interesting to bring up Ash because there's going to be a case of something like what happened to Ash happening canonically in the Rift universe to like a whole civilization. Okay. happening canonically in the rifts universe to like a whole civilization.

Okay. But so there were there were dimension books which was this is this is a parallel universe or there were world books which is this is information about rifts earth. Okay. So the second world book was about the risen continent of Atlantis. We got some new classes Including Atlanteans who were humans, but they were humans were marked by millennia of magical advancement They had originally built the Atlantean civilization and then they had made it disappear They had left earth and gone off into the multiverse When it looked like the alien intelligences known as the splugorth were going to take over. The splugorth?

Splugorth, yes. Okay. Think kind of Cthulhuid star god, you know, Lovecraftian star god. Yeah, that makes sense. Kind of being with a gigantic eye and a whole bunch of tentacles and like massive galactic level Psychic powers okay is this blue birth, but named by a 13 year old yes talking about how hard it dick is I'm not gonna argue with that no I don't think that's that's in any way assailable

So yeah And so this same book introduced several new types of magic including rune magic tattoo magic There was the Atlantean tattooed man if you got enough magical tattoos that turned you into a mega damage Creature without any armor just okay magic made you that powerful turned you into a supernatural being and then you could spend some of your PPE to you know hit one of your tattoos and conjure a weapon right right or you know you could get a tattoo that made you immune to possession by vampire intelligences like

that kind of stuff it was really powerful it was like we my friends and I looked at this book and we're like, oh shit man This is this is powerful. What can we break with? What can we break precisely? What can we break with this and and Ned god bless him wound up creating a character that was just so completely And this is really early in the existence of the game, but he wound up creating a tattooed man With something he combined like three different, you know things threw them together. We were like dude your chipped. That's not Holy crap, dude And then he made a whole string of terrible terrible terrible decisions in the game but anyway, I'm yeah getting into nostalgia, but made a whole string of terrible, terrible, terrible decisions in the game.

But anyway, yeah, getting into nostalgia, but, um, this, this meant bigger damage, bigger, mega damage capacity. Going over palladium games, isn't getting in, getting all nostalgic. The other three episodes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But in this case, I'm, I'm getting way deep into the weeds on it, but that'd be like me going off on like, you know, the far side and going like, all right, but now I'm getting absurd. Like, true, fair.

Yeah. So but this this book was the first real big power level jump. That we saw. OK, like we're basically nerfs everything that came before or like you have to kind of decide the level at which you're going to play a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. And it was, it was kind of like, you know, we're, we're starting to see, we're starting to see some, some big, uh, you know, uh, uh, changes to,

to the power scale world book for Africa, uh, introduced a whole new campaign, uh, with the literate with, with, uh, supernatural, uh, entities known as the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Okay. Um, and an army of the undead. And as they have actual horses? Well, I mean, they had steeds. OK, were these steeds like with with saddles and bitten bridle?

Or did they miss the rains down in Africa? I'm going to allow that because that song is awesome and I kind of walked into it. You sure did. So or, or cantered as the case may be, but works on a night where I've got the trots. So, yeah. All right.

Not even mad about that one. No, no, I am. I'm a little sore, a little butthurt if you will. If you will. Yeah, I won't but you will I repeatedly But So it spent an awful lot of time focusing on them. Uh-huh

It talked about a new Empire rising in Egypt, okay And then it really didn't spend any meaningful time on cultures or people surviving in sub-saharan Africa My god, I was afraid this would happen. I'd be like, yeah. Oh wow Mediterranean Africa. How cool Um, what about the entire other 90% of the crowd? Yeah. Yeah Wow Okay afterward did somebody call him to the carpet on this like years later and he's like, yeah, I fucked that up um, I fucked that up I Don't know okay

I'm sure that it's been something that like looking at it now me right right look at it went well That's hell. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I get it because you know okay I'm not I'm not in any way justifying it But like there was a movie called I think the quest or something like that and it was Jean-Claude Van Damme has to fight his way through Every nation's type of fighter in some sort of quest. I think all right, right Yeah, I think Roger Moore was like the guy who was backing him, but he was nefarious So he fights against the German guy who comes over on a fucking zeppelin He fights against a Korean guy who does taekwondo right fights against a British guy who?

Boxes there's a French guy who does like you know savant or something and then there's one guy Even all right anyway, well, and I might have misdone it But yeah, okay, and then he fights one guy who represents all of Africa Like the African martial arts style not not even like a region not even like yeah everybody else got a country and then Africa so I get the zeitgeist at the time that produced like it's the dark continent still Yeah, motherfuckers really like fuck you. Yeah, right. Yeah, um It's not so so question sure question sure did did

the the guy representing Africa mm-hmm Even use like some of the amazing specialized kind of kind of martial arts weapons that come out of African culture no I believe it was hand-to-hand combat and yeah they were they were they gathered in Tibet to fight like he was Jean-Claude Van Damme was like a thief down on his luck and he was being used by Roger Moore who was a thief down on his luck and he was being used by Roger Moore, who was a thief up on his luck and they were going to kidnap

like the golden dragon statue or some shit like that. Yeah, okay. The MacGuffin. They were trying to get to MacGuffin. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, that's why he was there. And yeah, the African martial arts style, as I recall, was, it was almost animalistic the way that it was described. Yeah.

And it was, you know, like the strength of the lion and shit like that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, there are, there are whole sub schools of, of Wu Shu, uh, that, that involves, or am involves or am I using the wrong? Yeah there's five animal styles. Kung Fu. You know so. This was not that. And in fact there was even a Brazilian fighter who he did capoeira. Which okay I mean.

I know. But the African story, the African fighter, he he did African style. So, yeah, it was. Yeah. You know, OK. Yeah, it was the 90s. So, yeah, that was like mid 90s. So it was like this is also like, yeah, mid like mid 90s. So yeah, this is also like yeah mid to late 90s And there they did include there was there was like an overview of different regions of sub-saharan Africa

But it was not There were not any any major important civilizations like given any credit there and there were African in air quotes OCC like character class options but you're through a modern lens they're deeply problematic the Rainmaker African shaman not even just okay shaman but African shaman and pygmy hunter Okay, so you could you could be a Pygmy and I don't think that one's an off an inherently offensive term

No pygmy is a is a group of yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm just making sure that I wasn't you know Accidentally engaging in a version of the G word. Yeah. But, yeah, so you could be a hunter from that group. Yeah. And so there was new magic, new monsters, bigger damage, bigger MDC, and by that time the trend was very much set. Every world book after that, especially every dimension book after that had power creep

Until the stuff in the basic rule book was was pretty badly outclassed now, uh in world book 11, um The coalition, uh got a tech upgrade To bring their toys in line with everything else on the shelf sure So these are running around with laser weapons now to be hunters Actually pick me hunter Was a decidedly if I'm remembering it correctly. I did not have the opportunity I never owned well. I did own that book at one point, but it got

lost or or given away or something years ago. But the Pygmy Hunter OCC was a decidedly non-technological character. Shocking shots. That like you could pick up a laser rifle or a blaster or something, but you were going to much more rely on Your understanding of the terrain like if you tried to bring a pig me hunter out of Africa You were going to have a hard time because they were they were very much tied to their their region and that kind of stuff and You know it was all Mystic mobo jumbo associated with them that like, speaking of stereotypes,

hi, how you doing? But you did have Atlanteans running around, you did have alien technologies and suits of power armor and all kinds of stuff. You know, mega damage alien races that were like, imagine if Klingons were semi-Draconic out of one of the dimension books, the Kreegor Empire. That kind of stuff. So at that point they went, okay, we're going to throw some new toys at North America. And we're specifically going to focus on how, at this point, we're now moving a year or two forward in the timeline. And

the coalition is now getting ready for some kind of big military operation and they're getting ready to go to war with one of their own states because Free Quebec which was a coalition state has been too independent for too long and the people there are free thinkers and they're not you know toeing the coalition line so you know Emperor Prosek is giving them a really really harsh talking to you and they better you know they better come back into the fold You know and all this kind of stuff So in the meantime off of Earth

