Erin Tarn's plot immunity and godlike presence

[Killer Cyborg]

Only about 100,000...
I think there are a lot of people on the boards and writing the books who have no idea how militaries actually work.

I assume that they work in such a way that 100k is less than "over a million."

[dreicunan]

as per CWC page 14, she has been captured by Coalition spies, agents, or bounty hunters ELEVEN TIMES and been rescued or managed to escape each time. Three times she was just so charming that her captors released her on their own. Released someone who has been on the Coalitions top 20 public enemy list for 32 years and has been Public Enemy number one for the past 5 as of CWC. That sure sounds like "plot armor" to me!

It can only be plot armor if it's something that happens in part of the plot, where we think that the character is in actual danger, but they get out of it for no good in-world explanation.
A side-note or back-story isn't plot armor, because it isn't plot.

NOW, if we were reading a short story where Tarn was the protagonist, and it went into the details of that event, and there wasn't any explanation for why the guys released Tarn other than her good old-fashioned Mary Sue charms, then yeah... that's be plot armor.

Also,
From TV Tropes:
Plot Armor is when a main character's life and health are safeguarded by the fact that he's the one person who can't be removed from the story.

Tarn could easily be removed from the story of Rifts. It's not her story--it's the story of an entire world.
She's just one of the narrators.

Then by that logic, the Coalition States could also be removed, as plenty of areas of the Rifts world would just go on. That would make all the other POV characters, so to speak, narrators as well.

It is an interesting situation to consider: I suppose that role-playing backstory and "fluff" are not actually THE STORY of a given player group. From that perspective, no one has plot armor unless a GM decides that they do; the conventions of traditional narrative storytelling would just not apply in the same way, and what would be a trope in it would just not apply in the same way to an RPG. I'm sure groups out there have eliminated or fundamentally changed the CS in their own games (I know that we did in the longest running campaign I was a part of).

So in that sense, neither the CS nor Tarn has plot armor unless your GM says that they do. From the perspective of what Kevin S writes, however, I'd say that it is fair to assert that they both do have it. Erin Tarn may be a "narrator" from an external perspective, but she is declared to be one od the greatest heroes of the age by Kevin S in CWC. She may not be central to the campaigns that we play, but she certainly seems to be central to the story that Kevin S tells.

Edit: I was about to make much the same point as Killer Cyborg did; the point was the disparity in numbers between what HWalsh was claiming and what the books state.

[Hotrod]

Just think of Tarn as the narrator for Rifts.

Right!?
Because that's all she really is. She doesn't DO anything significant. She's not really part of any of the plots.
She's just a vehicle to tell the real-world customers what's happening in the Rifts setting.
I've never understood the hate.

At least in my case, it's not hate. It's frustration with a character that so dominates the narrative that her perspective becomes the definition of what's right and good. All good characters like and agree with her, and all evil characters dislike and/or disagree with her. I prefer a world where objectively good people can dislike and disagree with each other to the point of finding themselves on opposite sides in an armed conflict.

In a world of hidden threats and supernatural forces that are often not what they seem, and in a game of Hook, Line, and Sinker (TM) adventures whose very structure carries an implicit message to not take the situation at face value, it seems inconsistent to have a character who should be taken at face value as a narrator of objective reality.

I prefer a world where the inerrant Erin Tarn can be wrong. Not just factually wrong about key world facts in some vaguely unauthorized book, but wrong in her judgment of a situation, cause, person, or group. I prefer a world in which reasonable and objectively good people can disagree with her opinions.

[Axelmania]

Your average CS grunt wouldn't last half a second against her

You willing to roll that out? Even pre-CWC equipment for Grunts is more than enough for a level 1 guy to beat her in a fight, IMO. She's never seemed particularly well-armed.

let alone the whatever level Cyber-Knight who canonically takes on an entire CS squad in SoT 4 and wins.

Thorpe has the power to roll natural 20s 99% of the time, apparently.

Then you need to remember that the average CS grunt who sees her cannot read, and probably doesn't know what she looks like

I assume they at least use old pictures on a 'wanted poster'.

What I can't really fathom is why the CS can't get a more recent pic...

Couldn't you have psychic sketch artists using Object Read / Remote Viewing on things she came into contact with at a point after her last photograph?

Joker immunity is a villain trope. Which only works if Tarn is a villain.

Not seeing a dilemma here.

Three times she was just so charming that her captors released her on their own.

if we were reading a short story where Tarn was the protagonist, and it went into the details of that event, and there wasn't any explanation for why the guys released Tarn other than her good old-fashioned Mary Sue charms, then yeah... that's be plot armor.

So yes?

[Eagle]

Plot immunity is normally used to describe a character who survives against insurmountable odds, where the reader is intended to think "there's no way he'll get out of this", but in reality the reader is like "ho-hum, another 'inescapable' trap". It's the moment when an action movie goes from being exciting to being boring. It's when you realize you're watching Die Hard 4 instead of the first Die Hard.

Obviously Bruce Willis was never going to die in the first movie, but the situations were still realistic enough that we can think "yeah, maybe a real guy might be able to do that". And when it's something a real guy couldn't do (jumping off the roof while holding onto the fire hose), it was so damn cool that we just accepted it. By the 4th movie, where he takes on an experimental fighter jet while driving a car... yeah that's just dumb.

By this perspective, if Erin Tarn is anything other than just the Rifts Narrator, you could argue she's got plot armor. I'd say the better criticism is that she's just not cool enough for us to care about her. We're told what a great hero she is, how she's this courageous woman who stands up to the Coalition. But we never see her actually do anything cool, and we never have any reason to like her. She's just this old lady who some high level badass NPCs are dragging around on their adventures. She's a Mary Sue, where she can do no wrong and she's the voice of the author. If she were in a teen romance novel, she'd have a vampire boyfriend who gave up drinking blood just for her. And a werewolf boyfriend. And they'd fight over her.

The Coalition, meanwhile, is a different animal. They're written to be very powerful, from the very beginning. It's isn't plot armor for them, inasmuch as its just the plot. You have to distinguish between plot armor and the plot. Plot armor is a derogatory term towards a character (or maybe the writer). But every character in fiction is bound by the plot, there's no getting around it. None of the readers say "oh my, I don't see how the Coalition can survive this..." (except HWalsh, but he's got his own reasons for that). We aren't meant to think that either. We as readers aren't meant to be worried about their survival. From a storytelling perspective, this is Europe in 1938. The Coalition is going to march across the continent, and our heroes can kill all the Naz... er, Dead Boys they want and they'll keep coming. They're set up to be an overwhelming force, and we're told from the very beginning of the game (in the Rifts Main Book from 1990) that Tolkeen won't be much more than a speed bump to them.

[Killer Cyborg]

as per CWC page 14, she has been captured by Coalition spies, agents, or bounty hunters ELEVEN TIMES and been rescued or managed to escape each time. Three times she was just so charming that her captors released her on their own. Released someone who has been on the Coalitions top 20 public enemy list for 32 years and has been Public Enemy number one for the past 5 as of CWC. That sure sounds like "plot armor" to me!

It can only be plot armor if it's something that happens in part of the plot, where we think that the character is in actual danger, but they get out of it for no good in-world explanation.
A side-note or back-story isn't plot armor, because it isn't plot.

NOW, if we were reading a short story where Tarn was the protagonist, and it went into the details of that event, and there wasn't any explanation for why the guys released Tarn other than her good old-fashioned Mary Sue charms, then yeah... that's be plot armor.

Also,
From TV Tropes:
Plot Armor is when a main character's life and health are safeguarded by the fact that he's the one person who can't be removed from the story.

Tarn could easily be removed from the story of Rifts. It's not her story--it's the story of an entire world.
She's just one of the narrators.

Then by that logic, the Coalition States could also be removed, as plenty of areas of the Rifts world would just go on.

Rifts North America is the central part of the world, though, and the Coalition being destroyed would have a major impact on the setting/story.

Tarn dying?
Not so much, unless her death acted as a spark for movers and shakers to take some kind of major action. But she doesn't really affect the setting; the CS does.

That would make all the other POV characters, so to speak, narrators as well.

Sure, unless they actually take actions that affect the setting or story.

It is an interesting situation to consider: I suppose that role-playing backstory and "fluff" are not actually THE STORY of a given player group. From that perspective, no one has plot armor unless a GM decides that they do; the conventions of traditional narrative storytelling would just not apply in the same way, and what would be a trope in it would just not apply in the same way to an RPG. I'm sure groups out there have eliminated or fundamentally changed the CS in their own games (I know that we did in the longest running campaign I was a part of).

So in that sense, neither the CS nor Tarn has plot armor unless your GM says that they do.

From the perspective of what Kevin S writes, however, I'd say that it is fair to assert that they both do have it. Erin Tarn may be a "narrator" from an external perspective, but she is declared to be one od the greatest heroes of the age by Kevin S in CWC. She may not be central to the campaigns that we play, but she certainly seems to be central to the story that Kevin S tells.

How is she central to the story of Rifts Earth, other than as a narrator?

[Killer Cyborg]

Just think of Tarn as the narrator for Rifts.

Right!?
Because that's all she really is. She doesn't DO anything significant. She's not really part of any of the plots.
She's just a vehicle to tell the real-world customers what's happening in the Rifts setting.
I've never understood the hate.

At least in my case, it's not hate. It's frustration with a character that so dominates the narrative that her perspective becomes the definition of what's right and good.

It's not her perspective so much as it's KS's perspective, and she's just a tool used to convey his views to us.

All good characters like and agree with her, and all evil characters dislike and/or disagree with her.

I don't think that holds true.
Most Good and most Evil characters in Rifts don't seem to really care about her one way or another, outside of North America (and the NGR)... and even in NA, I don't recall her being discussed much beyond Tolkeen/Lazlo.

I prefer a world where the inerrant Erin Tarn can be wrong. Not just factually wrong about key world facts in some vaguely unauthorized book, but wrong in her judgment of a situation, cause, person, or group. I prefer a world in which reasonable and objectively good people can disagree with her opinions.

Well, she hasn't really given her moral opinion on much other than "CS Bad" and "Tolkeen should flee."
Not that stands out in my memory.

[Killer Cyborg]

Plot immunity is normally used to describe a character who survives against insurmountable odds, where the reader is intended to think "there's no way he'll get out of this", but in reality the reader is like "ho-hum, another 'inescapable' trap". It's the moment when an action movie goes from being exciting to being boring. It's when you realize you're watching Die Hard 4 instead of the first Die Hard.

Obviously Bruce Willis was never going to die in the first movie, but the situations were still realistic enough that we can think "yeah, maybe a real guy might be able to do that". And when it's something a real guy couldn't do (jumping off the roof while holding onto the fire hose), it was so damn cool that we just accepted it. By the 4th movie, where he takes on an experimental fighter jet while driving a car... yeah that's just dumb.

By this perspective, if Erin Tarn is anything other than just the Rifts Narrator, you could argue she's got plot armor.

Well, you could... but unless she's survived against insurmountable odds, where the reader is intended to think "there's no way she'll get out of this," I don't see much room for that argument to stand.
Closest situation I can think of is when she headed off to Mexico... and I don't think we were intended to believe that she was in real danger.

