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Mr. Siembeida's World of Rifts?

Posted: Thu Jul 25, 2019 1:55 pm
by Captain_Nibbz
Captain_Nibbz wrote:
SereneTsunami wrote:
Nekira Sudacne wrote:
SereneTsunami wrote:Isn't the "Power Creep" from the offending books more about the differences in vision of what Rifts Earth could/should be? Mr. Seimbeida and Mr. Carella clearly had different visions of what Rifts is.

Kevin saw the Earth as a wasteland with vagrant D-Bees, wandering boy-scouts and revived Pre-Rifts cultures, and until much later, that's about it. Mr. Carella saw a world invaded and inhabited by a wide and fantastic variety of cultures, tech levels, and races. Whole cities and races are dumped into South America some with great power. Kevin didn't do that, so it was all low power stuff from him.

It seems to me that literary vision and not numbers is responsible for the difference in power level. It also explains Kevin's repudiation of some of Mr. Carella's work.


I have heard it before and it makes a lot of sense, but as a counterpoint, I point to Atlantis, which was definatly penned by Kevin himself, that had a whole *contiennt* with a dizzying variety of races involved, and a power level stated to be so great that it could singlehandedly conquer the rest of the planet any time it felt like and the only reason it didn't is because it was *Such* a huge power that other similar dizzying powers might interfear to stop it. And that was as old as WB 2.



I would put Atlantis in the same category as the CS, ultra evil ultra powerful, foe to build a campaign around, but until Japan Kevin does not to the big transplants and "whole race enclaves". Carella's work is all about transplants, and entire races as a force. Even if we grant Kevin with Atlantis as you see it, it is only the exception that proves the rule. North America is still a much different style of world then South America.


We should consider moving this discussion to a new thread to keep from derailing this one from its original purpose. I'll throw one up really quick, because I have some additional inquiries along this topic.


As far as those go, do we have a list already compiled somewhere that contains the information on who wrote what book? I think it would be really interesting to see who is credited with writing what, and how the pattern falls out when we look at it as a whole.

I think it might be interesting to see just what Mr. Seimbeida put out himself, compared to those that were written in joint effort with other people, and those that are totally credited to others.

Re: Mr. Siembeida's World of Rifts?

Posted: Thu Jul 25, 2019 8:48 pm
by Colonel_Tetsuya
Captain_Nibbz wrote:As far as those go, do we have a list already compiled somewhere that contains the information on who wrote what book? I think it would be really interesting to see who is credited with writing what, and how the pattern falls out when we look at it as a whole.


Im not sure if someone has compiled a list, but the authorship of the books (or even sub-sections) is generally right there on the title page.

I think it might be interesting to see just what Mr. Seimbeida put out himself, compared to those that were written in joint effort with other people, and those that are totally credited to others.


Other than CJ, almost everything from RMB - Federation of Magic was written by Kevin or completely re-written by him (which is what happened with Japan; he re-wrote everything that wasn't from CJ).

CJ Wrote parts of Japan, is credited with most/all of Underseas, SA 1 & 2, Mercenaries, Juicer Uprising, Phase World & Sourcebook, and IIRC Pantheons of the Megaverse (CB 2).

Of these... only South America 2 differs from the supposed "Kev's vision" - SA1 has lots of small kingdoms with giant wilderness between them and a human country besieged by evil (Colombia). SA2 is the one where there are displaced societies (Arkhons, three of the SRRs, Megaversal Legion, though one cold argue that the Megaversal Legion is not really a player in SA and just there to serve as a base for a multi-versal mercenary campaign).

What it really comes down to is "Kev's Vision" (and i say this as someone who has maintained for years that Kev intended Rifts to be like Palladium Fantasy + Ray-guns, with lots of wandering, travel time, etc) never made sense from day 1. Not even once.

There are vehicles in the RMB that can do 300-500mph cruising speeds - fast enough to be across the continent in hours. The whole "wandering the wilderness" never made sense. The whole "communities cant communicate with one another" never held water either. When every single robot vehicle has a 500-mile range radio... communication could be across the continent in seconds. With actual large-scale communications emplacements, the CS could be in instant contact with all of its major cities and installations at all times.

And this was just as presented in RMB.

It only gets worse as time goes on. Rifts Earth... just doesn't make a lot of sense on its face. Never has. Some stuff you can handwave away, but a lot of stuff you cant if you want it to make any logical sense.

As for the supposed "CJ Power Creep" .... eh? Not really.