In the dimension books there were some really cool stuff getting written Okay, phase world is one of my all-time favorite rift books it introduced a magical technological universe called the three galaxies Okay introduced a magical technological universe called the three galaxies. Okay. Introduced a brilliant corporate villain in Narooney Enterprises who were, you know, the popular conception of gray aliens with the big black eyes and skinny builds. Yeah. Those were the aliens from outer limits. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As we discussed. Yes. Yes. In in the rifts multiverse,

those are aliens. Those are many. Nearly that entire species works for the corporation and the ruining enterprises. And they are intergalactic and interdimensional arms dealers. OK. I had them kind of like as you were describing it, I'm like, are these just like mid-level bureaucrats? So you weren't too far from like my imagination of it. No.

It kind of makes them sound like a little bit more capitalistic version of the TVA. Yeah, well kind of. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. of the TVA. Yeah, well, kind of, yeah. So, yeah. Okay. And it turns out that Neruni Enterprise is actually run by a completely different alien species that operates behind the shadows and the ones that everybody identifies as the Neruni are just their face men.

But, you know, and they've got these and every Neruni weapon is this big bulky huge square looking weapon that they actually use ammunition. So you have a plasma blaster that actually throws casings out. Okay. Which like is rule of cool is just yeah that's way too much goddamn fun and then they introduced I already mentioned the Kreegor Empire mm-hmm and Cosmo Knights who I'm gonna come back to in a minute and phase world itself, which was, is, is like the, um, said it's the, it's the hub of, uh, trade where all several of these different civilizations, like basically meet their, it's neutral territory between all of these different groups. And it's like, uh, you know, the market of Baghdad kind of, kind of thing.

Okay. Just, you know, and so, uh, of thing. Okay. Just, yeah. And so, uh, world. Yes. I like it. Um, and, and the whole setting has a very, uh, guardians of the galaxy kind of comic book, sci-fi kind of feel to it. And it's, it's way too much fun. It's awesome. And then going kind of in the opposite direction, they came out with a dimension book for a setting called Wormwood, which was a literal living planet that had people living on it. pockets of hair growing out of the planet.

And you know, uh, you got resources from the planet. Uh, the people who lived on the planet had a kind of symbiotic relationship with it and it provided for them what they needed. And then the planet was being invaded by demonic forces. And there was, it never got fully developed, but there was this kind of undercurrent or kind of between the lines insinuation that somehow this was like a world ship, a biological world ship that these people had been on for generations and generations. And they didn't use hard technology because there wasn't any metal to be found on the planet they use techno

wizardry and and so it was very much not high-tech it was very much magic oriented right fantasy tech yeah and so like but they but they had you know mega damage essentially they were like black powder pistols that they would carry that did mega damage and right ah You know weapons made from parts of the living planet itself, and it was like bonkers It was like nothing you would see in any other game anywhere, but in rifts. it was like you know what that's that's fucking cool and Weird enough that I yeah, let's do it. Do you think that like? Sidebar here. Do you think the the D&D emphasis on a whole bunch of different species now? Like it's not the standard seven. There's yeah

Yeah, all kinds of species now the dozy the griff or the gif or the jiff or whatever they're um and and on and on and on which that apparently is written into their lore uh that they have massive clan battle disagreement about if it's pronounced jif or gif yeah which i love i love it um do you think this this new like there's were people, there's jackal folk, there's, like, you can literally play anything, right? The monsters of the multiverse by Volo or something. Do you think that is pulling from the gee whiz aspect of Rifts? In that you could be walking down the street,

eating a lizard on a stick, and then you just, it almost feels like in Ready Player One, like when he's walking through and he's like, oh, hey, there's a guy dressed like Bakaru Banzai, and there's a person who is a Transformer, and there's Ultraman, and there's like just, it's whatever the fuck you want. Do you think that D&D is kind of

recognizing that desire in folks and kind of Going based a little bit like kind of reaching back to the well that riffs had I I think I Don't think I kind of have I have a two-part answer to that. Okay, I think from a game design perspective I think the people who wrote 3.5 and Then fourth and now fifth edition now D&D Beyond which is basically sixth edition, but we're not gonna call it that right um, I think the designers Behind the writing of all of that stuff

Being the kinds of nerds that game designer tabletop game designers are probably had some level of Contact with rifts and probably You know the idea that there could be a lot more on the table, okay? Could have could have kind of rubbed off there. I think that's part of it but I think there's also as D&D Specifically D&D as the flagship of tabletop role-playing games

The one that everybody like Rick it's the band-aid of tabletop. Yeah. I think with young, younger Xers and then millennials and now Gen Z, getting into the game, they are coming from a pop culture landscape or just a cultural landscape from a pop culture landscape or just a cultural landscape where there's a lot more room for individual freedom of expression. And the desire to not play something that is, you know, you can say, you know, you know, one of the core seven, I think, is, is also there's there's there's player

demand for that. Okay. Beyond just the oh, hey, I have a really cool fucking idea. There's also just the idea that like, well, you know, I don't I don't want to redo the lord of the rings I don't want to right You know, I want to I want to do something. I want to do something new Or I do but I want to be you know, a plasmoid arms dealer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah and so Yeah, I think I think there's, there's multiple forces at work and I think, uh, the growing diversity of the player base plays into the growing

diversity of races available. If that makes sense or species available. Yeah, I could see that. I also think, um, maybe there's something about the people who are willing to be DMS now are much more willing to home brew. And there is modular. Yeah, there is that. And there's also the culture. Like if you hang around at all for any amount of time in OSR, uhR gaming spaces online, either on Reddit or on Facebook or whatever.

It becomes- How many of them do you want to just ask, where were you on January 6th? I make a point, like any time I see one of the groups, I make a point of like, you know, I read like on Facebook, I click on it, I'm like, okay, what kind of questions are you gonna ask me before I come in? And if the question- If the word woke is in there, You know I like on Facebook. I click on it. I'm like okay. What kind of questions you're gonna. Ask me

Before I come in and if the world is in there I'm out. Thank you But if you're asking questions or if you're you're you know Stating up front a look. This is an LGBTQ IA plus friendly space You know gaming is inherently political right? That's one at the front was like this is inherently political if you don't want to if you don't want to talk about that This is not the place for you, right? Like those those OSR spaces

I'm like, okay this right I can hang with these people and not just straight-up affirming. Yeah. Yeah But even even in those spaces That are that are, you know progressive for lack of a better word it's really clear that for a lot of Gen X role-playing game players They're still They they still want to try to evoke a more competitive environment Between between the GM and the players they they were members at

Like yeah that adversarial kind of like okay the GM is going to do everything in its power He's not gonna. You know it's it's going to fudge in your roles to let you live. Right. And we have to outwit the GM. Yeah, we have to, we have to, like, there's an undercurrent there, like we, un-stint vigilance. Right. And it's one of those is like, I'm not going to tell the GM what I'm thinking. I'm not going to tell him, no, no, no, I'll tell him what he needs to roll.

