[Nobilis] Has Anyone Played This Game?

[Tar Markvar]

When I first looked at Nobilis, I went, "Oh great, another pretentious game where the players are uberpowers, and where Random word are Capitalized and Turned into Game Terms." The GM is called the Hollyhock God, the players are Powers, and each Power has an effective anti-magic shield called an Auctoritas. I quickly decided that th1s g4m3 b3 suxx0r. In my game group, the phrase, "I'm being effected by your Auctoritas" came to mean, "you're being pretentious and insincere."

But reading more on it, the idea sounds really, really cool. The idea is that you've been given a shard of a divine soul and placed in charge of a portion of reality. Thanks to this, you're far more powerful than any mortal on the planet, and you and your "Familia" are given a little pocket realm in which you have nearly ultimate power. You serve the being that gave you the power, and you try to protect reality (especially your little slice of it) from a group of beings that seek only to destroy everything (including Destruction). The Mage/Ars Magica fan in me perked up.

Now I can't stop thinking about it. I'm going to get the book at my next convenience.

Has anyone played this game? I've never done diceless before (Nobilis is diceless, but not conflict/rule free), and I've never played in a game where the PCs started out quite that powerful. Does anyone have anecdotes/tales/samples of play to share?

 

[Swack-Iron]

The Mage/Ars Magica fan in me perked up.

Good for you! Your Amber-o-meter probably should have gone off, too.

I haven't played it, but there are a half-dozen outstanding reviews over at rpg.net that are very in depth, and universally praise the brand-new second edition of this game. I've looked through the book, and it seems pretty amazing.

 

[Tar Markvar]

I've never played Amber, mostly because of the anti-diceless swell against it, so I have no Amber-ometer to trigger.

I've read the reviews on RPG.net, and they're all great, but RPG.net reviews tend to be descriptions of the book more than descriptions of how the game would run. I've read the published Example of Play PDF, too.

I guess I'm just dying to get my hands on the book, and looking for Nobilis scraps.

 

[bwgwl]

i have the first edition rulebook, but have never had a chance to use it.

you're right, it's a clever and very interesting setting, but i just haven't found the opportunity to do anything with it yet.

it reminds me a lot of In Nomine (the SJG version) though, which i have played, so i think it would be a lot of fun.

one way to challenge really powerful characters (that doesn't always require really powerful opponents) is to throw them at problems that their powers can't solve.

in In Nomine, you play an angel in the modern-day world. even a beginning angel is significantly more powerful than almost any mortal.

but confront that angel with a child bawling his eyes out because his puppy just died and see what all those high stats, combat abilities, and magical talents really add up to.

 

[Tar Markvar]

I liked In Nomine in theory, but the horrid dice-system (in my opinion) and the light-hearted tone sorta did it in for my group. My players always seemed to turn it into "In Toon-ine", somehow.

Nobilis characters seem MUCH more powerful than In Nomine characters, and they're MUCH more abstract. I look forward to reading more.

 

[bwgwl]

I liked In Nomine in theory, but the horrid dice-system (in my opinion)...

i agree. the only thing i don't like about In Nomine is the mechanics. i've often thought a d20 conversion wouldn't be that hard: choirs and bands are races, the Word you serve is your class, attunements are feats, songs are spells, etc.

...and the light-hearted tone sorta did it in for my group. My players always seemed to turn it into "In Toon-ine", somehow.

hmm, i never ran into this problem. i've always tended to downplay the more humorous aspects of it (and the SJG version is a lot darker and more serious in tone than the original French game, so it isn't that hard to just take it that one step further. get rid of Kobal and you're halfway there. ).

 

[Vrylakos]

Nobilis

Hello!

I've run and played Nobilis. I playtested the recently released edition, and have read over it in its final form.

Nobilis is indeed, diceless, but it's not rules-less, which some people accuse Amber of. I happen to like Amber, but it is very different from a lot of rpgs, which some people don't like the "GM Fiat" method of resolving things.

If you like Mage and Ars Magica, you should really give Nobilis a look. It's got the Big Ideas and Big Cosmology of Mage, with the ideological angle and communal player group of Ars Magica. Thew world is an animistic one, where everything IS a spirit that can be talked to. Normal humans just don't see this. They're stuck it the prosaic reality' point of view. The Nobilis see both the prosaic and the mythic worlds, and so can talk to the spirits of the world around them.

It seems an awfully big game to tackle, but I've had fun with it and once you get over your fear and just start playing, it runs well, especially if you sit down with your players to talk over what their characters and Estates (bit of reality they govern) can and cannot do as they see it.

Conflicts are generally either Nobles throwing miracles around ("The Duchess of Air makes the air solid around your train.") which taxes your reserves of power and can also drive common folk insane. In polite circles, you might engage in a contest of 'ghost miracles', where you use the ghosts of your estate to 'duel'.

Say, the Duchess of Air and the Marquis of Seduction face off. The Power of Air might make the ghost of a windstorm try and knock you off your feet. The Power of Seduction might counter by seducing the earth around him into rising up, incidentally throwing the Duchess of Air into the... well.. air while defending the Marquis from the windstorm, and so on until a duelist cannot figure out a way to counter or escape their opposite's illusionary attacks.

You can also use the rules for other things. I've been tossing around the Nobilis rules as a way to govern the interactions of the kageshin ("god-shadows") in my D&D setting for a game that involves players as divine characters in the outset.

I've also been thinking that DC Comics had a Nobilis or two in their ranks in the 80's... Swamp Thing mde the jump from 'superhero monster' character to Noble in Alan Moore's run... He took that step from "Hm, I'm a plant." to "Hrmm.... I am PLANTS... all of em!"

Anyway... I'm rambling. A good game, very different.

Here's a play-review on rpg.net.

http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_6522.html

Here's the Hogshead Nobilis page, with some free downloads and samples from the book, to help you decide if the game is for you.

http://www.hogshead.demon.co.uk/Nobilis_index.htm

Check out the 'So You've Been EnNobled' flyer, under the freebies section, and the 'Example of Play' pdf.

VRYLAKOS