Crimson Dynamo wrote:Is there some reason you skipped over the follow-up question, which was the brunt of the point? In case you missed it, which you didn't but just didn't want to answer, it was essentially: Where did anyone other than you state that they were completely different rules systems?
I never said anybody said they were
completely different rules.
I skipped the question because it didn't make any sense in this conversation.
Edit:
The root of the issue isn't whether the games are
completely different systems; nobody's claimed that.
Drew's stance is that "the same basic system" means (as far as I can tell) "every game uses only the rules printed in that game, and when Palladium says they use the same system that's their way of telling us that these different games reprint the same rules for the most part, but if any one game leaves out any one rule then that rule is not part of that game."
My stance is that "the same basic system" means "every game uses the same rules as a default. For convenience, we reprint the same basic rules in every 'complete' game book, but any rule from any game works with any other as long as there's no conflict, and sometimes even then we'll put a rule in a specific game that we intend to apply to the entire Megaversal System, such as how the Two Attacks For Living isn't printed in PFRPG, but applies there nonetheless. This is all one system, which is why we keep saying that it's all one system and everything is compatible."
So Drew's stance is (afaik) that things like the PFRPG rules for changing OCCs only apply to that game, because that's the only game that has printed those rules. And the Role-Playing Game Design skill ONLY applies to N&S, as that's the only game that has printed that skill. IF you want your Rifts/HU/BTS character to have the Role-Playing Game Design skill, you have to get GM permission, because it's from a different game."
My own stance is that things like the PFRPG rules for changing OCCs and the Role-Playing Game Design skill are part of the megaversal system as a default. It doesn't matter which game they're printed in, because it's all the same game system. Different settings have setting-specific rules, in the same way that the D&D settings of Dark Sun, Spelljammer, Ravenloft, etc. might have different
setting specific rules, and yet are still part of the same overall system.
So if there's no rules in a Rifts book for changing OCCs or for a RPG Design Skill, that doesn't matter; they're not setting-specific rules. There's no conflict with the Rifts rules, and they're part of the Megaversal System, so they're compatible as a default. The only way they wouldn't be compatible as a default, requiring no more permission from the GM than any other rule or skill that happens to be in a Rifts book, is if they conflict with something in the Rifts books, and they don't.