Rifts Britian

[Kaleb]

So, in Rifter 27 there is fan content about Chaos Earth Britain. It has some really good ideas in my opinion, especially based around psionics.

WB 3 England doesn't give any historical information about what happened to England or Ireland.

I had an idea based on the fan content in Rifter 27 about what might have happened to the cities that disappeared in blue flame.

What if they were rifted people, land, buildings, etc into the Astral Plane? Then the people there basically all had a psionic awakening similar to Psyscape, but it was every citizen and they are there to this day in 109 PA?

[Grazzik]

So if the Brits are all in the Astral Plane, would your PCs be in Rifts England running into ghostly astral projected figures with English accents or would the PCs be using this as a launch pad for exploring the Astral Plane? If the latter, you may want to leverage the Astral material from Nightbane.

[Kaleb]

I had considered introducing them kind of like Psyscape, coming back to Earth to help those in Britain with the threats they are facing.

I did think about the Nightbane Astral Plane material but haven't really taken time to look through that a lot yet.

[Warshield73]

This is an interesting idea. For me I like the idea that a few cities or people were transported to other places or times, like Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, so no reason they couldn't. I am sure your aware but in Nightbane World Book One Between the Shadows they have rules for creating Astral realms as well as some additional psi powers and OCCs.

[Kaleb]

I am aware of the information regarding the astral plane in the nightbane books, but I do not currently own any of these books so I am not fully up to date on those details.

I also liked the idea of cool psionic technology which they described only a little detail in rifter 27. I would have loved to have seen this expanded on further.

[Zenviscaype]

Rifts Scotland! Where is Scotland?

[Kaleb]

I agree.

Unfortunately, the world book, it's called England and not Scotland so that is probably why they have such little information.

Having lived in Scotland myself, I believe a full world book that is only about Scotland would be great.

[Grazzik]

I struggle with the whole concept of World Books for specific regions unless there is a very very good reason. WB2 was a great example of adding to the Rifts setting something unique and fresh - a whole new continent to explore, that also explained the transformation of global coastlines. Most of WB8 outside of the Republic makes no sense if Japan was supposed to have been wiped mostly clean by the cataclysm... why would things only a few hundreds of years later reflect historical Japanese tropes as opposed to something new? At least the Sovietski in WB36 have a fully fleshed out bunker backstory that supports the tropes in that world book. And let's not mention the faeries and leprechauns in the WB3 references to Ireland - is it a coincidence that WB20 also makes Newfoundland and Nova Scotia out to be heavily populated with faerie folk? Is it supposed to be the accent that attracts the magical creatures? Geez, come off it, b'y.

If a world book is to simply package Scottish tropes into a Rifts setting for Scotland, then no thank you. This, in my view, is lazy writing and a lack of imagination. And let's keep in mind the "Pre-Rifts city d-ported to Rifts" and the "emergence from a bunker" backstories have been done.

But if it were to present a whole new spin on a Rifts setting mostly divorced from anything stereotypically Scottish, then bring it on. One idea could be Scottish settlers from the orbiting space stations trying to reclaim their ancestral lands with no way back into space, except to somehow build a space elevator. That could minimally justify the unfortunate inclusion of mega-damage kilts and sporrans that would be written in by the authors to fill page space. However, it could be a great way to introduce some globalization to the Rifts setting, as such settlers would have had a vantage point in space to gather intelligence on the entire planet over the many years since the cataclysm. As well, they could bring space tech to Earth, like the new GB models and VRRDS. Who knows... it might spark a turf war between Archies...

Those sorts of ideas might justify a world book. But recipes in how to make magical haggis from swimming dinosaurs in a loch... um, no thank you.

[Zenviscaype]

Rifts is a great B movie game. I want the tropes and traditions mingled with aliens, technology and magic.

[Warshield73]

Rifts is a great B movie game. I want the tropes and traditions mingled with aliens, technology and magic.

One of my friends calls Rifts Palladium in a blender and whenever someone asks me what rifts is like I show them the cover from Conversion Book 1. Even a setting like New West that I'm not that fond of have lots of great material to mine.

[Grazzik]

Rifts is a great B movie game. I want the tropes and traditions mingled with aliens, technology and magic.

One of my friends calls Rifts Palladium in a blender and whenever someone asks me what rifts is like I show them the cover from Conversion Book 1. Even a setting like New West that I'm not that fond of have lots of great material to mine.

Oh, agreed. There's always good stuff to find in every book. And that all in the blender feel is the secret sauce of the game. The problem is that some books may go a little too much past tropes into content that may be viewed as less appreciative of how strongly-held traditions and/or culture are characterized (WB4 and WB15 as examples). While it is usually presented in an appreciative light and people may value that surface level material, what has been selected in the past to build on may be flawed and there may not have been the awareness of how it might be interpreted by readers from that culture who don't share the underlying real world perspective. It's no longer the free-wheeling '90s, times have changed. All I'm suggesting is that any publisher these days has to be aware of the potential for backlash when they select and elevate stereotypes for cartoonish entertainment - PB is a business after all. That is why smart writing, rather than building a foundation on cartoonish characterizations, can still elevate those elements in a thoughtful manner. GMs are still free to offer players whatever works for the table.