Monte Cook Games Announced Numenera 2: Discovery & Destiny!

Monte Cook Games has just announced - live at Gen Con in their first panel of the convention - it's latest Kickstarter, set to launch next month. And it's a big one - Numenera 2, consisting of two core books called Discovery (which revises player character options) and Destiny (which has systems for base building). It will be fully back-compatible with the original (2013) Numenera. More info as I hear it!

Photo courtesy Jon Smejkal
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Facts coming through on social media:

• "Numenera 2 is meant to replace the existing Core Book, but not the whole Numenera line. Feels like Numenera 1.5, but the Destiny book is new" - TPT's Shane on Twitter.

[video=youtube;NTa7jA98ClU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTa7jA98ClU[/video]
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[Aldarc]

On a separate anecdotal note:

I've been running Cypher for about a two years now and I've noticed something.

When my players are completely new to the hobby, they pick up the system rather quickly.

When my players are long time rpgers, they tend to get tripped up because Cypher does several things that take some getting used to.

Would you mind elaborating on your experiences? I would love to compare notes here, especially for helping to prepare my own set of long time rpgers for the Cypher system.

 

[Von Ether]

double post

 

[Von Ether]

Would you mind elaborating on your experiences? I would love to compare notes here, especially for helping to prepare my own set of long time rpgers for the Cypher system.

The biggest one is that your attribute pools are also your hit points. It uses resource management to represent fatigue. You can also use these pool points to lower difficulties. Then you roll the dice with a need to match or exceed.

The math, though, is subtracting a 3 and then maybe a 2 and another 2 off a static pool. After a while, you can pretty much remember the numbers, never mind the numbers get smaller and smaller.

Which, in theory, is easier than adding a 2, and then another 2 and then a 4 to a dynamic dice roll. But it seems to trip up long-time gamers who are used to adding everything to the die roll as the numbers (and math) gets bigger.

Some aren't fans of those attribute points also paying for their special abilities. But after I explain that spell levels are already resource management and that healing potions are just extra hit dice in a bottle, some can see how Cypher just boils down three different systems into one system. As I mentioned before, players new to the hobby don't seem to care either way, it's the long time players that get themselves confused.

Using your XP for both advancement and Luck points has also been a stickler for some. In theory, players would split their XP between both options. But there seems to always be someone (usually the guy who's not very into the story -- but not necessarily a min-maxer), who will endure every fumble and GM Intrusion to horde his XP for advancement and then shoot ahead of everyone else.

In the book, they offer the option of splitting up XP options, but I just use milestones anyway.

And while no players I have run are bothered by player facing dice (in fact, I think they like it when every roll is visible to everyone), some GMs like to do their own rolls.

The only other thing is that Edge and Effort do two different things, but people seem to mix them up since they both start with "E." I usually have my players denote the Edge as a negative number to remind them that it is a discount. And the most common newb mistake, regardless of experience, is trying to subtract Edge from each individual thing you spent your pool on (Effort, special abilities, etc.). The easiest way to remember that you get your edge only once per dice roll.

What are your experiences with using the Cypher system?

 

[TheDiceMustRoll]

The biggest issue I've run into for Cypher for my own campaign is that the players tend to be RPG minmaxers. They play every RPG we make like a god damn DND campaign. So it's challenging

 

[Von Ether]

The biggest issue I've run into for Cypher for my own campaign is that the players tend to be RPG minmaxers. They play every RPG we make like a god damn DND campaign. So it's challenging

No guarantees, but two most common ways people min-max Cypher is to over-invest in Speed since it controls Initiative and Ranged Combat. The other is to forget that anything that takes an action to do is eligible for a die roll.

For the first, the default adventures and monsters are written to further exacerbate that perception that Speed is the attribute. But, aha, Cypher is so easy to run that changing up critters on the fly for an ecounter is nothing. It doesn't hurt when most Speed and Int damage ignores Armor (poison, disease, mental attacks, etc.). Well, it doesn't hurt the GM anyways. It turns PCs into hollowed out glass cannons.