The RMB has a rifle that does 1d4x10MD per shot to a fairly reasonable range. (NG-P7)
The RMB had a pulse rifle (single shot, 6D6 MD pulse)

SB1 (literally the second book) already had a pulse rifle that did 1d6x10MD to a VERY reasonable man-portable range (2000ft).
WB3 introduced Temporal Magic (and, at the time, Temporal Wizards were heads-and-shoulders more powerful than any other Magic OCC, pre RUE revamp)
WB2 had the imensely powerful Tatoo Magic (5th level, have a ~400MDC renewable armor?)
New West introduced such gems as MDC trenchcoats, pistols that did Plasma-cannon like damage, and Gunslingers with HTH Commando. (And New West was planned/being worked on/laid out as early as CB1 - because Kev mentions it and put Sharpshooting in CB1 to get it out there early).
Psyscape increased the power of Psychics dramatically, and Federation of Magic made mages actually viable (and in some/many cases, extremely potentialy overpowered, particularly when coupled with RUE revamps of Line Walker and Shifter).
CWC... is CWC. Its one of my favorite books, but if you want to point to some power creep, look no further.

Those are all on Kev.

There are a -few- items that CJ wrote that are outliers (The JA-12, for instance, no excuses for that thing, pure cheese), but a lot of the others are just fine. THey may do high damage, but generally have some mind of drawback (limited ammo, limited ability to get new ammo if you take it out of SA or even just a few days away from its country of origin, etc).

The main "difference in vision" between Kev and CJ was CJ preferred slightly faster/more lethal gameplay (thats why the high-tech guns in Phase World do quite a bit more damage than Rifts Earth stuff, but the body armor is only about 20-30MDC better). Thats pretty much it, though.

The real issue - and im sure ill get flak for saying it, is Kev's ego.

CJs books were WILDLY more popular than most of the ones Kev wrote. WAY more popular. Its purely anecdotal, but everyone i knew who played Palladium liked CJs books quite a bit more than almost any of Kev's works. From what friends in the game store industry tell me, sales figures back that up.

Kev's ego is... legendary. I've experienced it once myself (had a spirited ... discussion once at GenCon), and as anyone who has worked closely with Kev will tell you, its caused any number of problems. (Most of them, including CJ, have been quite civil publicly, but if you get them alone and share a beer.... "hostile work environment" is an understatement).

CJ and Kev didn't have a difference in vision so much as Kev couldn't handle not being in 100% control of everything and couldn't handle being overshadowed by a newcomer who was a mere staff writer. That led to more tension and eventually their falling out.

Which is unfortunate, because CJs books are the ones that REALLY made me love Rifts, particular Mercenaries, Juicer Uprising, and Phase World.

Re: Mr. Siembeida's World of Rifts?

Posted: Fri Jul 26, 2019 1:16 am
by dreicunan
Colonel_Tetsuya wrote:Kev's ego is... legendary. I've experienced it once myself (had a spirited ... discussion once at GenCon),

Would you mind sharing the details of that discussion? You've piqued my curiosity.

Re: Mr. Siembeida's World of Rifts?

Posted: Fri Jul 26, 2019 2:03 am
by Colonel_Tetsuya
dreicunan wrote:
Colonel_Tetsuya wrote:Kev's ego is... legendary. I've experienced it once myself (had a spirited ... discussion once at GenCon),

Would you mind sharing the details of that discussion? You've piqued my curiosity.


It wsn't super exciting or anything. Just two nerds getting passionate about a subject, but lets say Kev's ....

he doesn't take it well when flaws in his work are pointed out to him. This particular discussion was about the need for a cleaned up and simplified edition of Palladium's rules (and was a number of years back; this was before i really sat down and deeply examined the terrible flaws in the Rifts setting, as well, im sure THAT conversation would have been interesting).

His answer to any criticism of the rules (particularly given how utterly unplayable they are if you try to play them RAW) is to just "change what you want" - and i couldnt for the life of me get him to understand that while that was often the way of the 80s and 90s, thats not acceptable in a modern game. He also basically had no answer/rebuttal for the fact that he basically never plays his own system as when he runs games it doesn't resemble the published works at all, and didn't see that as an issue.

People dont want unworking rules, they want a polished (or at least working and internally consistent) system. It was similar to talking to a brick wall. The concept just didn't even penetrate. "Well they can just change it" or some variation was repeated .. lots. (And before anyone argues that Palladium's system "works" - does anyone here believe that? As written? I think we all know better; as a different but related example, though, head over to say, Paizo's forum. There are no 40 page threads about Boxing and whether the attack applies to all attacks or not. Pathfinder might be pure cheese-covered ROLLplaying munchkin-bait, but its internally consistent and clear).

I gave up after about 10 minutes and we moved on to other topics for a few minutes before i drifted off to elsewhere. Ive had other conversations with him (run into him at 4-5 other conventions) but none were more than 10-ish minutes and none got nearly as heated/passionate as that one.