Yeah. Yeah. you know, yeah, uh-huh and Whereas the culture now in in Newer edition, you know spaces and with newer players is much more no No, we're all here telling a story together and like not us against you. It's us against boredom. Yeah Yeah Which is kind of what my friends and I always did anyway It's not us against you. It's us against boredom. Yeah Yeah Which is kind of what my friends and I always did anyway Got you know Just like no we're gonna have a good time

We all want to have a turn to be the badass like sure sure You know if something goes horribly wrong your character dies well, you know, okay that sucks But like you have a folder you have a folder full of them ready to pull out that you're like okay What am I gonna do now right right now? It's time to try your fireball. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you know It's oh, hey, I'll pull out. I'll pull on my dwarf like you know right and and we never really even played really hard hard and fast with you know death being a thing. If in one adventure, because we weren't playing campaigns, so if in an adventure somebody

died, it was, well, okay, that sucks. And then a month later, it'd be like, well, I'm going to pull him out. And there might be a moment of like, well, dude, he got cooked. Literally. It was a prequel. We're fine. He literally yeah, it was like Yeah, you're none of you were playing the same characters so like And we didn't make a big deal out of it. Um, but for for a lot of

earlier generation tabletop gamers there there really was this competitive like this is going to be hard and you know the threat of death is constant and and looming and that's what makes it exciting and that's yeah and like if that's if that's how you want to play you do you yeah no shade on that yeah like you know thrill of the challenge and all that. That's awesome. That's great. But that's not what I find fun. And so I am very heartened

by the much more collaborative culture that exists in tabletop role playing game spaces now. Okay. You know, which allows for a greater diversity and you have less and less people going like, Oh, it's just so stupid. Why are, what's next? Chimpanzee people. Ooh, good idea. Let's do, you know what? Let's do, let's do two different branches. Some are really good at charisma and, and they've got high constitution.

Others. And they're druids. Yeah. And others are really aggressive. And they're barbarians. Their favorite class is barbarian. They're going to, with them, we're going to emphasize the freakish grip strength and, and attachment points on their arms that makes them capable of crushing a human skull with their you will get the feet of of attack

protocol where you know you get the first shot at their jaw and then you have to call your shot to the groin and then to the hands yeah I think it's the other way I was at a comedy show with Dana Gould was the headliner and he talked about how chimpanzees are born with a bite protocol. First they break your jaw, and it's only Dana Gould can do this so well. First they break your jaw, then they bite off your hands,

then they rip off your dick. And he's saying, he's like, I understand the jaw, because you might bite them, and I understand the hands, because you might claw them. And I understand the hands because you might claw them. But they really think that after they've broken your jaw and torn off your hands or know they bite off your fingers, that's what it is. OK, which is awful. And he's like, after they've broken your jaw

and they've bitten off your fingers, they still think you might want to fuck them. And so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah when you get to 20th level you can enact bite protocol as a dozy and You get five attacks Jesus actually, but 20th ahead depending head, depending on, yeah, yeah. What is level you'd have at least three. Yeah.

Well, and this would be that feat that gives you the ability to call your shots. Bonus shots. Yeah. Oh my God. Okay. Anyway, very far field. Yeah.

You get to, you get to be all these cool race. Yeah. There's like all this, all this. Yeah. And, and I do think, um, And I do think the kind of wide open possibility of rifts within the space in which people were writing stuff and playing stuff, I think that certainly could have rubbed off. I can't say, no, no, it's not because of rifts.

It's all this other. Could be. Sure. Could be. I can't I can't say no. No, it's not because of rifts. It's all this other news could be sure could be And So the the just the setting and the ethos of the game Made like all of this crazy stuff possible and for my friends and I's time went on When we played rift at least half the fun was figuring out just how bad shit crazy we could get by combining elements from different books Okay, okay. I have I have these books that I'm pulling from and here's what I've thrown together figuring out just how bad shit crazy we can get by combining elements from different books. Okay. Like, okay, I have these books that I'm pulling from and here's what I've thrown together.

Oh yeah, you think that's good? No, no, I've got this guy who at first level, he has eight attacks per round, each one of them doing enough SDC that if you let me do it, I can potentially get away with inflicting one mega damage point just with my bare hands, you know Like you know, what are you chimpanzee with an attack prototype? There you go. Yeah And so as I mentioned before world books developed the setting rifts earth And they went into what monsters and magic and tech could be found in which parts of the globe

So the Japan World Book introduced new kinds of ninja The cyborg the techno wizard ninja and just the straight-up techno ninja Okay, all put an official rift imprint on the ninja stuff that had originally been introduced in ninjas and super spies Okay, and also had found, uh, more room to grow under the teenage mutant ninja turtles. Yes. Yeah, indeed.

Uh, now that same book, um, also tried to explain Shinto. Okay. And went into detail about Bushido as part of introducing a, a mystic samurai character class. Something tells me this didn't go well well it was Shinto as explained by somebody who read about it in an intro to world religion textbook and You know, they didn't exactly get anything wrong but but it was not very nuanced. Right. And the way they portrayed Bushido fell into the very common trap of looking at it as a one for one with

the chivalric code of medieval Europe. And I mean, yes, there are significant similarities. And in the seventh grade, that is one of the things that we typically do when we look at feudal societies, is we look at samurai versus knights. How do they overlap? Oh, I did Mandate of Heaven and Divide Right of Kings in 10th grade. There you go.

As a jumping off point. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. As a jumping off point. Yeah. There you go. But again, it's an oversimplification and it was all written without any direct input from anybody who actually was Japanese or a Shinto practitioner. ah So you know um Now it did do something really fun in that they found a way to eat their mochi and have it too By having both a magical feudal anti like rabidly anti technology

throwback Kingdom Okay, so basically like free Tokugawa Kind of well actually yeah, yeah Tokugawa, but without the hey you have guns guns are cool I want to control right guns, please right like yeah But but you know because of the devastation of what had happened during the great cataclysm The survivors in this part of Japan were like, technology is what pissed everybody off, technology is what led to the rifts opening up, we have to get back in touch with the spirits of the land,

we have to go back to a simpler way of life. And so it literally was, we're going back to 1600s, society and culture. And we're gonna use when we get attacked by monsters and whatever, we're going to use magic and we're going to work with friendly spirits to find ways to defend ourselves. We're not gonna rely on laser guns and whiz bang tech shit.

So non-white cultures go back to a pre- Except at the same time in Japan, when the rifts opened up, huge portions of the country got sucked away and then reappeared a hundred years later. But for the people who got sucked away, it was like the snap. Okay. So they are the ancestors in many cases of the people living in the new Shinto Japanese Empire. Okay. They have late 21st century, earlynd century whizbang technology and hypercapitalism and cyborgs and all of that So you you wind up they figured out a way and and it's it's kind of a neat Way of of like I said eating your mochi and having it too, right?

that you get to have akira With all the high tech and the psychic powers the machine guns at the same time as you know D&D Oriental Adventures. Sure. It's it yeah and and so that's where like the ninja cyborgs comes from is right from from and they're they're you know descended from from ninja families but they're they're You know descended from from ninja families, but they're they're all corporate espionage corporate sabotage types whereas the traditional mystical ninja are

mystical traditional ninja sure so it's it's I It is is one of the conceits within the setting that I think actually manages to pull off something clever in the service of something I don't know what the word is i'm looking for but like we want to have both of these archetypes and and so how how are we going to figure out how to do that and make it work? And this is one of the most elegant solutions to that narratively within, within the setting.

