Numenera - Monte Cook's new thing

[Stubbazubba]

I have thought about what he says about the DM using narrative power in exchange for XP in some fashion before. I actually like the idea of 'gamifying' the DM's side of the screen, so that DMs are also managing the resources to send against the players, even though their intent isn't to defeat them, but to challenge them in interesting ways. I think having an XP budget and narrative tools which cost small XP prices to the players (preferably utilizing a character trait, flaw, or other feature) is not only a good way to speed up play and add drama, but also conducive to enforcing the game's social contract. I don't know about his implementation, but I think having multiple sources of XP which can be used to incentivize different aspects of the game are a good idea.

[Neurosis]

Meanwhile most jerks at TGD either make nothing or make random stuff that is sometimes pretty cool for free.

I would have difficulty respecting myself if RPG design was something I did to make money. I want to do something more meaningful with my life, rpgs are just a hobby.

From a slightly different angle, I am predisposed to distrust the tabletop RPG work of someone whose day job is "rpg designer". That means they couldn't get a real job.

Minor derail, but...what?

Look, it's great that you have "a real job" and "do something meaningful with your life", but seriously, get over yourself. Most people in the world don't get to do something "meaningful" in order to feed themselves. They work a job that they quite often hate, because that's how life works. I work for the government helping insure that deadbeats pay their child support, but I still don't consider my work particularly "meaningful", and I didn't take this job for high-minded reasons...I took it because it was a good paycheck and I'd been unemployed for 6 months. Most days, it is not particularly enjoyable or fulfilling.

If some guy is able to pay the bills by doing something meaningless that he enjoys (like game design, or shooting pool, or making porn films), I respect the hell out of that.

Your job is not necessarily "what you do with your life". It is what you do to pay for the necessities and luxuries of life. My "life", such as it is (and as I define it), completely excludes almost everything I do for 40 hours a week in the office.

/derail

Strongly agree.

[Avoraciopoctules]

I hope you agree that people should sblock huge walls of tangential discussion text as well.

On-topic:

Characters earn XP when they make new, interesting discoveries (not from killing things, although combat is often necessary to make discoveries and accomplish missions). They also earn XP when the GM “intrudes” on the action of the game to introduce new complications. Lastly, players have the ability to award XP to other players for great ideas, useful actions, or other reasons.

XP can be spent to increase character abilities, or to affect events in the game (such as rerolling dice), gain short-term benefits or advance in levels.

I like the first part of this. If Mister Cavern reveals that the doppleganger prisoner you've been trying to bring to justice has been continually reading your surface thoughts for the last couple days, and last night it killed your sentry and ran off, I'd like to give the players something positive so they don't just remember that scene with exasperation.

[hogarth]

I'm not a big fan of having a resource that can be spent on permanent or temporary advantages; usually it just ends up getting hoarded for permanent stuff.

[PoliteNewb]

I hope you agree that people should sblock huge walls of tangential discussion text as well.

Point taken (and thank you for the response, btw).

[Username17]

I'm not a big fan of having a resource that can be spent on permanent or temporary advantages; usually it just ends up getting hoarded for permanent stuff.

It's worse than that. Because someone will figure out how long the campaign is going to last (or think they have), and amortize resource spending effectively. Basically there are three ways to handle the resource:

• Behave as if the character was immortal (most people do this): hoard all resources forever.
• Behave as if the character was going to die tomorrow (the people who do this are usually also inclined to be disruptive in other ways): spend all resources as fast as possible.
• Behave as if the character was going to last a set number of expected future adventures and ration their spending up appropriately.

I've never seen or even heard of a game system where those three spending strategies were even close to balanced. Or could even coexist non-disruptively. It's just a shitty idea. Shadowrun abandoned it in the second edition - just 3 years into the project the basic unworkability of the concept had already become obvious to everyone involved. And this to people who hadn't given up trying to make variable target numbers across variable dicepools work!

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

I'm not a big fan of having a resource that can be spent on permanent or temporary advantages; usually it just ends up getting hoarded for permanent stuff.

Making things considerably worse is that there are very few games with meaningful advancement schemes where permanent stuff is such. D&D abounds with many, many examples. A non-fungible +4 bracers of armor is only permanent until you get something better, then from that point on it seriously doesn't matter whether the bracers of armor was on loan or got immediately disintegrated or it collects dust in your treasure chest.

[ishy]

(...) They also earn XP when the GM “intrudes” on the action of the game to introduce new complications.

I like the first part of this. If Mister Cavern reveals that the doppleganger prisoner you've been trying to bring to justice has been continually reading your surface thoughts for the last couple days, and last night it killed your sentry and ran off, I'd like to give the players something positive so they don't just remember that scene with exasperation.

