Suspension of Disbelief in Rifts

[keir451]

This concept has come up quite often for me during my posting here on the Boards and I'm curious as to where people draw the line in their suspension of disbelief.
For example; In my recent post regarding Triax 2 I've expressed, for me, my disbelief in the power amor units and robot units (among a few other things).
So for all of you out there where do you draw the line? What in Rifts (and its attendant materials) can't you accept and why?

I'll start off. Initially I accepted Rifts at face value, it was exactly what I was looking for at the time, Magic, Psionics, Power Armor, Giant (well very big at least ) robots and all the fantasy & Sci-Fi stuff I could want. But as time wore on I found that I wanted MORE detail and that I wasn't content to just "leave it hangin' in the wind". As such my "suspension of disbelief" became more critical, more demanding. I want (and Yes, expect) more detail from the game creator, I want a system that is smooth to run and play while still including the fine details. I want those fine details because they make the game more enjoyable and believable for me.

[jaymz]

My self, I just change tech as I need to in order for it to make sense to me. I have gone so far as to post what I change by book. So far I have only posted up 3 books, technically 5, RUE/RMB and SB1/SB1R and Mercenaries. I even did a file stating what CS material is being phased out due to it being crap (for lack of a nicer term )

Another example is for Robotech. While I loved the fluff I found the stats for everything to be over inflated and a joke in every book. So I just make my own stats.

Taking Triax 2 into account I am just flat out not going to use many of the robots, p.a. and vehicles as there was no need for the vast majority of them in my opinion. Things like the Predator II and Ultimax II are going to get a complete rewrite from me as well.

That's how I handle things.

[keir451]

My self, I just change tech as I need to in order for it to make sense to me. I have gone so far as to post what I change by book. So far I have only posted up 3 books, technically 5, RUE/RMB and SB1/SB1R and Mercenaries. I even did a file stating what CS material is being phased out due to it being crap (for lack of a nicer term )

Another example is for Robotech. While I loved the fluff I found the stats for everything to be over inflated and a joke in every book. So I just make my own stats.

Taking Triax 2 into account I am just flat out not going to use many of the robots, p.a. and vehicles as there was no need for the vast majority of them in my opinion. Things like the Predator II and Ultimax II are going to get a complete rewrite from me as well.

That's how I handle things.

Fair 'nough guv. I don't change much really, except the application of physics-I/we apply that equally to everyone and everything in Rifts. This way even if you're a Dragon or a Godling you suffer the same fate from certain actions as your mortal counter parts.
To use my regular example; If you jump from the top of Chi-town you're pretty mcuh guaranteed to go "SPLAT!!" upon reaching the bottom unless you do something to slow your fall. The difference is that we apply this to ALL beings in Rifts, thus everyone is equally screwed .

[The Galactus Kid]

I change what i need to change and house rule things that are manageable. And this isn't just for Rifts, but for every game system I have played. Ultimately its about having fun, and if a book isn't detailed enough I flesh it out for our players (like Splicers).

Suspension of disbelief varies depending on the game we're playing.

[keir451]

I change what i need to change and house rule things that are manageable. And this isn't just for Rifts, but for every game system I have played. Ultimately its about having fun, and if a book isn't detailed enough I flesh it out for our players (like Splicers).

Suspension of disbelief varies depending on the game we're playing.

Ok, but what are your standards in Rifts? What things go beyond acceptance for even you? (if any).

[The Dark Elf]

I dont normally go by my own suspension of disbelief but that of my players.

As GM I may do whatever I like and I will twaek whatever I need. I do pride myslef on sticking to the cannon material an using it in clever ways (arent I awesome, lol). But-

I always have to think about how my players would feel. Would they feel cheated if the robot, spell, ability does something some way because "it just does, alright?"

Honestly a lot of the time players can go with the flow because they understand that its a game and the movement of the game and some key parts or actions are integral to the story regardless of realism. "they would never behave like that" does normally come up and if it does it's said with a smile and a nod. then they go into Columbo mode trying to figure out why a certain reaction would be so important.

I do the same for any physics. **** it - its a fictional game. I dont care much for it. what does the book say it can do? It's all fictional tech or fictional magic so physics can be all to irrelevant. I dont even care that much for all the moves in combat (unless its N&S's and then the fight scenes are the point of the game) as things get weighed down too much. Move on! More mystery and plot.

Again, it goes back to the expected realism of the players, not me.

[RoadWarriorFWaNK]

I change what i need to change and house rule things that are manageable. And this isn't just for Rifts, but for every game system I have played. Ultimately its about having fun, and if a book isn't detailed enough I flesh it out for our players (like Splicers).

Suspension of disbelief varies depending on the game we're playing.

Remember that time we were watching Cars and I was like "Cars don't sleep"?

[The Galactus Kid]

I change what i need to change and house rule things that are manageable. And this isn't just for Rifts, but for every game system I have played. Ultimately its about having fun, and if a book isn't detailed enough I flesh it out for our players (like Splicers).

Suspension of disbelief varies depending on the game we're playing.

Remember that time we were watching Cars and I was like "Cars don't sleep"?

hahaha.

[Dog_O_War]

This concept has come up quite often for me during my posting here on the Boards and I'm curious as to where people draw the line in their suspension of disbelief.
For example; In my recent post regarding Triax 2 I've expressed, for me, my disbelief in the power amor units and robot units (among a few other things).
So for all of you out there where do you draw the line? What in Rifts (and its attendant materials) can't you accept and why?

Illogical rules.

The round-robin style combat annoys me to no end, especially with the attacks 'build-up' at the end of the round. It's like, you're a Juicer, and you decided that every time you get into a fight for the rest of your very short life, you're going to play shot-for-shot with everything and everyone, from Vagabonds to Brodkil. But then, as they stand there doing nothing, you're going to just hit them a bunch - but only after they decide they need a 5 to 8 second break.

The concept that the slowest guy can simply budge in line when it comes time to make attacks, because he wants to strike when you do (simultaneous attack). So you're a quickflex wired gunslinger; just about the fastest thing on Rifts Earth, and you go to shoot some fat, gelatinous Operator with a Wilk's. Initiative comes 'round and you are on your game; natch 20. With your bonuses, you're looking at something in the realm of 30-40. Awesome!
Oh wait, no it's not - that Operator you were about to gun down for eating all the pie in the pie-store says, "I'ma shoot you back!" and blasts you at the same time, even though he took an initiative penalty to finish licking all the mint-chocolate filler off his 'trigger finger' from that Grasshopper pie he just gobbled down.

Lame Skills, like having to make a 'radio check' (Radio, Basic) when you want to talk to someone using the most common form of communication on Rifts earth. You've been using the Radio since you were 10, but practice be-damned; roll your 45% success chance!

Out of scale weapon damage; "See that giant twin-barrel railgun on top of the DHT? Yeah, the one a 6-foot man can stand in? 80 rounds a second. 2d6x10 MD. See my JA-9 rifle that's super-common and pretty cheap to buy? yeah, I duck-taped 10 of them to a spot-light on the roof of my bigboss and jury-rigged the triggers together. 10 shots a second. 2d6x10 MD.
What's that on my hood? Oh, those are just NG Super-202s (fast-firing NG-202s; SAMSON uses one); you never know when you might run into stuff immune to energy. Yeah, you can barely get your index finger in the barrel. Twinned like that? 120 rounds a second. 2d6x10 MD."

Etc...

