Friday, February 28, 2014

Fistful of Creds


I've written at some length about the complex nature of Rifts Earth as a setting. Rifts has elements of the cyberpunk, fantasy and superhero genres, but doesn't fall neatly into any of those categories. It has a "points of light" setup and takes place after an apocalyptic event, but it's not a post-apocalyptic game in the traditional sense -- especially because the setting has a number of assumptions that don't fit into the standard post-apocalyptic framework.

No doubt, many people will shake their heads when I say that I take Rifts relatively seriously as a setting. This is a world where a mutant ninja flamingo in a suit of power armor can stab the Greek god Zeus with a soul-drinking magic sword. An extreme case, to be sure, but given that my example is completely possible in the game (though probably a bad idea), "making sense out of Rifts" sounds like an exercise in futility. When I say that I take it seriously, I mean that I like to think about how the setting works. Obviously, Rifts Earth contains a vast number of concepts that are impossible or outlandish, especially when combined without restraint, like in my earlier example. Still, I find it fun to try and figure out the hows and whys of all of these disparate elements within the fictional confines of that setting.

It's usually enjoyable for me, but there are some questions that I find maddening. I can suspend my disbelief enough to accept the basic premise of Rifts: a far-future world trying to rebuild itself in the wake of an apocalypse that tore the fabric of reality. I get frustrated, though, when I come across things that still don't make sense even after accepting that wild idea. Here are a few of those things:

Universal Credits. Like a lot of other far-future RPGs, Rifts has "credits" as a standard currency that is accepted pretty much anywhere you go. In most of those games, that's not a completely crazy idea, because there's some sort of organized infrastructure in place, whether that's an interstellar empire or a global banking system. In Rifts, there's no such thing. Sure, there are the Coalition States (which is really more like a network of city-states) and a few other small "nations", but most of the continent is still a wilderness crisscrossed by magical ley lines and infested with monsters, dinosaurs, dragons, and worse. Palladium Books' official line is that credits are a debit card-based banking system based in the Coalition States, with competing credit systems offered by the Manistique Imperium and the Black Market, but it's tough for me to believe that such a system would be possible in demon-infested North America. There can't be a continent-wide computer network with monsters stomping any place that isn't a city or fortified town to dust, and satellite-based communications are impossible (see Mutants in Orbit). Even if there was a way to set up a banking network, why would your Coalition or Manistique credits be of any worth to the interdimensional alien slave traders in Atlantis? Why would they be usable in another dimension (like Phase World), for that matter? I understand the need to suspend disbelief sometimes, but the explanation Palladium has belatedly advanced is pretty weak.

Intercontinental Trade. Triax, an arms manufacturer based in the New German Republic, is somehow able to transport its goods to North America. Keep in mind that the oceans and skies are (presumably) as full of monsters as the land, that the NGR is fighting a prolonged, full-scale war against an empire of gargoyles, and that there is now an entire continent full of evil alien slave traders in between Europe and North America. I have a hard enough time understanding how one could get items from one part of North America to another, let alone across the planet (though they did introduce armed hovertrains in the recent Northern Gun supplement). Rifts is a game where a lot of crazy things are possible, and there's probably a way that this kind of cross-Atlantic arms trading could conceivably happen, but if it's ever been explained, I haven't heard about it.

Precision Manufacturing. There are multiple corporations churning out ultra-high-technology items. Things like giant mecha, artificially intelligent robots, laser rifles, cybernetic implants, and portable computers would (presumably) require large-scale manufacturing facilities, not to mention precious limited resources like rare earth minerals. Are there assembly lines where these things are being put together? Where are they getting the raw materials, considering that intercontinental shipping is now incredibly difficult? Is it all scavenged and recycled from salvaged pre-apocalyptic wreckage? What if your Samson power armor needs repairs and you're hundreds of miles away from the lone city-state where it was manufactured (which is exceedingly likely)? Remember, this is a "points of light" setting. Maybe small-town Operators have something like a 3-D printer that can make a new servomotor for your busted mecha or bionic arm? There are interesting possibilities here, but there has been no attempt to explore them, to my knowledge.

Other Infrastructure Stuff. Most of my headaches stem from the basic lack of any plausible sort of infrastructure on Rifts Earth. For example, you can get classic "headjack" cybernetic implants that allow man-machine interface with computer networks, but I can't see how those networks would exist, except for maybe within a single well-developed city or settlement. In North America, there are "Black Market" criminal organizations that have spread their influence across the continent, but given that travel is incredibly perilous -- monsters and ghosts and evil wizards all over the place, remember? -- I can't for the life of me imagine how. (To be fair, there's a Black Market sourcebook I've never read that might answer these questions.)

There's more, much more, but I can't remember it all right now. Have I allowed any of this stuff to bother me to the point where I don't enjoy the game? Hell, no. But these are the little things that bug me when I'm otherwise having a nice time daydreaming about one of my favorite imaginary places. I'd like to figure out solutions, so if you have ideas, comment below.

18 comments:

  1. As a (your) Game Master, I like addressing that problem one town, city-state, nation at a time, in regards to cash-money.

    Places Have (with a capitol 'H') to have a flexible economy. Barter-sytems & precious metals seems to be the most likely accepted form of trade.

    If economies are big enough then banking institutions may provide the financial insurance to back or cover larger purchases. Undoubtedly, businesses that specialize in exchanging unaccepted cash for accepted forms of monies are present in robust economies and escorting these guys around the world to recoup profits off of these exchanges or chasing down crooked exchangers can provide exciting adventures.