And so, um, later on, um, the, the, uh, American West got developed in world books, two separate world books. One of them just focused on the civilizations and the kingdoms and the groups of people who were living out in the western portion of North America. And then the other one focused on the spirit west, which included forms of magic adapted from beliefs of Native American groups mm-hmm And much the same way that the Japan book approached Japanese culture Which is to say that was all written by white Americans with little or no direct input from the people being written about right? This is all monolithic Yeah, um which is a shame because some of the ideas in these books are like I said to just like in the Japan book

The ideas are an awful lot of fun, but it like oh can we yeah why'd you stop so short yeah yeah I mean I guess that leaves that leaves the door open though for you to there's enough there that you could house rule and do cool shit though yeah oh yeah you know yeah and and if you're not just like with everything else in regard to Rudolph in the same way that you kept saying, when I tell you that wrestling has always been this way, I feel like for this, I need to say, and you know, if you just house rule shit, right? Like, you know, um, which again, it doesn't let them off the hook, but it does let you do the thing that you, you wanted them to do that they failed at.

You are not hamstrung from doing it yourself. Yeah, precisely. So then in the new German Republic book, so there was, there was a world book about England and the British Isles. And interestingly enough, uh, the magic stuff that they introduced there, and when they talked about the Fomori and the Danu, they got those details right. Well, you know, I mean, the Germanic tribes were famous for their writing. Oh, oh wait, no. Oh wait, no. Oh wait. Yeah. So, so the, the England is a similar,

interestingly England is similar to the new empire in Japan. It is a, it is a, a mystical realm just because there's so much land energy, suffusing the whole place that like, you know, the people living there have figured out how to cohabitate with dimensional beings and supernatural stuff and the Fae. And so they have, you know, and their big bad in that book are the Fomori from Irish folklore, who are actively hostile to everybody who's not for Maury and they particularly have it in for their cousins the Danu and you could Play a character who was from the full Maury or from the Danu. Okay, because of course you could because the drift

And so then and that was that was the first view we got of anything going on in Europe. Then the new German Republic book came out and the new German Republic is a high tech state enclave that isn't as cartoonishly evil as the coalition. They're not. They don't they don't control the population with propaganda the same way. The rulers of the new German Republic are not explicitly described as being diabolic evil in alignment. The way Karl Prosek is like no no he is evil. He is a bad guy period and like everything that comes from him is skulls and

all this shit. No, it's it's very sleek, very whiz bang looking high tech stuff they have. But they're still human supremacists, even though they're not strictly speaking fascists. And their circumstances mean they don't have the same virulent hatred of psychics and magic. Okay. They're still suspicious of it. And in one of the source books, it does say that in the New German Republic, when children show signs of being psychic or having magical potential, they essentially get told by their families to like, hey, you know, keep that under control, act normal, you know. So there is a stigma, but it's not like, oh, hey, and now your younger brother is reporting you to the authorities

who are going to haul you off to a camp kind of thing, like in the coalition states. And so that then kind of makes it interesting to me like so the coalition is painted as being the way it is kind of out of necessity and this other technological enclave like they're surrounded by kingdoms full of invading monsters from other dimensions and like They're also Human supremacist and it's like well like obviously they would be like right I feel like there's a theme here yeah and it's like they're dancing near it but yeah not like it it's it's that weird thing of like well if you're talking about japanese people you could talk about bushido

you could talk about harry carrey seppuku uh you could talk about. I know one of them announced for the Cubs. You could talk about Just a slice inside. Oh coming up the middle. But But you know you can talk about those things and fetishize them, but then you get over to Germany. It's like, yeah, they, they, they have some kind of strong humanist biases, but you know, how do they feel about magic users? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's real interesting. Like, yeah, yeah, it's real interesting like yeah, yeah, you can't I don't know you can't address the really big bad evil but you can do like it's it's the other side of the axis

is just fine like yeah, you know, it's like, oh, they made they remade like Renaissance Italy but they have trains and they all run on time and that would be fine. Yeah You get over the elves and it's like Do they have barbed wire manufacturing no no not only enough no How do they feel about work and freedom? You know, they're they're cool either way. Um, you know Yeah about work and freedom. You know, they're cool either way. You know. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, it's also worth noting that in the book, uh, one of the OCC is included, or several of the OCC is included are specifically explicitly described as

being, and I'm going to use the word here, gy here gypsy classes sure because they use the word in the book Which like And again this was 97 9697 But the book has since been printed in multiple runs Mm-hmm. It's been put out in a PDF format. And still.

And like the PDF format says, PDF format, copyright 2016, and there's no note in there. They still keep the big note at the beginning about warning, violence, and the supernatural, because the whole game was born in a time when like, you know, satanic panic was still a recent memory. They still have that there, but there's no mention of like, you know, changing that name or saying anything

about, Hey, right. We're leaving it like it is because whatever reasons, but like, you know, they don't have lawyers yeah like I mean there's a layer of that going on there really is yeah you know but there's there's not even any acknowledgement right and that's you know disappointing I mean curse of Strahd now no she doesn't use the G word no yeah because that's about the only improvement like Yeah, it's still like yeah circa 1920s silent film shit. You know yeah, yeah and Yeah, there's there's all kinds of ways that's problematic like so much stuff just in in And then and then taking that from there and building out the stuff that went into the Ravenloft

setting In 92 Trying to remember when when the box set came out, but like oh, yeah So much of that is so very very clearly like oh, yeah I know we're just gonna use all these stereotypes about the Romani Mm-hmm, and it was the g-word I know we're, we're just going to use all these stereotypes about the Romani and, and we're going to use the G word to describe them. Yeah. We're going to,

yeah, we're going to use the G word to describe them. And we're just going to run with that like throughout like, and then make and make them this fantasy version of them as a group, a central part of the setting. Well, we're going to make them the totemic magical minority. Yeah. They're the ones that are safe to fetishize. So, yeah, yeah. You know, it occurs to me that, um, okay, this was, you said it was 97 or so.

Uh, you're talking about new German Republic? Yeah, like the, the, the NGR I want to say was, that would have been 95. Okay. But the one that uses Romani people, but calls them by the slur that's, that's new tracks and new German. That is there. Okay. Yeah. Because it just, you know, the movie ever after came out in 98. Yeah. Because it just, you know, the movie ever after came out in 98.

Yeah. You know, Drew Barrymore as Cinderella, which honestly I liked it as an every imagining. I love Angelica Houston. Like she will chew up scenery. Oh, oh, so brilliantly. Don't, I don't really care for Dougray Scott. I never have, but one of the things that they do is like they invite the to the wedding, you know, and it's yeah, there's that whole thing, you know, that exists.