As much criticism as i give Kevin and his business and personal (writing) practices, i dont hate the guy, and i dont want to make it seem like he's some evil overlord. He's not. Hes just.. behind the times. He's passionate as all hell, and he's not a bad guy to sit down and have a beer with. But id never want to work for him without some pretty strict ground rules - like a lot of creatives (hell, even me) he's got a firm idea of what he thinks is good/working/His Thing and if you dont agree you're wrong. - Unless you're one of the few people that they can just click with and work with (Like Eric W).

Ive met CJ a few times, too, and heard a few of the ... i wont call them horror stories, because they aren't that, but Kevin's biggest enemy when it comes to other writers is.. Kevin. Just look at the number of people that have produced some REALLY good books for Palladium - all of whom are now long gone with acrimonious departures.

There's a saying (ill paraphrase to remove the profanity) -

If you run into a jerk in the morning, you ran into a jerk. If you run into jerks all day, YOU'RE the jerk.

It applies here.

The issue isn't that all of these people were bad or somehow failed... the only common thread is Kevin.

But, again, i dont want to take that into a diatribe and say Kevin's a bad person for it or anything. He's created something none of us have (most of us, at least, and a few of us may write RPG material semi-professionally but have nothing on the scale of Palladium under our belts) - he's just.. hard to work with. Its not uncommon.

Hes created something we all love, or that inspired us, or continues to inspire us to be fans even though we aren't happy (in a lot of cases) with the state of the game.

Its why i stick around despite the .... issues with the Website staff.... and try to help (including going so far as to work on said revamp of the rules and, when it is finished (i wont even try to put a date on it, summertime is so busy for all my other gigs..), i intend to offer it to Kevin for nothing more than authors credit. 99% chance he wont even look at it and/or will turn it down, but ill offer it all the same.

Because id really like to see Palladium go through a resurgence. (Even if i have absolutely nothing to do with it) I dont want Kevin having to go paycheck to paycheck from Social Security when he retires - i think he deserves better.

Well, that wandered.

Ill stand by my statements, though:

Most of the "difference in vision" between the two was Kevin's ego/control issues getting in the way, as if you examine most of CJs work, other than Phase World (which is an entirely different setting) and South America 2, its pretty well in-line with what Kevin was doing at the time.

SA1 is a lot like North America. Big wilderness, a few large kingdoms, a lot of small ones. Lots of fill-it-in-yourself.

Underseas is pretty vanilla-sauce, as it goes (introduced some sea-going enemies that stuck around) - New Navy is nothing special (their gear is strictly average, even for at the time, which didn't make sense because it was supposed to be Pre-Rifts stuff which we've been told this entire time is way better), Tritonia, same thing... sea-creature PCs (Dolphins, etc) were weird but workable and certainly not out of place with Rifts at the time.

Mercenaries doesn't add much to power creep OR change the setting of NA at all, really. Its got a lot of useful gear in it, and some great NPCs (that was really CJs strong suit, IMO - interesting pro and antagonist NPCs, over-arching stories). The Naruni Enterprises stuff isn't actually all that powerful compared to other stuff (the NE-10 isn't any better than an NG-P7, and could be considered worse since you need special ammo for it) and the drawback (you get shot on sight by the CS and the ammo is hard to find) makes up for it.

Phase World & Sourcebook we can safely ignore as they are dimension books and it is entirely appropriate for the setting to feel different.

His contributions to Japan were fairly limited (and that book was AWFUL).

Pantheons was... a pretty good book, really. Ive never seen the needs for stats for things like Gods and all that, but as a collection of such, its perfectly playable and not really all that out of line, and the Demi-God and Godling aren't really all that OP as long as you pair them with the correct campaign power level. Demi-God really isnt that powerful at all, actually, depending on the power chosen (you might just be really strong and be an MDC creature, which you could get by being... like a dozen other races too).

Juicer Uprising is probably one of THE best books put out for Rifts - ever. While it is also the most "problematic" in terms of "Power Creep" of all of CJs work (JA-12, some of the other weapons and armor in this book are quite a bit tougher than stuff in print for NA at the time, though VERY shortly after CWC and New West leveled the playing field - close enough, in fact, that those books were almost assuredly in deep production or already complete when JU was released) it has some of the best fluff/RP-assisting lore ever released for the Rifts setting.

Before reading that book i could never imagine wanting to play a Juicer, could never get my head around even playing a character that had basically comitted suicide - but that book was EXTREMELY well written and included a TON of background on how to get into the head of a Juicer and the new Juicer variants were all pretty solid and not really overpowered. (And it introduced a Juicer type that allowed a player not to be forced into retiring their character after a year or two of gaming sessions - the Dragon Blood Drinker - if the GM was OK with it). And it certainly re-enforced the 'mad max" feel of Rifts Earth NA that was part of Kev's original inspiration.

