Sunday, October 22, 2023

The Culture: See The Impact Of Player Agency In Action!

There is a big benefit to having a game like RIFTS (and others akin to it such as Gamma World and TORG) and it comes down to "Under what conditions does (X) become a non-viable option?"

The session JD ran the other night, despite the identities of those participating therein, showed that a (Early) Modern military can sufficiently adapt to deal with a supernatural threat provided that said threat is not tied to an Infinite Resource Generator.

Sure, some of the parties doing the commando raid were actually pursuing other objectives while assisting on the primary one, but we saw that an Opposition Force that is not savvy technologically (or cannot analogize by conceiving of what was inserted in sorcerous terms), is going to prove vulnerable to said military using Weapons Of Mass Destruction upon them.

The reverse is also true. A sorcerously supreme force dealing with one neither of sufficient savvy nor possessed of analogous capacities will be vulnerable to something equally deleterious- if not a thermonuclear explosion, then a ritual working or summoning whose effect is right on that technical target.

Sure, Chi-Town has sufficient defenses, but not all such places in RIFTS does and all it takes is one sorcerer to make it happen.

And yes, there's going to be a lot of back-and-forth in a proper campaign because this sort of skullduggery will become routine for those seeking to conquer or destroy their enemies- something that can go on away from the table, during downtime, and even have people playing characters dedicated to such.

And all this is far more action, and far decisive action, than Cargo Cult play ever achieves in ten times the time at the table- this is what they wait for publishers to produce product for to handle. This campaign too is going places.

(In case you missed it: Palladium XMas Grab Bags are back. You can gift them; I will accept one- ask privately for a list.)

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