[csbioborg]

I draw the line with a completely illerate hhi tech soceity that is the same time under going extreme growth in technology. This is what happened the CS comes out and many fans are hey awesome regulars guys trying to fight against impossible odds. Man I'd be totalitarian to under those circumstances. K.S. no they7 are the bad guys let's start remind people of that by making them completely illiterate

[The Galactus Kid]

The main thing I have a really hard time disbelieving is how the heck the economies in North America manage to function. Any thing else I just blame it on the Welsh and leave it at that.

the barter system and made up money...

[keir451]

Good comments one and all!!
I can understnad where y'all are coming from and my line while it seems big is actually very fine (as in the relative differences in styles),.
I, too, dislike illogical rules, especially when I see large scale vehicle weapons that do as much damage as a man portable weapon.
The issue of the CS's literacy has been hashed ad nauseum so I won't restart THAT ball rolling.
I don't make charcters roll for every little piddling detail, you got basic Math? Good you can add and all that jazz under normal circumstances, but you're under the gun and you're trying to get a fast head count of your enemies THEN I make ya roll for it. Radio basic is for when you're trying something new like trying to find a radio frequency of someone or something that ain't part of your group.
I have a harder time believing is how OUR economy functions, in the end economies are just gov't fiat. They say their money is worth "X" and so their money is worth "X" to THEM at least.
Barter system, I'd figure that one would work anywhere, "Hey you give me food and I'll fix your town's power plant."

[glitterboy2098]

The main thing I have a really hard time disbelieving is how the heck the economies in North America manage to function. Any thing else I just blame it on the Welsh and leave it at that.

and yet, everytime i post an explanation around here based on real world history, real banking practices, and real macro and micro economics, explanations that explain (in sometimes extreme detail) how they'd work...people ignore it and tell me "it can't work, so don't worry about it" and go one having a hard time beleiving the economies work.

[The Baron of chaos]

The main thing I have a really hard time disbelieving is how the heck the economies in North America manage to function. Any thing else I just blame it on the Welsh and leave it at that.

and yet, everytime i post an explanation around here based on real world history, real banking practices, and real macro and micro economics, explanations that explain (in sometimes extreme detail) how they'd work...people ignore it and tell me "it can't work, so don't worry about it" and go one having a hard time beleiving the economies work.

Hmm of all the replies to this post, yours is quite interesting on a different level, as you point out one sore problem here. What work in mind of Rifts fan A won't work in eye of Rifts Fan B mostly because Rifts fan B alreayd made up his mind about it(much like when reading two stories two people will imagine the same character very different in their mind). I seem to recall your post, and i always found them enough reasonable. Albeit perhaps too EXCESSIVLEY detailed for a RPG game, but again the detail was the base idea of it, still I think too much detail coudl become a too heavy luggage for a game that shuld be as fast as it can.

[glitterboy2098]

The main thing I have a really hard time disbelieving is how the heck the economies in North America manage to function. Any thing else I just blame it on the Welsh and leave it at that.

and yet, everytime i post an explanation around here based on real world history, real banking practices, and real macro and micro economics, explanations that explain (in sometimes extreme detail) how they'd work...people ignore it and tell me "it can't work, so don't worry about it" and go one having a hard time beleiving the economies work.

Hmm of all the replies to this post, yours is quite interesting on a different level, as you point out one sore problem here. What work in mind of Rifts fan A won't work in eye of Rifts Fan B mostly because Rifts fan B alreayd made up his mind about it(much like when reading two stories two people will imagine the same character very different in their mind). I seem to recall your post, and i always found them enough reasonable. Albeit perhaps too EXCESSIVLEY detailed for a RPG game, but again the detail was the base idea of it, still I think too much detail coudl become a too heavy luggage for a game that shuld be as fast as it can.

ultimately, i think the issue with fan A not grasping what fan B grasped comes down to general knowledge base.
i have a degree in history, and i'm starting a masters degree in it. and as a side effect of wanting to actual understand history (as opposed to just memorizing it and spewing it out on command, like so many of my teacher's growing up), i've actually done my best to learn the basics of economics, historical methods, etc. so given that i actually had a grounding in many of the details involved, i grasp possibilities about how the economies of rifts could function, usually by comparing it to historical models of banking and economy and then adjusting for the presence of various technologies and knowledge.

but fan A might not have that grounding. his/her knowledge base might lie in a totally different area, and economics might be a slightly arcane mystery to them. so when Fan B comes around saying "this is a way that would work", it's harder to understand how all the parts being described fit together.

at which point, fan A usually has a choice. he can just say "i'll take your word for it" and move on, he can ask quaestions to try and get a better understanding, or he could go "my knowledge says otherwise". generally it's this last response that sees most of the issues. if it's done politely and well, it'll often just be overlooked. if it's delivered badly, it can lead to topic drift and flame wars.

one of the reasons i try to add as much detail to such explanations as possible is so that people without my particular base of knowledge can hopefully grasp what i'm saying easier.

which by the way, is very frustrating when i'm writing official material for print. i keep wanting to go into the whys and hows of things like crop rotation, or sociopolitical structures...and i can't, because there isn't a point ot putting a dissertation like that into a sourcebook or rifter article.

[Dog_O_War]

I draw the line with a completely illerate hhi tech soceity that is the same time under going extreme growth in technology.

Why? Our own human history is full of examples of this.

[glitterboy2098]

I draw the line with a completely illerate hhi tech soceity that is the same time under going extreme growth in technology.

Why? Our own human history is full of examples of this.

yep.

the main key is that the people actually developing the new technologies and sciences aregoing ot be literate, and more importantly, able to share information between themselves. the people actually using that tech just have to know which parts not to touch and who to call for it anything stops working.

go watch the TV show Connections (it's on youtube), and you'll see. practically the whole show (all 3 seasons) showcase scientific and technological advancement that occured during times when the average person was illiterate, uneducated, and ignorant even by the standards of their own time.

[slade the sniper]

The round-robin style combat annoys me to no end, especially with the attacks 'build-up' at the end of the round. It's like, you're a Juicer, and you decided that every time you get into a fight for the rest of your very short life, you're going to play shot-for-shot with everything and everyone, from Vagabonds to Brodkil. But then, as they stand there doing nothing, you're going to just hit them a bunch - but only after they decide they need a 5 to 8 second break.

Out of scale weapon damage; "See that giant twin-barrel railgun on top of the DHT? Yeah, the one a 6-foot man can stand in? 80 rounds a second. 2d6x10 MD. See my JA-9 rifle that's super-common and pretty cheap to buy? yeah, I duck-taped 10 of them to a spot-light on the roof of my bigboss and jury-rigged the triggers together. 10 shots a second. 2d6x10 MD.
What's that on my hood? Oh, those are just NG Super-202s (fast-firing NG-202s; SAMSON uses one); you never know when you might run into stuff immune to energy. Yeah, you can barely get your index finger in the barrel. Twinned like that? 120 rounds a second. 2d6x10 MD."

Out of scale armor capabilities...I CAN NOT ABIDE THIS!!!

I am not a scientist, nor am I an engineer, but as an end user of a large amount of weapons in my life, I can NOT understand PB weapons/armor ratings... it's childish and annoying

-STS

[keir451]

The main thing I have a really hard time disbelieving is how the heck the economies in North America manage to function. Any thing else I just blame it on the Welsh and leave it at that.

and yet, everytime i post an explanation around here based on real world history, real banking practices, and real macro and micro economics, explanations that explain (in sometimes extreme detail) how they'd work...people ignore it and tell me "it can't work, so don't worry about it" and go one having a hard time beleiving the economies work.

