Seeking Numenera/The Strange campaign ideas

Jürgen Hubert

First Post

• Feb 12, 2015

• #21

The Mirrorball Man said:

Or both? The Ninth World is a recursion, and the Strange is a simulation within it. Worlds inside worlds, endlessly.

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How do you want to make that gameable?

Note that I am not advocating that the players must learn the "ultimate truth" of the universe they are inhabiting. However, if the GM makes up their mind in advance, then they can at least come up with consistent consequences of their metaphysics, which aids verisimilitude.

 

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The Mirrorball Man

Aventurier

• Feb 13, 2015

• #22

Jürgen Hubert said:

How do you want to make that gameable?.

Click to expand...

It's relatively easy, isn't it?

You start the campaign with The Strange. PCs are agents of the Estate. During one of their missions, they stumble upon a huge recursion which happens to be Numenera's Ninth World. They live there for a while and during one of their adventures, they find a virtual reality device which happens to be the entire world of The Strange. Puzzled by their discovery, they explore this simulation and find out that the Ninth World recursion is there, identical to the one they're familiar with, and that the virtual reality device is right where they left it. They end up realizing that the Ninth World is inside the Strange, and that the Strange is inside the Ninth World, in an endless loop.

Interesting questions: where did it start? Who built the loop? To what purpose? Is there a "real" world outside the loop?

 

Dannyalcatraz

Schmoderator

Staff member

Supporter

• Feb 15, 2015

• #23

Does it need to have a purpose? Couldn't it have arisen accidentally?

 

The Mirrorball Man

Aventurier

• Feb 16, 2015

• #24

Dannyalcatraz said:

Does it need to have a purpose? Couldn't it have arisen accidentally?

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Sure, I guess. I was just throwing a couple of ideas at the wall. But dramatically speaking, accidents are usually less interesting than deliberate plans.

 

Dannyalcatraz

Schmoderator

Staff member

Supporter

• Feb 16, 2015

• #25

Perhaps the answer is contained within the Voynich Manuscript...

 

Dannyalcatraz

Schmoderator

Staff member

Supporter

• Feb 24, 2015

• #26

I think that if I ever get to run this campaign, I will start it off in The Strange, with the PCs & players getting their feet wet in the usual way. After advancing a little bit, the PCs will get involved in something that results in them getting a major photo-op involving something like a superhero or fantasy movie.

The images taken that day will somehow survive into the future setting of Numenara, and will be mistaken for real events. And the operators of the malfunctioning time machine, thinking these are ultra-powerful warriors of the past, will pluck them out of the seas of time...