I just logged in here for the first time in forever to mock everyone who lists Palladium as "neutral." The central settings of Rifts in North America positions scholars, scientists, and a diverse group of heroes as the good guys, and American style fascists, complete with skull-themed Neo-Nazi armor as the bad guys. The "good guys" in Rifts are social justice warriors. I have trouble understanding how anyone fails to get that.

Quote from: pawsplay;1143530I just logged in here for the first time in forever to mock everyone who lists Palladium as "neutral." The central settings of Rifts in North America positions scholars, scientists, and a diverse group of heroes as the good guys, and American style fascists, complete with skull-themed Neo-Nazi armor as the bad guys. The "good guys" in Rifts are social justice warriors. I have trouble understanding how anyone fails to get that.

[video=youtube;hn1VxaMEjRU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU[/youtube]

Yes but is your average coalition soldier truly evil or wrong in that setting?  Yes, the ruling elite are EVIL BASTARDS, hands down.  It's an ugly thing, but without the coalition, does humanity really have as good a long-term survival chance?  They're good guys from an us-vs-them survival of the species standpoint - I'll pick humanity over anyone else thank you very much.

Now what they ARE is authoritarians, and well, FUCK authoritarians, good intentions or not.  "Because I said so" sucked when we were kids, and sucks harder the higher up it goes.  

Hell - I showed up to a Heroes Unlimited game with a time-displaced Coalition Soldier, a classic Dead-boy.  It was the Punisher turned up to 11, with a lot of genuine compassion for the regular humans in this mad world.  He was just a grunt, so barely literate, could maintain his gear somewhat, but NEEDED the other PCs who were starting to polish off some of the propaganda damage.  (sadly, the campaign didn't last).

It's like I argued again with my wife the other day about Dragon Age Origins - the Templars are totally right to keep a close eye on the mages - harsh?  Yes.  BUT they aren't burning everyone with a talent for magery at the stake, they're just trying to keep them reigned in.

These are great questions in general, and great drama for RPGs... One of the things I liked about RIFTS is you could easily go heavy shades of grey turn up or down the Black and White (shit, can I use that these days?   ) err - binary Good and Evil (wait... is that cool? )

Quote from: sureshot;1142946If one has severe Arachnophobia one has no business joining the above campaigm imo.

Arachnophobia is the word for "afraid of spiders".

There is no word for "afraid of imaginary spiders"; that is breaking ground in the field of being a pussy.

Scared of your own imagination. Scared to have a thought. Afraid to pretend.

Quote from: pawsplay;1143530I just logged in here for the first time in forever to mock everyone who lists Palladium as "neutral." The central settings of Rifts in North America positions scholars, scientists, and a diverse group of heroes as the good guys, and American style fascists, complete with skull-themed Neo-Nazi armor as the bad guys. The "good guys" in Rifts are social justice warriors. I have trouble understanding how anyone fails to get that.

uh...whut?

Sorry kid. Thats not Rifts.

Quote from: Mr_X;1143624Arachnophobia is the word for "afraid of spiders".

There is no word for "afraid of imaginary spiders"; that is breaking ground in the field of being a pussy.

Scared of your own imagination. Scared to have a thought. Afraid to pretend.

I can understand and respect the fear in place of an actual real spider. Being afraid of a drawing is well imo screwed up in the head.

It's the same way gamers will accuse the hobby of gatekeeping because of one bad experience. Not 3-4 one bad experience so proof positive they are being kept out of the hobby.

My wife is an arachnophobe.  I had a giant rubber spider as the big bad; she had to sit out of sight to play, but didn't try to ruin anyone elses fun.

Quote from: sureshot;1143644I can understand and respect the fear in place of an actual real spider. Being afraid of a drawing is well imo screwed up in the head.

It's the same way gamers will accuse the hobby of gatekeeping because of one bad experience. Not 3-4 one bad experience so proof positive they are being kept out of the hobby.

Um... with many cases of a phobia even drawn images can set it off. Theres levels of this like alot of other odd conditions.

I am a little dubious of someone freaking at just a description. But can imagine a severe case where even that might set it off. Or at least a concern it might set it off. I play with at least one player who has a severe phobia. I also know a couple of players with severe aversions rather than phobias.

At a guess theres a mental difference between just saying. "you are attacked by a giant spider" and "you are attacked by an eight legged horror as large as a dog with glistening red carapace and dagger-like fangs dripping venom, its bulbous abdomen bobbing as it skitters towards you."

Arachnophobia it is one thing I don't have it yet I am not a fan of either. It's when a person suffers from a phobia, joins a game with the object or creature of their phobia as the many enemies. While then demanding the entire campaign be re-written from the ground up to accommodate them. Then accuse the players and or DM for being bad people because they are comfortable with the object of their phobia.

I don't throw out or refuse players for having a phobia. I just expect to be told of it as a common courtesy so that I can minimize the impact. Or the say it's Arachnophobia and it's a minor or one time element in the game I can change it. If it's major element or the BBEG at the end of the campaign then one is shit out of luck as the anything with Spiders stays in. No graphic imagery of a Spider to help the person with a phobia. I am not re-writing an entire campaign from the ground up for one person either.

