DTRPG Says 'Don't criticize us or we'll ban you'

aramis erak · Jul 10, 2022

Jahydin said:
I like that it does that though. Do you?

not really. I like my parody silly in tone and engaging in wordplay...
Spaceballs. Galaxy Quest. Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Monte Python and the Holy Grail (Movie and stage). Monte Python's Life of Brian. Star Trek Discovery¹.

Jahydin said:
Every new book I buy that has to specify what's "bad" and/or instructs me the "moral" way to play the game puts me off.

Rifts hits the same mindset space for me as TORG, and I prefer TORG's mechanics to Rifts'. I also prefer TORG's setup for the genre mix-n-match.

dragoner said:
Midwesterner humor can be sort of dry (and weird), Siembieda is from Detroit, Michigan; so like Chicago, is even more of somewhere to poke fun at. Chi-town is even regular slang for the place, it is all sort of a gonzo parody, played straight, if that makes sense, sort of like the Yoopers being the last bastion of civilization.

Most of my dad's family are in greater Detroit Metro... which is 100+ distinct communities in search of a common identity....
Many of my wife's family, as well. Making blanket statements about Detroit having a uniform ANYTHING is problematic.

I agree, however, that Rifts is intended as parody. But it's not labeled as such, and given its serious tone, that it's parody is a thing the Siembieda would have been better mentioning in the disclaimer.

t's very easy to look at the Rifts Corebook and miss that it's parody. Several of my former students have....

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1: Yes, I'm accusing ST Discovery of being a Star Trek Parody, not real Trek. Even if I do enjoy it. Orville and Strange New Worlds are both better Trek, IMO.

dragoner · Jul 10, 2022

Justice and Rule said:
As someone from Michigan, can you explain this a bit? I'm not as familiar with Rifts, so I'm confused by what this actually references.

In game setting. Chicago is the big and horrible empire, and the upper peninsula is the last bastion of civilization.

Mannahnin · Jul 12, 2022

aramis erak said:
I agree, however, that Rifts is intended as parody. But it's not labeled as such, and given its serious tone, that it's parody is a thing the Siembieda would have been better mentioning in the disclaimer.

t's very easy to look at the Rifts Corebook and miss that it's parody. Several of my former students have....

I definitely think the parodic element is left pretty dry, but the core book certainly presents the Coalition primarily as villains, rather than the most likely faction players will be from. Even though multiple Coalition character classes are offered as options.

aramis erak · Jul 12, 2022

Mannahnin said:
I definitely think the parodic element is left pretty dry, but the core book certainly presents the Coalition primarily as villains, rather than the most likely faction players will be from. Even though multiple Coalition character classes are offered as options.

It provides nowhere else to be from in the core. The coalition OCCs are pretty much the Coalition military; the rest in the core are pretty much everyone else in the CS.

Mannahnin · Jul 12, 2022

aramis erak said:
It provides nowhere else to be from in the core. The coalition OCCs are pretty much the Coalition military; the rest in the core are pretty much everyone else in the CS.

Not Tolkeen, Lazlo, the Federation of Magic or Lone Star? The CS is definitely offered as an option (and given the most detail, as I recall) but if you set your game there, they're still expected to be bad guys, like the Empire in Star Wars. But there are also other places they don't control where you can set your game.

Justice and Rule · Jul 13, 2022

dragoner said:
In game setting. Chicago is the big and horrible empire, and the upper peninsula is the last bastion of civilization.

That's fine and I caught that. Just... what's parodic about it? Like, I'm from the area and don't see it actually mocking or making fun of something. That just seems to be reference, which is fine.

I suppose what I'm saying is that I don't really see a joke: a fascist empire from Chicago doesn't really strike anything to me other than "Hey, I've been there before", but it's not really making a point or a joke in it unless there's something deeper in the text that people haven't mentioned yet. Rifts to me has never really come off as a parody as much as a kitchen-sink setting with a bit of 80's edginess to it.

dragoner · Jul 14, 2022

Justice and Rule said:
That's fine and I caught that. Just... what's parodic about it? Like, I'm from the area and don't see it actually mocking or making fun of something. That just seems to be reference, which is fine.

I suppose what I'm saying is that I don't really see a joke: a fascist empire from Chicago doesn't really strike anything to me other than "Hey, I've been there before", but it's not really making a point or a joke in it unless there's something deeper in the text that people haven't mentioned yet. Rifts to me has never really come off as a parody as much as a kitchen-sink setting with a bit of 80's edginess to it.

No exaggeration, nothing comedic?

Cordwainer Fish · Jul 14, 2022

dragoner said:
No exaggeration, nothing comedic?

It might be comedic if the emperor was a lich-ified Richard J. Daley. Might.

Justice and Rule · Jul 14, 2022

dragoner said:
No exaggeration, nothing comedic?

What's the exaggeration of? Like, just having the UP be a staging post for civilization isn't necessarily a joke, nor having an ultra-fascist Chicago. LHonestly, there's nothing really comedic about those things in those places, and I say this as a guy from the area where KS is from.