I'd say the better criticism is that she's just not cool enough for us to care about her. We're told what a great hero she is, how she's this courageous woman who stands up to the Coalition. But we never see her actually do anything cool, and we never have any reason to like her. She's just this old lady who some high level badass NPCs are dragging around on their adventures.

She's a Mary Sue, where she can do no wrong and she's the voice of the author. If she were in a teen romance novel, she'd have a vampire boyfriend who gave up drinking blood just for her. And a werewolf boyfriend. And they'd fight over her.

Voice of the author, yes.
Mary Sue? I don't think so. She doesn't really DO anything. Mary Sues are typically characters where nothing can really happen without them doing it.

The Coalition, meanwhile, is a different animal. They're written to be very powerful, from the very beginning. It's isn't plot armor for them, inasmuch as its just the plot.

None of the readers say "oh my, I don't see how the Coalition can survive this..."

Exactly.

[Freemage]

"Mary Sue", like "Plot Armor", is another one of those terms that started with a fairly specific definition, then over time got muddied until it came to mean "something I don't like and can't be bothered to put together a coherent reason for so I'll just slap an epithet on it and call it a day."

[Daniel Stoker]

Something only a Mary Sue with plot armor would say!
What.... it was to easy of a straight line, I couldn't resist.


Daniel Stoker

[Freemage]

Something only a Mary Sue with plot armor would say!
What.... it was to easy of a straight line, I couldn't resist.


Daniel Stoker

Okay, that made me snicker.

[dreicunan]

Something only a Mary Sue with plot armor would say!
What.... it was to easy of a straight line, I couldn't resist.


Daniel Stoker

Okay, that made me snicker.

This actually made me wonder if there were ever Mary Sue that didn't have plot armor.

[Freemage]

Something only a Mary Sue with plot armor would say!
What.... it was to easy of a straight line, I couldn't resist.


Daniel Stoker

Okay, that made me snicker.

This actually made me wonder if there were ever Mary Sue that didn't have plot armor.

Rare, but yes. If the Mary Sue is Too Good For This World, they'll end up sacrificing themselves in some noble fashion so that everyone can, for all time thereafter, talk about how wonderful the Sue was.

[Wise_Owl]

Something only a Mary Sue with plot armor would say!
What.... it was to easy of a straight line, I couldn't resist.


Daniel Stoker

Okay, that made me snicker.

This actually made me wonder if there were ever Mary Sue that didn't have plot armor.

Rare, but yes. If the Mary Sue is Too Good For This World, they'll end up sacrificing themselves in some noble fashion so that everyone can, for all time thereafter, talk about how wonderful the Sue was.

The Original 'Mary Sue' actually died at the end of her story. Mary Sue originally referred to a specific type of self-insertion fan-fic, wherein a thinly veils Author avatar was added to established fiction and operated in a way that undermined the rest of the characters, the classic example being some-one Smarter than Spock, Braver than Kirk, knowing more about Engineering than Scotty, etc. Its distortion over time has come from people failing to understand how stories, characters and narrative work, and looking for a way to say they don't like something that works like 'That sucks' but doesn't sound as instantly empty of real criticism. By t he metric many people use, James Bond, Conan the Barbarian and Sherlock Holmes are all Mary Sues...

As for Erin Tarn; She's a literary device, like Watson. She exists to provide exposition and explain elements of plots and the world to the reader. She works well at this sometimes(I would say England and Africa were both decent uses of the foil) and not in others. She's also just kind of a funny character; this little old lady who writes travel books and is enemy #1 of this giant monstrous Fascist War Machine.

Role-playing games are a funny thing; they are, by nature, interactive story generators to an extent, and that means the plot isn't the same as in a more tightly controlled work of fiction. You don't receive the plot of an RPG, you help generate it. To wit, is Erin Tarn going to die in a book; probably not. What purpose would that serve? How would that advance anything in the RPG? It wouldn't and would deprive it of something that helped define it since it's inception.

As others have observed; the Coalition States has something closer to plot Armor. As a central villain/element of the setting, the CS gets a near comic-book reset regardless of what happens. Because of the nature of an RPG, you can't just summarily 'end' the CS, it would undermine decades of book production. Such 'resets' have tended to not go over well in RPG worlds(witness every time the Forgotten Realms has been reset). So like Spiderman, the CS gets put back into a menacing position regardless of narrative sense, let alone logical consistency.

[Nightmask]

[quote="Wise_Owl"]The Original 'Mary Sue' actually died at the end of her story. Mary Sue originally referred to a specific type of self-insertion fan-fic, wherein a thinly veils Author avatar was added to established fiction and operated in a way that undermined the rest of the characters, the classic example being some-one Smarter than Spock, Braver than Kirk, knowing more about Engineering than Scotty, etc./quote]

So you've read Uhura's Song as well then.

[13eowulf]

Erin Tarn is just the current identity of the PU2 Human Immortal we currently know as Billy Joel, and all they are doing is writing Piano Man Part II: Piano God.

[Hotrod]

At least in my case, it's not hate. It's frustration with a character that so dominates the narrative that her perspective becomes the definition of what's right and good.

It's not her perspective so much as it's KS's perspective, and she's just a tool used to convey his views to us.

In that sense, she's redundant at best. Kevin (and other authors) already state their opinions on the moral merits and deficiencies of people and groups in canon material. At worst, she's being given special status as an in-world herald of the author's opinions to the point in which we have another narrator apologizing for not being as awesome as she is in South America 1 (p9). That rubs me the wrong way.

All good characters like and agree with her, and all evil characters dislike and/or disagree with her.

I don't think that holds true.
Most Good and most Evil characters in Rifts don't seem to really care about her one way or another, outside of North America (and the NGR)... and even in NA, I don't recall her being discussed much beyond Tolkeen/Lazlo.

Africa, p7: King Ar'thuu, Mrr'lynn, and Sir Pyrcival are all familiar with her works. Africa, p8: A great many of the Gathering of Heroes are fans of hers (she's so embarrassed by this that she brags about it to Plato). Lo Fung is an old friend (Africa, p8). Her writings are more popular in the NGR than in North America, and youthful images of her have turned her into a national sex symbol in the NGR (Triax, p11, RUE, p16).

I prefer a world where the inerrant Erin Tarn can be wrong. Not just factually wrong about key world facts in some vaguely unauthorized book, but wrong in her judgment of a situation, cause, person, or group. I prefer a world in which reasonable and objectively good people can disagree with her opinions.

Well, she hasn't really given her moral opinion on much other than "CS Bad" and "Tolkeen should flee."
Not that stands out in my memory.

Mrr'lyn advises his king against sending a large military force to fight a crusade on another continent, which is a pretty prudent position, and he glares at Erin for convincing the king otherwise. Therefore, Erin intuits that Mrr'lyn is evil (Africa, p8). She lambasts the NGR for its tendency to defend humans over non-humans, and lauds the Unmutuals and Victor Lazlo's organization, which use stolen Triax equipment. Her fawning description of Lazlo smatters of utopian propaganda in Aftermath, p51 and is only slightly tempered by acknowledging a refugee problem in RUE p21. She also gives generally positive judgments of New Lazlo, Kingsdale, and Psyscape (the latter with no direct evidence whatsoever).

She's also condemned Atlantis, the Phoenix Empire, Vampire Kingdoms, the Pecos Empire, the Federation of Magic, and the Horune Pirates (RUE, various pages toward the beginning). Though I agree with her, and these are generally objectively evil forces, these are moral opinions. She's given opposite moral judgments on the Cyber Knights, the Psi-Warriors, and the Tundra Rangers.

I've rather enjoyed the fact that most of the more recent sourcebooks have toned down her personal story or outright excluded her, but her presence in most of the older and more influential Rifts books is something I'd prefer to see reduced or revised in future versions.

[Killer Cyborg]

At least in my case, it's not hate. It's frustration with a character that so dominates the narrative that her perspective becomes the definition of what's right and good.

It's not her perspective so much as it's KS's perspective, and she's just a tool used to convey his views to us.

In that sense, she's redundant at best.

Opinion noted...?

At worst, she's being given special status as an in-world herald of the author's opinions to the point in which we have another narrator apologizing for not being as awesome as she is in South America 1 (p9). That rubs me the wrong way.

Weird.

All good characters like and agree with her, and all evil characters dislike and/or disagree with her.

I don't think that holds true.
Most Good and most Evil characters in Rifts don't seem to really care about her one way or another, outside of North America (and the NGR)... and even in NA, I don't recall her being discussed much beyond Tolkeen/Lazlo.

Africa, p7: King Ar'thuu, Mrr'lynn, and Sir Pyrcival are all familiar with her works. Africa, p8: A great many of the Gathering of Heroes are fans of hers (she's so embarrassed by this that she brags about it to Plato). Lo Fung is an old friend (Africa, p8). Her writings are more popular in the NGR than in North America, and youthful images of her have turned her into a national sex symbol in the NGR (Triax, p11, RUE, p16).

Cool.
And Japan?
South America (outside of that one note)?
Australia?
Canada?

Heck, how about later books written in North America?
She show up in New West or Spirit West much?

Do a count of Rifts books in which she's used heavily, books in which she's hardly mentioned, and books in which she isn't mentioned at all.
I think the numbers might surprise you.

I prefer a world where the inerrant Erin Tarn can be wrong. Not just factually wrong about key world facts in some vaguely unauthorized book, but wrong in her judgment of a situation, cause, person, or group. I prefer a world in which reasonable and objectively good people can disagree with her opinions.

Well, she hasn't really given her moral opinion on much other than "CS Bad" and "Tolkeen should flee."
Not that stands out in my memory.

Mrr'lyn advises his king against sending a large military force to fight a crusade on another continent, which is a pretty prudent position, and he glares at Erin for convincing the king otherwise. Therefore, Erin intuits that Mrr'lyn is evil (Africa, p8). She lambasts the NGR for its tendency to defend humans over non-humans, and lauds the Unmutuals and Victor Lazlo's organization, which use stolen Triax equipment. Her fawning description of Lazlo smatters of utopian propaganda in Aftermath, p51 and is only slightly tempered by acknowledging a refugee problem in RUE p21. She also gives generally positive judgments of New Lazlo, Kingsdale, and Psyscape (the latter with no direct evidence whatsoever).

She's also condemned Atlantis, the Phoenix Empire, Vampire Kingdoms, the Pecos Empire, the Federation of Magic, and the Horune Pirates (RUE, various pages toward the beginning). Though I agree with her, and these are generally objectively evil forces, these are moral opinions.

So far it sounds like she's 90%+ just stating "Well, no duh" kinds of positions that are pretty obvious to anybody.

She's given opposite moral judgments on the Cyber Knights, the Psi-Warriors, and the Tundra Rangers.

Not sure what you're saying here.

I've rather enjoyed the fact that most of the more recent sourcebooks have toned down her personal story or outright excluded her, but her presence in most of the older and more influential Rifts books is something I'd prefer to see reduced or revised in future versions.

So you're mostly annoyed by stuff that happened a decade or three ago?
Well, rest easy.

