My Life As A Gamer: Filling The Holes In RIFTS (Part Four)

(Previous Parts: One, Two, Three. Also, Braunstein defined here.)

To say that religion is handled poorly is an understatement. Across the board, Palladium makes no attempt to treat religions as anything other than what you'd see out of a Silver Age comic book, and that's on a good day.

For those looking for Domain Play, they need to know what the relationship between God and Supplicant is in terms that matter in play. Gods and their agents--cosmic and mortal alike--are Patron-level characters inherently, so no religion is going to be nothing more than trappings and word salad. Yet that is exactly what we have in Palladium's games, and nothing exposes this more than its supplements that deal in gods and religion.

They're cosmic-level supers. Yes, including the Vampire Intelligences. Yes, including Lord Splynn, the True Nauruni, and several other cosmic parties. You could replace them with Captain Marvel (either version), Black Adam, certain iterations of Superman, DC's New Gods, etc. and no one would notice the difference.

This is a failure of imagination.

Also, religion does not work that way.

Because of this absolute disrespect and disdain for one of the most fundamental aspects of human psychology and culture, all of the published settings in all of the games come off as superficial and cheap. People knock AD&D's treatment, but (a) it is a valid approach and (b) it accurately reflects the nature of most non-Christian religion.

What to do about this?

First, remember that religion is not independent of culture because religion is a manifestation of mythology. Therefore religion, as a matter of ludological practice, is rooted in the cultural paradigm of the religion's culture and the worship or veneration of said gods or heroes will reflect that paradigm because it is through those figures that cultures perepetuate themselves across the generations.

In short, you don't get Aztecs conducting human sacrifices to the Sun God unless they actually believe that it works. This is independent of whether or not it does (or you cannot get false religions, or false gods). This is lacking in Palladium material, and that includes RIFTS.

How does this interface with magic?

Like it or not, magic systems are derivative of religious practice and it is why being a "sorceror" or "witch" ususally is a bad thing; they wield the power of the gods for mortal, material, and often degenerate or base ends. It's also why the line between priest and witch is often very thin and rooted in the ends to which they wield supernatural power. (This also serves to distinguish priests of evil gods from sorcerors; the former are sincere servants of evil cosmic powers, the latter are users out for themselves.)

What to do then?

Change your approach. Why do false gods want power and worship? Because they benefit from it, as they are sorcerors; reference yesterday's post on magic, and consider that PPE can be willingly yielded without killing or violence. One such obvious example is worship, wherein the ritual exists to offer a framework by which the celebrant voluntarily yields PPE to the recipient (the false god, although the false priest often takes a cut or a kickback). Real gods want worship for almost identical reasons, but their powers are more or less inherent (check your mythology).

Consider that cosmic beings like Lord Splynn of Atlantis cultivate false religions fully aware of this being a thing. In return for this worship, even the most evil of gods--real and false--will use a portion of this power to benefit his worshippers somehow and the smarter ones do so in a manner that reinforces their belief in (and thus make it easier to give worship to) that god.

A normie may only have 7 PPE, so he can only yield a few at a time. Multiple that by several million or more and that becomes a steady income stream of PPE, against which the god (real or false) can work magics that mortal magicians can only seethe at; put that god on a Nexus Point, let him benefit from auspicious timing or celestial alignments, and suddenly those magic-wielding Patrons and Domains start cooking with jet fuel. Upgrae the base worshipper to someone able to yield double or triple-digit PPE totals at a time, and you get the idea.

Palladium does not even bother to think about this at all despite putting these things in the manuals. It doesn't happen in Silver Age comics.

For those wanting to run RIFTS as a Braunstein, such oversights are inexcusable. For those wanting a product that delivers on its promises out of the box, this is also inexcuseable. For those wanting a clear, clean, and consistent ruleset this is also inexcusable. Having to spot-rule, port things over from other games, or otherwise address such holes is inexcusable out of a professional game company.

A user wants to buy the thing, take it home, and just use it. "Plug in and play". Every single instance of such inexcusable lapse of design or technical writing is a Quit Moment, and it is not surprising that Palladium relies on a die-hard core of tinkerers/Game Masters because most people will not put up with this long-term and they haven't.

Can you make this game work as a real RPG, as a Braunstein? Sure. Can you do it without turning the game into something other than what a user will find if he buys the rules? Maybe. Is it work the hassle, or would you be better off using another ruleset and just playing your game using that with this setting (or roll your own variation of it)? The latter.

After this, I'm going to get into how I'd remake it to suit.