If you were talking about this part, I absolutely hate it. I want a story to make sense, I don't want adhoc changes because something doesn't go exactly as MC planned it. If you need to make such a change, I'd prefer telling your players you messed up and want to change something for a better story. Not institutionalise intruding on the story for new complications.
If in your example the doppleganger could do that, I want to feel punished for fudging things up instead of a no matter what you do, you'll be rewarded anyway game.

[hogarth]

(...) They also earn XP when the GM “intrudes” on the action of the game to introduce new complications.

If you were talking about this part, I absolutely hate it. I want a story to make sense, I don't want adhoc changes because something doesn't go exactly as MC planned it.

I don't think the idea is bad per se. For instance, Mutants & Masterminds has the same kind of thing (if the GM has to "cheat", the PCs get a hero point), but that's okay for a game about comic book superheroes because comic books cheat all the time (e.g. people come back from the dead, people were actually shapeshifters all along, people escape from inescapable deathtraps, etc.).

[Aryxbez]

There's also nothing wrong with being the master of a single weapon if you get appropriate abilities for doing so. If your highest ability a master of the long sword is 'attack everyone around me once' it's a problem. If your highest ability is 'cut a hole in reality with my sword' it's probably much less of a problem. Given the magic/tech a billion years from now angle, it's possible to have cutting holes in reality not tread too much on one's immersion.

Well, I thought Gaming Den had come to some understanding that a concept like that, compared to being "master of Illusions or some such" is a rather limited concept, that comes with baggage for limited things people willing to let happen with that. Also encourages to put a character's focus over the weapon that "defines" them, rather than as part of their aesthetic. So having a focus like magnetism has far more uses than "I like swords" does, even if he's instead a"whip master", which gives a great applications of things you can do, but likely inferior to magic/tech in similar situations. Though given, if "master of X weapon" gets bigger and badder abilities, like "Reality Cut" as described, might not be as bad, but it'll likely still be shackled in the imagination compared to the other focuses. Thus if that is the case, it makes the case for some focuses not being as good as others, and it'd be sad if Monte Cook wants to repeat the "Ivory Tower" all over again.

[Previn]

Well, I thought Gaming Den had come to some understanding that a concept like that, compared to being "master of Illusions or some such" is a rather limited concept, that comes with baggage for limited things people willing to let happen with that. Also encourages to put a character's focus over the weapon that "defines" them, rather than as part of their aesthetic. So having a focus like magnetism has far more uses than "I like swords" does, even if he's instead a"whip master", which gives a great applications of things you can do, but likely inferior to magic/tech in similar situations. Though given, if "master of X weapon" gets bigger and badder abilities, like "Reality Cut" as described, might not be as bad, but it'll likely still be shackled in the imagination compared to the other focuses. Thus if that is the case, it makes the case for some focuses not being as good as others, and it'd be sad if Monte Cook wants to repeat the "Ivory Tower" all over again.

When you're getting into the difference between 'master of magnetism' and 'master of the sword' the viability of it ultimately comes down to how the rules reinforce those roles/titles. Defining that yes, the sword master can do things that seem impossible, or normally would be because of magic technology is a relatively small hurdle that should be able to be covered in presentation.

There will be some baggage with the fighters aren't magic that Numenera gets around by being nano-machines/ai/crazy future science. So you could totally be "Lothar of the Hill People, Master of the Ancient Monomolecular Blade and get to do things like vorpel anything, cut holes in reality to teleport, cut through walls to get places, and stab through someone without injuring them to hit a target behind them, and then lord his title and skill around to get things in a social context, and still be just a normal dude at the end of the day, even if your exploits get to be larger than life.

By that same token, "James Magnatron, Master of Magnetism" could be limited to only moving 5 lbs of metals at short range as a full round action.

Will some people still be shackled by their imagination? Yes, some people will always be so, no matter the rule set or presentation. On the other hand, we also end up with things like FATE and SotC.

[MGuy]

I'm not a big fan of having a resource that can be spent on permanent or temporary advantages; usually it just ends up getting hoarded for permanent stuff.

It's worse than that. Because someone will figure out how long the campaign is going to last (or think they have), and amortize resource spending effectively. Basically there are three ways to handle the resource:

• Behave as if the character was immortal (most people do this): hoard all resources forever.
• Behave as if the character was going to die tomorrow (the people who do this are usually also inclined to be disruptive in other ways): spend all resources as fast as possible.
• Behave as if the character was going to last a set number of expected future adventures and ration their spending up appropriately.

I've never seen or even heard of a game system where those three spending strategies were even close to balanced. Or could even coexist non-disruptively. It's just a shitty idea. Shadowrun abandoned it in the second edition - just 3 years into the project the basic unworkability of the concept had already become obvious to everyone involved. And this to people who hadn't given up trying to make variable target numbers across variable dicepools work!