Hmm of all the replies to this post, yours is quite interesting on a different level, as you point out one sore problem here. What work in mind of Rifts fan A won't work in eye of Rifts Fan B mostly because Rifts fan B alreayd made up his mind about it(much like when reading two stories two people will imagine the same character very different in their mind). I seem to recall your post, and i always found them enough reasonable. Albeit perhaps too EXCESSIVLEY detailed for a RPG game, but again the detail was the base idea of it, still I think too much detail coudl become a too heavy luggage for a game that shuld be as fast as it can.

ultimately, i think the issue with fan A not grasping what fan B grasped comes down to general knowledge base.
i have a degree in history, and i'm starting a masters degree in it. and as a side effect of wanting to actual understand history (as opposed to just memorizing it and spewing it out on command, like so many of my teacher's growing up), i've actually done my best to learn the basics of economics, historical methods, etc. so given that i actually had a grounding in many of the details involved, i grasp possibilities about how the economies of rifts could function, usually by comparing it to historical models of banking and economy and then adjusting for the presence of various technologies and knowledge.

but fan A might not have that grounding. his/her knowledge base might lie in a totally different area, and economics might be a slightly arcane mystery to them. so when Fan B comes around saying "this is a way that would work", it's harder to understand how all the parts being described fit together.

at which point, fan A usually has a choice. he can just say "i'll take your word for it" and move on, he can ask quaestions to try and get a better understanding, or he could go "my knowledge says otherwise". generally it's this last response that sees most of the issues. if it's done politely and well, it'll often just be overlooked. if it's delivered badly, it can lead to topic drift and flame wars.

one of the reasons i try to add as much detail to such explanations as possible is so that people without my particular base of knowledge can hopefully grasp what i'm saying easier.

which by the way, is very frustrating when i'm writing official material for print. i keep wanting to go into the whys and hows of things like crop rotation, or sociopolitical structures...and i can't, because there isn't a point ot putting a dissertation like that into a sourcebook or rifter article.

Sometimes GB it is simply tha the person A doesnot WANT to understand what person B is syaing, they have already made uo their mind that this cannot work and no matter what logic you throw at them they won't listen.

[Nightmask]

The main thing I have a really hard time disbelieving is how the heck the economies in North America manage to function. Any thing else I just blame it on the Welsh and leave it at that.

and yet, everytime i post an explanation around here based on real world history, real banking practices, and real macro and micro economics, explanations that explain (in sometimes extreme detail) how they'd work...people ignore it and tell me "it can't work, so don't worry about it" and go one having a hard time beleiving the economies work.

Hmm of all the replies to this post, yours is quite interesting on a different level, as you point out one sore problem here. What work in mind of Rifts fan A won't work in eye of Rifts Fan B mostly because Rifts fan B alreayd made up his mind about it(much like when reading two stories two people will imagine the same character very different in their mind). I seem to recall your post, and i always found them enough reasonable. Albeit perhaps too EXCESSIVLEY detailed for a RPG game, but again the detail was the base idea of it, still I think too much detail coudl become a too heavy luggage for a game that shuld be as fast as it can.

ultimately, i think the issue with fan A not grasping what fan B grasped comes down to general knowledge base.
i have a degree in history, and i'm starting a masters degree in it. and as a side effect of wanting to actual understand history (as opposed to just memorizing it and spewing it out on command, like so many of my teacher's growing up), i've actually done my best to learn the basics of economics, historical methods, etc. so given that i actually had a grounding in many of the details involved, i grasp possibilities about how the economies of rifts could function, usually by comparing it to historical models of banking and economy and then adjusting for the presence of various technologies and knowledge.

but fan A might not have that grounding. his/her knowledge base might lie in a totally different area, and economics might be a slightly arcane mystery to them. so when Fan B comes around saying "this is a way that would work", it's harder to understand how all the parts being described fit together.

at which point, fan A usually has a choice. he can just say "i'll take your word for it" and move on, he can ask quaestions to try and get a better understanding, or he could go "my knowledge says otherwise". generally it's this last response that sees most of the issues. if it's done politely and well, it'll often just be overlooked. if it's delivered badly, it can lead to topic drift and flame wars.

one of the reasons i try to add as much detail to such explanations as possible is so that people without my particular base of knowledge can hopefully grasp what i'm saying easier.

which by the way, is very frustrating when i'm writing official material for print. i keep wanting to go into the whys and hows of things like crop rotation, or sociopolitical structures...and i can't, because there isn't a point ot putting a dissertation like that into a sourcebook or rifter article.

Sometimes GB it is simply tha the person A doesnot WANT to understand what person B is syaing, they have already made uo their mind that this cannot work and no matter what logic you throw at them they won't listen.

A trap we can all fall into at times, and makes things such a problem. Especially if they tie their pride/ego into it. People nowadays are far less likely due to upbringing to admit being wrong or that it's just a matter of opinion and there is only what's right for you.

[jaymz]

which by the way, is very frustrating when i'm writing official material for print. i keep wanting to go into the whys and hows of things like crop rotation, or sociopolitical structures...and i can't, because there isn't a point ot putting a dissertation like that into a sourcebook or rifter article.

You may be surprised how many of us WOULD want to read stuff like that. You should write it anyway then ask to have posted up on the cutting room floor section or something as free online source material

I myself was a business major with a major in accounting and a minor in industrial management and economics (didn't finish). I love to read whatever you have on such things

[Lenwen]

So for all of you out there where do you draw the line? What in Rifts (and its attendant materials) can't you accept and why?

My suspension of disbelief stops at giant robots ..

I've modified all of the tanks/aircraft weapon systems to be more in tune with what I personally believe they should be. No way a main gun on a Tank should be doing exactly what the Grunt's rifle is doing .. (if only slightly more damage) that is just well not believable .. if that were the case the Tank would be an incredibly stupid idea to put forth on any battlefield cost wise ..

I also do not believe that in a "Post Apocalyptic" world .. that any "Tech" based society will have 10x the amount of overall resources that the current United States of America (In a none apocalyptic world mind you) has. This is a direct shot at the Coalition if you have not noticed. No nation in the real world is able to completely revamp their military every 5 yrs .. let alone in (yet again) a post apocalyptic world .. where resources by the very definition of the setting should be so rare .. that war's are fought over the most minuscule of resources ..

This is not to take away from societies where magic is a common aspect .. mind you. Logically thinking about it which is going to be easier to do ? Transport resources over land for hundreds or thousands of miles .. verses Teleportation ? Or even straight up Rifts from 1 world to another ? Or even 1 dimension to another ? The answer is obvious. Teleportation / Rifts should be the easier way .. that's not even debatable ... instant transportation vrs .. hrs of transportation.

For me suspension of disbelieve is held in check .. if it seems logical for something its a snap for me . But certain other things most notable the items I've stated up above I can not an will not suspend my disbelief to ludicrous speeds ..

[Nightmask]

I don't tend to worry about it too much, there isn't much to derail me other than rulings that make no sense or worse seem slanted just to ensure failure on the part of the PC or to favor someone the GM likes (like say having his GF in the game and she's tooling around in super power armor beyond anything anyone else could get and never, ever misses or fails). An example, for another game system (Marvel Super Heroes RPG) a GM felt because a weak elderly person had a non-zero chance of dodging an attack by a super-skilled fighter to 'correct' it by ruling it impossible for you to dodge attacks from someone more than a level better in Fighting than you, making it so someone who should have far more chance of dodging unable to.

