Numenera - whats the Den consensus about it ?

[virgil]

I reviewed the system awhile back, starting here.

Bonus Numenera lulz: 'Carries a quiver' does not actually provide the character with a quiver.

Bonus, bonus lulz: "Carries a Quiver" doesn't make you proficient with a bow until level 3.

[Shady314]

Of course. If you take "carries a quiver" you've got no one to blame but yourself.

Pretty sure I can blame the asshole designer that decided that was a viable and equivalent choice to present to my players and charged me money for.

[erik]

I ran a Numenera campaign for about a year after it came out. Instead of the included setting, I ran it with more of a weird west tone, which basically amounted to marginally higher standards of living and southern accents for NPCs, and re-skinning ranged weapons as six-shooters and rifles. Observations, in no particular order:

- A lot of people mentioned in another thread that most players won't spend XP for re-rolls. This proved to be true. After a while, I stopped doing the DM intrusions unless someone rolled a 1, because there's ultimately no equitable way to spread the punishment around.

- The idea behind cyphers, that PCs would have a reason to cycle through one-use magic items without hording them, is cool from a design perspective. In the game i ran though, players either horded them or forgot they had them. So I had to either stop them from appearing as treasure, because they couldn't carry anymore, or make up some bullshit rules for selling them. That's right. The rulebook has no rules or guidelines whatsoever for selling cyphers, oddities, or artifacts.

- Even though Nanos get more cool shit than Glaives, any of those characters can choose a descriptor (or whatever the term is) to pick up some cool magical-esque abilities. The biggest mechanical problem we ran into was that by stacking enough armor, our glaive could basically ignore physical damage from any beastie that wasn't capable of turning the rest of the party into spaghetti.

- The presentation of monsters makes it very easy to manage as a GM. Knowing that a monster is level 3 gives you all the basic information you need to make it fight. Likewise, having players roll all the dice is design that I like.

- We had a lot of fun. Or I did, anyway.

Thanks for that summary. It sounds like that's how I'd feel if I played with respect to those kind of mechanics (especially: I never spend XP for temporary gain, and I hoard single use items).

For my part in the various Numenera threads we've had, I've been overly harsh and had to eat or at least nibble crow more than once since I presumed the worst at first glance only to hear that my main complaints were already addressed.

Still, it doesn't sound like I'd rather play Numenera than 3e, Arcana Unearthed/Evolved or an entirely different game. But if it was Numenera or sticking my dick in a beehive (Pathfinder?), I'd try Numenera first at least.

[Kawazu_Delta]

Still, it doesn't sound like I'd rather play Numenera than 3e, Arcana Unearthed/Evolved or an entirely different game. But if it was Numenera or sticking my dick in a beehive (Pathfinder?), I'd try Numenera first at least.

Yeah, I feel the same. If you asked me which one I'd rather run, though, the answer would be Numenera every time. Combat runs really quickly by comparison, thanks to the simplicity of the monster stats and the obviated combat grid.

[Occluded Sun]

Nobody can design a functioning economy. They have to assemble themselves.

What a surprise, a libertarian.

You don't understand what 'libertarian' means. Necessary, but not sufficient.