The movie The Red Violin, I think came out like a year or two later, like there was something going on in the 90s. Yeah, maybe it was with the fall of Yugoslavia. I don't know. Maybe it was, you know, what a weird reaction to Cheskow dying or being killed. Well, I, I, yeah, I, you know, I think the fact that that region of the world was showing up in the headlines. Yeah. I mean the iron curtain is gone, you know, on a subconscious level for a

while. So, yeah, you know, because I remember Jesus, there were, there were TV specials like, you know, Barbara Walters and shit. They would interview like Russian psychics. Um, and you just had this like Eastern mysticism kind of, and I don't mean Eastern missus and like the kind that, that smells of patchouli because George Lucas did it. I mean, Eastern Europe, like, yeah, but between like the, yeah, the, the Rhine and the Urals, like that kind of Easter,

yeah. Uh, mysticism and fetishization of those groups of people. And it was just, it was rampant, like in, in popular movies in the mid to late nineties, uh Yeah in early 2000s. So, you know, so Yes, we can look back now and go yeah People been asking not to be used not to have that term used on them for a while But then like like water for chocolate came out Yeah, or no, no chalk a lot came out. I'm sure a lot. Yeah different. Yeah Interestingly my came out I'm sure a lot yeah different yeah I interestingly might my going to

this yeah exactly where you were going yeah because you know Johnny Depp plays an Irish G word and they're referred to as such like yeah you know there's it there's there's a lot I remember if traveler is considered offensive or not I did less so you know but they you know, but they called them Irish Gs. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So, you know, you just, you had this infusion at that time, so it makes perfect sense that at that time, the sensitivity had not risen to the point of like, oh, we should stop fetishizing

these people. Yeah. And then find another group, obviously, because... Well, because I mean, you gotta, like, if you're not fetishizing somebody, like, how is it gonna be interesting? Right? Yeah. I mean, come on. Yeah. So... And Rift's Russia was published in 1998. Oh, boy, and the first book because there there have been several now And the book on Western Russia the first one described a landscape where warlords built armies of cyborg soldiers to fight

DBS and each other Okay now in the real world Okay. Now, in the real world, the Soviet Union fell apart and oligarchs and criminal organizations swiftly filled the power vacuum left by the disintegration of Soviet bureaucracy. Right. Off the top of my head, I don't remember when the movie Lords of War got made, but it talks about that directly. Oh, you're talking about the Nicolas Cage movie?

Yeah. That was in the 2000s. Yeah. Early 2000s. Yeah. So it's a couple of years after this sure And it explicitly deals with like oh, yeah, no whole whole army divisions worth of infantry weaponry just like being sold and again, you know like gaming is political inherently political and gaming is a reflection of

Gaming is political, inherently political, and gaming is a reflection of what's going on in the world. If it's about the past, it's about the present. If it's about the future, it's about the present. That's always been the case. Cyberpunk is 100% attacking current stuff. Hypercapitalism. Yeah. So this would make sense

You know that they would that they would include that yeah So and so you know those events clearly being picked up and exaggerated there one of the states interestingly to being one of the one of the kingdoms within Russia or what remains of Russian civilization in the rift world is is Soviets key that's literally the name so we had to where they they have worked to try to rebuild a system akin to the socialist industrial, you know, what they've found in the history books, what they see in the murals and the artwork. They've tried to rebuild the industrial

socialist paradise that was the USSR in Rift Earth. and the way that gets approached in the writing, I find remarkable because by the time it was being written, the Soviet union had been dead for close to a decade. Right. And there's this kind of, uh, not nostalgia, but there's, there's, there's this kind of, not nostalgia, but there's this kind of like, you know, this is what the Russians, this is Russia. This is like, this is what it is. Like this other stuff, this is all, you know, make believe this isn't real Russians, but like I'm a Cold War kid and God damn it, this is the Russians. Right. like I'm a Cold War kid and god damn it this is this is the Russians right from the point of view like the writer is still fixated on that image of sure

Russia yeah and that that kind of fallback to to that that mental image something I find interesting yeah so and what year did the did this the Soviets key one come out the Russian one well the the first time we see it is in 98 okay okay and where it gets mentioned in them in the first rift Russia book but then it gets then it gets its own it's a whole own world book sure five six years later oh wow okay yeah well that does not line up with what I thought so okay what were the whole own world book. Sure. Five, six years later. Oh wow, okay. Well that does not line up with what I thought, so. Okay, what were you thinking?

Nikolai Volkov goes from being a heel with Iron Sheik, and then he joins Borzukov and they become the Bolsheviks, and then the Bolsheviks break up. Okay. You should get a picture, find a picture of Borusukhov. That guy's head is fucking enormous. It is huge. A real melon, huh? Oh my God. Like, wow.

Wow. That's, that's a space station. That's no head. Like, but, but anyway, Nikolai Volkov and Borysukov, uh, they break up and Nikolai becomes a face and teams up with hacksaw Jim Duggan and become like they have the boy scouts of America swear him in as a citizen in the ring and shit like that. Like, I'm pretty sure he's already a dual citizen because he's actually from Croatia,

but, but then he Finishes that run like lower mid card, you know good guy feel good story He comes back in 95 and that's what I was wondering about Okay times because in 95 he comes back and he's part of the million dollar corporation led by Ted DiBiase and he's back to being a bad guy and he so does he play up Russian accent and sound like no he plays up toadiness to the capitalist boss that is you know Ted DiBiase and they're going after the Undertaker who is now like,

at one point the Undertaker fucking had a Betsy Ross underneath his overcoat. Like it was weird. That was like 92 though. Well, like, they're attacking the Undertaker. And so then just because like capitalism against the dead, I never, it was never clear. But having the Russian guy subsumed under that, I was wondering if it lined up it did not but okay Well, which is a shame So now this point I need to split off To talk about two things I got to talk about mechanics and narrative

Separately okay, and I'm gonna. I'm gonna start by hitting mechanics, okay so not counting volumes of the rifter, which, which was a periodical cause it's not, it's like too heavy to be just called a magazine, but it's, it's not like a full rule book. And they were like six, I think they're up to like 67, uh, installments of the rifter. Uh, but there are 107 rift books in print. You can literally do whatever the fuck you want.

You pretty much. And that is the point. Yeah. Yeah. Were they doing, were they doing this like Doritos does where it's like, if you're going to carry one, you have to call it very all. And so we're just going to fill up the, uh, the shelves. No palladium doesn't have enough muscle Okay, financially like games workshop does do that games workshop says if you're gonna carry one games workshop product

You got to carry all our shit, but that's because games workshop is the 500 pound gorilla of or 900 pound gorilla of Tabletop wargaming and so games workshop can do that Heladium does not have the draw like you know Wizards of the Coast Hasbro they have they can say if you carry one you got to carry all right Heladium is a known name it's a big enough name that they're able to keep publishing all this stuff, but they're they're not They're not that big okay Because they tried to be that big they just wouldn't and they'd collapse

sure because the fan base is Dedicated but it's not huge like if you go to a game store anywhere huge like if you go to a game store anywhere In the United States, I'm pretty sure if you you know tack a card up on the you know They've always got a bulletin board of like, you know people looking for players Whatever if you stick a card up and you say hey, I'm looking for a rift group or hey I want to start a rift group LG. You'll find one

You'll find people but you're not gonna be swamped right, right? The way you would be for you know D&D like you're not going to be swamped. Right. Right. The way you would be for, you know, D and D, like you're going to get, you know, two dozen people. If you try D and D with, with refs, it'll be, there'll be five people who will be very, very interested. Sure. And so a couple of things about that are so, so that's 107 books for Rifts between, well, just four to the game, 107 books.