[boxee]

Ok,
I do not use simultaneous attack ever, and neither do the groups I have been in. That would make it so everyone goes when they are attacked, kinda lame IMO.
I HATE the giant robots that have the gun where their privates are.
I have to agree with most people scale for weapons should be taken into account.
The money system has never been a problem for my groups, except for one groups GM who was a rules lawyer.
Oh did I mention I HATE the giant robots that have the gun where their privates are.

[keir451]

Bringing concepts of physics into the game has become a bit of a point in my suspension of disbelief. For example; A dragon and a SAMAS pilot are on top a tower about the hieght of the Sears tower the Dragon jumps off, backwings during his descent, slowing himself down and lands on the ground, intact and undamaged, the player of said SAMASpilot after somehow missing the fact that the dragon backwinged, decides to jump down in pursuit of the dragon. He fails to engage his thrusters upon descent and is "surprised" when he impacts the ground and, despite his armor, gets killed by the force of the impact being transferred thru the armor into him.
Now we (my GM, players & I) would also apply a certain amount of damage to the dragon if he had failed to backwing to slow his descent. Due to the dragon's greater size the damage would be spread across a greater area thus lessening the damage to any one point. This is (to me) both common sense and physics.
I apply this standard across the board to all types of characters, what I boil it down to is; the greater the height you are falling from and the greater the speed at which you were/are travelling, the greater the damage upon impact with the surface of whatever you strike. If this damage is enough to overwhelm your defenses, be they artificial or natural (MDC or SDC) the you take damage if that damage is enough to kill you then you are dead, your armor (if you were wearing any) comes thru relatively intact (some minor scrapes & such) becasue it was the transfer of the force of the imapct thru your armor that kills you, not destruction of said armor.
Now if you're a supernatural creature, then this force is applied directly to your MDC and could possibly kill you.

[Nightmask]

Bringing concepts of physics into the game has become a bit of a point in my suspension of disbelief. For example; A dragon and a SAMAS pilot are on top a tower about the hieght of the Sears tower the Dragon jumps off, backwings during his descent, slowing himself down and lands on the ground, intact and undamaged, the player of said SAMASpilot after somehow missing the fact that the dragon backwinged, decides to jump down in pursuit of the dragon. He fails to engage his thrusters upon descent and is "surprised" when he impacts the ground and, despite his armor, gets killed by the force of the impact being transferred thru the armor into him.
Now we (my GM, players & I) would also apply a certain amount of damage to the dragon if he had failed to backwing to slow his descent. Due to the dragon's greater size the damage would be spread across a greater area thus lessening the damage to any one point. This is (to me) both common sense and physics.
I apply this standard across the board to all types of characters, what I boil it down to is; the greater the height you are falling from and the greater the speed at which you were/are travelling, the greater the damage upon impact with the surface of whatever you strike. If this damage is enough to overwhelm your defenses, be they artificial or natural (MDC or SDC) the you take damage if that damage is enough to kill you then you are dead, your armor (if you were wearing any) comes thru relatively intact (some minor scrapes & such) becasue it was the transfer of the force of the imapct thru your armor that kills you, not destruction of said armor.
Now if you're a supernatural creature, then this force is applied directly to your MDC and could possibly kill you.

Except that you're ignoring the physics of the dragon and other supernatural creatures, they do have their own physics after all. Such a creature is not like a SAMAS guy where there's an MDC shell with a soft squishy SDC core, he's MDC from end to end and isn't simply 'MDC hide on the outside, squishy vulnerable flesh on the inside'. So from a physics standpoint such a creature shouldn't be taking scaled up damage in such a fashion and should be taking reduced damage if anything. It's like a super-hero comic, you don't see the Hulk taking damage from such a fall because he's tough right down to the core so the damage just isn't that great. From freefall where he's only going around 120MPH something like a dragon should never take lethal damage from a fall, I can't remember but even broken necks won't kill a dragon they just regenerate back from it and unless he falls on his head with his body above him a dragon just shouldn't be breaking anything that'd be lethal.

[Killer Cyborg]

Bringing concepts of physics into the game has become a bit of a point in my suspension of disbelief. For example; A dragon and a SAMAS pilot are on top a tower about the hieght of the Sears tower the Dragon jumps off, backwings during his descent, slowing himself down and lands on the ground, intact and undamaged, the player of said SAMASpilot after somehow missing the fact that the dragon backwinged, decides to jump down in pursuit of the dragon. He fails to engage his thrusters upon descent and is "surprised" when he impacts the ground and, despite his armor, gets killed by the force of the impact being transferred thru the armor into him.
Now we (my GM, players & I) would also apply a certain amount of damage to the dragon if he had failed to backwing to slow his descent. Due to the dragon's greater size the damage would be spread across a greater area thus lessening the damage to any one point. This is (to me) both common sense and physics.
I apply this standard across the board to all types of characters, what I boil it down to is; the greater the height you are falling from and the greater the speed at which you were/are travelling, the greater the damage upon impact with the surface of whatever you strike. If this damage is enough to overwhelm your defenses, be they artificial or natural (MDC or SDC) the you take damage if that damage is enough to kill you then you are dead, your armor (if you were wearing any) comes thru relatively intact (some minor scrapes & such) becasue it was the transfer of the force of the imapct thru your armor that kills you, not destruction of said armor.
Now if you're a supernatural creature, then this force is applied directly to your MDC and could possibly kill you.

Except that you're ignoring the physics of the dragon and other supernatural creatures, they do have their own physics after all. Such a creature is not like a SAMAS guy where there's an MDC shell with a soft squishy SDC core, he's MDC from end to end and isn't simply 'MDC hide on the outside, squishy vulnerable flesh on the inside'. So from a physics standpoint such a creature shouldn't be taking scaled up damage in such a fashion and should be taking reduced damage if anything. It's like a super-hero comic, you don't see the Hulk taking damage from such a fall because he's tough right down to the core so the damage just isn't that great. From freefall where he's only going around 120MPH something like a dragon should never take lethal damage from a fall, I can't remember but even broken necks won't kill a dragon they just regenerate back from it and unless he falls on his head with his body above him a dragon just shouldn't be breaking anything that'd be lethal.

Correct; MDC creatures are usually tough enough to survive falls without much trouble.
There have been a few threads on this.

People keep trying to turn MDC into SDC, thinking that since falling is scary to SDC people that it should be just as scary to MDC creatures, but that's just not how things work. It ignores the very concept of MDC.

[Killer Cyborg]

Simultaneous attack has elements of realism in it.
There are times in a combat where you can indeed just decide to take the hit and hit them back.
The only real problem that I can see is that Palladium doesn't have a mechanism for seeing who's faster when it comes to which attack hits, and that they don't have a mechanism for one attack preventing an attack by the opponent.
And such rules would make the game a lot more complex than it is now.

[dark brandon]

I really don't have any limit. It's a game to me, and by far the most important thing is that it's fun. Being that it's a game, I take it for what it's worth and will take cool/fun over realistic. I want rifts to play like a movie, not like a documentary.

[dark brandon]

Correct; MDC creatures are usually tough enough to survive falls without much trouble.
There have been a few threads on this.

People keep trying to turn MDC into SDC, thinking that since falling is scary to SDC people that it should be just as scary to MDC creatures, but that's just not how things work. It ignores the very concept of MDC.

When I think on this, I like to picture something like Dragonballz where you have some enemies hitting someone into the ground. They usually get up...a little hurt, but it was obvious the punch was more devastating than the landing, or there such cartoons/movies.

[Nightmask]

Correct; MDC creatures are usually tough enough to survive falls without much trouble.
There have been a few threads on this.

