shadrak wrote:And Eliakon (and I think KC) demand that answers to questions be canonical or they are invalid...
Greetings and Salutations. While I won't speak for them, from what I've seen you're confusing: "Believe only canon answers are valid in a discussion of the canon rules" with what you said. In general, I'm of the mindset that when providing house rules, they should be noted to avoid confusion (unless the OP is specifically asking for house rules). This helps avoid confusion. Even if you know your rules aren't official, someone reading them might think you're stating Rules As Written (RAW). This creates conflict, and much of what we're running into now.
So when someone asks a rules question, it often helps to start with a common ground, which is the RAW or clarify intent (such as listing that it's a house rule). Most of us have no issues with house rules. In fact, I'd say most of us agree that the game will not function smoothly without house rules.
shadrak wrote:With a discrepancy with regard to what is and what is not canon.
Actually, I'll agree with this. You'll see it used often on these boards, but many use it differently from others often causing confusion. For example ...
Killer Cyborg provided this definition earlier:
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/canonHe referenced the first definition (1A). I've seen others use definition 2: "A collection or list of sacred books accepted as genuine" with the argument that it must be in a printed book to be canon (so an official answer online is null and void to that person).
Others tend to use it as another word for Official (such as):
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=CanonI'm sure there are more versions. There's various definitions as well as common usage that's not the actual definition but still commonly used. As a result, I actually try to avoid using the word at this point, because too many people use it to mean different things.
shadrak wrote:One demand is that source material, in order to be canon, must come from K.S. (all glory and honor due unto him most high) or from someone he has sanctioned to provide guidance.
First, being snarky to everyone doesn't encourage others to want to help.
Second, in general, main rules books, world books, sourcebooks, dimensions books, and the like tend to be considered official/canon (whether or not Kevin's name is on the front cover or not). Rifters are a bit of an odd ball. The articles within them are fan content. Fan fiction, in general, is not considered official or canon almost anywhere you go. This line gets blurred a bit more since this fan fiction is published in a Palladium product. To complicate matters more, some of the articles are written by staff and/or freelancers. However, since you mentioned having Rifter #11, I'll quote a section of that one for you (and you'll find the same quote, or very similar, in every Rifter that I can recall).
Page 5 wrote:"Optional and Unofficial Rules & Source Material"
This section then goes on to state how it is "not 'official' to the main games or world settings."
This tells us the default status of the Rifter, until told otherwise. Rifter #50 is a great example of a contrary, where most of the articles are "Official." This is generally listed in the Table of Contents, as well as the article itself.
The Q&A articles are a bit of a confusion though, and some people will go one way or the other on the matter. Most were written by Rodney Stott and Shawn Merrow. I believe at the time, they were interns. While I may respect them, I'm not sure how much weight I'd give to the opinion of an intern compared to actual staff members. If I had a legal question and walked into a law office, I wouldn't feel nearly as confident getting my legal advice from an intern as I would to an actual lawyer.
Later Q&A articles start mentioning they also had some input from Kevin, and/or his name showing up in the credits for the article. However, we're not given any clear indication of how much input he had on those or to which questions. However, instead of focusing on that aspect, I'll continue to focus on Rifter #11 for now.
Rifter #11, page 48 wrote:"We at Palladium Books receive a lot of questions about various books over the internet, and as a result we maintain a massive list of answers on our website, but if you do not have access to the net, getting answer can be a bit of a problem. That is why we have decided to do this column. We cannot present all our archives at one time, but we can bring you a selection of answers.
[snip]
... and will cover not only single games, but draw answers from all of Palladium's games.
So they start off identifying as Palladium Books (looking good for official), but then goes to tell us that this is from their archives on the internet (which has been addressed above as unofficial). Beyond that, we are told that it "draws answers from all of Palladium's games." This complicates the matter even more, because despite Palladium's Megaversal system, rules tend to change between the settings. Interestingly enough, whether or not Supernatural P.S. damage is added to Weapon damage is one of those that changes. For example, in Nightbane and HU2 (or, at the very least, the major super power Supernatural Strength from HU2) combines punch damage and weapon damage. PF2 and RUE are one or the other (whichever is greater).
Furthermore, in Best of the Rifter (which covers Rifters #1 through #32), there is a Rifter Index in the back of the book. One of the ways they index articles is by listing "Official" articles. The Rifter Q&A articles (such as the one from Rifter #11) are not on that list.
Hopefully some of that will help. Farewell and safe journeys for now.
