Monte Cook's new RPG: Numenera [UPDATED]

[Morrus]

But how long does each of these civilizations last? A few million years strikes me as pretty ridiculous.

A few million years between them. They don't have to last a few million years each.

 

[gideonpepys]

Empire of the Petal Throne/ Tekumel

See: Tékumel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Tékumel has spawned four professionally-published roleplaying games over the course of the years:
Empire of the Petal Throne, published in 1975 as a boxed set by TSR, Inc. and reprinted later as a single book by Different Worlds Publications in 1987.[7]
Swords & Glory, published in 1983/4 in two volumes by Gamescience.[8]
Gardasiyal: Adventures in Tekumel, published in 1994 by Theater of the Mind Enterprises.[9]
Tekumel: Empire of the Petal Throne, published in 2005 by Guardians of Order.[10]"

And also Skyrealms of Jorune. One of the most imaginative RPGs ever. (But also incredibly difficult to play.)

 

[Kobold Avenger]

With 1 billion years we could be talking about 8 different civilizations where humanity moved on and settled other planets or even galaxies. I'm pretty sure one of those former civilizations is a galactic federation of some sort. Another former civilization could have "ascended" or gone to other dimensions. And it's possible that something like rats could have evolved and become a great civilization themselves.

 

[Mallus]

While I'm not in the market for a new system explicitly tied to a setting, Numenera sounds pretty cool.

As for the 'billion years' thing... Gene Wolfe had the sun fat and red in his "Book of the New Sun" novels. They are, in short, masterpieces. If that was okay with Gene, it's okay with me.

Scientific accuracy only matters in fiction that explicitly makes it matter. Highly romanticized science fantasy full of science-wizards does not, as far I can tell, make any strong claims about accuracy. It does stake out a claim to the Dying Earth subgenre and can be judged accordingly.

 

[Underman]

Never mind

 

[fled]

Hey , I would love to see a youtube video on an actual session or such...

Check out his kickstarter page posted today, has a cool informative vid

Numenera: A new roleplaying game from Monte Cook by Monte Cook — Kickstarter

He also blogged about the "Billion" today

http://www.montecookgames.com/a-billion-years/

 

[Janx]

Looks interesting, even though I'm usually not a fan of science-fiction.

I nevertheless predict that this game will be one of the most mispronounced games in history (numerena / numerana / nuremena / etc.)

Good luck to Monte!

AR

I just clued into Monte's subtle hint in the title for pronunciation.

New Men Era.

As in the Era of the New Men.

 

[Underman]

I don't want to reveal too much, but perhaps your definition of "great civilization" differs from what Monte is using in the context of this setting. If your civilization didn't get to transhumanism and terraforming, perhaps it didn't count?

Hi! Thanks for being here.

Is there an overall theme of humanity evolving, transforming and self-destructing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and potentially for the 9th time?

 

[seankreynolds]

This is Monte's thing and I'm sure he knows what he'd like to talk about and when. I don't know if what you're talking about is an "overall theme," but (like the Dying Earth books) there's definitely an element of "great civilizations have risen and fallen in the past, leaving behind sites and artifacts."

I probably should stop talking now, I don't want to post spoilers for anything Monte plans to talk about later.

 

[TwoSix]

Looks interesting, even though I'm usually not a fan of science-fiction.

I nevertheless predict that this game will be one of the most mispronounced games in history (numerena / numerana / nuremena / etc.)

Good luck to Monte!

AR

It's actually pronounced more like this:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60og9gwKh1o"]Numa Numa[/ame]