But in terms of power creep? I think its misattributed in a lot of cases. It was just happening naturally. A lot of the worst early examples of "power creep" were 100% Kevin.

Re: Mr. Siembeida's World of Rifts?

Posted: Fri Jul 26, 2019 10:05 am
by Captain_Nibbz
This is a very interesting look into things. I am admittedly much more familiar with Palladium's SDC settings than I am with Rifts, but it was the RMB that originally inspired me to start looking at other Palladium books back when I first started getting into the hobby when I was 13. Its a bummer that a lot of us nerds and creative types can be so hard to work with when it comes to our pet projects. I know that I am definitely not immune to that one.

Knowing that Mr. Siembeida like to have oversight on all his projects, I kind of didn't think that there was really a difference between the original intended setting and what was published later. However, opinions on the other thread peaked my curiosity on the subject.

If anyone else has any information on things, I would love to hear more.

Re: Mr. Siembeida's World of Rifts?

Posted: Sun Jul 28, 2019 12:58 am
by Daniel Stoker
Colonel_Tetsuya wrote:Kev's ego is... legendary. I've experienced it once myself (had a spirited ... discussion once at GenCon),


I'd just point to the NPC's in the Heroes of the Megaverse book for a good look at that.


Daniel Stoker

Re: Mr. Siembeida's World of Rifts?

Posted: Mon Jul 29, 2019 10:08 pm
by SereneTsunami
Yea, I'm not interested in talking about personal issues with Mr. Seimbeida. He built a world that has fueled our imaginations, and it cannot be denied that he has created something wonderful.

I just was trying to say that the "Power Creep" that is most complained about(SA2) was more about the author's vision for the setting.

I believe that Mr. Carella had other instances of "Power Creep" that can't be explained away by the vision of the content. Iron Heart gear from his Mercenaries book introduces very powerful war machines that can easily destroy campaign balance. Perhaps that is why they were rubbed out so fast.

I also feel like some of the newer books, especially NG1 and NG2 displayed excellent discipline when it comes to the power level of the gear. These 2 books are magnificent.

Tanks for making a new thread for this, apologies for gitting off track.

Re: Mr. Siembeida's World of Rifts?

Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2019 10:04 pm
by Colonel_Tetsuya
SereneTsunami wrote:Yea, I'm not interested in talking about personal issues with Mr. Seimbeida. He built a world that has fueled our imaginations, and it cannot be denied that he has created something wonderful.


Unfortunately, you cant disentangle his issues. Theyre part and parcel of what happened, how and why.

I just was trying to say that the "Power Creep" that is most complained about(SA2) was more about the author's vision for the setting.


Eh? Its not an entirely new or divergent thing for the setting, though. (Alien societies moving to Earth). Nor is it really more powerful than stuff Kevin already wrote. (I refer you to Temporal Wizards and Tatoo’ed men)

I believe that Mr. Carella had other instances of "Power Creep" that can't be explained away by the vision of the content. Iron Heart gear from his Mercenaries book introduces very powerful war machines that can easily destroy campaign balance.


Like... what? The tanks? Hardly. Other than the medium-range missile launchers on the big tank, all their armaments are fixed. A single pair of SAMs could kill those tanks all day long. (And the tank doesnt actually COME with MRMs, you have to pay extra for those).

You might have a point about the Bomber, but... much like the starship stats in 3Gs books and the warship stats in CSNavy/Underseas, etc...

I dont find them to be relevant. They aren’t usable/playable in actual gameplay. Theyre there for completeness or comparison value but they are basically useless. In actual gameplay they cant be used.

Perhaps that is why they were rubbed out so fast.


Unlikely, since every single thing they had in Mercs was outsone within months when CWC launched. The CS Linebacker makes the Iron Heart tanks look like jokes. The fighters are nothing compared to the CS fighters (and the CS fighter in Mercs itself).

I also feel like some of the newer books, especially NG1 and NG2 displayed excellent discipline when it comes to the power level of the gear. These 2 books are magnificent.

Tanks for making a new thread for this, apologies for gitting off track.


While I agree that the NG books are excellent, they arent that way because of “discipline”, really. Its just in keeping with the estbalished power level of NG gear since forever. OTHER gear makers are allowed to be far more powerful and always have been. And some of the things in NG 1 & 2 are serious outliers (the new armors are insane - half damage from kinetic attacks?).

Re: Mr. Siembeida's World of Rifts?

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2019 9:30 am
by Killer Cyborg
Colonel_Tetsuya wrote:
SereneTsunami wrote:I just was trying to say that the "Power Creep" that is most complained about(SA2) was more about the author's vision for the setting.