From what I can tell, there was originally going to be a single Rifts World Book, and Tarn was going to be the sole in-game narrator for it. This is set up in the RMB with her "Traversing Our Modern World" excerpt and such.
But Rifts took off unexpectedly well, and Kev realized that he'd need a LOT of books to cover the world in depth.
For a time he tried to use Tarn as an in-world guide to show us each of these places as she explored (Vampire Kingdoms, Wormwood, Africa, NGR), but the idea didn't work on the newer bigger scale, with the massive number of books and settings.
And/or more work was being done by other people, and they either wanted their own in-world personalities to speak through, or they weren't allowed to write for Tarn because she's Kev's voice.
And/or (I've heard unsupported rumors) Tarn was originally inspired by Maryann, and Kevin lost some enthusiasm for the character after the divorce.

For whatever reason, after the first five world books or so, we don't see nearly as much of Erin Tarn as we used to.
Later books contradict a lot of her writings, and she is show to be not only NOT infallible, but to sometimes be incredibly wrong (kind of like the Star Wars prequel trilogy turned Obi Wan into kind of a lying jerk).

Unless there's been a lot of action from her recently, I'm not sure why people are still outraged.
It's not quite like somebody starting a thread arguing that they'd like to see less Wesley Crusher in Star Trek, but it's still kind of a dead issue as far as I can tell.

[SereneTsunami]

Thank you, K.C. I rather enjoyed that post.

[Axelmania]

If she were in a teen romance novel, she'd have a vampire boyfriend who gave up drinking blood just for her.

I wouldn't be so sure she doesn't, what about that first Cyber-knight who went questing into the vampire kingdoms and didn't come back? My guess is he's closer to her age than Thorpe is.

Rare, but yes. If the Mary Sue is Too Good For This World, they'll end up sacrificing themselves in some noble fashion so that everyone can, for all time thereafter, talk about how wonderful the Sue was.

Then of course get better, which is completely feasible since she not only has a dragon friend who would know the resurrection spell but a goddess friend (who happens to have a side base in New York) who has it as a deific power.

[Hotrod]

All good characters like and agree with her, and all evil characters dislike and/or disagree with her.

I don't think that holds true.
Most Good and most Evil characters in Rifts don't seem to really care about her one way or another, outside of North America (and the NGR)... and even in NA, I don't recall her being discussed much beyond Tolkeen/Lazlo.

Africa, p7: King Ar'thuu, Mrr'lynn, and Sir Pyrcival are all familiar with her works. Africa, p8: A great many of the Gathering of Heroes are fans of hers (she's so embarrassed by this that she brags about it to Plato). Lo Fung is an old friend (Africa, p8). Her writings are more popular in the NGR than in North America, and youthful images of her have turned her into a national sex symbol in the NGR (Triax, p11, RUE, p16).

Cool.
And Japan?
South America (outside of that one note)?
Australia?
Canada?

Heck, how about later books written in North America?
She show up in New West or Spirit West much?

Do a count of Rifts books in which she's used heavily, books in which she's hardly mentioned, and books in which she isn't mentioned at all.
I think the numbers might surprise you.

Ok. Here are the numbers. I see Erin Tarn's writing show up in 14 of 26 world books I own, and mentioned in 7 of the remainder of them.
That's 54% of world books sampled with Erin Tarn passages, and 27% that mention her directly.

If you look at total Rifts books I own, she has written passages in 23 of 42 books (55%). She's mentioned directly in another 9 books (21%). See below for my figures:

Erin Tarn's writing shows up in:
World Books 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 (Yes, her writing takes up space in Rifts Japan, p132-134), 11, 12, 13, 17, 20, 22, and 33. (14 books)

She is mentioned, but not directly quoted in World Books 6, 10, 14, 15, 21, 31, and 34. (7 books). World Books 6, 15, and 21 have "surrogate Tarns" who pay tribute to her and acknowledge her superiority.

As far as I can tell, she doesn't show up at all in World Books 9, 18, 24, 25, 27, (5 books)

I don't own 16, 19, 26, or 28-30.

Other Books
Her writing shows up in :
all the SoT books, including Aftermath (7 books).
It shows up in RUE and RMB. (2 books)

She's mentioned in: Conversion Book 2, Game Master Guide (2 books)
She does not appear to be mentioned in Sourcebook 1 or 2, Conversion Book 1 or 3, or the Book of Magic (as far as I can tell) (5 books).

I prefer a world where the inerrant Erin Tarn can be wrong. Not just factually wrong about key world facts in some vaguely unauthorized book, but wrong in her judgment of a situation, cause, person, or group. I prefer a world in which reasonable and objectively good people can disagree with her opinions.

Well, she hasn't really given her moral opinion on much other than "CS Bad" and "Tolkeen should flee."
Not that stands out in my memory.

Mrr'lyn advises his king against sending a large military force to fight a crusade on another continent, which is a pretty prudent position, and he glares at Erin for convincing the king otherwise. Therefore, Erin intuits that Mrr'lyn is evil (Africa, p8). She lambasts the NGR for its tendency to defend humans over non-humans, and lauds the Unmutuals and Victor Lazlo's organization, which use stolen Triax equipment. Her fawning description of Lazlo smatters of utopian propaganda in Aftermath, p51 and is only slightly tempered by acknowledging a refugee problem in RUE p21. She also gives generally positive judgments of New Lazlo, Kingsdale, and Psyscape (the latter with no direct evidence whatsoever).

She's also condemned Atlantis, the Phoenix Empire, Vampire Kingdoms, the Pecos Empire, the Federation of Magic, and the Horune Pirates (RUE, various pages toward the beginning). Though I agree with her, and these are generally objectively evil forces, these are moral opinions.

So far it sounds like she's 90%+ just stating "Well, no duh" kinds of positions that are pretty obvious to anybody.

That's part of my broader point. A huge portion of threats in rifts pose as benign or even friendly people, and sorting out the good and the bad, the true from the false, is a big part of many canon adventures, and is a major challenge for the denizens of Rifts Earth... unless you're Erin Tarn or have her latest book on the subject at hand. Kevin once told me, "There are no utopias in Rifts." This statement is incompatible with Erin's depiction of Lazlo.

She's given opposite moral judgments on the Cyber Knights, the Psi-Warriors, and the Tundra Rangers.

Not sure what you're saying here.

You said she hasn't given her moral opinion except for "CS is bad" and "Tolkeen should flee." I'm showing that, in fact, she has, and on many occasions.

I've rather enjoyed the fact that most of the more recent sourcebooks have toned down her personal story or outright excluded her, but her presence in most of the older and more influential Rifts books is something I'd prefer to see reduced or revised in future versions.

So you're mostly annoyed by stuff that happened a decade or three ago?
Well, rest easy.

From what I can tell, there was originally going to be a single Rifts World Book, and Tarn was going to be the sole in-game narrator for it. This is set up in the RMB with her "Traversing Our Modern World" excerpt and such.
But Rifts took off unexpectedly well, and Kev realized that he'd need a LOT of books to cover the world in depth.
For a time he tried to use Tarn as an in-world guide to show us each of these places as she explored (Vampire Kingdoms, Wormwood, Africa, NGR), but the idea didn't work on the newer bigger scale, with the massive number of books and settings.
And/or more work was being done by other people, and they either wanted their own in-world personalities to speak through, or they weren't allowed to write for Tarn because she's Kev's voice.
And/or (I've heard unsupported rumors) Tarn was originally inspired by Maryann, and Kevin lost some enthusiasm for the character after the divorce.

For whatever reason, after the first five world books or so, we don't see nearly as much of Erin Tarn as we used to.
Later books contradict a lot of her writings, and she is show to be not only NOT infallible, but to sometimes be incredibly wrong (kind of like the Star Wars prequel trilogy turned Obi Wan into kind of a lying jerk).

Unless there's been a lot of action from her recently, I'm not sure why people are still outraged.
It's not quite like somebody starting a thread arguing that they'd like to see less Wesley Crusher in Star Trek, but it's still kind of a dead issue as far as I can tell.

Call me old school, but I consider RUE to be recent and one of her more egregious examples of dominant narration. RUE doubled down on Erin Tarn's role and gave her more text than any other book they have. As it is the current basic book, it's not a product of yesteryear, but rather the beating heart of a current and ongoing product.

[Axelmania]

Mrr'lyn advises his king against sending a large military force to fight a crusade on another continent, which is a pretty prudent position, and he glares at Erin for convincing the king otherwise. Therefore, Erin intuits that Mrr'lyn is evil (Africa, p8).

Erin sounds like the type who in 1940 might have labelled members of the "Keep America Out of War Committee" or the "America First Comittee" as "evil".

She lambasts the NGR for its tendency to defend humans over non-humans, and lauds the Unmutuals and Victor Lazlo's organization, which use stolen Triax equipment.

Victor is her crush, compromises her reasoning.

Her fawning description of Lazlo smatters of utopian propaganda in Aftermath, p51 and is only slightly tempered by acknowledging a refugee problem in RUE p21. She also gives generally positive judgments of New Lazlo, Kingsdale, and Psyscape (the latter with no direct evidence whatsoever).
..

Kevin once told me, "There are no utopias in Rifts." This statement is incompatible with Erin's depiction of Lazlo.

Rose-colored glasses for her hometown and its "New" offshoot.

Having read Juicer Uprising, I am seriously concerned by any positive judgments about Murder Wraith Central. Where'd she make these?

How does she even know Psyscape is real? I thought it was just a legend to her in WB 12.

[HWalsh]

Mrr'lyn advises his king against sending a large military force to fight a crusade on another continent, which is a pretty prudent position, and he glares at Erin for convincing the king otherwise. Therefore, Erin intuits that Mrr'lyn is evil (Africa, p8).

Erin sounds like the type who in 1940 might have labelled members of the "Keep America Out of War Committee" or the "America First Comittee" as "evil".

Nah, she's more like the type who were saying, "No really! The Nazis are evil!"

And the defenders are like, "No they aren't. They are doing what is best for their country."

(Yeah there were people who were like that. Hard to believe right?)

She lambasts the NGR for its tendency to defend humans over non-humans, and lauds the Unmutuals and Victor Lazlo's organization, which use stolen Triax equipment.

Victor is her crush, compromises her reasoning.

Not really. From all of the text sources we have her opinions are spot on.

Her fawning description of Lazlo smatters of utopian propaganda in Aftermath, p51 and is only slightly tempered by acknowledging a refugee problem in RUE p21. She also gives generally positive judgments of New Lazlo, Kingsdale, and Psyscape (the latter with no direct evidence whatsoever).
..

Kevin once told me, "There are no utopias in Rifts." This statement is incompatible with Erin's depiction of Lazlo.

Rose-colored glasses for her hometown and its "New" offshoot.

Save for. Again. All of the published sources seem to confirm that Lazlo and New Lazlo are virtual utopias with a fraction of the issues anywhere else.

Having read Juicer Uprising, I am seriously concerned by any positive judgments about Murder Wraith Central. Where'd she make these?

How does she even know Psyscape is real? I thought it was just a legend to her in WB 12.

There are tons of ways to find out about it, remember for a while the CS was said to have Psyscape Psi-Warriors until that was retconned out.

[Killer Cyborg]

Do a count of Rifts books in which she's used heavily, books in which she's hardly mentioned, and books in which she isn't mentioned at all.
I think the numbers might surprise you.