People keep trying to turn MDC into SDC, thinking that since falling is scary to SDC people that it should be just as scary to MDC creatures, but that's just not how things work. It ignores the very concept of MDC.

When I think on this, I like to picture something like Dragonballz where you have some enemies hitting someone into the ground. They usually get up...a little hurt, but it was obvious the punch was more devastating than the landing, or there such cartoons/movies.

Not surprising, punches in DBZ are backed by the Ki of the attacker it's not pure physical damage, meanwhile that solid granite that they always find to crunch into is just mere stone and can't begin to really harm them unless they're almost totally depleted on Ki and sometimes not even then as some of them are just that tough physically that even without the Ki buffer they can still survive being smashed into stone.

[dark brandon]

Not surprising, punches in DBZ are backed by the Ki of the attacker it's not pure physical damage, meanwhile that solid granite that they always find to crunch into is just mere stone and can't begin to really harm them unless they're almost totally depleted on Ki and sometimes not even then as some of them are just that tough physically that even without the Ki buffer they can still survive being smashed into stone.

I have no idea what I just read...but that's ok, because I think you were agreeing with me

[Nightmask]

Not surprising, punches in DBZ are backed by the Ki of the attacker it's not pure physical damage, meanwhile that solid granite that they always find to crunch into is just mere stone and can't begin to really harm them unless they're almost totally depleted on Ki and sometimes not even then as some of them are just that tough physically that even without the Ki buffer they can still survive being smashed into stone.

I have no idea what I just read...but that's ok, because I think you were agreeing with me

*laughs and nods* DBZ characters have what you could consider mega-amped chi powers from Ninjas and Superspies, and one of those is using their Ki as extra SDC (or MDC given what the setting quickly amped up into). When they fight it's as much then physical strength damage to SDC as it is their Ki destroying some of their opponent's Ki at the same time. Meanwhile that stone outcropping (seems like that's almost all you see in DBZ) is just doing SDC damage without anything else and so while it hurts unless the character's low on Ki he's not going to be hurt all that much by it, and if he's fairly powered up he'll barely notice it.

[dark brandon]

*laughs and nods* DBZ characters have what you could consider mega-amped chi powers from Ninjas and Superspies, and one of those is using their Ki as extra SDC (or MDC given what the setting quickly amped up into). When they fight it's as much then physical strength damage to SDC as it is their Ki destroying some of their opponent's Ki at the same time. Meanwhile that stone outcropping (seems like that's almost all you see in DBZ) is just doing SDC damage without anything else and so while it hurts unless the character's low on Ki he's not going to be hurt all that much by it, and if he's fairly powered up he'll barely notice it.

word!

[keir451]

Bringing concepts of physics into the game has become a bit of a point in my suspension of disbelief. For example; A dragon and a SAMAS pilot are on top a tower about the hieght of the Sears tower the Dragon jumps off, backwings during his descent, slowing himself down and lands on the ground, intact and undamaged, the player of said SAMASpilot after somehow missing the fact that the dragon backwinged, decides to jump down in pursuit of the dragon. He fails to engage his thrusters upon descent and is "surprised" when he impacts the ground and, despite his armor, gets killed by the force of the impact being transferred thru the armor into him.
Now we (my GM, players & I) would also apply a certain amount of damage to the dragon if he had failed to backwing to slow his descent. Due to the dragon's greater size the damage would be spread across a greater area thus lessening the damage to any one point. This is (to me) both common sense and physics.
I apply this standard across the board to all types of characters, what I boil it down to is; the greater the height you are falling from and the greater the speed at which you were/are travelling, the greater the damage upon impact with the surface of whatever you strike. If this damage is enough to overwhelm your defenses, be they artificial or natural (MDC or SDC) the you take damage if that damage is enough to kill you then you are dead, your armor (if you were wearing any) comes thru relatively intact (some minor scrapes & such) becasue it was the transfer of the force of the imapct thru your armor that kills you, not destruction of said armor.
Now if you're a supernatural creature, then this force is applied directly to your MDC and could possibly kill you.

Except that you're ignoring the physics of the dragon and other supernatural creatures, they do have their own physics after all. Such a creature is not like a SAMAS guy where there's an MDC shell with a soft squishy SDC core, he's MDC from end to end and isn't simply 'MDC hide on the outside, squishy vulnerable flesh on the inside'. So from a physics standpoint such a creature shouldn't be taking scaled up damage in such a fashion and should be taking reduced damage if anything. It's like a super-hero comic, you don't see the Hulk taking damage from such a fall because he's tough right down to the core so the damage just isn't that great. From freefall where he's only going around 120MPH something like a dragon should never take lethal damage from a fall, I can't remember but even broken necks won't kill a dragon they just regenerate back from it and unless he falls on his head with his body above him a dragon just shouldn't be breaking anything that'd be lethal.

Correct; MDC creatures are usually tough enough to survive falls without much trouble.
There have been a few threads on this.

People keep trying to turn MDC into SDC, thinking that since falling is scary to SDC people that it should be just as scary to MDC creatures, but that's just not how things work. It ignores the very concept of MDC.

I'm no trying to turn MDC into SDC(even tho' we could according to the rules). I'm saying that even MDC beings have limits, and that even tho' those limits are greater than those of a normal human, they can be exceeded. Even a Sea Titan could die from falling from the equivalent height of the Sears Tower. A dragon falling from the same height, that does not stop its fall, will also take damage and depending upon how it strikes the surface may indeed die, even a broken neck could kill a dragon. If the dragon survives, then, Yes he can regenerate. But it is beyond MY suspension of disbelief that a dragon falling from near orbital levels would just get up and walk away, it is also beyond MY suspension of disbelief that a dragon jumping from the top of a height equivalent to the Sears tower will not take SOME level of damage. Even dragons are susceptible to the effects of gravity and physics.
A small stone has limited SDC, yet when used properly can kill a person with more SDC than the rock, so alot of rocks have a lot of SDC, to the point of being MDC. So if an MDC being strikes or is struck by an MDC object they in turn take MDC, if they take enough MDC to kill them they die. So if the actual physics of the situation say that, reasonbly speaking, you die.Then(barring intevention by GM or others) you die.

[Nekira Sudacne]

I'm no trying to turn MDC into SDC(even tho' we could according to the rules). I'm saying that even MDC beings have limits, and that even tho' those limits are greater than those of a normal human, they can be exceeded. Even a Sea Titan could die from falling from the equivalent height of the Sears Tower. A dragon falling from the same height, that does not stop its fall, will also take damage and depending upon how it strikes the surface may indeed die, even a broken neck could kill a dragon. If the dragon survives, then, Yes he can regenerate. But it is beyond MY suspension of disbelief that a dragon falling from near orbital levels would just get up and walk away, it is also beyond MY suspension of disbelief that a dragon jumping from the top of a height equivalent to the Sears tower will not take SOME level of damage. Even dragons are susceptible to the effects of gravity and physics.
A small stone has limited SDC, yet when used properly can kill a person with more SDC than the rock, so alot of rocks have a lot of SDC, to the point of being MDC. So if an MDC being strikes or is struck by an MDC object they in turn take MDC, if they take enough MDC to kill them they die. So if the actual physics of the situation say that, reasonbly speaking, you die.Then(barring intevention by GM or others) you die.

Yes, they'll take some damage.

1d6 SDC per 10 feet of falling.

Jumping off the sears tower should deal about 1 MD to either the sea titan or dragon.

