Numenera w/ 13th Age Backgrounds? How would you do it?

[Halivar]

I've recently become enamored with 13th Age's Background mechanic, but I am not enamored with 13th Age as a whole. I have, however, become enamored with Numenera, and am interested in at least a one-or-two-off.

So here's my question (and yeah, "it's a terrible idea" is a totally valid answer): has anyone run Numenera with 13th Age-style backgrounds, if so, how did you do it, and if not, how would you implement such a thing?

 

[evilbob]

Seems like it shouldn't be too difficult of a stretch. It sort of depends on how deep you want to go.

First: you could always just add backgrounds onto existing Numenera characters and call it DONE. There's not really any sort of major "balance" mechanic this would hurt; the gamebook itself says, more or less, that if you add a bunch of stuff onto your PCs and they're more powerful but the story is still fun, then who cares? Mechanically, you could say whatever their backgrounds are, they are "trained" in that for Numenera. (If they were really, REALLY good at it, they'd be specialized.) Numenera skills are already completely undefined and as broad as you'd like, so it seems like it would fit well.

If you're looking for more of a "balance," it's already within the rules to add skills (backgrounds) to a character for the cost of adding "inabilities", or skills in which the characters have disadvantages. So you could also require that each background in which someone is trained also necessitates an inability to mitigate it. I wouldn't get more technical than that, but you could even loosely define "broad" vs. "narrow" skills, and trade 2 narrow for 1 broad, or even-for-even, or whatever.

Also, each Numerera character gets a descriptor. These broad-based ideas typically involve skill suggestions. You could always incorporate the characters' backgrounds into their descriptors and broaden them out generally in the same ways above. We definitely did this when creating characters. For example, we took "swift" and changed it around because the balance inability seemed incongruous with the PC's character, and we wanted to add some other stuff, too.

Overall I would think those two systems could come together well.

 

[Halivar]

So I'm thinking of handing out 3 background points. Since the most you can put in a skill in Numenera at character creation is +2, this would be somewhat analogous to 13th Age's 8 points (where the max any background can have is +5).

Don't quite know how to handle specializations, though.

 

[evilbob]

I think going along the "plus number" route (i.e. +2) may not be the best way to merge the two systems. I'd just suggest that people say what their backgrounds are, and they are "trained" in them. That's really as far as you need to go. If you want someone to be extremely good at something, they're "specialized." The "plus number" bonuses are really sort of extra bits that are outside of the core idea of how skills are handled in Numenera.

If you need math behind this, "trained" in something equals a +3, and "specialized" equals a +6. (That's effectively what you're getting.) So you could say - and this might be what you meant and I misread you - that each character gets 3 additional backgrounds in which they are trained, and call it good. That's like having 9 bonus points to skills spread out over 3 skills with +3 each. You could also allow someone to be specialized in a skill for the cost of 2 backgrounds.

Does that make sense?

 

[Halivar]

That sounds like exactly what I need. Thanks for that.

 

[dm4hire]

A possible way to handle this would be Minor & Major backgrounds. Minor backgrounds could be things like the character once fought in a specific war as a member of a small brigade of local peasants recruited by the local lord of the land. They were taught just enough to not hurt themselves and that's it. So they are trained. Major backgrounds would be that the character was a member of an elite fighting team during the war that dealt with explosives and espionage missions to remote parts of the enemy kingdom. Since there is more focus the major background would mean specialization. Then give them a choice of two Minor backgrounds or one Major background. That would mean that if they can relate something to a Minor background they get the 1 step adjust or the 2 step if they can relate it to a Major one.

Then I'd say at rank four they could pick another Major background or two more Minors.

 

[Tun Kai Poh]

A possible way to handle this would be Minor & Major backgrounds. Minor backgrounds could be things like the character once fought in a specific war as a member of a small brigade of local peasants recruited by the local lord of the land. They were taught just enough to not hurt themselves and that's it. So they are trained. Major backgrounds would be that the character was a member of an elite fighting team during the war that dealt with explosives and espionage missions to remote parts of the enemy kingdom. Since there is more focus the major background would mean specialization. Then give them a choice of two Minor backgrounds or one Major background. That would mean that if they can relate something to a Minor background they get the 1 step adjust or the 2 step if they can relate it to a Major one.

Then I'd say at rank four they could pick another Major background or two more Minors.

That's probably a higher level of granularity than either 13th Age or Numenera have in their mechanics. 13th Age encourages players to choose from the broad range of possible Backgrounds, going from the local and specific to the world-encompassing and general, without differentiating between them. It's not supposed to be totally balanced, but it is supposed to be quick and simply.

 

[dm4hire]

That's probably a higher level of granularity than either 13th Age or Numenera have in their mechanics. 13th Age encourages players to choose from the broad range of possible Backgrounds, going from the local and specific to the world-encompassing and general, without differentiating between them. It's not supposed to be totally balanced, but it is supposed to be quick and simply.

I don't see how it is a "higher level of granularity" when you are mixing the skill system of one into the other. Both systems are simple. How does that make it more complex?