If you look at total Rifts books I own, she has written passages in 23 of 42 books (55%). She's mentioned directly in another 9 books (21%). See below for my figures:

Erin Tarn's writing shows up in:
World Books 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 (Yes, her writing takes up space in Rifts Japan, p132-134), 11, 12, 13, 17, 20, 22, and 33. (14 books)

She is mentioned, but not directly quoted in World Books 6, 10, 14, 15, 21, 31, and 34. (7 books). World Books 6, 15, and 21 have "surrogate Tarns" who pay tribute to her and acknowledge her superiority.

As far as I can tell, she doesn't show up at all in World Books 9, 18, 24, 25, 27, (5 books)

I don't own 16, 19, 26, or 28-30.

Other Books
Her writing shows up in :
all the SoT books, including Aftermath (7 books).
It shows up in RUE and RMB. (2 books)

She's mentioned in: Conversion Book 2, Game Master Guide (2 books)
She does not appear to be mentioned in Sourcebook 1 or 2, Conversion Book 1 or 3, or the Book of Magic (as far as I can tell) (5 books).

So of the books in which she's a factor at all, how many is she hardly mentioned in, and how many is she used heavily in?

So far it sounds like she's 90%+ just stating "Well, no duh" kinds of positions that are pretty obvious to anybody.

That's part of my broader point. A huge portion of threats in rifts pose as benign or even friendly people, and sorting out the good and the bad, the true from the false, is a big part of many canon adventures, and is a major challenge for the denizens of Rifts Earth... unless you're Erin Tarn or have her latest book on the subject at hand.[/quote]

Right. Which means that the PCs do have some sort of potential to guess about these threats, if the GM gives them access to Tarn's books.
If the GM wants to have a lengthy campaign in King Arthur's court, such a shortcut isn't needed, and could interfere with the long-term story.
But for shorter campaigns and adventures, having hints in Tarn's books could save a lot of time, and provide for a better story.

Kevin once told me, "There are no utopias in Rifts." This statement is incompatible with Erin's depiction of Lazlo.

So she's not infallible.
Cool.

She's given opposite moral judgments on the Cyber Knights, the Psi-Warriors, and the Tundra Rangers.

Not sure what you're saying here.

You said she hasn't given her moral opinion except for "CS is bad" and "Tolkeen should flee." I'm showing that, in fact, she has, and on many occasions.

So you're mostly annoyed by stuff that happened a decade or three ago?
Well, rest easy.

From what I can tell, there was originally going to be a single Rifts World Book, and Tarn was going to be the sole in-game narrator for it. This is set up in the RMB with her "Traversing Our Modern World" excerpt and such.
But Rifts took off unexpectedly well, and Kev realized that he'd need a LOT of books to cover the world in depth.
For a time he tried to use Tarn as an in-world guide to show us each of these places as she explored (Vampire Kingdoms, Wormwood, Africa, NGR), but the idea didn't work on the newer bigger scale, with the massive number of books and settings.
And/or more work was being done by other people, and they either wanted their own in-world personalities to speak through, or they weren't allowed to write for Tarn because she's Kev's voice.
And/or (I've heard unsupported rumors) Tarn was originally inspired by Maryann, and Kevin lost some enthusiasm for the character after the divorce.

For whatever reason, after the first five world books or so, we don't see nearly as much of Erin Tarn as we used to.
Later books contradict a lot of her writings, and she is show to be not only NOT infallible, but to sometimes be incredibly wrong (kind of like the Star Wars prequel trilogy turned Obi Wan into kind of a lying jerk).

Unless there's been a lot of action from her recently, I'm not sure why people are still outraged.
It's not quite like somebody starting a thread arguing that they'd like to see less Wesley Crusher in Star Trek, but it's still kind of a dead issue as far as I can tell.

Call me old school, but I consider RUE to be recent and one of her more egregious examples of dominant narration. RUE doubled down on Erin Tarn's role and gave her more text than any other book they have. As it is the current basic book, it's not a product of yesteryear, but rather the beating heart of a current and ongoing product.

Tarn's only role in RUE was a rehash of her role in the RMB.
She got more page count simply because there was more of Rifts Earth developed for her to comment on.
And that book came out 12 years ago.

[rem1093]

O.K. really scary thought here, but what if she is Rifts, Chuck?

[Hotrod]

So of the books in which she's a factor at all, how many is she hardly mentioned in, and how many is she used heavily in?

As I stated in my previous reply, she's used heavily (as in has a significant written passage) in about 55% of published books, and mentioned in passing in another 21% (this is among the books I own). That leaves about 24% of the published Rifts books. Of course, most of those are books that I don't have PDFs of that I can search, and I may be missing some casual mentions.

Please find me any other character that is featured as prominently. I don't think you can.

Right. Which means that the PCs do have some sort of potential to guess about these threats, if the GM gives them access to Tarn's books.
If the GM wants to have a lengthy campaign in King Arthur's court, such a shortcut isn't needed, and could interfere with the long-term story.
But for shorter campaigns and adventures, having hints in Tarn's books could save a lot of time, and provide for a better story.

Witholding Erin's letters from a group is a departure from canon for North America and NGR settings, and the fact that many of the Gathering of Heroes from all over the world were fans suggests her works are even more widespread and popular. There's nothing wrong with excluding Erin Tarn's writing, but that's throwing out the most famous and influential voice in the game out the window. I'm not against Erin Tarn per se; I'd just prefer to see some compelling voices in canon that disagree with her.

Kevin once told me, "There are no utopias in Rifts." This statement is incompatible with Erin's depiction of Lazlo.

So she's not infallible.
Cool.

The published canon doesn't reflect what Kevin told me; I see that as a problem.

Tarn's only role in RUE was a rehash of her role in the RMB.
She got more page count simply because there was more of Rifts Earth developed for her to comment on.
And that book came out 12 years ago.

Tarn's passage in RMB was like 4 pages, if I recall correctly. RUE's passage is 31. It was a rehash of her role in RMB the way Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy was a rehash of the old cartoon movie. And it's still the core book, generally the first impression that new players have of the world of Rifts.

[Killer Cyborg]

So of the books in which she's a factor at all, how many is she hardly mentioned in, and how many is she used heavily in?

As I stated in my previous reply, she's used heavily (as in has a significant written passage) in about 55% of published books,

Okay, so now I am left to believe that "she has written passages" means to you the same thing as "she's used heavily."
Gotcha.

and mentioned in passing in another 21% (this is among the books I own).

Right.
"Mentioned in passing."

Please find me any other character that is featured as prominently. I don't think you can.

I didn't know that your complaint was that she was featured more prominently than other characters, so I haven't really researched how she is relative to others.
I'd wager that the Coalition is featured as prominently.
Possibly Archie.

Right. Which means that the PCs do have some sort of potential to guess about these threats, if the GM gives them access to Tarn's books.
If the GM wants to have a lengthy campaign in King Arthur's court, such a shortcut isn't needed, and could interfere with the long-term story.
But for shorter campaigns and adventures, having hints in Tarn's books could save a lot of time, and provide for a better story.

Witholding Erin's letters from a group is a departure from canon for North America and NGR settings, and the fact that many of the Gathering of Heroes from all over the world were fans suggests her works are even more widespread and popular. There's nothing wrong with excluding Erin Tarn's writing, but that's throwing out the most famous and influential voice in the game out the window.

Gather 5-8 people in the real world.
See how many of them have a book by Plato, Stephen Hawking, or Angela Davis.
Just because an author is widespread and/or popular does not mean that people are going to have their books on hand.

I'm not against Erin Tarn per se; I'd just prefer to see some compelling voices in canon that disagree with her.

Weird.

Kevin once told me, "There are no utopias in Rifts." This statement is incompatible with Erin's depiction of Lazlo.

So she's not infallible.
Cool.

The published canon doesn't reflect what Kevin told me; I see that as a problem.

Why?

Tarn's only role in RUE was a rehash of her role in the RMB.
She got more page count simply because there was more of Rifts Earth developed for her to comment on.
And that book came out 12 years ago.

Tarn's passage in RMB was like 4 pages, if I recall correctly. RUE's passage is 31.

Count the number of worldbooks + sourcebooks + CS War Books that came out between RMB and RUE.

[Hotrod]

So of the books in which she's a factor at all, how many is she hardly mentioned in, and how many is she used heavily in?

As I stated in my previous reply, she's used heavily (as in has a significant written passage) in about 55% of published books,

Okay, so now I am left to believe that "she has written passages" means to you the same thing as "she's used heavily."
Gotcha.

Very, very few characters get as much direct quotation as Erin Tarn does in 55% of published books. If that's not using the character heavily, what is?

and mentioned in passing in another 21% (this is among the books I own).

Right.
"Mentioned in passing."

Right.
I don't think any other characters are mentioned in passing as often, or have other narrators apologize to the reader for not being as awesome as Erin Tarn.

Please find me any other character that is featured as prominently. I don't think you can.

I didn't know that your complaint was that she was featured more prominently than other characters, so I haven't really researched how she is relative to others.
I'd wager that the Coalition is featured as prominently.
Possibly Archie.

You didn't know that? I find that surprising for someone who is as attentive as you are. My first reply to you on this thread included:

It's frustration with a character that so dominates the narrative that her perspective becomes the definition of what's right and good.

Not directly declared, but certainly meant to be implied in the second reply when I said:

she's being given special status as an in-world herald of the author's opinions

And later more directly declared when I wrote:

I've rather enjoyed the fact that most of the more recent sourcebooks have toned down her personal story or outright excluded her, but her presence in most of the older and more influential Rifts books is something I'd prefer to see reduced or revised in future versions.

... and from the next post:

Call me old school, but I consider RUE to be recent and one of her more egregious examples of dominant narration.

If you think any other character gets the kind of focus that Erin Tarn does, please, do some research and prove me wrong. Incidentally, the Coalition probably should not count, because the Coalition is not a character (Karl Prozek or his son would).

Gather 5-8 people in the real world.
See how many of them have a book by Plato, Stephen Hawking, or Angela Davis.
Just because an author is widespread and/or popular does not mean that people are going to have their books on hand.

Your analogy has two flaws. First, Erin Tarn is the single most-famous author on Earth. In that respect, J.K. Rowling would probably be more apt, and Potter fans the world over know all kinds of facts about the world she created and describes. Second, Rifts Earth is not modern-day Earth, and the amount of published material available to normal citizens has been reduced by orders of magnitude for everyone outside a few places like the NGR (where she is considered something of a rock star). In that respect, the J.K. Rowling analogy isn't strong enough.

I'm not against Erin Tarn per se; I'd just prefer to see some compelling voices in canon that disagree with her.

Weird.

Why?

Kevin once told me, "There are no utopias in Rifts." This statement is incompatible with Erin's depiction of Lazlo.

So she's not infallible.
Cool.

The published canon doesn't reflect what Kevin told me; I see that as a problem.

Why?

I prefer a Rifts without utopias. The presence of a utopia in Rifts would kind of wreck the post-apocalyptic vibe for me.

Tarn's passage in RMB was like 4 pages, if I recall correctly. RUE's passage is 31.

Count the number of worldbooks + sourcebooks + CS War Books that came out between RMB and RUE.

No. I've indulged you once in this thread and done research for you that you thought would prove you right. I will not do so again, because that's not how rational discussion works. If you want to back up your points with research, do it yourself.

