Rules of a Rift World By definition, a rift in space-time is fundamentally a fiction-bull.
But fantasy RPGs welcome such fiction because, precisely, they are not real.
Therefore the game designer may forge the rules at leisure.
Now imagine a crack in a wall or a crevice in a rock; that is a sort of rift.
Nevertheless, a rift-world is supposedly a world between worlds, in the sense of being lost, unfound or simply a trap. This reminds me for some unfathomable reason of the Bermuda Triangle and the lost ships that are said to be all trapped in a rift world.
They never came back to tell.
Now let us imagine the arrival of all those ships in a sort of shipwreck ashore of somewhere. Naturally the survivors would accumulate and try to find a way to accommodate with the new environment. The impact of such an environment and the status of the survivors dictate the nature of those inhabitants of that rift.
In other words, the game designer has the responsibility of finding a special characteristic of what may be called the natives of the rift.
Any other species different from those natives are aliens and are met with hostility.
In that world any reputation score must be among those natives and for that to happen the hero must have a non preceded chance to defend the natives in a conflict event that distinguishes the hero as a friendly alien rather than a hostile alien.
Being a friend of the natives is essential to allow a system of reputation to grow, because the more the hero kills other aliens who are hostile to the natives the more such a reputation makes sense among those natives who become aware of the heroic quests of the hero.
This is good as a plot to allow the natives to pay back at a critical moment of need.
When the hero is cornered by desperate foes who find that they must form an alliance to get rid of him /her and they almost succeed, it would be a great surprise and prize to find the natives popping from nowhere to aid the hero at such a critical moment.
Another fantastic irony is that the natives of the rift might like the hero so much that they do not wish him/ her to escape from the rift, and even if they help the hero occasionally against foes they are secretly the ones who are opposing the hero’s escape as a matter of need.
Now THAT may be implemented in <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/riftrunner.gif" alt="" /> and it is not too late.
<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mage.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/devil.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mage.gif" alt="" />