[keir451]

Well Keir, there is a simple (well, fairly simple) solution to your problem. Stats are given in places for ramming (I forget where exactly), just find one that suits the falling velocity at impact (that is what matters and yes it does "cap out" hence the term "terminal velocity") and use that damage.

If you need justification for MDC creatures taking falling damage that isn't as far as a stretch as yours, then simply say that the nature of the Earth itself has changed and it is the release of "ambient magic energy" in the soil, rock, concrete, whatever, that actually damages the creature. Higher velocity at impact will produce more energy release and thus, more damage.

Oh, do keep in mind that some creatures will not take damage, even when falling from orbit...such as vampires. Well, unless they manage to land on someone's wooden porch.

Thanks Rhophaia, that's a very reasonable suggestion that I will take under consideration. Though I kinda disagree with vampires, but part of that stems from the fact that I love to kill them and I think they're stupidly over powered even by Rifts standards, but that is a subject for a different time and thread.
@Nekira, please add where that comes from. There is also the rule of damge per mph from crashing.

[Killer Cyborg]

People keep trying to turn MDC into SDC, thinking that since falling is scary to SDC people that it should be just as scary to MDC creatures, but that's just not how things work. It ignores the very concept of MDC.

I'm no trying to turn MDC into SDC(even tho' we could according to the rules). I'm saying that even MDC beings have limits, and that even tho' those limits are greater than those of a normal human, they can be exceeded.

Yes.
And those limits are established: for every 100 SDC damage they take in a single hit/attack, an MDC being loses 1 MDC from their total.

Even a Sea Titan could die from falling from the equivalent height of the Sears Tower.

Unlikely.
The Sears Tower is 1451' tall.
Going strictly by the book, that would inflict something like 145d6 SDC, which would average out at about 507.5 SDC, which comes out to 5 MD.
Successfully roll for half damage, and that comes out to 2 MD.

If that's not enough damage for you, then you can come at it another way, by looking at the only time that the rules address MDC creatures falling, and working logically from there:

viewtopic.php?p=1383754#p1383754

My best estimate is that MDC creatures take about 1 M.D. per 100 foot that they fall.

The only known passage describing MDC creatures and falling damage is in Xiticix Invasion, p. 16.
It rules that MDC creatures that fall off of one of the Xiticix bridges takes 1 MD per every three stories (8-14', usually 10') that they fall.
Of course, this isn't a normal fall; it does more damage, presumably because of the spiky resin that covers the ground at the base of the towers.
The damage for a normal SDC character falling is 1d6 MD per 10', but if a normal SDC being falls off of one of these bridges, they take 3d6 SDC damage per story that they fall.
Which is 3x the normal amount of damage.
Which indicates that the 1 MD/3 story rule for MD beings is likely to be 3x their normal falling damage.
Which means that that distance should triple if you're just falling onto normal ground, to a ratio of 1 MD/9 story.
Which easily rounds off to 100, since a story is likely to be about 10'-12' high.

In which case the damage to a MDC creature falling off of the Sears Tower would be 14 MDC.

A dragon falling from the same height, that does not stop its fall, will also take damage and depending upon how it strikes the surface may indeed die, even a broken neck could kill a dragon.

Perhaps, but the only real way for a dragon to break its neck is to take enough Mega-Damage to do the job, which would probably mean dropping it to zero MDC or lower.
And it's going to take a heck of a lot more than 14 MD to do that.

But it is beyond MY suspension of disbelief that a dragon falling from near orbital levels would just get up and walk away,

Actually, he'd reach terminal velocity long before he was in near orbital levels, so it wouldn't make any difference how high up he was beyond a certain point, if you want to go for realism. Falling from low Earth orbit likely wouldn't do any more damage than falling off of the Sears Tower would.

On the other hand, if you prefer to ditch reality in favor of the rules extrapolated from XI, then the dragon would take about 65,616 MD if it fell from low orbit, since the Palladium rules don't have anything to take terminal velocity into account.

Personally, THAT would be beyond my suspension of disbelief.

A small stone has limited SDC, yet when used properly can kill a person with more SDC than the rock, so alot of rocks have a lot of SDC, to the point of being MDC. So if an MDC being strikes or is struck by an MDC object they in turn take MDC, if they take enough MDC to kill them they die. So if the actual physics of the situation say that, reasonbly speaking, you die.Then(barring intevention by GM or others) you die.

Not exactly.
A human struck by an SDC rock, no matter how much SDC the rock has, will not take ANY damage unless the rock strikes hard enough to inflict SDC damage.
A MDC creature struck by a rock, no matter how much MDC/SDC the rock has, will not take ANY damage unless the rock strikes hard enough to inflict Mega-Damage.
It's the force behind the blow that matters, not how hard the object is.

Otherwise our feet would bleed and our bones would shatter any time we walked barefoot on a sidewalk.

In the case of falling, the force simply is not enough to inflict much in the way of Mega-Damage.
This is because Mega-Damage is insanely powerful.
A stick of dynamite inflicts maybe 1d4x10 SDC (usually only 5d6 or 6d6 SDC in most books).
It would take at least three sticks of dynamite going off simultaneously) to inflict even 1 point of mega-damage.
A creature with 100 MDC would require at least 300 sticks of dynamite to kill.
Falling simply does not generate the necessary level of force most of the time.

[Nightmask]

Well Keir, there is a simple (well, fairly simple) solution to your problem. Stats are given in places for ramming (I forget where exactly), just find one that suits the falling velocity at impact (that is what matters and yes it does "cap out" hence the term "terminal velocity") and use that damage.

If you need justification for MDC creatures taking falling damage that isn't as far as a stretch as yours, then simply say that the nature of the Earth itself has changed and it is the release of "ambient magic energy" in the soil, rock, concrete, whatever, that actually damages the creature. Higher velocity at impact will produce more energy release and thus, more damage.

Oh, do keep in mind that some creatures will not take damage, even when falling from orbit...such as vampires. Well, unless they manage to land on someone's wooden porch.

Thanks Rhophaia, that's a very reasonable suggestion that I will take under consideration. Though I kinda disagree with vampires, but part of that stems from the fact that I love to kill them and I think they're stupidly over powered even by Rifts standards, but that is a subject for a different time and thread.
@Nekira, please add where that comes from. There is also the rule of damge per mph from crashing.

You must really have an extra big hate for Murder Wraiths then, since they're far more powerful than a vampire.

Of course I still can't see how you insist on RL physics requiring a dragon die from such a fall when there's that who glaring 'RL physics says dragons are too massive to ever be able to fly', yet they do. That's a much harder physics than the one you're insisting means dragons and other MDC creatures would be as cripplingly injured as an SDC creature even when as outlined everything about the creature means it shouldn't. From your comment about vampires though it seems like you jut don't like them being so powerful so are trying to nerf them down when the rules and nature of the creatures involved would deem them at worst only minorly harmed by such a fall.

[Nekira Sudacne]

Rifts Main book page 35, under the damage table under Hit Points.

Falling: 1d6 per 10 feet.
Collision: 1d8 per 10 MPH.

However these do not stack. falling is not the same as another collision. not the least of which because it has a cap. once you hit terminal velocity you won't take any more damage.

Lets take the Sea Titan for exsample. The human body hits terminal velocity at 1,880 feet off the ground. this translates out to 1,88d6 SDC damage. This averages out to 564 SDC. divide by 100 because they are MDC, and the remainder is discarded.

This means that falling will inflict, on average, 5 MDC to any MDC being. At absolute maximum, 11, however, this is pretty damn unlikely as it requires rolling 188 sixes in a row. in which case: can you roll my next character for me

Neither a Sea Titan or Dragon would be much inconvienced by that.