Also, why does the world setting need to be described in such detail and length by Erin Tarn? It wasn't so in Aftermath's world overview. I much prefered the original RMB world overview, flaws and all; the world is more interesting to me when its most famous scholar is flat-out wrong about entire regions of it. Call it the mystery of the unknown, but it made me more interested to crack open sourcebooks than the RUE passage does.

[Kurseteller]

So of the books in which she's a factor at all, how many is she hardly mentioned in, and how many is she used heavily in?

As I stated in my previous reply, she's used heavily (as in has a significant written passage) in about 55% of published books,

Okay, so now I am left to believe that "she has written passages" means to you the same thing as "she's used heavily."
Gotcha.

Very, very few characters get as much direct quotation as Erin Tarn does in 55% of published books. If that's not using the character heavily, what is?

and mentioned in passing in another 21% (this is among the books I own).

Right.
"Mentioned in passing."

Right.
I don't think any other characters are mentioned in passing as often, or have other narrators apologize to the reader for not being as awesome as Erin Tarn.

Please find me any other character that is featured as prominently. I don't think you can.

I didn't know that your complaint was that she was featured more prominently than other characters, so I haven't really researched how she is relative to others.
I'd wager that the Coalition is featured as prominently.
Possibly Archie.

You didn't know that? I find that surprising for someone who is as attentive as you are. My first reply to you on this thread included:

It's frustration with a character that so dominates the narrative that her perspective becomes the definition of what's right and good.

Not directly declared, but certainly meant to be implied in the second reply when I said:

she's being given special status as an in-world herald of the author's opinions

And later more directly declared when I wrote:

I've rather enjoyed the fact that most of the more recent sourcebooks have toned down her personal story or outright excluded her, but her presence in most of the older and more influential Rifts books is something I'd prefer to see reduced or revised in future versions.

... and from the next post:

Call me old school, but I consider RUE to be recent and one of her more egregious examples of dominant narration.

If you think any other character gets the kind of focus that Erin Tarn does, please, do some research and prove me wrong. Incidentally, the Coalition probably should not count, because the Coalition is not a character (Karl Prozek or his son would).

Gather 5-8 people in the real world.
See how many of them have a book by Plato, Stephen Hawking, or Angela Davis.
Just because an author is widespread and/or popular does not mean that people are going to have their books on hand.

Your analogy has two flaws. First, Erin Tarn is the single most-famous author on Earth. In that respect, J.K. Rowling would probably be more apt, and Potter fans the world over know all kinds of facts about the world she created and describes. Second, Rifts Earth is not modern-day Earth, and the amount of published material available to normal citizens has been reduced by orders of magnitude for everyone outside a few places like the NGR (where she is considered something of a rock star). In that respect, the J.K. Rowling analogy isn't strong enough.

I'm not against Erin Tarn per se; I'd just prefer to see some compelling voices in canon that disagree with her.

Weird.

Why?

Kevin once told me, "There are no utopias in Rifts." This statement is incompatible with Erin's depiction of Lazlo.

So she's not infallible.
Cool.

The published canon doesn't reflect what Kevin told me; I see that as a problem.

Why?

I prefer a Rifts without utopias. The presence of a utopia in Rifts would kind of wreck the post-apocalyptic vibe for me.

Tarn's passage in RMB was like 4 pages, if I recall correctly. RUE's passage is 31.

Count the number of worldbooks + sourcebooks + CS War Books that came out between RMB and RUE.

No. I've indulged you once in this thread and done research for you that you thought would prove you right. I will not do so again, because that's not how rational discussion works. If you want to back up your points with research, do it yourself.

Also, why does the world setting need to be described in such detail and length by Erin Tarn? It wasn't so in Aftermath's world overview. I much prefered the original RMB world overview, flaws and all; the world is more interesting to me when its most famous scholar is flat-out wrong about entire regions of it. Call it the mystery of the unknown, but it made me more interested to crack open sourcebooks than the RUE passage does.

I don't mind her. I did mind the Glitter Boy when it first came out( really 770, compared to a MAC IIs 400?) But now I'm just going with the flow. I've played Palladium games since summer 1987. I think I own every book in dead tree or PDF format. Is she important? Not really. Does she have a lot of in game clout? Yes, but so does the Dragon on the Lazlo city council. But her fame and presence in the world is not anything more unbelievable than a resurrection spell or healing spell will not work on a Juicer. Kev's reality is not set in stone and people change pretty drastically in 30 years.

[Hotrod]

I don't mind her. I did mind the Glitter Boy when it first came out( really 770, compared to a MAC IIs 400?) But now I'm just going with the flow. I've played Palladium games since summer 1987. I think I own every book in dead tree or PDF format. Is she important? Not really. Does she have a lot of in game clout? Yes, but so does the Dragon on the Lazlo city council. But her fame and presence in the world is not anything more unbelievable than a resurrection spell or healing spell will not work on a Juicer. Kev's reality is not set in stone and people change pretty drastically in 30 years.

That's an interesting way of looking at the issue; I hadn't considered Erin Tarn as something like a game balance issue, and I certainly don't have a beef with the game being unbalanced in a mechanics sense, or even a setting sense of one faction or character being superior to another in several categories. It does seem inconsistent in that light for me to take issues with with severe imbalances of objective moral principles and knowledge of the world. I suppose this imbalance shouldn't bug me quite as much as it does. In that sense, I guess I should accept the inerrant Erin Tarn as part of the moral scenery.

Even with that concession, her dominance still bugs me. The GB's firepower and armor are out of whack with most other power armors, but there are lots of other armors out there that are perfectly good choices and which get lots of attention in the books. A juicer may not be able to be resurrected after dying from Last Call, but juicers can cheat an early death in other ways (murder-wraith transformation, dragon juicers using ancient dragon blood, getting a cloned body in Atlantis, becoming a vampire, or detoxing after just 2 years). It's hard to find viable alternate perspectives to Erin Tarn's in the published canon that aren't anti-literacy Nazis with a skull fetish.

[Killer Cyborg]

So of the books in which she's a factor at all, how many is she hardly mentioned in, and how many is she used heavily in?

As I stated in my previous reply, she's used heavily (as in has a significant written passage) in about 55% of published books,

Okay, so now I am left to believe that "she has written passages" means to you the same thing as "she's used heavily."
Gotcha.

Very, very few characters get as much direct quotation as Erin Tarn does in 55% of published books. If that's not using the character heavily, what is?

Quoting her once in a book does not mean that she is "used heavily" in that book.
Your claim was that "she's used heavily in about 55% of published books." That means that in 55% of the books, she is used heavily. And your parenthetical clarification for what "used heavily" means holds the standard as "has a significant written passage."
Which would mean that if she has a "significant" written passage in a book, then you're saying that she's "used heavily" in that book.

IF your claim was instead "she's used heavily: she's in about 55% of published books," that would have meant that she's used heavily overall in the setting, and that your support is that she's in 55% of the books, which would have been a more reasonable claim.

and mentioned in passing in another 21% (this is among the books I own).

Right.
"Mentioned in passing."

Right.
I don't think any other characters are mentioned in passing as often,

Care to guess how often Prosek is mentioned in passing?

or have other narrators apologize to the reader for not being as awesome as Erin Tarn.

THIS one seems to really, really bug you.
I can kinda get it... but only kinda. Those things are a nod to Kevin for Tarn, an acknowledgement that the writer is copying Kev's Tarn gimmick with their own character, and an attempt to not step on Kevin/Tarn's toes, as far as I can tell.

Please find me any other character that is featured as prominently. I don't think you can.

I didn't know that your complaint was that she was featured more prominently than other characters, so I haven't really researched how she is relative to others.
I'd wager that the Coalition is featured as prominently.
Possibly Archie.

You didn't know that? I find that surprising for someone who is as attentive as you are. My first reply to you on this thread included:

It's frustration with a character that so dominates the narrative that her perspective becomes the definition of what's right and good.

Not directly declared, but certainly meant to be implied in the second reply when I said:

she's being given special status as an in-world herald of the author's opinions

And later more directly declared when I wrote:

I've rather enjoyed the fact that most of the more recent sourcebooks have toned down her personal story or outright excluded her, but her presence in most of the older and more influential Rifts books is something I'd prefer to see reduced or revised in future versions.

... and from the next post:

Call me old school, but I consider RUE to be recent and one of her more egregious examples of dominant narration.

Read the bolded, then reread what you just wrote.
In your first few posts, you didn't talk about her being featured more prominently than other characters. You talked about her perspective being the definition of what's good and right, and that she's an in-world herald of the author's opinions.
In later posts? Sure, I guess you mentioned it. But it didn't really jump out amid the other, earlier complaints, the ones that I've been focused on.

Gather 5-8 people in the real world.
See how many of them have a book by Plato, Stephen Hawking, or Angela Davis.
Just because an author is widespread and/or popular does not mean that people are going to have their books on hand.

Your analogy has two flaws. First, Erin Tarn is the single most-famous author on Earth.

Is that actually in canon?
I mean, it seems likely, but I don't remember if it's stated as fact.
IF it's not stated as fact, remember that what we the readers see of the world isn't the same as what the characters in the world see. The most famous and well-read book on Rifts Earth might actually be 50 Shades of Splynncryth or something that isn't mentioned because it's not likely to affect adventuring.

In that respect, J.K. Rowling would probably be more apt, and Potter fans the world over know all kinds of facts about the world she created and describes.

Sure, but not all of it.
Seriously, in an average group of adventurers, how many would you expect to have not only read Tarn's books at all, but to read and reread them until they memorized them?
If you've got a Rogue Scholar or something, sure. Maybe.
But literacy isn't even that common to begin with, and just because she's a famous scholar/author doesn't mean most people have read her.

Second, Rifts Earth is not modern-day Earth, and the amount of published material available to normal citizens has been reduced by orders of magnitude for everyone outside a few places like the NGR (where she is considered something of a rock star). In that respect, the J.K. Rowling analogy isn't strong enough.

Wait... you're holding up the NGR, the one place where she's a rockstar, and using it as an example of an exception to the idea that there are so few publications that people would be expected to have read her stuff?
Wouldn't it be the opposite? Wouldn't she be the most popular in places where publishing was uncommon, but reading was common?

Regardless, the literate readers of Rifts Earth aren't restricted to PA publications--there are pre-rifts books around as well. And I suspect any lack of publishers is likely to be a reflection of the lack of people who are literate and/or interested in reading.
Which doesn't indicate that 1 in 2d4 people have read Tarn's books.

The published canon doesn't reflect what Kevin told me; I see that as a problem.

Why?

I prefer a Rifts without utopias. The presence of a utopia in Rifts would kind of wreck the post-apocalyptic vibe for me.

Right, but from what Kev said, there aren't any.
Which means that Tarn was wrong, and therefore not infallible. Her perspective is colored by personal feelings, and she's wrong about something.
So what's the problem?

Tarn's passage in RMB was like 4 pages, if I recall correctly. RUE's passage is 31.

Count the number of worldbooks + sourcebooks + CS War Books that came out between RMB and RUE.

No. I've indulged you once in this thread and done research for you that you thought would prove you right. I will not do so again, because that's not how rational discussion works. If you want to back up your points with research, do it yourself.