Eh? Its not an entirely new or divergent thing for the setting, though. (Alien societies moving to Earth). Nor is it really more powerful than stuff Kevin already wrote. (I refer you to Temporal Wizards and Tatoo’ed men)


THAT is exactly how power creep happens, by authors and readers thinking,
"This isn't a problem, because it's not really more powerful than the previous most powerful setting material from a land that is supposed to have the best technology and magic not only on Rifts Earth, but in the Megaverse.

Re: Mr. Siembeida's World of Rifts?

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2019 10:33 am
by jaymz
I will back up col tet...my own encounter was much the same....as long as you are complimentary he will chat all day but once you say anything remotely negative or critical then bam his whole demeanor changes.

And cj isn't the only one to discuss working issues. Bill coffin, Jason marker, Josh hilden, and others others have as well. One or two sure disgruntlement. Several, separately, over a period of time? See col tet sayimg about jerks.

Re: Mr. Siembeida's World of Rifts?

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2019 12:50 pm
by SereneTsunami
Colonel_Tetsuya wrote:
SereneTsunami wrote:Yea, I'm not interested in talking about personal issues with Mr. Seimbeida. He built a world that has fueled our imaginations, and it cannot be denied that he has created something wonderful.


Unfortunately, you cant disentangle his issues. Theyre part and parcel of what happened, how and why.

I just was trying to say that the "Power Creep" that is most complained about(SA2) was more about the author's vision for the setting.


Eh? Its not an entirely new or divergent thing for the setting, though. (Alien societies moving to Earth). Nor is it really more powerful than stuff Kevin already wrote. (I refer you to Temporal Wizards and Tatoo’ed men)

I believe that Mr. Carella had other instances of "Power Creep" that can't be explained away by the vision of the content. Iron Heart gear from his Mercenaries book introduces very powerful war machines that can easily destroy campaign balance.


Like... what? The tanks? Hardly. Other than the medium-range missile launchers on the big tank, all their armaments are fixed. A single pair of SAMs could kill those tanks all day long. (And the tank doesnt actually COME with MRMs, you have to pay extra for those).

You might have a point about the Bomber, but... much like the starship stats in 3Gs books and the warship stats in CSNavy/Underseas, etc...

I dont find them to be relevant. They aren’t usable/playable in actual gameplay. Theyre there for completeness or comparison value but they are basically useless. In actual gameplay they cant be used.

Perhaps that is why they were rubbed out so fast.


Unlikely, since every single thing they had in Mercs was outsone within months when CWC launched. The CS Linebacker makes the Iron Heart tanks look like jokes. The fighters are nothing compared to the CS fighters (and the CS fighter in Mercs itself).

I also feel like some of the newer books, especially NG1 and NG2 displayed excellent discipline when it comes to the power level of the gear. These 2 books are magnificent.

Tanks for making a new thread for this, apologies for gitting off track.


While I agree that the NG books are excellent, they arent that way because of “discipline”, really. Its just in keeping with the estbalished power level of NG gear since forever. OTHER gear makers are allowed to be far more powerful and always have been. And some of the things in NG 1 & 2 are serious outliers (the new armors are insane - half damage from kinetic attacks?).



I disagree, thanks for your thoughts. It's valuable to see a different perspective.

Re: Mr. Siembeida's World of Rifts?

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2019 1:03 pm
by Colonel_Tetsuya
You disagree with.... what exactly?

That the tanks are easily outmatched by anyone in flying PA or even fast-moving ground PA?

That the bomber is somehow playable in-game? (Or any bomber-type aircraft, or large ship)? From either a PC or NPCs-using-it perspecetive?

Its super easy to say “i dont agree” but not back it up with any data or reason as to why.

Thats like someone saying “the sun comes up in the east”

And you going “I disagree”.

Re: Mr. Siembeida's World of Rifts?

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2019 1:05 pm
by Colonel_Tetsuya
Killer Cyborg wrote:
Colonel_Tetsuya wrote:
SereneTsunami wrote:I just was trying to say that the "Power Creep" that is most complained about(SA2) was more about the author's vision for the setting.


Eh? Its not an entirely new or divergent thing for the setting, though. (Alien societies moving to Earth). Nor is it really more powerful than stuff Kevin already wrote. (I refer you to Temporal Wizards and Tatoo’ed men)


THAT is exactly how power creep happens, by authors and readers thinking,
"This isn't a problem, because it's not really more powerful than the previous most powerful setting material from a land that is supposed to have the best technology and magic not only on Rifts Earth, but in the Megaverse.


So... which part of “the best technology and magic in the Megaverse” applies to True Atlanteans or Temporal Wizards, again?

