Numenera: Adventures in the Ninth World

[CAFRedblade]

The thing regarding the setting is that almost anything from medieval style sword and sorcery to high tech monstrosity can and should be used. This allows a great amount of freedom to pull ideas in from multiple sources for use. If you can think of it, one of the previous eight ages could have created it and left if behind, or someone now could be developing it based on older tech.

Want demons and angels, 'spells' that rip through dimensions can exist. Want a space adventure, place a lost space-faring ship for the PC's to find, or teleport them to a docking station with the last vessel still up and running.

The idea is to keep things weird and wonderful for the players. You can make some generic references to modern day items for comparison, but then ensure that you go one step further to twist their expectations.

 

[pindercarl]

Thanks. I was just listened to an episode of the Ninth World podcast (http://transmissionsninthworld.blogspot.com/) and it's all making more sense now.

 

[Diamond Master]

The thing regarding the setting is that almost anything from medieval style sword and sorcery to high tech monstrosity can and should be used. This allows a great amount of freedom to pull ideas in from multiple sources for use. If you can think of it, one of the previous eight ages could have created it and left if behind, or someone now could be developing it based on older tech.

Want demons and angels, 'spells' that rip through dimensions can exist. Want a space adventure, place a lost space-faring ship for the PC's to find, or teleport them to a docking station with the last vessel still up and running.

The idea is to keep things weird and wonderful for the players. You can make some generic references to modern day items for comparison, but then ensure that you go one step further to twist their expectations.

This sounds fantastic.

What do you, or anyone who has experience with Numenera, think of its potential for online play? Is it streamlined enough for, say, a skype call?

 

[CAFRedblade]

This sounds fantastic.

What do you, or anyone who has experience with Numenera, think of its potential for online play? Is it streamlined enough for, say, a skype call?

I'd say yes, there are posts on Google Plus about people running Hangouts with Numenara. GM's don't need to roll dice, as the players are the ones to attempt to bypass thresholds to hit, dodge or perform other actions.

Either as long as you have faith in the players dice reporting skills, or run an online dice roller program you should be fine.

The GM's are there to guide the story and interleave the players actions. I'd say it's very friendly to online Skype or G+ Hangout gaming.

 

[Diamond Master]

Cool, thanks for sharing!

 

[Campbell]

Just bought the PDF a few days ago, and after a cursory reading I'm really digging it. As a fan of 4e, I'm highly pleased by the number of critical features it shares with 4e. As someone who enjoys playing and running a variety of games I'm extremely pleased by its different focus.

Highlights include:

• The Setting - I'm not really a midevail history buff, and am extremely biased towards my more modern outlook on things like gender roles, rule of law, etc. I am however deeply interested in Cthulhu, science, technology, and exploration as a character motivation.
• I love the way the character creation rules prompt you to develop connections to the setting, your fellow players' characters, and the initial action of the game.
• Not having to roll dice as a GM and feeling in control of your fate as a player.
• Rewards that are structured to reinforce the themes of the game.
• Consistant meaningful resource management across all types of character. While Numenera focuses on operational play it does so in a consistant way so that glaives and nanos are not playing radically different games.
• I love how ciphers and artifacts along with their limitations help to make managing resources game time agnostic, allowing me to run combat light games if I choose to.
• XP and the tension between more immediate and long term benefits.
• Solid adventure support right int the core rules.
• Creature and NPC design: Taking what 4e started one step further. I love the idea of using GM intrusion for limited use abilities. I also love that the math is so simple I can do it in my head in 3-4 seconds. It feels like the focus really is on creating good adventure material.
• The combination of descriptors, focuses and types. I really dig how you can combine this all together to make varied, interesting characters. I especially love how easy it is to create a sneaky assassin who happens to be a glaive or a more mystical jack, and it granting them abilities that will actually stay relevant throughout the course of play.
• Assumed general capability. I like how despite each type being specialized everyone is capable of contributing outside their area of expertise in a meaningful way thanks to the way effort and pools work.

There are definitely some things in the game I could do without, but overall it seems like a resilient focused game that I will probably run in the near future. I still really like 4e for what it does well, but was surprised to find that Numenera also really seemed to gel with me for some of same and different reasons. Honestly it almost feels like AD&D, Burning Empires, and 4e were involved in a love triangle and we're not sure who the baby's father is. We'll see what actual play shows me.

 

[tangleknot]

I just built my first sample hero for numenra, gear and all.
It took me 15 minutes. Worried I made a mistake I then spent over an hour trying to figure out why I finished this character so fast... lol
My only fear of this game is getting this setting right. I mean its sort of a post-apocalyptic future/ steam punk, Tech/Fantasy world with a smidgen of Cathulu. Its just so very different.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I've ran 2 sessions now. It's going well so far. I think all my players and I are still getting used to the rules. I keep picking up a die to roll to hit almost every round of combat still before realizing I don't do that in Numenera.

It is a little weird wrapping my head around the rules and I've been a little more transparent with my group about how I'm using the rules and the decisions I make to help give them a better idea of how the system works.

I still love the setting a lot. I find that it's extremely open, anything goes nature is a little hard to make adventures for. I'm used to games being rather structured in what kind of adventures you have. There are so many different options that it hurts my head to start coming up with my own adventures. I will likely run at least a couple more adventures from the book before I even consider writing something myself.

 

[Jhaelen]

Just bought the PDF a few days ago, and after a cursory reading I'm really digging it. As a fan of 4e, I'm highly pleased by the number of critical features it shares with 4e.
[...]
Creature and NPC design: Taking what 4e started one step further.

Ha! So it is like 4e after all!

I'm getting the impression that some posters just keep denying it because they didn't like 4e and are trying to reconcile their conflicting emotions since they _do_ like Numenera.

It's okay folks - feel free to admit that not everything in 4e was bad

 

[Campbell]

Ha! So it is like 4e after all!

I'm getting the impression that some posters just keep denying it because they didn't like 4e and are trying to reconcile their conflicting emotions since they _do_ like Numenera.

It's okay folks - feel free to admit that not everything in 4e was bad

There are subtle, but important distinctions that I feel make certain elements more palatable in their Numenera incarnation.

• Ciphers place "Everyone has dailies" squarely in the fiction in a way that is much easier to handle for the metagame averse.
• Numenera is not balanced on the level of the individual encounter, and encourages GMs to make rulings for special cases. Still the level of variance in any given arena of the game is fairly minor because Numenera PCs are more generalists than specialists. Extremely situational abilities are tied to a character's focus rather than type. It's more okay to deny the game's equivalent of sneak attack because it does not feature as prominently as it does for a 4e rogue for example.