Rifter 3

I know that some of the excitement has worn off from this review and mainly that is my fault for not writing more frequently so I apologize. I have been dreading writing this review because I fear that I will not give Chi the awesome review it deserves. But I am going to put that aside and going to make it happen. 

The magazine begins with a great review of game mastering by Apollo Okamura who points out the various points of a story and how we can use it in a RPG setting. So many parts of a great story are discussed and he really dissects how to make sure that the game turns out great.

After Apollo’s article comes one from Randi Cartier. In this article they created a barrage of little things that could really add to your campaign or adventure; monsters, jewelry, weapons and herbs; fantastic stuff.

Now we are going to discuss the thing that got my goose; martial arts and chi. The magazine went through a series of articles written by Wayne Smith, William Muench, Lee Casebolt and Andrew Smith. Each guy had so much information on great forms of kung fu and karate across the world.  Wayne started with an article about the integration of martial arts in every setting. He showed us that it could be used in Rifts and other games. William took it to Nightbane so that we could not just be a bunch of supernatural creatures but there could be some human heroes who could hold their own without a gun. What was missing was the supernatural nature of martial arts but any good GM could rectify it with some notes from Heroes Unlimited. Again, who could not enjoy some change with some serious Bishoudo or Chi-Kung; fun stuff; what I liked about his article was that there was a use for particular weapons with your martial art and it sent me back to a time when I was playing Teenage Mutants Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness (also known as TMNT) and thought hey, I could really go for some serious martial arts. Now this article came out after Mystic China with all the expectations that I wanted for TMNT (now replaced with After the Bomb). 

Now while the first half was about martial arts (mainly) the second half (or at least a large chunk) was the article by Wayne Breaux Jr., all about the Xiticix, a creature that I could not pronounce then nor now. I read what Wayne wrote and though I didn’t do a lot of Rifts at the time I really wanted to and this article just increased the desire. Instead of just being a picture or brief description this article gave a full description that I thought could not be filled more. I was wrong when Xiticix would be fleshed out in a world book (23). This introduction article covered queens, workers, warriors, nannies etc.

Following that article was the Spatial Mage by Steve Trustrum (I didn’t realize it but this guy was a real regular in the early years). This character was like a super ley line walker (not that the ley line walker needed help). That being said there was a bunch of cool new series of spells. Perhaps there was some influence by Rifts: England (see temporal wizard on page 66 - 71). 

After that great article was the article on the Amoeboids by Rodney Stott (again another regular) who created a world that was composed of gelatinous creatures with their own government, technology and maps. Scott had O.C.C.s , vehicles and whole cities in a brief description. A fun world that could make for a great visit; perhaps this was inspiration to Splicers RPG that would come out 15 years later. Who knows?

Siege on Tolkien and Hammer of the Forge were the capstone for this great magazine. Who knew that there would be some much pack in such a small package? The next post will be sooner. Again I apologize.