Oh, right, no part of it. (Well, ill grant you that the recent Add-Con of Secrets of the Atlanteans beefs them up quite a bit, but that is literally the most recent book released; at the time, WB2, Atlanteans were basically nobodies with no power base of any kind.)

Those things aren’t tied to the Splugorth.

Re: Mr. Siembeida's World of Rifts?

Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2019 11:04 pm
by SereneTsunami
Colonel_Tetsuya wrote:You disagree with.... what exactly?

That the tanks are easily outmatched by anyone in flying PA or even fast-moving ground PA?

That the bomber is somehow playable in-game? (Or any bomber-type aircraft, or large ship)? From either a PC or NPCs-using-it perspecetive?

Its super easy to say “i dont agree” but not back it up with any data or reason as to why.

Thats like someone saying “the sun comes up in the east”

And you going “I disagree”.



I don't like your tone. I was hoping that my polite reply would let this end.

Re: Mr. Siembeida's World of Rifts?

Posted: Sat Aug 03, 2019 1:14 am
by VIsgar
To me its hard to tell tone over the internet as you literally cannot hear them, but I know where you're coming from. (On these forums even I had my inquisitive nature portrayed an an attack instead of trying to understand what they meant).

In the RMB it talks about how a couple glitterboys can easily take out squadrons of tanks without breaking a sweat.

Anything should be possible in game. Sure you might have to put in extra effort, thought or credits into an idea but anything imaginable is an option. It may not best the most optimal or have a high chance (or almost any) of succeeding but who knows what the dice will say. Yes its a role playing games and we want to be immersed but with things like magic not everything should/can be quantized.

Personally I've never met anyone from the publication, but anyone who is criticized for whatever reason from my experience, takes it poorly.
Whether you meant any insult or not or just stated an idea or pondered an question out loud in front of them. If you criticize someone, whether you meant to or not then they'll take offence to it and be less happy/willing to share their thoughts after feeling attacked (from my experience).

Power creep will happen no matter what. They cannot just release the same rifle every book for example we would be up in arms about it.

Re: Mr. Siembeida's World of Rifts?

Posted: Sat Aug 03, 2019 12:17 pm
by Library Ogre
Colonel_Tetsuya wrote:CJs books were WILDLY more popular than most of the ones Kev wrote. WAY more popular. Its purely anecdotal, but everyone i knew who played Palladium liked CJs books quite a bit more than almost any of Kev's works. From what friends in the game store industry tell me, sales figures back that up.


Back in the day, we would phrase it as

"If Kevin wrote it, it was balanced but didn't make sense. If CJ wrote it, it made sense but wasn't balanced. If Bill (Coffin) wrote it, it was balanced and made sense."

Re: Mr. Siembeida's World of Rifts?

Posted: Sat Aug 03, 2019 6:07 pm
by Colonel_Tetsuya
SereneTsunami wrote:
Colonel_Tetsuya wrote:You disagree with.... what exactly?

That the tanks are easily outmatched by anyone in flying PA or even fast-moving ground PA?

That the bomber is somehow playable in-game? (Or any bomber-type aircraft, or large ship)? From either a PC or NPCs-using-it perspecetive?

Its super easy to say “i dont agree” but not back it up with any data or reason as to why.

Thats like someone saying “the sun comes up in the east”

And you going “I disagree”.


I don't like your tone.


How unfortunate for you. I didn't like your passive-aggressive (and not remotely "polite") bait post. I guess we'll both just have to find a way to carry on.

Mark Hall wrote:
Colonel_Tetsuya wrote:CJs books were WILDLY more popular than most of the ones Kev wrote. WAY more popular. Its purely anecdotal, but everyone i knew who played Palladium liked CJs books quite a bit more than almost any of Kev's works. From what friends in the game store industry tell me, sales figures back that up.


Back in the day, we would phrase it as

"If Kevin wrote it, it was balanced but didn't make sense. If CJ wrote it, it made sense but wasn't balanced. If Bill (Coffin) wrote it, it was balanced and made sense."


eh, you know...

Thats not all that wrong. I wouldnt say i 100% agree but its definitely more correct than not.

Re: Mr. Siembeida's World of Rifts?

Posted: Sat Aug 03, 2019 6:20 pm
by Colonel_Tetsuya
VIsgar wrote:To me its hard to tell tone over the internet as you literally cannot hear them,


Oh, no, he correctly interpreted the derisive tone i was going for. He's merely trying to claim the 'high ground' as if he didn't do anything to provoke such a response. Which he most definitely did. Unlike other people, though, i call that crap out when i see it.

In the RMB it talks about how a couple glitterboys can easily take out squadrons of tanks without breaking a sweat.