Eh. No. You kind of half-donkeyed research, and made illogical claims such as ""she's used heavily in about 55% of published books," based on there being a single passage in that book.
That's not indulging me. That's ignoring what I asked for, and giving me something else.
But hey, you don't have to indulge me here by counting.

Just stop and think for a moment.

My point was that she gets more space in RUE than the RMB because there's a buttload more territory to cover than in the RMB. That's all. She didn't rise in importance in RUE over the RMB--the amount of material that she had to discuss did.
You don't have to actually count all the books that came out between the RMB and RUE to know what I mean here.

Also, why does the world setting need to be described in such detail and length by Erin Tarn?

Ask Kevin.
Some people like her, some don't. Most are indifferent.
I'd wager that the people who like her + the people who are indifferent to her > the people who significantly dislike her.
Whatever the result, Kevin seems to think that having in-world narration is more fun and interesting than just doing things Encyclopedia-style.

I much prefered the original RMB world overview, flaws and all

I much preferred the original RMB world.

the world is more interesting to me when its most famous scholar is flat-out wrong about entire regions of it.

She wasn't wrong; she was retconned into being a liar or a fool.
To me, that damages the setting's integrity.
Kevin played a pretty tight game in the RMB of having Tarn state certain things as fact, and certain things as rumors that she's heard, or things that she suspects. That's important, because virtually everything that we know of the setting came from Tarn herself.
If she was wrong about Japan being an quiet chain of wilderness islands, then she might have been wrong about Tolkeen even existing.
That doesn't make things more interesting to me--it makes things unstructured, unreliable, and chaotic.
All of which you can take as an argument for a more encyclopedic description of things... but if that's what we'd had in the RMB instead of Tarn, then the only real difference would be that we'd have an encyclopedic entry telling us that Japan was a quiet chain of wilderness islands where nothing happened, only to be countered when Rifts: Japan came out.
The problems there aren't in the style of narration.

[Hotrod]

So of the books in which she's a factor at all, how many is she hardly mentioned in, and how many is she used heavily in?

As I stated in my previous reply, she's used heavily (as in has a significant written passage) in about 55% of published books,

Okay, so now I am left to believe that "she has written passages" means to you the same thing as "she's used heavily."
Gotcha.

Very, very few characters get as much direct quotation as Erin Tarn does in 55% of published books. If that's not using the character heavily, what is?

Quoting her once in a book does not mean that she is "used heavily" in that book.
Your claim was that "she's used heavily in about 55% of published books." That means that in 55% of the books, she is used heavily. And your parenthetical clarification for what "used heavily" means holds the standard as "has a significant written passage."
Which would mean that if she has a "significant" written passage in a book, then you're saying that she's "used heavily" in that book.

IF your claim was instead "she's used heavily: she's in about 55% of published books," that would have meant that she's used heavily overall in the setting, and that your support is that she's in 55% of the books, which would have been a more reasonable claim.

This is an irrelevant tangent on semantics and different subjective opinions on what heavy use of a character is in a sourcebook. We're not going to agree on this, and I don't care about it enough about it to continue.

and mentioned in passing in another 21% (this is among the books I own).

Right.
"Mentioned in passing."

Right.
I don't think any other characters are mentioned in passing as often,

Care to guess how often Prosek is mentioned in passing?

Not really.

or have other narrators apologize to the reader for not being as awesome as Erin Tarn.

THIS one seems to really, really bug you.
I can kinda get it... but only kinda. Those things are a nod to Kevin for Tarn, an acknowledgement that the writer is copying Kev's Tarn gimmick with their own character, and an attempt to not step on Kevin/Tarn's toes, as far as I can tell.

That's a good point that I hadn't considered. In that context, it makes more sense. I still don't like it, but I suppose it wouldn't do to snub the publisher's pet character in a manuscript submission.

Please find me any other character that is featured as prominently. I don't think you can.

I didn't know that your complaint was that she was featured more prominently than other characters, so I haven't really researched how she is relative to others.
I'd wager that the Coalition is featured as prominently.
Possibly Archie.

You didn't know that? I find that surprising for someone who is as attentive as you are. My first reply to you on this thread included:

It's frustration with a character that so dominates the narrative that her perspective becomes the definition of what's right and good.

Not directly declared, but certainly meant to be implied in the second reply when I said:

she's being given special status as an in-world herald of the author's opinions

And later more directly declared when I wrote:

I've rather enjoyed the fact that most of the more recent sourcebooks have toned down her personal story or outright excluded her, but her presence in most of the older and more influential Rifts books is something I'd prefer to see reduced or revised in future versions.

... and from the next post:

Call me old school, but I consider RUE to be recent and one of her more egregious examples of dominant narration.

Read the bolded, then reread what you just wrote.
In your first few posts, you didn't talk about her being featured more prominently than other characters. You talked about her perspective being the definition of what's good and right, and that she's an in-world herald of the author's opinions.
In later posts? Sure, I guess you mentioned it. But it didn't really jump out amid the other, earlier complaints, the ones that I've been focused on.

Ok, now you reread the bolded part of my first reply to you that referenced this very issue. So yes, I mentioned it, you just chose to focus on narrow aspects of my reply rather than addressing the overall gist of my opinion. That's been a recurring theme in this repartee. I respect that you're a detail guy, but you don't seem to be seeing the forest for the trees.

Gather 5-8 people in the real world.
See how many of them have a book by Plato, Stephen Hawking, or Angela Davis.
Just because an author is widespread and/or popular does not mean that people are going to have their books on hand.

Your analogy has two flaws. First, Erin Tarn is the single most-famous author on Earth.

Is that actually in canon?
I mean, it seems likely, but I don't remember if it's stated as fact.
IF it's not stated as fact, remember that what we the readers see of the world isn't the same as what the characters in the world see. The most famous and well-read book on Rifts Earth might actually be 50 Shades of Splynncryth or something that isn't mentioned because it's not likely to affect adventuring.

Hmm... frustratingly, I remember seeing it in my search through the books, but I don't remember where. RUE p15 throws around that kind of hyperbole, but not that specific fact. I remember it being in something like a glossary of terms section. like "Erin Tarn: (blurb about her being the most famous author in the world)." I can't for the life of me remember exactly where, though, and I don't care to do more "donkeyed research" through my Rifts library for this discussion.

Her description in CWC comes close to that statement: "Erin Tarn is one of the most famous figures of Rifts Earth. Her name is known in almost every corner of the world and even in some other dimensions." (Coalition War Campaign, p16). It's not much of a stretch to say she's the most famous author in the world from the description of her in CWC.

In that respect, J.K. Rowling would probably be more apt, and Potter fans the world over know all kinds of facts about the world she created and describes.

Sure, but not all of it.
Seriously, in an average group of adventurers, how many would you expect to have not only read Tarn's books at all, but to read and reread them until they memorized them?
If you've got a Rogue Scholar or something, sure. Maybe.
But literacy isn't even that common to begin with, and just because she's a famous scholar/author doesn't mean most people have read her.

Who says you'd have to read her books to be familiar with them? From CWC, p14: "an estimated 23% of the uneducated masses cloistered away in the fortified Coalition cities are believed to have read or heard excerpts from her books. Double or triple that number in the Burbs and outlying territories where Erin's accounts of history and her journeys are read aloud to the illiterate masses and taught by rogue scholars and scientists throughout the continent."
Who said anything about memorizing them? You don't have to memorize a Harry Potter book to know that Dementors can suck the soul out of you, and that they're vulnerable to a Patronus charm. If the Harry Potter books were describing actual places and threats, I'd be paying closer attention.

Second, Rifts Earth is not modern-day Earth, and the amount of published material available to normal citizens has been reduced by orders of magnitude for everyone outside a few places like the NGR (where she is considered something of a rock star). In that respect, the J.K. Rowling analogy isn't strong enough.

Wait... you're holding up the NGR, the one place where she's a rockstar, and using it as an example of an exception to the idea that there are so few publications that people would be expected to have read her stuff?
Wouldn't it be the opposite? Wouldn't she be the most popular in places where publishing was uncommon, but reading was common?

In places where there isn't much choice (most of Rifts Earth), she is widely known and read/listened to. In one of the few places where there is a lot of choice and I would expect her to be less famous (the NGR), she's even more popular. even though they have plenty of other options. My point is that she's very popular on a scale that's too great for your analogy about 5-8 people and Plato, Hawking, and Davis to apply. Therefore, it doesn't apply.

Regardless, the literate readers of Rifts Earth aren't restricted to PA publications--there are pre-rifts books around as well. And I suspect any lack of publishers is likely to be a reflection of the lack of people who are literate and/or interested in reading.
Which doesn't indicate that 1 in 2d4 people have read Tarn's books.

And yet, we have her CWC description. In the continent that is the main focus of the Rifts RPG, she IS that widely read or listened-to.

The published canon doesn't reflect what Kevin told me; I see that as a problem.

Why?

I prefer a Rifts without utopias. The presence of a utopia in Rifts would kind of wreck the post-apocalyptic vibe for me.

Right, but from what Kev said, there aren't any.
Which means that Tarn was wrong, and therefore not infallible. Her perspective is colored by personal feelings, and she's wrong about something.
So what's the problem?

What Kevin said to me is not reflected by what Kevin's character has been saying to readers for years, and most of those readers will never have the chance to have a nice, quiet talk with Kevin for an hour or two.

Tarn's passage in RMB was like 4 pages, if I recall correctly. RUE's passage is 31.

Count the number of worldbooks + sourcebooks + CS War Books that came out between RMB and RUE.

No. I've indulged you once in this thread and done research for you that you thought would prove you right. I will not do so again, because that's not how rational discussion works. If you want to back up your points with research, do it yourself.

Eh. No. You kind of half-donkeyed research, and made illogical claims such as ""she's used heavily in about 55% of published books," based on there being a single passage in that book.
That's not indulging me. That's ignoring what I asked for, and giving me something else.

Ok then. Do your own research and tally it up the way you want to. Don't rely on half-donkeys like me to make your case for you. Also, just because I have a different threshold for what constitutes heavy use of an NPC in a sourcebook than you does not make my opinion invalid or illogical.

But hey, you don't have to indulge me here by counting.

Just stop and think for a moment.

My point was that she gets more space in RUE than the RMB because there's a buttload more territory to cover than in the RMB. That's all. She didn't rise in importance in RUE over the RMB--the amount of material that she had to discuss did.
You don't have to actually count all the books that came out between the RMB and RUE to know what I mean here.

I got your point, and no, there isn't a lot more material to discuss. It's not the job of a main RPG book to give a comprehensive up-to-date detailed overview of every region that's ever been described in a sourcebook. A couple of short teaser sentences would be far more effective.

Also, why does the world setting need to be described in such detail and length by Erin Tarn?

Ask Kevin.
Some people like her, some don't. Most are indifferent.
I'd wager that the people who like her + the people who are indifferent to her > the people who significantly dislike her.
Whatever the result, Kevin seems to think that having in-world narration is more fun and interesting than just doing things Encyclopedia-style.

You're probably right on the general attitude toward her among the fans. As for the approach of presenting the world, there are more possibilities for doing so than Erin Tarn or an impersonal encyclopedia.

