I backed Monte Cook's Numenera project yesterday.
It was a no-brainer for me, because he is designing this Sci-Fantasy setting.
I am intrigued by the simple character creation in 3 choices and the emphasis on the actual play rather than a ton of cumbersome rules. It has a d20 mechanic, which I like; but even in my own games, I use the dice as a random factor or representative of a chance of success, not as a hindrance. I prefer more free form Gamemastering and letting the action move along at its own pace than bogging down under rules, so Numenera seems like it will be a winner for me!
Numenera sounds like the far-future setting I have been looking for. Check out the links below for more informatio.
Numenera Kickstarter Project:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1433901524/numenera-a-new-roleplaying-game-from-monte-cook
What's In a Name: Numenera:
http://www.numenera.com/whats-in-a-name-numenera/
Numenera Character Creation Basics
http://www.montecookgames.com/numenera-character-creation-basics/ I am certain I will have more to post about this game as time goes on.
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Numenera has piqued my interest a bit, but not enough so far to back it.
ReplyDeletePlease let me know, Trey, what you eventually decide and why. My only reason for asking that is just because I am curious :)
ReplyDeleteI am intrigued by the simple character creation in 3 choices and the emphasis on the actual play rather than a ton of cumbersome rules
ReplyDeleteI am fascinated by that too, but I still wonder why the book is going to have 300+ pages with those premises.
Here is the entire quote Monte put on his MonteCookGames website about how the product pages will be divided up:
ReplyDelete"With the Kickstarter reaching it’s early stretch goals, the book has grown to be around 400 pages. The book will be a full-color hardcover. Here’s my rough vision for what the Numenera corebook will be like:
1. There will be about 100 pages of rules material, perhaps less. And the vast majority of that will be character options, rather than rules. The “how to play this game” part of the rules will likely fit into a dozen pages or so, at least as I have envisioned it now. (Playtesting usually makes such sections grow, so we’ll see.)
2. Another 100 page or so might be devoted to GM advice, and a how-to approach to running a Numenera game, including lots and lots and lots of interesting of numenera treasures and dangers to find. I really think that the game will benefit from lots of GM advice. There’s a lot to discuss regarding the technology and the wide-open nature of the setting, as well as the general “imagination gone wild” tone.
3. The rest of the book, about 200 pages (thus, about half the book now), will detail the setting. And an ample amount of that will be adventure material. Setting material would include a bestiary of foes: various creatures and a bunch of ready-made NPCs.
I plan on presenting adventure material for this book much like I did in Ptolus. Which is to say, at many different levels of detail. There will be many, many straightforward adventure hooks, suggestions, and rough outlines, for GMs who just want an idea or two to run with. That’s the first kind of presentation. The second, I would describe as a sort of intermediary approach: perhaps a map with brief descriptions, some ideas, and some NPCs or creatures to use. The last approach would be full-blown, fully-detailed adventures. This means that no matter what kind of GM you are, there will be adventure material for you. I’m a firm believer that nothing gets across how a game can be run than adventure material, and presenting it in many ways gives a lot of options.
Overall, the setting will have a “sandbox” approach, with a lot of information that can be used by GMs in a lot of ways. I’m more interested in really showing how to run a game in the Ninth World than I am in detailing what’s under every rock, but with this expansion in size there’s room for plenty of detail too."
Thanks for the update.
ReplyDelete100 pages are a lot, but with examples and templates maybe Game Rules could really cover that size.
If the other 75% is fluffy, that should be enough to make it a complete game at this point (with no need of fluffy supplements).
I think that having the one book be enough to be a complete game is something that I like, too. I get tired of buying the latest supplement to things. Monte's Ptolus was one big book that covered everything. There were a few adventure modules, but the only extra was the slim Delvers book that was almost all fan-based material.
ReplyDeleteI know that there will be some adventure modules for this, but I don't tens to run pregens like that. However, I will rip off setting ideas from them sometimes ;)