The other aspect comes into play when players see a cool ability lets them do something that nearly impossible (like escape any sort of bonds or network with any computer regardless of distance between starships). That plus forgetting that actions can cause dice rolls make them think they can auto-do a thing with zero risk.

I still make them do rolls, but offer free Effort that exceeds the cost to use the ability. (i.e., if the ability costs 3 Int, then I give them two free effort for it.) The game doesn't give out free Edge, but I've been thinking on that one too.

 

[TheDiceMustRoll]

I'm 60% sure that the beastiary contains a suggestion that you can make monsters really scary if their low-level ass can drop an entire pool to zero with poison. That's generally what I do with this group - I give them puzzle monsters like Golems with off switches hidden on their bodies...or they can try and chop the golem to pieces.

Nobody's died yet somehow, but that was never actually the goal of CS.

 

[Aldarc]

What are your experiences with using the Cypher system?

Fairly similar to yours. It takes a few sessions for players to get accustomed to Cypher System core mechanic and math. I.e., Lower the difficulty with what advantages you have (e.g. training, effort, assets, abilities, etc.), multiply by 3 for the TN, and then roll higher than the TN with the d20.

I also agree that one of the biggest reservations that I see from the usual d20 roleplayers transitioning to the Cypher System is the argument against "using hit points to power their abilities." The Cypher System basically condenses attributes, hit points, and "spell points" into a single mechanic. But I found it useful to provide illustrative examples of the fiction that this mirrors: e.g. you expend mental energy and effort to power through a difficult exam, which leaves you feeling somewhat fatigued afterward. After this point, it still becomes difficult to get them to spend Effort or remember that because of their Edge, they can use ability X for "free" which would be more effective than just making a standard weapon attack.

The other biggest hurdle is with XP. Players are exceptionally stingy with spending them for anything other than character advancement, because for many players it's a power race. (Which also touches on the issue of experienced RPG players sometimes coming into the Cypher System as min-maxing wargamers and not as explorers.) The 2 XP and 3 XP options are basically non-existent for most players. I have tried ruling that only roughly half of XP accrued should be spent on character tier advancement.

I too may implement Fate-like milestones for gaining what would effectively be 4 XP for a portion of the Tier upgrade, but then have XP be available for spending on the usual short- and medium-term advantages. I may include additional milestones that would allow players to switch type abilities, descriptors, or foci.

Also, my current GM for 5E is incredibly hesitant about the Cypher System for the reason that I like it as a GM: the GM does not roll dice, and she likes rolling dice. But as a GM running the Cypher System, this felt fairly liberating. IME there has been a less adversarial relationship between the players and GM, because the players are the principle agents rolling dice. It gives a lot of freedom to focus on the narrative.

 

[Von Ether]

Nobody's died yet somehow, but that was never actually the goal of CS.

I agree, though I had one player quit because he didn't feel "threatened" enough by death. We were playing a literal demigod game (GotF) at the time. He's switched over to an ... interesting Shadowrun game and has bragged that he lost 5 PC to ridiculous circumstances and double crosses.

I have also said that the major difference, adventure design wise, between Numenera and OSR games like DCC or LotFP is whether you want your players to survive the weird that they discover.

In Numenera, they survive and get to see most of the adventure you design. In the other two games, you simply recycle the parts the players didn't see thanks to dying. Sort of a win/win either way.

 

[Von Ether]

I too may implement Fate-like milestones for gaining what would effectively be 4 XP for a portion of the Tier upgrade, but then have XP be available for spending on the usual short- and medium-term advantages. I may include additional milestones that would allow players to switch type abilities, descriptors, or foci.

I could be wrong, but milestones may have been around before Fate. It might have been a d20 mechanic from some 3rd party, but don't quote me.

 

[Aldarc]

I could be wrong, but milestones may have been around before Fate. It might have been a d20 mechanic from some 3rd party, but don't quote me.

I believe so as well, but I am more familiar with the milestone system in Fate.