a selection of the comments from the other thread, to start things off.
Nightmartree wrote:SolCannibal wrote:Part of the problem with Africa is that Gathering of Heroes should have received a separate mini-campaign/sourcebook its own in the vein of Mechanoids of Xiticix Invasion. Taking the adventure material and possibly part of the material on the Phoenix Empire and egyptians gods would have liberated considerable room for fleshing out the continent.
But then one might say the book was done the way it was because the writers didn't really have much in the way of other ideas, i guess. Who really knows....
from what i remember besides the gathering of heroes and egyptian gods......the entire continent gets summed up as basically "there are tribespeople, with witchdoctors and shamans! attacked by witches! and! and! and nothing much!" they did say some stuff about the pheonix empire but i'm pretty sure i know more about the reproductive cycle of dragons than I do this empire of evil in one of the biggest continents on earth.
We could at least fill it with a few alien kingdoms and Dbee nations alongside the indigienous humans...it was more of an adventure and intro of a pantheon than a world book
SolCannibal wrote:Too true.
In the book's half-hearted defense, Phoenix Empire does make for a decent sketch of a nation, even though its pagecount might be closer to the city-states in Juicer Uprising, Japan or South America than the Atlantis or NGR worldbooks levels one might expect with such a big place, but there's no denying it most certainly counts as a major part of Africa.
The real shame is that technically it's the only one, as in the end no other nations get any real description or even names, but i digress...
I think my point was half "if it wasn't also an adventure and intro of a pantheon the writers might have had space to make it into an actual world book" but went "well, if they really had ideas to make an actual world book out of it they probably would have done it instead of padding with an adventure, eh?" along of way.
About an Africa 2 Worldbook, i guess that all the flakk given to the "continental books" like Africa and South America through the years might have made writers a little leery of making books of so broad a reach, choosing instead to make the worldbooks more localized but also focused in its detailing. Not expecting an Africa 2 anytime soon (as it might be pretty hard to make a really satisfying one anyway) but a Worldbook for the Phoenix Empire with maybe one or two major neighbors sketched out and half a dozen minor tributaries/allies/etc sounds doable and potentially fun way to jumpstart things.
glitterboy2098 wrote:Nightmartree wrote:SolCannibal wrote:About an Africa 2 Worldbook, i guess that all the flakk given to the "continental books" like Africa and South America through the years might have made writers a little leery of making books of so broad a reach, choosing instead to make the worldbooks more localized but also focused in its detailing. Not expecting an Africa 2 anytime soon (as it might be pretty hard to make a really satisfying one anyway) but a Worldbook for the Phoenix Empire with maybe one or two major neighbors sketched out and half a dozen minor tributaries/allies/etc sounds doable and potentially fun way to jumpstart things.
I'd be happy to get some more details, and the information in the book was good, I just don't feel like I could point at somewhere in Africa and go "here is a good spot to do something". We don't need the entire continent worked up in one go as long as their is a plan to get us places...
sure. give us Africa 2, focused on the kingdoms of West Africa., perhaps with some regional plotlines about their fights with the Phoenix Empire, and maybe ties with groups outside of africa (heck, maybe the NGR has a bit of colonialism going on? or even better.. Columbia? or both!)
then an Africa 3 focused on East Africa, and their struggle with the Phoenix Empire.
then an Africa 4 focused on southern africa which would largely have its own self contained threats.SolCannibal wrote:In the book's half-hearted defense, Phoenix Empire does make for a decent sketch of a nation, even though its pagecount might be closer to the city-states in Juicer Uprising, Japan or South America than the Atlantis or NGR worldbooks levels one might expect with such a big place, but there's no denying it most certainly counts as a major part of Africa.
The real shame is that technically it's the only one, as in the end no other nations get any real description or even names, but i digress...
honestly the reason the Phoenix Empire feels like half a write up is because it basically exists in a vacuum.. it has as much on it as the CS did in the RMB, but the CS came packaged with a bunch of other places that at least got a mention and a few lines each.. Lazlo and New Lazlo. Tolkeen. Fort El Dorado. Kingsdale. etc. plus the different parts of North America were given distinct plot hooks (vampire in mexico and the south west. dinosaurs i nthe southeast. the west is a frontier, etc) and we are specifically told there are villages, towns, and other communities all over.
Africa didn't really get that. just the Phoenix Empire.. and a whole continent filled with primitive people living in huts. which is not only a grave disservice to the RPG, but rather insulting to native African cultures, since many of them had complex urban civilizations while europeans were still squatting in caves trying to figure out the concept of farming.
Personally i think that Africa was majorly under used in Rifts.. while the details of some the (not so) ancient empires and kingdoms that once ruled there might not have been easy to find, there would have been plenty of contemporary post-colonial details to draw on to create distinct nations and post-cataclysm cultural groups other than making all of africa filled with mesolithic tribal types that follow mildly racist "noble savage" stereotypes.
nowadays, with far more information available thanks to both the internet making research easier, and the improvement of our knowledge of african culture, both modern and pre-colonial, i think we could do much better. the recent Black Panther film especially, which manages to treat africa with respect while showing how traditional elements could be mixed with high tech (or near magic, in the sense of the Arthur C. Clarke quote), ought to be a sign that an WB4 sequel that updates the region to usability and more respectful exploration is overdue.
and it isn't like Africa doesn't have a ton of stuff to draw on. you have all those pre-colonial cultures, the modern cultures, a whole slew of mythological elements, a lot of Cryptids not yet touched, some very interesting Dinosaurs, and other Prehistoric animals.
and as i pointed out in the other thread, you can do a lot of plot stuff with the phoenix empire as you add new nations and city-states for it to fight or ally with, and in some parts of the continent you could explore themes like colonialism with groups from outside the continent (NGR, Columbia, etc) trading and doing limited settling in local african nations, with all the power struggle stuff that brings.