I much prefered the original RMB world overview, flaws and all

I much preferred the original RMB world.

Agreed.

the world is more interesting to me when its most famous scholar is flat-out wrong about entire regions of it.

She wasn't wrong; she was retconned into being a liar or a fool.
To me, that damages the setting's integrity.
Kevin played a pretty tight game in the RMB of having Tarn state certain things as fact, and certain things as rumors that she's heard, or things that she suspects. That's important, because virtually everything that we know of the setting came from Tarn herself.
If she was wrong about Japan being an quiet chain of wilderness islands, then she might have been wrong about Tolkeen even existing.
That doesn't make things more interesting to me--it makes things unstructured, unreliable, and chaotic.
All of which you can take as an argument for a more encyclopedic description of things... but if that's what we'd had in the RMB instead of Tarn, then the only real difference would be that we'd have an encyclopedic entry telling us that Japan was a quiet chain of wilderness islands where nothing happened, only to be countered when Rifts: Japan came out.
The problems there aren't in the style of narration.

This is the most interesting bit you've written in this thread. A lack of a single vision structure, the unreliability of a single vision, and the chaotic nature of Rifts all hold a certain appeal to me. They don't appeal to you. I think I understand your perspective now, and I respect it. I suspect, then, that the way Kevin has lampshaded her original description's flaws (oh, that was unauthorized!) annoys us both, but for different reasons.

Personally, I rather wish that Rifts: Japan had never been published, but not for the sake of Erin Tarn's credibility. The Rifts setting has always been strongest for me when it breaks convention and expectation, and weakest when it takes a cultural or historical cliche and Rift-a-fies it by adding MDC tech or magic. If I were to re-do Japan, I'd probably go for something wildly different from ninjas, samurai, and high-tech anime stuff. Instead, I might go for something more akin to the jungle elves of SA1 or the druids of England; low population, lots of wilderness. If I had to incorporate something from Japan into it, I'd make Bonsai trees magical or something.

[Nightmask]

Considering how often PC can end up covering a wide variety of book settings AND end up popular and well-known just maybe Tarn's the book equivalent of one of those PC? I mean it's hardly unheard of for that kind of thing to happen, the various PC aren't the only ones that get around after all even seemingly normal NPC. She just happens to be one of those NPC we actually do get to see snippets of her exploits.

[Killer Cyborg]

Her description in CWC comes close to that statement: "Erin Tarn is one of the most famous figures of Rifts Earth. Her name is known in almost every corner of the world and even in some other dimensions." (Coalition War Campaign, p16). It's not much of a stretch to say she's the most famous author in the world from the description of her in CWC.

I'd say it's more likely from that passage that she's "one of" the most famous authors on Rifts Earth.
She writes in a specific genre: travel and exploration.
She's only going to be widely read among people who can read, and who read that genre.
She's probably THE most famous travel/exploration writer/scholar, but there's probably somebody out there writting penny-dreadfuls, romances, how-to books, or other stuff that's much, much more widely read.
Or religious texts, for that matter.

Seriously, in an average group of adventurers, how many would you expect to have not only read Tarn's books at all, but to read and reread them until they memorized them?
If you've got a Rogue Scholar or something, sure. Maybe.
But literacy isn't even that common to begin with, and just because she's a famous scholar/author doesn't mean most people have read her.

Who says you'd have to read her books to be familiar with them? From CWC, p14: "an estimated 23% of the uneducated masses cloistered away in the fortified Coalition cities are believed to have read or heard excerpts from her books. Double or triple that number in the Burbs and outlying territories where Erin's accounts of history and her journeys are read aloud to the illiterate masses and taught by rogue scholars and scientists throughout the continent."

Whew!
That IS more than I expected.

Who said anything about memorizing them? You don't have to memorize a Harry Potter book to know that Dementors can suck the soul out of you, and that they're vulnerable to a Patronus charm. If the Harry Potter books were describing actual places and threats, I'd be paying closer attention.

NO, you don't have to memorize an entire book to memorize a passage, but you do have to remember that passage.
Which means that it's a percentage thing.
IF any member of the party has read or heard any passages, and IF those passages included her suspicion of Merlin (or whatever), and IF the party member remembers that passage or an accurate impression of that passage....
That's too many IFs to consider it anywhere near a given.
That's very, very much in GM's territory, and/or a number of dice rolls.

Wait... you're holding up the NGR, the one place where she's a rockstar, and using it as an example of an exception to the idea that there are so few publications that people would be expected to have read her stuff?
Wouldn't it be the opposite? Wouldn't she be the most popular in places where publishing was uncommon, but reading was common?

In places where there isn't much choice (most of Rifts Earth), she is widely known and read/listened to. In one of the few places where there is a lot of choice and I would expect her to be less famous (the NGR), she's even more popular. even though they have plenty of other options. My point is that she's very popular on a scale that's too great for your analogy about 5-8 people and Plato, Hawking, and Davis to apply. Therefore, it doesn't apply.

Not following your logic.
Hasslehof is big in Germany, but he's hardly the biggest star in the world.
Different people like different stuff.
Tarn struck a chord in the NGR, where the have inaccurate ideas of what she's really like.
The fact that this was unusual, and that such a reception caught her off-guard, speaks more than the fact of her popularity there.
Jayne Cobb is a superstar on an entire planet... but not much elsewhere.

Regardless, the literate readers of Rifts Earth aren't restricted to PA publications--there are pre-rifts books around as well. And I suspect any lack of publishers is likely to be a reflection of the lack of people who are literate and/or interested in reading.
Which doesn't indicate that 1 in 2d4 people have read Tarn's books.

And yet, we have her CWC description. In the continent that is the main focus of the Rifts RPG, she IS that widely read or listened-to.

Not really.
23% of 5 people is 1.15 people. Meaning that out of a party of 5 uneducated masses, only 1.15 people have read or heard anything by her. Did they hear the passage that's relevant to the region they happen to be in? Did they remember it properly?
Not necessarily, and IMO probably not.
Unless the GM wants it that way, or the dice are heavy in the PCs favor.

Double of triple that number means 46% or as much as 69%.
Again, though, this is how many people have heard or read excerpts of her work.

So say you have 5 people in a party.
46% mean that 2.3 people have read or heard excerpts.
69% mean that 3.45 people have.
But heck, we've all heard excerpts from the Bible. That doesn't mean that we know one that's relevant to the situation that we're in. It doesn't even mean that we've heard/interpreted them correctly.
And it sure doesn't mean that we've read the whole book.

It all comes down to the odds of a random collection of 5 people/beings having not only heard/read some of Tarn's work, but having heard/read some of her work and remembering it to the point that it actively influences their behavior in an adventure setting where her work is relevant.
I don't see this as being any more likely than the GM wants it to be, not unless a PC is specifically designed to be a Tarn enthusiast.

What Kevin said to me is not reflected by what Kevin's character has been saying to readers for years, and most of those readers will never have the chance to have a nice, quiet talk with Kevin for an hour or two.

And some readers will think that Tolkeen is a utopia. They'll be wrong.
Others will think that it's not a utopia. They'll be right.
Still not really seeing the issue.
This is an area where I think that disagreement is more healthy than not, and could spark a number of interesting adventures or discussions.

Also, just because I have a different threshold for what constitutes heavy use of an NPC in a sourcebook than you does not make my opinion invalid or illogical.

The threshold itself of "if she has a passage, then she's heavily featured" is invalid and illogical.

there isn't a lot more material to discuss. It's not the job of a main RPG book to give a comprehensive up-to-date detailed overview of every region that's ever been described in a sourcebook. A couple of short teaser sentences would be far more effective.

I wouldn't call what RUE did "a comprehensive up-to-date detailed overview of every region that's ever been described."
Either way, what the job of a main RPG book is or is not is something that's rather subjective. Needless to say, Kev seems to disagree with you, in that what he seems to have felt was necessary, you seem to feel is unnecessary.

You're probably right on the general attitude toward her among the fans. As for the approach of presenting the world, there are more possibilities for doing so than Erin Tarn or an impersonal encyclopedia.

Sure, but when other narrators are used, you get upset if they mention Tarn in anything other than an oppositional view.

[qutoe]

She wasn't wrong; she was retconned into being a liar or a fool.
To me, that damages the setting's integrity.
Kevin played a pretty tight game in the RMB of having Tarn state certain things as fact, and certain things as rumors that she's heard, or things that she suspects. That's important, because virtually everything that we know of the setting came from Tarn herself.
If she was wrong about Japan being an quiet chain of wilderness islands, then she might have been wrong about Tolkeen even existing.
That doesn't make things more interesting to me--it makes things unstructured, unreliable, and chaotic.
All of which you can take as an argument for a more encyclopedic description of things... but if that's what we'd had in the RMB instead of Tarn, then the only real difference would be that we'd have an encyclopedic entry telling us that Japan was a quiet chain of wilderness islands where nothing happened, only to be countered when Rifts: Japan came out.
The problems there aren't in the style of narration.

This is the most interesting bit you've written in this thread. A lack of a single vision structure, the unreliability of a single vision, and the chaotic nature of Rifts all hold a certain appeal to me. They don't appeal to you. I think I understand your perspective now, and I respect it. I suspect, then, that the way Kevin has lampshaded her original description's flaws (oh, that was unauthorized!) annoys us both, but for different reasons.[/quote]

Personally, I rather wish that Rifts: Japan had never been published, but not for the sake of Erin Tarn's credibility. The Rifts setting has always been strongest for me when it breaks convention and expectation, and weakest when it takes a cultural or historical cliche and Rift-a-fies it by adding MDC tech or magic. If I were to re-do Japan, I'd probably go for something wildly different from ninjas, samurai, and high-tech anime stuff. Instead, I might go for something more akin to the jungle elves of SA1 or the druids of England; low population, lots of wilderness. If I had to incorporate something from Japan into it, I'd make Bonsai trees magical or something.

I hate that Rifts Japan damaged Tarn's credibility, but I also hate it for other reasons.
When Rifts came out, we were in the tail end of the Cyberpunk boom, and one of the things that attracted me to Rifts in the first place was that North America wasn't using Nu-Yen or Euros for currency, that we weren't a nation dominated by the Japanese or by Europe.
Most other fiction of the day had the US's top fighters, businessmen, and technology being puny in comparison to what was overseas in one direction or the other, so I liked Rifts simple, effective, and realistic removal of Japan--and cyber-ninjas--from the equation.

Sigh.

[Killer Cyborg]

Considering how often PC can end up covering a wide variety of book settings AND end up popular and well-known just maybe Tarn's the book equivalent of one of those PC? I mean it's hardly unheard of for that kind of thing to happen, the various PC aren't the only ones that get around after all even seemingly normal NPC. She just happens to be one of those NPC we actually do get to see snippets of her exploits.

I hadn't really thought about it before, but yeah... like any other high-powered PC, I guess I've always seen Tarn as something for PCs to try to become or to rival.

[Freemage]

As to why the books contain Erin so often and as heavily as they do....

It comes from Rifts being a child of the '80s, pure and simple. (Sure, the first book was published in 1990, but that means that it did all of its pre-debut 'growing up' in Kevin's brain during the 1980s.) It's useful to look, then, at what was going on at that time.

