My Life As A Gamer: Make This Happen And Win The Universe

I felt a great disturbance in the Force.

I should ask Palladium for a Rifts license

— Alexander Macris (@archon) October 18, 2023

To which I can only say that this would be the Peanut Butter to Palladium's Chocolate, meaning that (like the last time this happened) we'd get a licensed derivative that's better than its licensor.

Why? Because Macris would be in a position to fill Death Star-sized holes in the setting, as I said on Twitter.

I want the chart/map that tells me how much farmland Chi-Town (etc.) needs to feed its population, where the raw materials are for all that industrial output, and how it _somehow_ has sufficient technical acumen to keep it all running.

Those are legit war targets.

Prosecuting objectives using as-written information in a RIFTS campaign is bothersome and unduly difficult because neither the designer nor the publisher ever considered economics or logistics in making up their setting. Rule Of Cool only goes so far, and much like Face Culture it shatters like glass when pressed against the weight of principals' actions in a campaign.

The player commanding Tolkeen, in dealing with the Coalition States, should prioritize crippling Coalition logistics- starting with agriculture, then raw materials for industrial output, then centers of technical information dissemination.

(Note: This last part matters. Coalition subjects, per RAW, are totally illiterate. Not functionally illiterate. TOTAL. Furthermore, they are propagandized into seeing ANY written word as evidence of magic to get fearful of or hostile to- not to engage with. There is a solution, but it requires mandating all Coalition personnel (save Psi-Battalion and Rifts Control Group/Vanguard) to have datajacks installed; they get info DLed into their brainmeats and then train to get muscle memory and rote habits- this also replaces dogtags. Uncle Kevin forgets his own setting details.)

Chi-Town can't wage war when it can't feed, cloth, house, equip, or heal/replace what it devotes to a military campaign and waging a SpecOps/Commando campaign in the rear is a lot easier than fighting a stand-up conventional campaign (which plays to Coalition strengths). This is Sun Tzu 101, and that book is in the library for Chi-Town's elite classes that are allowed to be literate. You'd expect its military to be familiar with it.

That's just the most obvious. Out in the Three Galaxies, you have the warring empires out there smashing fleets and armies together in all the right ways but likewise lack that economic attention that ACKS is famous for. Where are the shipyards? The academies? The industrial supply chains, from raw material to final product? Where are the shipping lanes and trade networks?

If I'm playing Big Lizard Empire then I want to know where Stupid Hoomie Empire's stuff that makes them fight are, especially if I'm big on being a nasty slaving empire or I have a horrific cosmic being that I need to feed sacrifices to on a regular basis and thus I am incentivized to conquer instead of destroy- to take intact and not annihilate.

If I'm playing Evil Comic Horror then I need to know what I need to do to expand my power and influence across the dimensions, and why I need to do that; this too is a form of economics and logistics, believe it or not. If my flavor of Evil Cosmic Horror (Psizombie) comes into conflict with a different one (Splugorth), then I want to know what the points of contention are and why so I can plan for it.

This is what ACKS can do for RIFTS, so I am for this. Make it happen, Macris! Win the universe!