Tanks of the era (when the GB was introduced), yes. The Iron Heart tanks he's talking about were designs created post the creation of the Glitter Boy, just before the Cataclysm. They were still inferior to a GB, but that was the intent - a cheaply produced "good enough" vehicle for defense or poorer nations to use.

And post-Cataclysm/PA-calendar tanks? Yeah, no way. A CS Linebacker would blow a Glitter Boy to pieces. Just from action-economy if nothing else.

Personally I've never met anyone from the publication, but anyone who is criticized for whatever reason from my experience, takes it poorly.


Really depends on the person, how the criticism is presented, and the nature of the work itself.

A lot of criticisms can be entirely subjective - wether you like the nature of a story or not, for instance. In that case, there's no definitive "answer" to the criticism. Maybe it just isn't for you. Gotta deal with that and move on.

For some things, though - like game mechanics - there are ways to prove your theory/criticism true or false. This doesn't automatically invalidate the work itself - your (provable) criticism may be "This mechanic is broken and makes X, Y, Z too powerful"... and the author might land on you with "thats not a bug, its a feature" - yeah, he knows, and he doesn't care. Again, move along.

Criticisms about basic function, though, if proven.. aren't really debatable. For instance, its well know (at least around here, world at large, who knows) that you cant even actually create a character with RUE. If you follow the character creation rules, they legimately do not work.

In this instance, there's a provable right/wrong. The author cant look at you and (believably) say "yeah, i meant for it to be non-functional".

The stuff I laid out for Kevin during our "discussion" was of the final type. Stuff that just does not work, at all. Like.. not stuff that is OP, or unbalanced... just straight up, non-working, unusable stuff.

And he got super defensive and angry. And im not the only one that he's had that reaction with about this exact kind of stuff. If I had simply been critical about his writing style (like the fact that the setting as he imagined it NEVER worked), and he took umbrage - fair enough. But this is stuff that just objectively doesn't even function.

Re: Mr. Siembeida's World of Rifts?

Posted: Sat Aug 03, 2019 6:44 pm
by jaymz

Really depends on the person, how the criticism is presented, and the nature of the work itself.


Yup. I have had several lengthy conversations with Chuck....he takes criticism seriously as a way to make things better not as an offense.

Re: Mr. Siembeida's World of Rifts?

Posted: Sun Aug 04, 2019 11:46 am
by Killer Cyborg
Mark Hall wrote:
Colonel_Tetsuya wrote:CJs books were WILDLY more popular than most of the ones Kev wrote. WAY more popular. Its purely anecdotal, but everyone i knew who played Palladium liked CJs books quite a bit more than almost any of Kev's works. From what friends in the game store industry tell me, sales figures back that up.


Back in the day, we would phrase it as

"If Kevin wrote it, it was balanced but didn't make sense. If CJ wrote it, it made sense but wasn't balanced. If Bill (Coffin) wrote it, it was balanced and made sense."


That's a pretty good general rule.
:ok:

Re: Mr. Siembeida's World of Rifts?

Posted: Mon Aug 05, 2019 3:08 pm
by Hotrod
One aspect to consider is how the original world presented in RMB changed into what we have now. There were some places mentioned in the original world description that seemed well-suited for sourcebooks containing some power creep. Atlantis and Triax come to mind. However, there's also the need to pay the bills by making and selling new books. Consider how much of the world was originally described as a wilderness with basically nothing interesting going on. Then look at what's been tacked on since.

A good example: The original description of Rifts Japan was that they were basically wiped clean of civilization and nothing significant happened there. What we got in Rifts: Japan was a kitchen sink of Japanese stereotypes with MDC. If Kevin had followed his original vision, there'd be some wilderness islands, maybe some ruins, and not much of interest. Kevin bought into the new vision because, honestly, who would want to buy a book about a bunch of isolated wilderness islands that used to be a major country?

Re: Mr. Siembeida's World of Rifts?

Posted: Thu Aug 08, 2019 1:10 pm
by Axelmania
Colonel_Tetsuya wrote:WB3 introduced Temporal Magic (and, at the time, Temporal Wizards were heads-and-shoulders more powerful than any other Magic OCC, pre RUE revamp)

I think their main claim to fame was early access to high level spells, but we should question how 'powerful' that really was when you basically lacked mechanics for casting any spells higher than your own personal PPE level. I can't remember when the 3xPPE rule (+200% or +300%?) got introduced... wasn't it something like "PE Hours" initially in one of the Rifter FAQs then amended to "PE Minutes" in online FAQ?

Palladium Fantasy's Heart of Magic seems to have completely revamped that (unless of course it's meant as a supplement that stacks instead of a replacement, that'd be fine too) and it's never been entirely clear to me how casting from external PPE sources like Talismans or ritual participants works.