During that formative time, the single biggest gorilla in the zoo was, of course, D&D, and its market-share was far beyond what it is currently. It would be mind-boggling if Kevin were not at least partially influenced by TSR's mold.

And for the entire decade, one of the most well-known 'voices' of role-playing was Elminster, the perpetually meddling wizard-sage of the Forgotten Realms, published most frequently as the author-narrator of the "Ecology of..." articles in Dragon Magazine. That's the inspiration for Erin, I'm pretty certain. And by that standard? She's not one-one-hundredth as intrusive and Mary Sue-ish as the old graybeard, who would become to be a literal plot-device in the Forgotten Realms setting.

There's a large amount of hold-over from the '80s mentality in everything I've read so far, too. In particular, many of the books feel a bit... dated on issues of sex and gender, for instance. (To not be completely dismissive, Kevin did a pretty decent job on the race front, mainly by ignoring the issue while having a moderately diverse cast, which makes sense for a futuristic, post-post-apoc setting. If folks are bigoted, they tend to focus more on species than "race" as we Golden Agers use the term.)

[Hotrod]

Her description in CWC comes close to that statement: "Erin Tarn is one of the most famous figures of Rifts Earth. Her name is known in almost every corner of the world and even in some other dimensions." (Coalition War Campaign, p16). It's not much of a stretch to say she's the most famous author in the world from the description of her in CWC.

I'd say it's more likely from that passage that she's "one of" the most famous authors on Rifts Earth.
She writes in a specific genre: travel and exploration.
She's only going to be widely read among people who can read, and who read that genre.
She's probably THE most famous travel/exploration writer/scholar, but there's probably somebody out there writting penny-dreadfuls, romances, how-to books, or other stuff that's much, much more widely read.
Or religious texts, for that matter.

I found the reference I was talking about earlier: Rifts GMG, p11. “Erin Tarn: Arguably the most famous and beloved celebrity in North America, perhaps the world! Famed historian, scholar and outspoken critic of the CS and injustice everywhere.”

If she's even in the running for the most famous celebrity as an author in a world where literacy has taken a nose dive, then I'd say it's a pretty safe bet that she's the most famous author in the world.

I'll concede, however, that her being famous doesn't necessarily mean that people everywhere are familiar with her works. I have heard of the Kardashians, but I am unaware of anything remotely interesting or useful about them. It is quite possible that a significant chunk of the population knows of her, but isn't familiar with her works. It is entirely reasonable that an individual hasn't heard of her, depending on that character's origins.

However, for a typical person who has grown up in North America, especially one who travels around regularly, it seems reasonable to assume that the character has some familiarity with Tarn's works if you're interpreting the world according to its canon description. Not necessarily all of them, but certainly some of them. Some dice-rolling might be warranted, depending on the fact (none for "Erin Tarn doesn't like the Proseks," but certainly a roll for how she described Sir Pyrcivel reacted to Lo Fung's request for help), but your average bunch of adventuring travelers should be pretty familiar with her works

What Kevin said to me is not reflected by what Kevin's character has been saying to readers for years, and most of those readers will never have the chance to have a nice, quiet talk with Kevin for an hour or two.

And some readers will think that Tolkeen is a utopia. They'll be wrong.
Others will think that it's not a utopia. They'll be right.
Still not really seeing the issue.
This is an area where I think that disagreement is more healthy than not, and could spark a number of interesting adventures or discussions.

Also, just because I have a different threshold for what constitutes heavy use of an NPC in a sourcebook than you does not make my opinion invalid or illogical.

The threshold itself of "if she has a passage, then she's heavily featured" is invalid and illogical.

It's a matter of relative scale and interpretation. I suspect you might measure the use of an NPC in something like page counts or numbers of mentions relative to the total length of the book. I measure the use of an NPC in terms of page counts relative to page counts allotted to the perspectives of other NPCs. I don't think either interpretation lacks logic or validity.

there isn't a lot more material to discuss. It's not the job of a main RPG book to give a comprehensive up-to-date detailed overview of every region that's ever been described in a sourcebook. A couple of short teaser sentences would be far more effective.

I wouldn't call what RUE did "a comprehensive up-to-date detailed overview of every region that's ever been described."
Either way, what the job of a main RPG book is or is not is something that's rather subjective. Needless to say, Kev seems to disagree with you, in that what he seems to have felt was necessary, you seem to feel is unnecessary.

Our opinions of what Rifts is and ought to be, are all subjective. I like Rifts; I don't like every writing decision Kevin makes.

You're probably right on the general attitude toward her among the fans. As for the approach of presenting the world, there are more possibilities for doing so than Erin Tarn or an impersonal encyclopedia.

Sure, but when other narrators are used, you get upset if they mention Tarn in anything other than an oppositional view.

Sycophantic tributes to the character bother me. That doesn't mean that I want to see all other narrators pour on the hate.

Personally, I rather wish that Rifts: Japan had never been published, but not for the sake of Erin Tarn's credibility. The Rifts setting has always been strongest for me when it breaks convention and expectation, and weakest when it takes a cultural or historical cliche and Rift-a-fies it by adding MDC tech or magic. If I were to re-do Japan, I'd probably go for something wildly different from ninjas, samurai, and high-tech anime stuff. Instead, I might go for something more akin to the jungle elves of SA1 or the druids of England; low population, lots of wilderness. If I had to incorporate something from Japan into it, I'd make Bonsai trees magical or something.

I hate that Rifts Japan damaged Tarn's credibility, but I also hate it for other reasons.
When Rifts came out, we were in the tail end of the Cyberpunk boom, and one of the things that attracted me to Rifts in the first place was that North America wasn't using Nu-Yen or Euros for currency, that we weren't a nation dominated by the Japanese or by Europe.
Most other fiction of the day had the US's top fighters, businessmen, and technology being puny in comparison to what was overseas in one direction or the other, so I liked Rifts simple, effective, and realistic removal of Japan--and cyber-ninjas--from the equation.

Sigh.

Are there any other books you would rather not see in canon? This could be an interesting topic in and of itself.

But yeah, I'd love to retcon away the whole book and replace all the samurai, ninjas, and anime tech stuff with a few Millennium Bonsai Trees.

[HWalsh]

But yeah, I'd love to retcon away the whole book and replace all the samurai, ninjas, and anime tech stuff with a few Millennium Bonsai Trees.

I'd rather see Atlantis gone. True Atlanteans are annoying as all heck these days.

[Killer Cyborg]

Are there any other books you would rather not see in canon? This could be an interesting topic in and of itself.

Other than Japan, I'd scrap New West and Spirit West.
Also, Canada.
Probably South America 1 & 2, although there's some stuff in there I kinda like.
MercTown.
Probably the Black Market book, although I haven't read it.

Thinking about it a bit, probably Phase World and associated books.

There are probably some books that I've forgotten.

[Eagle]

But yeah, I'd love to retcon away the whole book and replace all the samurai, ninjas, and anime tech stuff with a few Millennium Bonsai Trees.

I'd rather see Atlantis gone. True Atlanteans are annoying as all heck these days.

Amen, brother. Amen.

[Hotrod]

But yeah, I'd love to retcon away the whole book and replace all the samurai, ninjas, and anime tech stuff with a few Millennium Bonsai Trees.

I'd rather see Atlantis gone. True Atlanteans are annoying as all heck these days.

Amen, brother. Amen.

What about them bothers you?

[HWalsh]

But yeah, I'd love to retcon away the whole book and replace all the samurai, ninjas, and anime tech stuff with a few Millennium Bonsai Trees.

I'd rather see Atlantis gone. True Atlanteans are annoying as all heck these days.

Amen, brother. Amen.

What about them bothers you?

I haven't been in a Rifts game in 20 years that didn't have a True Atlantean in it. That is what bothers me. They are overplayed.

[glitterboy2098]

so.. Observer Bias?

just because the groups you have been part of adore True Atlanteans, does not mean much for the game as a whole.

[dreicunan]

so.. Observer Bias?

just because the groups you have been part of adore True Atlanteans, does not mean much for the game as a whole.

It's a bit unfair to throw around a charge of observer bias when he is responding to a question that is entirely about the subjective opinions of what parts of the canon people would like to see left out. Every single person who is responding is demonstrating "observer bias" when they explain their answer. "True Atlanteans annoy me due to seeing too many over the last 20 years" is just as valid a reason as "I prefer it when Rifts is not about taking cultural tropes and amplifying them." De gustibus non disputandum est.

[BlueLion]

Wait Killer cyborg are you asking why cannon not matching what he was told by the writer is a bad thing?
Because a statement that the writer said something is hearsay, and not something we can use as a source for how things work. Now if the hearsay(what kevin said) is how things are suppose to be then it needs to be part of cannon.

Basically-That would mean that how things are suppose to be can only be found out in hearsay and not by cannon. And that is the problem as canon is suppose to tell us how things are suppose to be.

[Killer Cyborg]

Wait Killer cyborg are you asking why cannon not matching what he was told by the writer is a bad thing?

No.
I'm asking why a NPC's view being inaccurate is a bad thing.

[Kargan3033]

Tarn, now that brings back some fun memories, when my and my old friends got into Rifts waaayyy back when we hunted her down and presented her alive to Prosek for his birthday.

What can I say we were just getting into role playing games at the time.

[Sureshot]

Erin Tarn like Volo and Elminster to me were persona of the authors. It's not the only rpg company to do so nor the last. Take a look at the Shadowrun rpg books for instance. I think what bothers me about Erin Tarn is the way she is written. Less Neutral and too much fingerpointing/wagging and worse preaching. NO one likes being preached too imo. Which is why it bothers some like me.

Mary Sue do exist. Rifts has a few imo. The new Atlantean book I won't enjoy as much as I would. As of course somehow the Sunaj still have unlimited resources, still not noticed even though someone like Zeus is noticing the systematic extermination of the Atlantean race. BUT of course they are still hidden and exterminating away. So yes to the Sunaj are a perfect example of a Mary Sue. At this point they exist because of plot immunity imo.

[Zer0 Kay]

Is this the correct place to ask what you think "Plot Immunity" is? From what I've rad it is a catch-all phrase for "some things I din't like in the story".

Gandalf had Plot immunity? Did Bilbo? Did Luke Skywalker's hand have plot imm...oh, wait.

Yes... immediately after it was cut off and lost it had plot immunity because it was no longer in any plot therefore immune to it.

[Zer0 Kay]

I just use the same phrase I (and a lot of others here) has used to discuss the Coalition States. Strange that whenever you complain about CS having plot immunity, no one complains, but when you say that Tarn has it, sddenly you have to defend using that phrase...

So, it might be fair to say that Jericho Holmes had "Plot Immunity"--he was written off for dead in one book, only to be given a surprise survival in another. But has Tarn ever actually been in a situation where we were led to believe she was dead, and then later revealed to have escaped?

Then it does not apply on Coalition States either, good to know. As the Coalition States have never been in that possition.

But see, by the definition the CS does have plot immunity. Cliff hanger is the CS going to go to war with FQ?!?!?!? Nope. Cliff Hanger the CS is going to loose against Tolkeen!!!! Nope someone did something impossible taking a large group through Xiticix territory without even being harassed much.

At no time is Tarn left between stories or books in a situation where she is presumed dead or may be killed just to be rescued in the next.