Pyramid Review
Rifts: Canada
Published by Palladium Books
Written by Kevin Siembieda with Eric Thompson
192 pages, $20.95
It's becoming a bit of a cliché for non-American gamers to complain about how their countries are portrayed in RPG supplements. Fellow non-yanks nod their heads in sympathy, while American attitudes tend to vary from "who cares" to "shaddap, foreigner" to "well, we'll hire Dave Pulver for our next book".Of course, it's entirely likely that the US isn't portrayed that accurately in some RPG supplements. I'm sure New York doesn't resemble its counterpart in most RPGs (or comic books, for that matter), and that Washington and New Orleans and San Francisco tend to have minor differences from their counterparts in the World of Darkness.
I just doubt that any of them are quite as off-putting as the average worldbeat sourcebook. Aside from Kingdom of Champions, it's hard to think of any sourcebooks that covered a non-US country well (I could be wrong).
Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm just very sensitive about the way my country is being portrayed in an RPG. I mean, you have to admit that Canada is usually badly described in popular media (land of Eskimos and polar bears, mostly, with a few Mounties thrown in for good measure).
Rifts: Canada avoids the problem by being set 150 years in the future, after an apocalypse. Sneaky buggers.
I must begin the review proper by stating my attitudes towards Rifts. Like most hoity-toity RPG players, I find myself . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: December 31, 1999
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