Like... ignoring the later-added 3xPPE or HoM rules, if I want to cast a 1000 PPE spell and I have 100 PPE and 90 talismans each having 10 PPE in each of them, can I cast the spell?

What if (just going 1990 RMB here) if I'm a Mystic with a personal base of 0/100 PPE and I want to cast a 1000 PPE Dimensional Portal but I happen to have 1000 people each with 1 PPE who want to help me make the portal? Will it blend?

Part of what muddies this is I think BTS had limits on how many people could help you in a ritual, I think it was something like 6xlevel helpers instead of the usual 3xlevel victims you could steal PPE from without consent.

I don't think Rifts necessarily put on a cap like that, but should that mean you can just call upon unlimited amounts of ritual helpers to lend PPE? It seems like there should be some kind of limit, even if it does go beyond the ones BTS set.

Given the precedent of basically 'twice as many people willingly as unwillingly' and Rifts Main Book (since RUE did not reprint multi-leeching) having a LOWER unwilling amount (2xlevel instead of 3xlevel) it seems like it ought to be 4xlevel.

FoM also introduces Energy Sphere and I'd like to know if the way that functions is basically identical to a Talisman or not.

I get the sense you can't replenish your personal PPE using either of these (if you don't want to bring a talisman or sphere along for a ride) so their only use might be for direct spellcasting to supplement small bases?

Energy Sphere actually seems like it could be used to do away with any kind of necessity for a "3xPPE" rule, or what HoM did (something like hundreds held for 15 seconds? forget, not on hand) since even if you could initially build a small energy sphere, you could regain your PPE, then combine that with a small sphere to build a medium sphere, regain your PPE, combine that with medium sphere to make a large sphere, and so on.

Hotrod wrote:The original description of Rifts Japan was that they were basically wiped clean of civilization and nothing significant happened there. What we got in Rifts: Japan was a kitchen sink of Japanese stereotypes with MDC.
If Kevin had followed his original vision, there'd be some wilderness islands, maybe some ruins, and not much of interest.

Ah, but how much of that was Kev's vision vs. Tarn's vision? Perhaps there was always an intent to reveal a bunch of stuff but not to hint at it early on, pretend it didn't exist by having even the more knowledgeable amongst humans (like Tarn) not saying anything about it due to ignorance or conspiracy.

Re: Mr. Siembeida's World of Rifts?

Posted: Thu Aug 08, 2019 1:46 pm
by Captain_Nibbz
Axelmania wrote:
Hotrod wrote:The original description of Rifts Japan was that they were basically wiped clean of civilization and nothing significant happened there. What we got in Rifts: Japan was a kitchen sink of Japanese stereotypes with MDC.
If Kevin had followed his original vision, there'd be some wilderness islands, maybe some ruins, and not much of interest.

Ah, but how much of that was Kev's vision vs. Tarn's vision? Perhaps there was always an intent to reveal a bunch of stuff but not to hint at it early on, pretend it didn't exist by having even the more knowledgeable amongst humans (like Tarn) not saying anything about it due to ignorance or conspiracy.


I have always loved this take on Tarn either deliberately lying to people, or just not knowing and making things up along the way. It adds a really interesting overarching narative to the game that doesn't seem forced or phony to me. Much better than heavy handed meta-plot or setting advancements.

Re: Mr. Siembeida's World of Rifts?

Posted: Fri Aug 16, 2019 8:55 am
by Myrrhibis
Mark Hall wrote:
Colonel_Tetsuya wrote:CJs books were WILDLY more popular than most of the ones Kev wrote. WAY more popular. Its purely anecdotal, but everyone i knew who played Palladium liked CJs books quite a bit more than almost any of Kev's works. From what friends in the game store industry tell me, sales figures back that up.


Back in the day, we would phrase it as

"If Kevin wrote it, it was balanced but didn't make sense. If CJ wrote it, it made sense but wasn't balanced. If Bill (Coffin) wrote it, it was balanced and made sense."


:ok: I remember seeing this a few times over the years.
And I agree about the criticisms not seeming to be taken seriously by PB.
When several of us suggested a proofreader program/system to speed up basic editing aspects, being paid only by a free copy of final product, we were told that wasn't fair to the proofer.
There's a whole brigade of proofreaders for small/private publishes that would beg to differ. We proof b/c we love the overall product & /or authors and want to make it better.
I'm just glad they FINALLY got around to releasing legal PDFs of their books.

Re: Mr. Siembeida's World of Rifts?

Posted: Fri Aug 16, 2019 3:09 pm
by Josh Hilden
Independent Proofers of good quality are affordable and plentiful. Independent publishing has changed a lot in the last 15 years.