-Username17

Since I'm doing something similar for my game I am hypothesizing that it works out if the shit you can spend the points on make very little difference over all (spend them on background shit, minor plot contrivances, etc).

[fectin]

I have thought about what he says about the DM using narrative power in exchange for XP in some fashion before. I actually like the idea of 'gamifying' the DM's side of the screen, so that DMs are also managing the resources to send against the players, even though their intent isn't to defeat them, but to challenge them in interesting ways. I think having an XP budget and narrative tools which cost small XP prices to the players (preferably utilizing a character trait, flaw, or other feature) is not only a good way to speed up play and add drama, but also conducive to enforcing the game's social contract. I don't know about his implementation, but I think having multiple sources of XP which can be used to incentivize different aspects of the game are a good idea.

Sorry for this:
FantasyCraft did it. I think their values are pretty weird, and the system is hideously abusable (which matters because the leadership-style feats give you cohorts "worth less than 30 xp" (or however many), so it really screws with the balance of the game), but it does mostly work.

[Maj]

Holy shit. This looks like an expanded and very fancified version of the game Ess and I made for teaching.

[Previn]

Everything in the game system can be given a rating from 1 to 10. This is true of an animal, a town guard, a door, or an artifact. Basically, the GM is deciding on this rating for his or her world’s own internal consistency. From a game mechanics standpoint, there is no right or wrong. (If you’re coming from 3rd or 4th Edition D&D, I can’t stress this enough.) This rating is much more important from a verisimilitude standpoint than a mechanical one. While characters too have ratings (levels), there is only a casual correlation. It’s a handy guideline, but not a rule. You don’t just use rating 1 stuff if the PCs are level 1. You use rating 1 stuff if it’s appropriate to whatever’s going on in the story. Your beginning characters in Numenera will likely encounter stuff with a rating of 3 or 4 right out of the gate. And maybe more. It’s okay.

Once you’ve decided on the rating, you get a target number. Target numbers are basically the rating times 3. That’s its target number for everything. So in a fight, a PC fighting a level 4 opponent has to roll a 12 or higher to hit, a 12 or higher to dodge from the foe’s blows, and a 12 or higher to affect it with some weird effect from a device. Even if it has special stuff going on, it’s stilled keyed off that number. If it’s poisonous, the roll needed to resist its poison is 12. Etcetera etcetera. Its entire “stat block” is 12.

....

Of course, to keep things interesting, there are other factors, but each is unique to a given NPC. Some NPCs might be rated as being really good with a particular attack, and thus gain a bonus to their base number. So a level 4 automaton that blasts foes with an extremely accurate energy blast might be a 12 on everything, but a 15 with its blaster.

Wha? This sounds both mechanically bad, and boring.

[shadzar]

XP can be spent to increase character abilities, or to affect events in the game (such as rerolling dice), gain short-term benefits or advance in levels.

There needs to be a list of common unforgivable mistakes in RPG design. Having Force Points convert into XP at the end of the session would be like #3.

Monte seems to like to cheat with dice and doesnt believe in random results and wants a full narrative rather than a game, but aside form that.. why do we accrue XP constantly?

magic item creation in 3rd gave a sue for XP, but how well it worked for other things is for you people to decide. but if every class spent XP on abilities like a point-buy and had enough to vary one fighter from the next, why keep counting XP? might be on to something might not...

1st: 0
2nd: 1000
3rd: 2500

1st level you get what you get, 2nd level is reached upon getting 1000 XP. spend those 1000 XP on various abilities gained FOR that level advance. got leftover XP and cannot afford an ability with only 5 XP.. you lose them, considered cost of training.

now you are 2nd level 0 XP and some new abilities, or maybe boosted ability scores. to reach 3rd you need to gain 1500 XP (2500-1000=1500)

1st: 0
2nd: 1000
3rd: 1500

gives chance for variety, removes the need for ability only available at level X, level drain is easier:

drained to level 2 from level 3, subtract 1500 XP from your current total. you cannot level again to buy abilities until you have the positive number of XP required for that level, but lose no abilities or have to recalculate anything based on the level drain.

multiclassing or gestalt even works is using a flat XP rate for all classes.

Fighter then mage takes 1000 XP, add a third first level of a class, another 1000 XP advance any class at any time you have enough XP to level it.

just need to assign XP prices for gained abilities, and decide what the base class gets to begin with.

but that is just a starter idea for it.

[Username17]

Wha? This sounds both mechanically bad, and boring.