Now to keep track of all of the possibilities available that maintain that means maintaining a sizeable library. Yeah, right now additionally And I'm not going to get into this in the same Level that I originally thought when I started my thesis here because other stuff got in the way of it But for first edition AD&D, you want to know how many rule books were published? First edition AD&D. AD&D. So AD&D. I'm going to say, now rule books or source books? Both. Okay. I'm going to say four to seven. 15.

Okay. I was half right. More than you thought, but fifteen. Yeah. And that is between the first edition, ADD Rules coming out in 77, 78, and second edition coming out in 89. Okay, so over 11 years 15 rule in source books Now the way to use our stable business The way to use our and the way TS are made their money wasn't so much in selling rule books

Their economic model was in number one. We're not just doing a D&D We've got you know Gary's trying to come up with other games all the time but also we're going to write adventures and we're going to put out modules right right and that's what we're going to have you come back to the game store because renting a module cost us I don't know in 1980 money it cost us 75 cents and we're gonna charge you in 1980 money seven or eight bucks right if I'm remembering my prices right maybe as much as ten bucks you're you're gonna come back and you're gonna buy this

module because this module is gonna you know help you run a game for your friends that's going to last a month or game sessions, whatever, right? And that was the way they did that. And they put out a whole bunch of printed modules. Well, Rifts comes out, and I'm not saying Rifts is responsible for this, but Rifts comes out around the same time as second edition. Second edition between the release of the second edition rules and the release of third edition in 2000. So over the course of about 11 years, there were about 100, somewhere in the neighborhood of about 100 different supplements, like not full-size rule books, but not modules. These were $15, $16, $18.

Here are some new options you can do for your character based on this class, the complete wizard's handbook, complete fighter's handbook. Here is a set of rules for construction of castles, the castle guide, all of this kind of stuff And then rules compendiums and other knickknacks and stuff now So that's 11 years

For that many books yeah By the time I started playing in a three point five game In 3.5 game in 2006. There in third edition and then 3.5 third edition had started in 2000. There were 134 rule books on the shelf for 3.5. Now that's largely due to OGL, right? I'm not talking about third party stuff. This is not third party. This is official from Wizards of the Coast,

because the economic model at that point had now shifted in the way that, in the way that, okay, hey, if you want to play, hey, playing Rift, so here are new options, here's new stuff you can do, here's new stuff you can do. And like in the case of 3.5, because they introduced the idea of feats which was hey, here's this trick my character can do right every new splat book They put out you had 15 or 20 new feats. Yes reduced in the book and So playing in this 3.5 campaign My buddy Nick had a half-orc barbarian

that he was playing who used a spiked chain as his primary weapon and He had to bring in order to have the rules for his character in his character's feats He had to bring eight rule books with him to every game session, right? Because he had a different feat from each one of them right and so by this time now it's not only just hey here are all the options you have available but it's also it turns into for certain personality types anyway it turns into no no I need to get this because I need to see what I can do next you know and and so the economic model within tabletop role-playing games shifted.

And I don't think fifth edition is as bad about it, but I can still see that model at work. Oh yeah. They've like, it went for like the first, God damn, like I think when I started playing 30, like you were with me with Fit5e. When we started playing together back in 2016, there were maybe four or five books. Yeah. And that was it. And we were all kind of like, wow, they're really going slow on this, you and I think there was a module here or there kind of thing and I might be wrong

Maybe it was just we were given information that made us think that but since then It's it's there's oh yeah like yeah My daughter did a count of the books that she has and she's like yeah I have seven that I can see at the bookstore that I don't own and that's it and I was like okay well how many can you see that you do own and she the number was large yeah yeah yeah well you know introduce your kids tabletop gaming they'll ever have the money for drugs you know but yeah and and so it's it's reflective part of part of the character of rifts and part of the expansion of hey, I want to have all the options.

That that rift I think kind of pioneered leads to this, what I referred to as the splat book economy. Because that's the term within the industry for those skinnier, not like a player's handbook sized book, but 150 pages or something that used to be perfect bound. So when you slapped on the table, it made a splat noise. So it's a splat noise. So it's a splat book. Right. And so that was the first thing that occurred to me, thinking about rifts and kind of what it heralded or what it was emblematic of in that way, in that kind of economic model. And so that's mechanics. And the other thing about mechanics is just some examples of power creep, which also goes

with this splat book economy. In the original rule book, there's a suit of power armor called the Northern Gun Samson power armor suit. And it's a pretty common choice for beginning characters. It's there in the rulebook It is something you can like okay my characters this what my characters equipped with It has 240 mega damage capacity in its main body So that's when the first rulebook comes out 1990 by the time of world book 34

northern gun 2 in 2014 that stat had changed to 320 MDC This is the same suit of armor that they're reprinting in a new book and it's gained 40 out of 200 1 1 6th of its MDC Sorry, sorry 1 3rd. It's 30% tougher Okay, similarly uh-huh in the basic rule book Article beam rifle did 1d4 times 10 mega damage. I was pretty it was it was a hard-hitting weapon right right whereas in World Book 31 triax to

in world book 31 triax to the triax tx-46 particle beam rifle same category of weapon does a d4 times 10 plus 8 and Has a significantly larger number of shots So again All of this stuff is scaling up Why would you introduce new toys in a book if they're not cooler than the old toys, right? This okay, we've talked about this one. We've when I've talked to you about x-wing the yeah or the yes miniatures game, right? Yeah, yeah, why come on your ship? It was just gonna be the same old shit Yeah, right, but other way around the fucking things called x-wing

It should be able to x-wing ought to be able to handle all the things. Maybe not like maybe you got to get creative, but it shouldn't just get tabled because you have a guy plowed. Yeah. So in, in phase world, it's one of my favorite book. I already said, it's one of my favorite books, the Cosmonite OCC that I mentioned before, uh, it's one of my favorite books the Cosmonite OCC that I mentioned before It the the backstory is that the Cosmonite is a being who has been transformed by the power of the cosmic forge Okay in the three galaxies and they are effectively imagine if the silver surfer was a paladin Okay, sure

so Remember here in the basic rulebook heavy body armor coalition heavy environmental body armor gave you 80 mega damage capacity Phase rule came out in 1994 so it's relatively early in the game's development, okay a first level Cosmo night has a minimum of 110 MDC as their personal hit points and Their Cosmo armor that they can summon around themselves Gives them an additional 500 MDC of armor

They could regenerate a d4 times 10 of those MDC a turn and Here's the kicker. They took one 100th damage from non magical energy weapons So magic you did totally totally same thing if you're a dragon smacking them in the head right physical attack You're fine. Shoot a rail gun at them. They're gonna take full damage Use a laser a plasma weapon like mega-dangerous flamethrower Yeah, well bullets bullets and regular swords are not mega damaged. They're not gonna do anything anyway, right? laser, a plasma weapon, like mega damage, flamethrower. Well, bullets and regular swords are not mega damaged. They're not gonna do anything anyway.

But laser weapons, which is like 90% of what everybody carries in Rift, you have to do 100 MDC to scratch them. Wow, that's wild, because when we opened this with talking about how Robotech wasn't scratching the surface when, you know, that was prior to all of this. Yeah.