Quote from: sureshot;1143797I don't throw out or refuse players for having a phobia. I just expect to be told of it as a common courtesy so that I can minimize the impact.

Exactly, it is the players' duty to bring these topics up, beforehand, so that a DM can do an informed decision about it.
It's not the DM's duty to pre-emptively remove elements from a campaign just-in-case, or to change a campaign around at a moments notice because someone didn't bring up their phobias.

Quote from: pawsplay;1143530I just logged in here for the first time in forever to mock everyone who lists Palladium as "neutral." The central settings of Rifts in North America positions scholars, scientists, and a diverse group of heroes as the good guys, and American style fascists, complete with skull-themed Neo-Nazi armor as the bad guys. The "good guys" in Rifts are social justice warriors. I have trouble understanding how anyone fails to get that.

I'm guessing you've never met, much less had lengthy conversations over lunch or dinner with Kevin Seimbedia. I have so I feel quite confident telling you that you are grossly mistaken.

The Coalition States are national socialists who burned books, particularly history books that contradict the party line, and use media propaganda to keep the masses in line. Disseminating "wrongthink" is a literal death sentence.

The Coalition States also completely disarmed its citizens and restricts weaponry and armor exclusively to their indoctrinated military forces who also serve as the police force and can summarily execute dissenters from CS beliefs. They even had a purity spiral period where they went to war with one of their fellow states simply because they weren't conforming to the leadership's dogma enough.

Those who actually make it into their cities have their basic needs met akin to a UBI, but just like socialized medicine you either make do with the limited services or resort to getting treatment from the black market. Those outside those walls have no rights as far as the CS is concerned and they'll burn down whole sections of the communities outside those walls just to maintain their control.

Meanwhile the elites receive the best educations at exclusive schools in preparation for taking up prestigious government positions. Similarly, they receive the best medical care, including advanced medical procedures like life extension (as in, can live to be 300 years old while the masses have seen the average lifespan drop to just 60 years).

It is firmly established that the CS leadership believes the common man is too stupid to rule himself and that only they are enlightened enough to bring about utopia. They use magic/monsters and those who think differently as boogeyman to justify their control over society.

They are the epitome of Big Brother right out of 1984. They're the world once the SJWs have served their purpose for their paymasters.

The Rogue Scholars are people exiled to the wilderness for daring to speak out for truth, teach real history and for the values of a democratic republic. Their crimes against the state are teaching people to read and think for themselves and distributing actual history books. They aren't organizing riots, destroying businesses or tearing down historical monuments.

In short, you completely misrepresent the setting of Rifts with your ill-informed description to the point I feel you're either a troll or a deliberate provocateur spreading slander against Palladium Books and trying to turn those who would be allies against them precisely because they haven't bent the knee to SJW ideology.

You are either grossly ignorant or a liar, sir. I care not which because you're blather is useless either way.

I'm not really sure what you guys are disagreeing about. Obviously Simbieda has Nazi bad guys. He's also clearly not a Social Justice Warrior.  SJWs hate Nazis but are a lot like Nazis in many ways, Antifa especially of course. I'm guessing Simbieda is a typical US Right-Libertarian. Right-Libertarians hate National Socialists as well as International Socialists.

Quote from: S'mon;1143943I'm not really sure what you guys are disagreeing about. Obviously Simbieda has Nazi bad guys. He's also clearly not a Social Justice Warrior.  SJWs hate Nazis but are a lot like Nazis in many ways, Antifa especially of course. I'm guessing Simbieda is a typical US Right-Libertarian. Right-Libertarians hate National Socialists as well as International Socialists.

That's not what pawsway claimed. He claimed Kevin was an SJW because he's claiming the Coalition is meant to be Red State America (I guess because the SJW claim is that anyone not left of Mao is a racist fascist) and that because the good guys aren't racists and are diverse (i.e. can be D-bees) and educated they're intended to be the SJWs of the setting.

It's just such an utter misread of the setting it's either deliberate malice or pants wetting levels of mental disability.

I actually know Kevin; had lunch, did some business, got the tour (the man has an amazing library). Kevin is, first and foremost, a storyteller.

The Coalition was way more inspired by The Empire in Star Wars (Kevin Long's original artwork makes it easy to see... faceless stormtroopers, speeder bikes, walkers, etc.) because he wanted a Big Bad the PCs could easily oppose than as any sort of social commentary. He also threw in the Federation of Magic so there'd be a powerful group of evil magic-users to deal with too.

Similarly, the Free State of Lazlo, Erin Tarn and the like are your plucky resistance fighting for essentially Truth, Justice and the American Way. They're basically the Rebel Alliance.

While I can't see the depths of Men's hearts, I would be flabbergasted if anything other than "what's going to make the most crazy-awesome setting ever!" was on Kevin's mind as he created Rifts.

Never seen a hobby where people politicize the crap out of it. Is it the lack of entertainment?

Quote from: FelixGamingX1;1144011Never seen a hobby where people politicize the crap out of it. Is it the lack of entertainment?

As has been said before about academic department meetings, the politics are so vicious because the stakes are so low.