    It's interesting that I get so involved in the economics of RIFTS when real world economics bore or baffle me.

    >sigh<

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    1. But...I used it correctly, right?

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    2. You tell me, Professor Science. You're my Game Master.

      (Yeah, I think you did.)

      I like the way you handle this stuff in your campaign. A mix of credit, barter, trade goods, and salvage is what makes sense. I guess I could even buy people using the CS credits as a guidepost for setting value for trade goods. It's the idea of the Coalition's "debit cards" (Siembieda's own words) being usable almost everywhere that rubs me the wrong way a little.

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    3. Yeah, that's pretty much how I settled on viewing things: view credits as a "game book" way of showing absolute value, but only allow credits/credsticks to be used inside of major cities, and even then limit use to "in-network" systems.

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    4. Viewing universal credits as a gauge for 'Absolute Value' is a great way to treat them.

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  2. DONUT BE A STOOPID. THEY AM ARE A USE TEH BITCOIN!!1

    :p
    -NUNYA

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    1. Haha, I was totally thinking about bitcoin, too! We can't even get a universal credit system set up in our own globally-connected world, and yet somehow the credit system survived the apocalypse and the 300-year dark age that followed?

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeuCuM9CkBc#t=26

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    2. DAVID LARKIN JUST STAHP! WHY ARE YEW TRYING TO MAKE A SENSE WITH IT, IT ARE JUST A GAME AND WILL NEVER MAKE A SCENTS!!1 TAHT TIME IS BETTRE SPENT RITING A SCRENIO FOR A PLAIR TO RUN IN AND THEN ACTUALLY HAVING THEM RUN IN IT!!1 ORE EVEN PAINTING A MINI FOR TAHT KEWL SCENRIO!!1

      TAHT KIND OF NAVALGAUZING THOT IS WHY IT AM ARE TOOK JRR TOKEN 50 YEARS TO WRITE A BOOK!!1 IT DON'T NEED TO BE TAHT GOOD UNLESS YEW ARE TRYING TO SALE IT!!!1

      TAHT GYGZACK LEVLE TIP IS AM ARE FREE -- FOR MANY MOAR SEND $1 EACH BY PAYPAL TO NUNYA.BIDNESS@YOUASUCKYDM.COM

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  3. At any rate, you'd best be careful with this sort of thing. This is precisely the type of rabbit-hole thinking that I fell down into back in 2008 when I put my RAW Rifts campaign on hold to "make a few tweaks and convert things to BRP," and here we are six years later and I'm basically at the point of deracinating the setting so much that it's not technically even Rifts anymore.

    "...there's probably a way that this kind of cross-Atlantic arms trading could conceivably happen, but if it's ever been explained, I haven't heard about it."

    Going purely off of memory here, but I believe the original Triax and the NGR book had, among its many pages of gear porn, a sub-orbital jet plane that was supposedly the NGR's main method of inter-continental shipping. Because, you know, when you're fighting a genocidal war on three fronts, of course you're going to be spending untold precious resources on researching, designing, building, and flying a sub-orbital cargo plane...

    This is why I merged the Naruni with Triax products. I like the Triax stuff much better than the Naruni stuff, but the idea of interdimensional merchants who avoid traveling through blasted hellscapes simply by dint of folding space-time to get from point A to point B makes a lot more sense than sub-orbital German weapon traders.

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    1. I already have my own separate setting concept that I created specifically for the "rabbit-hole" ideas. It was initially intended to be a kinda-sorta clone of Rifts, but has morphed into something with only a vague similarity to it. I'm working on it, albeit extreeeeemely slowly.

      The cargo plane idea is pretty dumb, but at least it's straightforward. I still like my idea of North American manufacturers making Triax gear from licensed or purloined design specs better.

      Having Triax as Naruni marketing is a neat idea, but to be honest, I think there's room in Rifts for both interdimensional merchants and sub-orbital German weapon traders. I resist the urge to morph similar things together unless there's a compelling reason to do it. Still, it makes just as much (or more) sense to go the way you have, though like you say, it can lead down a rabbit-hole.

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    2. Once again, we are strangely in sync. I just posted about how I'm turning my Rifts mod into a kinda-sorta, vaguely similar clone instead. At any rate, it's also my post with a lot of inspirational "Rifty" miniatures.

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    3. Yea from past experiences of entering Rifty land, this time I'm skipping conversion and going straight to clone.

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  4. That last paragraph has some good stuff in there. Are you saying that you added Triax mecha to the Naruni inventory? Or that the Naruni approached Triax as distributors?

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    1. Basically, I merged the two concepts. "Triax" becomes the name brand of the merch that Naruni peddles. The Naruni concept remains the same, but the gear is Triax. (I was able to do that because I eliminated the whole "NGR" concept from my game.) Way back in Sourcebook One, where we first saw Triax products, they were presented with this sense of exotic mystery, and I wanted to get back to that.

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    2. Wasn't your NGR (or NDR) going to be all steampunkish at one point? That was pretty cool, even though I tend to dislike steampunk stuff.

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  5. As for the transportation of goods, perhaps vacuum tube freight lines through the earth's crust or other highly secret and magical gateways. It could be solved if a secretive "space guild" type organization become responsible for getting things around.

    For currency, maybe a prevailing attitude of accepting anybody's legal tender in commerce becomes some type of inter-dimensional truism. When there is a real possibility of getting stabbed in the face by a mutant flamingo with a soul drinking sword on a daily basis, I think it's a moot point weather I am taking CS credits or Atlantean money-snails for payment.

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    ReplyDelete