Not so much. Here, I'll translate into non-marketspeak:

• Creatures have levels between 1 and 10.
• Those levels are set by what they are and how powerful they are in the world, rather than by PC level.
• Creatures have bonuses that are small, save for their Level Bonus that is very large. The Level Bonus increases by 3 per level.
• Players roll all the dice, rolling both their own attack roll and their defense roll against static NPC defense and attack values respectively.

I am not much sold on the last one, because it makes NPC vs. NPC fights really weird, but it's defensible. That part looks exactly like someone who looked at the 4e D&D challenge math and ragequit. So you have constant world-based creature levels instead of rubber band difficulties, and you have a large and punitive level bonus instead of a bullshit tiny one that is completely subsumed by racial stat mods and bonus gear.

-Username17

[hogarth]

The boring part is the implication that most creatures are identical. For instance, in 4E a creature has 4 defenses, so in theory you can try to target whichever one you think is weakest. In Numenera, it looks like there will be one defense, and by default it's exactly the same for each creature of the same level.

[Username17]

The boring part is the implication that most creatures are identical. For instance, in 4E a creature has 4 defenses, so in theory you can try to target whichever one you think is weakest. In Numenera, it looks like there will be one defense, and by default it's exactly the same for each creature of the same level.

I don't even see where you got that impression.

Of course, to keep things interesting, there are other factors, but each is unique to a given NPC. Some NPCs might be rated as being really good with a particular attack, and thus gain a bonus to their base number. So a level 4 automaton that blasts foes with an extremely accurate energy blast might be a 12 on everything, but a 15 with its blaster.

Every creature is a list of bonuses to task numbers, and they have a base level bonus that they use for all "other stuff". Now, you may predict that creatures won't have enough strengths and weaknesses (fixed numbers that are higher or lower than their base level bonus respectively) to be interesting, but there's no way to determine that from the sketchy description of the mechanics provided. Hell, creatures could just as easily go the other way have "unique" lists of 20+ things that they are good and bad at, making the number crunching and incentives for action choice exhausting and stupid. It's basically just the system from the Ninja Burger card game, and whether there are enough unique skill values or not enough or too many is entirely within the control of the designers.

It's a proven system that has worked in the past, claiming a priori that it can't work is silly.

-Username17

[hogarth]

Of course, to keep things interesting, there are other factors, but each is unique to a given NPC. Some NPCs might be rated as being really good with a particular attack, and thus gain a bonus to their base number. So a level 4 automaton that blasts foes with an extremely accurate energy blast might be a 12 on everything, but a 15 with its blaster.

Every creature is a list of bonuses to task numbers, and they have a base level bonus that they use for all "other stuff". Now, you may predict that creatures won't have enough strengths and weaknesses (fixed numbers that are higher or lower than their base level bonus respectively) to be interesting, but there's no way to determine that from the sketchy description of the mechanics provided.

If every creature has as many bonuses and penalties to make them as varied as a 4E creature, then the whole statement "its entire 'stat block' is 12" is meaningless. "It's 12 except when it's not" is a meaningless statement.

[...You Lost Me]

How about "It's 12, +/- 3 depending on stat". That's interesting and reasonable, and, oh look, it even fits in the design statement!

[Whipstitch]

I must say, I'm not terribly put out by the notion of an exception based stat block shorthand. For example:

Troll, rating 4
+3 to Melee Attacks
+3 to Fortitude Saves
Regeneration/Fire & Acid
Immunity to Fear effects

Trolls are nearly mindless brutes that prey upon anything within reach etc, etc.

I mean, hey, it doesn't exactly set fire to the imagination but it's legitimately short if the people using it have any damn discipline.

[Kaelik]

How about "It's 12, +/- 3 depending on stat". That's interesting and reasonable, and, oh look, it even fits in the design statement!

No it doesn't. The mission statement is "the entire stat block is 12." If you have stats that modify that value, then its stat block isn't just 12.

[Username17]

As written, the Troll statline would be:

• Claws 14
  Fortitude 15
  Regeneration/Fire or Acid
  Immunity to Fear effects
  Everything Else 12

The key concept is that every creature has an "everything else" line that is in this case 12. And yeah, if they have a single attack stat and a single defense stat that are noticeably higher or lower than their "everything else" stat, then they are already at least as interesting from a numeric standpoint as a 4e monster.

-Username17

[Kaelik]

While that may be a possible interpretation of the statblock based on the mission statement, it's certainly not the only one. Absent some specific example, I'm going to assume that the people making this game are less capable than Frank Trollman, and your average troll statblock looks like this:

Troll: Base 12.

Because a troll isn't any better with his claws than he is with a greatsword, ect. And that they think only super special trolls should get weird things like "Claws 14" and they probably don't think that anything ever should get "Fortitude 15" or "Regen Fire/Acid" because they don't believe attacks should have different types that matter mechanically, because that's too much mechanics.