The reason why collision damage is different is because collision implies you are impacting something from an angel other than straight down. this tends to deal more damage to the body and organs. Therefore you can't stack the two. Either you use falling damage OR collision damage.

However, collision damage has no upper cap and is not limited by terminal velocity. falling will never inflict much more than 5 MD. Collission damage just keeps going up.

Even if you did want to be silly and add the collision damage, though, it's only 120 MPH at terminal velocity. that's 12d8. even at maximum it's only 96 SDC. Not enough to deal a single point of MD.

So yea. falling /does/ hurt MDC beings. but not enough to matter much.

[dark brandon]

Actually, he'd reach terminal velocity long before he was in near orbital levels, so it wouldn't make any difference how high up he was beyond a certain point, if you want to go for realism. Falling from low Earth orbit likely wouldn't do any more damage than falling off of the Sears Tower would.

On the other hand, if you prefer to ditch reality in favor of the rules extrapolated from XI, then the dragon would take about 65,616 MD if it fell from low orbit, since the Palladium rules don't have anything to take terminal velocity into account.

Personally, THAT would be beyond my suspension of disbelief.

This is a good example of why the idea of realism should not have any affect on the suspension of disbelief.

In one account you have what seems to be a "logical" thought process (dragon falling from orbit, dieing)...yet, there is good evidence to show they wouldn't. It is this idea that we "know" something and it's so crazy different it would work another way when a bit of expanded thinking shows that you could very well be wrong.

what happens when you have a loss of disbelief because it seems so crazy wrong, yet...you can be shown it is right. Does this change the way you feel about the game? Do you accept it? Does the game feel more "realistic" now than it did before?

[keir451]

@Killer Cyborg; What part of "a rock used prorperly" didn't come across? It's a given that the rock has to have force behind it or be impacted upon by something with force behind it (like falling on it).
@Nightmask; Yeah Murder Wraiths are nasty suckers, I love killing them too.
@dark brandon; My GM & I used to have very heated arguments over what defined "reality" in Rifts, we occasionally still disagree but we usually find some common ground, just as to one degree or another I can find common ground w/everyone on the boards. I can accept the fantasy elements of Rifts easily, but despite all the "evidence" that dragons can survive nearly anything, it just kinda gets to me. Due to the way Rifts is designed you have no recourse but to alter the rules to fit your "belief", so I either have to make dragons even more powerful then they are, accept Kevin's "limited" rules, or weaken to the point where a child w/ a 1d6 laser pistol could kill them. Having them take falling damage is, for me, a reasonable compromise.

[Nightmask]

@Killer Cyborg; What part of "a rock used prorperly" didn't come across? It's a given that the rock has to have force behind it or be impacted upon by something with force behind it (like falling on it).
@Nightmask; Yeah Murder Wraiths are nasty suckers, I love killing them too.
@dark brandon; My GM & I used to have very heated arguments over what defined "reality" in Rifts, we occasionally still disagree but we usually find some common ground, just as to one degree or another I can find common ground w/everyone on the boards. I can accept the fantasy elements of Rifts easily, but despite all the "evidence" that dragons can survive nearly anything, it just kinda gets to me. Due to the way Rifts is designed you have no recourse but to alter the rules to fit your "belief", so I either have to make dragons even more powerful then they are, accept Kevin's "limited" rules, or weaken to the point where a child w/ a 1d6 laser pistol could kill them. Having them take falling damage is, for me, a reasonable compromise.

Got your quotes off a bit, that's not something I said, I only pointed out that the Murder Wraiths were even worse than vampires when it came to nigh indestructibility.

[Saitou Hajime]

This concept has come up quite often for me during my posting here on the Boards and I'm curious as to where people draw the line in their suspension of disbelief.
For example; In my recent post regarding Triax 2 I've expressed, for me, my disbelief in the power amor units and robot units (among a few other things).
So for all of you out there where do you draw the line? What in Rifts (and its attendant materials) can't you accept and why?

Illogical rules.

The round-robin style combat annoys me to no end, especially with the attacks 'build-up' at the end of the round. It's like, you're a Juicer, and you decided that every time you get into a fight for the rest of your very short life, you're going to play shot-for-shot with everything and everyone, from Vagabonds to Brodkil. But then, as they stand there doing nothing, you're going to just hit them a bunch - but only after they decide they need a 5 to 8 second break.

The concept that the slowest guy can simply budge in line when it comes time to make attacks, because he wants to strike when you do (simultaneous attack). So you're a quickflex wired gunslinger; just about the fastest thing on Rifts Earth, and you go to shoot some fat, gelatinous Operator with a Wilk's. Initiative comes 'round and you are on your game; natch 20. With your bonuses, you're looking at something in the realm of 30-40. Awesome!
Oh wait, no it's not - that Operator you were about to gun down for eating all the pie in the pie-store says, "I'ma shoot you back!" and blasts you at the same time, even though he took an initiative penalty to finish licking all the mint-chocolate filler off his 'trigger finger' from that Grasshopper pie he just gobbled down.

Lame Skills, like having to make a 'radio check' (Radio, Basic) when you want to talk to someone using the most common form of communication on Rifts earth. You've been using the Radio since you were 10, but practice be-damned; roll your 45% success chance!

Out of scale weapon damage; "See that giant twin-barrel railgun on top of the DHT? Yeah, the one a 6-foot man can stand in? 80 rounds a second. 2d6x10 MD. See my JA-9 rifle that's super-common and pretty cheap to buy? yeah, I duck-taped 10 of them to a spot-light on the roof of my bigboss and jury-rigged the triggers together. 10 shots a second. 2d6x10 MD.
What's that on my hood? Oh, those are just NG Super-202s (fast-firing NG-202s; SAMSON uses one); you never know when you might run into stuff immune to energy. Yeah, you can barely get your index finger in the barrel. Twinned like that? 120 rounds a second. 2d6x10 MD."

Etc...

You are stressing the rules over game play, generally you only need to roll a skill if your underpressure or trying to do some with in a fixed time at a fixed quality. anyone can patch a knee on pants but someone with Sewing and make it look good. If you have time you can do the job. I remember in 3 edition D&D they had the Take Ten Rule, a rule I been using for years in my RPG without even knowing. Most skills allow for a take ten [Take Ten minutes and you could do any basic skill at average level]. You need to use the radio? that fine you can sit a play it checking all the output sources and that and broadcast a message.+

I draw the line with a completely illerate hhi tech soceity that is the same time under going extreme growth in technology. This is what happened the CS comes out and many fans are hey awesome regulars guys trying to fight against impossible odds. Man I'd be totalitarian to under those circumstances. K.S. no they7 are the bad guys let's start remind people of that by making them completely illiterate

The Elite is educated and can read pretty much every loftie can read, this is 15 to 20 percent it not different than Renaissance Europe.

The main thing I have a really hard time disbelieving is how the heck the economies in North America manage to function. Any thing else I just blame it on the Welsh and leave it at that.

the Big thing to remeber is the Economies are smaller the entire CS is like what the Population of Illinois? That a lot easier to supply than the Modern Area of the US that matchs the CS. Free Quebec has a 1/3 the population of Current Quebec. Merc Town is a Trade City, Silverodo is a mining city. Merc town is what 45,000? Silverodo is 35,000 it easy to suport such places, and these are BIG Towns for most of RIFTS.