So now CMBD8 does say in the book that, Hey, this is intentionally really powerful character class. This is going to be best if you're doing like a superhero type campaign where everybody's effectively kind of a demigod anyway. And like, you know, these, these are the guys who go toe to toe with, you know, a bad guy starship level weaponry, you know, so you know, keep that in mind and the game master can always just say, no, I'm not going to allow that, you know, all of that includes includes all of that but like the same book on a more prosaic note also included a specialized cyborg character

that had 350 MDC and the ability to regenerate 3d6 of them around thanks to nanobots so like you know there's still very clearly some serious power creep and you know it's a common thing in tabletop games. This isn't surprising, but it was really notable with rifts, particularly it was really notable as it was happening, like when a new book came out for a long, and they've gotten better. Like they kind of hit a plateau and they've slowed it down since. But, you know, for a while I was like, well, I got to get the new book because

I just want to see how fast I can vaporize coalition troopers right out the gate with new stuff. So that's the mechanics. Power creep is a problem, and I noted that this is kind of the beginning. This is the leading edge of the splat book economy. Now narratively, um, they advanced the timeline in the setting, um, in when did they publish it? I need to start in 2000.

Okay. Um, they started publishing the coalition wars, uh, see John Tolkien series. And it was seven books that described the conflict that had been foreshadowed back in the, back in the basic rule book about, you know, there's this, this kingdom of magicians, Tolkien, uh, and the coalition states are, are like itching, itching to go to war with them. And they did. And over the course of the narrative to simplify the coalition states picked to fight Tolkien responded the coalition states escalated and kept escalating until Tolkien

essentially went to magically tactical nuclear and The coalition states basically then went okay, and now now we have an excuse to just wipe you all out. So Karl Prosek pushed things to a point where he sacrificed several thousand of his own soldiers in order to create the event that gave him the unwavering, undying, roaring support of his people to then wipe Tolkien off the face of the earth. The final book in the series published in 2002 described the occupation of Tolkien's forward territory, the resistance guerrilla warfare that became the new normal in that region.

So narratively, the coalition's victory over Tolkien led into the minion wars series of books. And that ultimately leads to secrets of the coalition states, heroes of humanity, is the title of the book. This is published in 2018. Earth becomes a battleground for armies from multiple dimensions there are there are demons and devils in in something that is Remarkably parallel to the blood war in Dungeons & Dragons where you know the the lower planes are at war with each other sure but I don't know if this is just a parallel idea or if if Like I don't know who influenced who? if like, I don't know who influenced who, but the same kind of thing happens between Hades and Deval, which are two of the dimensions that go all the way back to palladium fantasy.

And so devils and demons fighting an interdimensional war against each other. And in one of the books that comes out, it describes how this war arrives on Rift's Earth. And then in 2018, we get Heroes of Humanity. The events unfolding in World... I'm reading the original summary from the back of the book. The events unfolding in World Book 35, Megavir's In Flames, which came out before this, threaten to change the entire landscape of Rift's Earth as the demonic minions of Hades and Deval seek to bring hell on Earth and turn the planet into a dimensional gateway to Armageddon. The Coalition states, along with Northern Gun and Laszlo, take the lead in the defense of North

America. Heroes of Humanity explores the good and bad in the Coalition's efforts to save humanity and send this new threat back to the pits of hell. New Coalition weapons, armor, and war machines. The Coalition states, are they heroes or villains, or does it depend on whether you are human or not? Can the CS fight alongside mages and DBs if it means saving the world? How is the CS dealing with the minion war on earth? One plan to battle the Zyta kicks, which are the bug alien invaders that I mentioned from the basic rulebook and who really pays the price adventure ideas and more written by Kevin CMBA to Matthew Clements and other contributors. So this book comes out in 2018 and the trend, like the first book and forever it has been,

the coalition, like the leader of the coalition, Emperor Karl Brosec is literally diabolic evil. Kevin Siamieta has never tried to soft pedal that, has never tried to soften that. They still wear skulls as their motif and and now this book gets published and and narratively it really gives me very strong subconscious kind of you didn't pay attention that the Imperium in 40k was satire right right um and and this comes out in 2018. Mm-hmm And do you remember what was the huge big political issue? That

Everybody was screaming with everybody else in our country about on on one side or another in 2018 No, there were like 12. Well I mean okay there's gun violence right we had mass shootings at schools yeah there was also the the Muslim ban at the border there was also was that 18? Okay kids in cages was okay ding ding that's what I was looking for. Cooked me a bit. Yeah but but the Trump administration was enacting a draconian policy of separating families at the border and locking up thousands of people All while saying well, you know, we're being overrun. There's this unprecedented number of people caravans across the border caravans yada yada

We we we have this gamebook talking about the coalition in this very both sides II kind of way. There's heroes on both sides kind of thing. Yeah, you know, and and I mean to be fair, the narrative that leads to this book being published dates to 2014, which is when Megavirson flames got published. The interdimensional war itself goes back to hate book to dimension book 10 Hades pits of hell in 2007, but it comes to a head here. And there have been several titles either released or that are still currently in production that are focusing very heavily on the Coalition in this way that, and we talked about this before, that you can have a character, you can play this character in this kind of situation, and you can examine these things, you know,

but, but I really feel like this is getting, this is going in a direction of really, um, hero, if not, not really heroifying, but really a being an apology. Yeah. Like, well, yeah, they're evil, but like- But they have a point. They're evil because there's this circumstance going on. Right. And it's like, no, you don't have to be a prick to defend yourself.

You don't have to choose evil. And even that's begging the question. Who says you have to defend yourself? Yeah. I mean narratively the thing is sure when when you're the one writing the narrative you can create a situation where it is no no you really do have to defend yourself right against at least some of these threats yeah you know this this is this is quite

literally hell coming to earth to try to conquer North America no yeah you're you're right there I was just talking in the real world. Oh, in the real world. Yes. You are. Yes. The question. You are 100% begging the question when you're talking about the real world. But when you write your narrative, you have a choice. Right. And here you are crafting a narrative where that's the case. Yep. And like, you know, as we've as we've said, you know, in this in the circumstance, you can run your game in a way to address these things in a way to, you know, if you don't want to deal with it, you can play a game that doesn't have to deal with this stuff. to deal with it, you can play a game that doesn't have to deal with this stuff. But you know, I think it is worth noting that these are the choices that have been made by a man who is famously very much somebody who wants to be a central part of everything his company puts out.

His name is on of the hundred and however many books I said that have been published for the game. I don't have that note in front of me right now. Kevin CMBA's name is on the cover of the overwhelming majority of them. Right. And within the industry, he is famous for having very, very tight editorial control over stuff and wanting to be directly eyes on on everything and that leading to problems because the profile I get from reading about him is that you know he's a boomer who was never like diagnosed with ADHD and so his coping he never got formally

trained in coping mechanisms right and you know and so there've been all kinds of stories about working with him being difficult. And he also has a whole bunch of people who were like fanatically loyal to him and have been with him since forever and like he's their guy and you know, that's, that's fine. But you know, there is a generational thing going on here. He is, he is very clearly of a generation and coming from a place where he has a very clear point of view. Right.

to, uh, he wants to heroify or find reasons why these people can be heroes. Even at the same time, as he acknowledges that this is evil, this is bad, this is, this is inhumane. You know, the way the coalition treats these people is, you know, full stop, not cool, but like they've got their reasons. You know, and that's, that's, that's what I kind of wound up. That's this, this is what wound up taking the time away from more detailed analysis of the black economy. Is this realization looking over this material

as time has gone on how this has developed and where we are now in relation to how the coalition has developed in the setting? It's so funny because everything you're saying is twigging on a thought that I had about the mechanic, which is mechanics started off like, hey, you want Robotech? Okay, but notice that it doesn't do much, right? And there's like that first bump

into the issue of the mechanics. And then there's this creep toward everything is bigger, stronger, faster, harder. And then there's a big fucking jump after that, right? We're good. It reminded me of Nixon to Reagan to Trump. It reminded me of like, here's a person who acts with intense amounts of executive authority that he is creating for himself and seizing for himself in a way that heretofore you could point to add antecedents with Johnson and and Roosevelt yeah but they were doing it

for specific programs not for the sovereign that they thought was themselves Yeah, I was certainly are you yeah, I was about to ask you which Roosevelt and I knew that you realized you could have answered Yes. Yeah. Yeah But you know both were doing so because they truly believed that was the path forward for helping the greatest number of people because they truly believed that was the path forward for helping the greatest number of people. Whereas with Nixon, that was the path forward for protecting his legacy. With Reagan, well, of course this is mine.