The main thing I have a really hard time disbelieving is how the heck the economies in North America manage to function. Any thing else I just blame it on the Welsh and leave it at that.

and yet, everytime i post an explanation around here based on real world history, real banking practices, and real macro and micro economics, explanations that explain (in sometimes extreme detail) how they'd work...people ignore it and tell me "it can't work, so don't worry about it" and go one having a hard time beleiving the economies work.

where is this because that sounds like FINE reading!

[Dog_O_War]

Simultaneous attack has elements of realism in it.

No, it doesn't. See below.

There are times in a combat where you can indeed just decide to take the hit and hit them back.
The only real problem that I can see is that Palladium doesn't have a mechanism for seeing who's faster when it comes to which attack hits, and that they don't have a mechanism for one attack preventing an attack by the opponent.
And such rules would make the game a lot more complex than it is now.

That's called, "not performing a defence so that you have an action when your turn to shoot back finally comes around".
This above sequence of events is why simultaneous attack (as it is currently) has no element of realism to it. It's listed as a defence, but there's nothing defensive about it; you're literally just attacking faster than you normally could because someone's attacking you. It's an action that needs to turn into a circumstance in order to have any realism to it.

[Dog_O_War]

You are stressing the rules over game play, generally you only need to roll a skill if your underpressure or trying to do some with in a fixed time at a fixed quality. anyone can patch a knee on pants but someone with Sewing and make it look good. If you have time you can do the job. I remember in 3 edition D&D they had the Take Ten Rule, a rule I been using for years in my RPG without even knowing. Most skills allow for a take ten [Take Ten minutes and you could do any basic skill at average level]. You need to use the radio? that fine you can sit a play it checking all the output sources and that and broadcast a message.+

Game play is the rules. That is what a role-playing game is. Remember, one of the basics of the game is that there is no script; the game might be on rails but the players still get to decide what actions their characters perform.

And that performance is governed by the rules. The skill-thing extends much beyond my radio-basic example; that was just for simplicities' sake. As for my other points; it's those rules that you have access to in-game that break the surreality. I typically don't have any issues or qualms with story-line, back-drop, etc., "the fluff" if you will; but when I've been given a rule that states I go first for achieving a higher score than everyone else, but then I get shot the same time as the slowest guy (whom I was gonna shoot) because he decided that "he wanted to shoot me too", and then the rules allow for it for no logical reason, that is where the game breaks down.

[Nightmask]

You are stressing the rules over game play, generally you only need to roll a skill if your underpressure or trying to do some with in a fixed time at a fixed quality. anyone can patch a knee on pants but someone with Sewing and make it look good. If you have time you can do the job. I remember in 3 edition D&D they had the Take Ten Rule, a rule I been using for years in my RPG without even knowing. Most skills allow for a take ten [Take Ten minutes and you could do any basic skill at average level]. You need to use the radio? that fine you can sit a play it checking all the output sources and that and broadcast a message.+

Game play is the rules. That is what a role-playing game is. Remember, one of the basics of the game is that there is no script; the game might be on rails but the players still get to decide what actions their characters perform.

And that performance is governed by the rules. The skill-thing extends much beyond my radio-basic example; that was just for simplicities' sake. As for my other points; it's those rules that you have access to in-game that break the surreality. I typically don't have any issues or qualms with story-line, back-drop, etc., "the fluff" if you will; but when I've been given a rule that states I go first for achieving a higher score than everyone else, but then I get shot the same time as the slowest guy (whom I was gonna shoot) because he decided that "he wanted to shoot me too", and then the rules allow for it for no logical reason, that is where the game breaks down.

What breaks my suspension of disbelief is that Dog obviously hates the Palladium system, but yet is still on these boards like he's pretending to be a fan or something.

Well he does seem to be overthinking it a bit, and kind of missing how in combat there's a certain amount of assumption that people are trying to not get hit so initiative is important at that point to hit someone but for someone willing to walk if not run into your attack it's not so important as they've negated the advantage initiative provides.

[Dog_O_War]

What breaks my suspension of disbelief is that Dog obviously hates the Palladium system, but yet is still on these boards like he's pretending to be a fan or something.

Say something negative about the setting. There you will see why I like the game. Or better yet, answer this question;

What do you call a person who was willing to take a product so completely broken he was/is willing to re-write (has for most of) the ENTIRE rules for the game, just so that he might run even a single game in the setting?

[Killer Cyborg]

What breaks my suspension of disbelief is that Dog obviously hates the Palladium system, but yet is still on these boards like he's pretending to be a fan or something.

Say something negative about the setting.

It's got a lot of stupid cliches, like Indians out west, Knights in England, and cyber-ninjas in Japan.
It can't keep its owns story straight, creating and erasing entire populations of people from one book to the next.
It's got a lot of racial stereotypes in the various world books.
There's an imbalance between the description of how common mega-damage is, and how often it's described as being used.
HUGE chunks of important setting information are un-addressed, even after more than two decades.
They actually have "mega-damage" as an in-game word.
I could go on....

There you will see why I like the game.

Not so much.
The setting has as many problems as the rules do.

[Dog_O_War]

What breaks my suspension of disbelief is that Dog obviously hates the Palladium system, but yet is still on these boards like he's pretending to be a fan or something.

Say something negative about the setting.

It's got a lot of stupid cliches, like Indians out west, Knights in England, and cyber-ninjas in Japan.

Elves in fantasy are a cliche. But a fantasy game without elves (for me) feels like something is missing.
That is; while breaking from cliches can be a good thing, cliches didn't become what they are unless they were popular. And typically if things are popular, it's because people like them.

As I do. I like Knights in England, ninja and samurai in Japan, and an illiterate but overtly military nation who fears people who are different from them in America

It can't keep its owns story straight, creating and erasing entire populations of people from one book to the next.

While the story is its own monster, you have to break from it at some point; one game you play might've started in 99PA, and your players do successfully defend Tolkeen from destruction. In that campaign, clearly an alternate storyline needs to be written.

But the next game you run might not follow the story you previously laid out; it might be in 109PA where Tolkeen has fallen, and you just go from there.

Where and when the story happens canonically is up to the GM and his players; I tend to keep the story as-is, unless my players break into it and change it somehow.

What I'm getting at is the storyline is pick and choose; you pick and choose when you start in it, and adjust it accordingly from that point.

It's got a lot of racial stereotypes in the various world books.

And incredibly stupid alien names.
I got nothing here; I dislike this part of the setting too.

There's an imbalance between the description of how common mega-damage is, and how often it's described as being used.

"...silver is the merchant's coin. Gold is the currency of the adventurer." A quote (not word for word) from a D&D book. Mega-Damage is the adventurer's currency on Rifts; that you're PC is why it seems so common. Otherwise the game would be extremely boring if we were playing some secluded townie in a protected part of the CS, where there is no reason to have a bunch of MD weapons lying around, and where there hasn't been a real disturbance in 20 years.
I mean, people have always attempted to run a low-powered game in Rifts (many of them 'Burbs games), and those do not contain the otherwise adventurer-common MD combat. But those are clearly exceptions to what is typical, which shows just how exceptional adventurers (and thus MD combat) really is.

HUGE chunks of important setting information are un-addressed, even after more than two decades.

That is a failing of the creator, not the setting.

They actually have "mega-damage" as an in-game word.

I thought it was. It completely makes sense that it would be too; the basic difference is effectively a material; "you have three arrows; one wood, one steel, and one MD."

There you will see why I like the game.

Not so much.
The setting has as many problems as the rules do.

Yes so much; I don't complain or harp on the setting 'problems'; honestly, the only thing about the setting I don't like is the names of the aliens. Goddamn "Gorilla-Men" and "Cactus People".