I'm in charge. I'm finally the star of a movie. And then with Trump, its venality turned up to 11. Yeah, and him being a malignant narcissist. Yes, but you don't have that. You don't get him without Reagan and you don't get Reagan without Nixon.

Yeah, that's 100% true. Each one of them set the foundation. Right, for that next level up. And the mechanics seem to kind of be doing the same thing of like, yeah, you know, Ooh, things are really out of balance. And then, Oh, out of balance. Hold my beer and then hold my helmet hat that has two beers in it. And then, uh, can you just hook up the IV to my dick?

Like, it just... So it's just interesting that like, in your, you're bringing it back around to like, hey, look what's going on with this guy's personality as this has gone on. Look at what's going on. It's that, and again, I think some of this is just the capitalist model, but it's also just that it's gotta be better, right? It's gotta be bigger. We can't just deepen the lore. We can't just be like, hey, here's a whole world. Same rules apply, but like, hey, we're gonna actually,

you know, we're gonna look at Africa again, or here's a whole nother dimension where like, the only different rule is everybody's made of rubber so, you know, or whatever, like, instead of deepening it that way, they instead were like, no, no, no, now it's 45. Now, 97, you know, Jesus Christ, when I played it was one, you know? Yeah. So. Yeah, definitely. But. know? Yeah. So, yeah, definitely.

But definitely. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, you know, the, the pace with which material is being put out has slowed, but things are still being consistently published for the game. Um, and again, um, still being consistently published for the game. And again, even with everything I just said, there is a part of me that really wants to get that last book because, you know, now there is a meaningful narrative reason within the game why a, you can, you can play coalition military specialist who is working alongside a leyline Walker Against a common enemy and like there is something awesome about that

But you know You have to I think at the table you have to reckon with some of the real world, I don't know if ramifications is the right word, but the overtones or the... Yeah. ...resonance. The implications. Yeah.

Implications. There you go. Thank you. That was the word I was hunting for and I couldn't So yeah. And so that is my report, as it were, on this game system that I love and haven't played in forever. So what do you think? What have you gleaned overall? I think this game system, given everything that you've laid out for us, I think it's a very playable system.

I think it's the kind of system that the session zero is going to be very much like you're signing the waivers for a dominatrix. I like that. That's really good. I need four safe words from you. I also need, you know, this. What are your, you know, it's not just like what are your veils, what are your lines. It's how powered do we want to get? What worlds do we want to not bring into this game? What

politics do we want not want to touch on kind of? Yeah. And because it's so open, you almost have to have a much larger discussion. No wonder you're not going to get that many groups. And the problem with that is that the one or two groups that are willing to play, they might not be willing to play a way that you want to. Yeah. You know, and that is a bummer. Like, I could throw up a card on a thing saying, all right, who wants to play D&D? These are the three things that I'm looking to prioritize.

You know, maybe I'm the guy who doesn't care about combat at all. I just want exploration and lore. There will be three groups that are down for that. Yeah. If I do that about like, Hey, I want to play brave new world. I'm stuck with whoever the other person in Sacramento is that wants that, you know, or whatever gaming store I want to go to.

Yeah. And I don't know how much, because the next, the next gaming topic I'm going to talk about is kind of concurrent with this. And I want to talk about the world of darkness and White Wolf games. Okay. Now Onyx path. Well, yeah. Anyway, it's a whole complicated story about the ownership of that intellectual property to begin with. Um, but there's, there's a similar issue with, with those games. Uh, and like, what are,

what are your, what are your lines? What are your veils? And you know, just any more finding the people to play that. Right. That match with that, that aren't gonna be like compromising and being like, well, I'm gonna push toward that anyway, even subconsciously. Yeah. Yeah. That's, I mean, there's the reason,

I think maybe that's the reason why so many people settle in for D&D. So, cool. Well, thank you for that. That was cool. What are you going to recommend to people to consume? I am going to very strongly recommend, and this is totally unrelated to what I've been talking about, but I'm going to strongly

recommend on Netflix, Delicious in Dungeon. Fun stuff. It's an anime series that follows a group of adventurers who, for plot reasons, wind up having to survive by eating what they can kill in the dungeon. And it turns into a wonderful, funny, like warm hearted, but also has enough action to, you know, kind of keep you interested without without getting too sappy. It's like a Dungeons and Dragons cooking show. Yeah, it really is.

It's exactly what it says on the tin, really. And I've, yeah, I'm about five episodes in and it is something that I can watch with my son. Because it's got, you know, fights and enough excitement, but it's not, at least I haven't gotten far enough in the series for it to be. It doesn't get enough to be, to be a problem. The goriness comes from the cooking and the preparation to be honest. Okay.

All right. So you're fine. Okay. Yeah. Cool. So yeah, I'm very, very, very strongly recommending that like to the point that the next D&D character roll up is going to be a dwarf with a giant walk as, as his shield. So yeah, that's my recommendation. How about you?

Let's see, I'm going to recommend that people go out and find a book written by Matthew Forbeck people go out and find a book written by Matthew Forbach. And it's Brave New World. I'm just, I'm trying to find the actual spine because there's three of them. Okay. Brave New World Revolution.

It's a novella. Yeah, there's three of them. Revolution, Revelation, and I think it's resolution But I think reading giving those a read speaking of alternate histories and stuff like that Okay, cool big fan of it. So Anyway, gonna recommend those so sounds good. You remain a shadow in the warp. I assume. Yes, I do. Where can they find us? They can find us on the Apple podcast app on the Amazon podcast app on

Stitcher no not stitcher Spotify and of course at our website at wubba wubba wubba dot geek history time.com And wherever you have found us, please take the time to give us the five-star review that you know we deserve and hit the subscribe button. How about you, sir? Well, you could find me and my band of Mary pranksters

and punsters at the Comedy Spot in Sacramento, Sacramento's Comedy Spot. You can find us online on the YouTube channel for Comedy Spot, and then you go to the playlists and find Capital Punishment, Capital with an O. Or you can come to one of our live shows on, let's see, by the time this would air on September 6th, on October 4th, or November 1st, or December 6th.

Come and see us. Get your tickets early. Bring your friends and shout out some topics and you could be heard by the internet worldwide. But also it's just a lot of fun. We spin the wheel. People duel. It's just a great thing. And we've been going eight years strong now.

So come see Capital Punishment at Comedy Spot, first Friday of every month at 9 p.m. All right, very cool. Well, for a Geek History of Time, I am Damian Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock, and until next time, keep rolling 20s.