Numenera - Monte Cook's new thing

[Prak]

I don't get why you would spend xp to stop the MC from giving you xp. Unless you can stop him from giving other players xp. This game might be stupid.

Because it's not "Xp with extra uses" it's "Spirit of the Century/Dresden Files Fate Points that also provide character advancement."

[Username17]

I don't get why you would spend xp to stop the MC from giving you xp. Unless you can stop him from giving other players xp. This game might be stupid.

Because it's not "Xp with extra uses" it's "Spirit of the Century/Dresden Files Fate Points that also provide character advancement."

No it isn't. As was discovered with first edition Shadowrun back in 1989, if you give people the option of spending their hard earned XPs to modify die rolls or avert bad situations, they basically just won't even do it. It's just a dumb idea.

Long term effects and short term effects just don't have good trade offs. People are risk averse, and treat "permanent" bonuses as being even more better than temporary ones than they actually are. Even if you made it genuinely advantageous to spend your XPs on temporary bullshit, people still wouldn't do it.

-Username17

[Prak]

I meant in design intent. I didn't say it worked, just that it was what it seems they were going for.

[Nath]

I would have thought people had already discovered it by 1987 and WEG Star Wars RPG skill points.

[Antariuk]

I believe the amounts of XP dealth with in the game is intentionally set as low as it is, so people from D&D land are less suspicious when the topic comes up ("Well, its just 1 XP, and we'll get plenty of them for sure...").

The Corebook spends some time explaining that cyphers are the scrolls and potions of the setting and not to be hoarded, but it feeld a lot more vague when it comes to XP also being something you give away instead of hoarding it.

[Whipstitch]

Yeah, people fap themselves raw over the idea of a bonus that never, ever goes obsolete, even if that bonus is almost entirely hypothetical. For example, check out the Shadowrun Returns gamefaqs board sometime and you'll easily discover a number of people fretting about how humans are "objectively the worst" because in exchange for lower caps on everything they receive a single point of karma at the beginning of campaign, a bonus which means virtually nothing. But here's where things get interesting--karma costs scale upwards quickly with rank, so it is a virtual certainty that you will not be breaking the human caps without making sub-optimal investments or leaving unspent karma lying around for much of the game rather than benefiting from them. For the vast majority of builds, having the advantage of higher caps means literally nothing because I haven't seen a campaign or player module in which breaking the human caps is a defensible idea outside of goofy max karma arena bullshit. Nevertheless, people will seriously argue that humans are a game balance concern on the grounds that they are a bit weak in non-existent scenarios. It's really kind of amazing.

Hell, even when speaking about the tabletop rules I can only think of one Shadowrun related anecdote that almost contradicts Frank, but it's actually an "exception that proves the rule" situation. You see, I had a friend who played on a Shadowrun based mux and over years of play multiple people had accumulated fuck-off huge piles of karma but they nevertheless continued to shovel their points into ever higher ratings and ridiculously inflated costs. Then, one day some dude actually started throwing his karma pile at tests and people were immediately sundered into "He's gimping himself!" and "OMG, hax" factions.

[virgil]

Virgil's Review of Monte Cook's Rifts

Chapter 7: Toy Box
The chapter on non-numenera (mundane) equipment, starts with the fact this setting uses currency, but their money has no consistency and rare materials do not have intrinsic value. You can seriously just hand a fistful of bottlecaps and shiny looking rocks and they'll exchange it for weapons and armor. There's a paragraph saying some regions will only accept bottlecaps with their king's face stamped on it, but it's vague and thus open to DMs being a jerkface.

Encumbrance and item weight is equally under DM-fiat, despite listing various substances that weigh more or less than steel for the same durability. Sometimes they'll decide that you're carrying too much and deal Strength or Dexterity damage. Armor automatically has this trait to it, including armor that would undoubtedly be as restrictive as a coat with the protection of a leather jerkin, and non-mages get abilities that reduce/ignore damage from armor. Weapons deal 2/4/6 damage, and give a +3 to-hit if they only deal 2; unlikely to be enough to matter most of the time because most armor gives DR 2.

Really, as immersive as the equipment itself is, there's no real rhyme or reason to the cost structure of the equipment; and I think they would do better with some porn star's item costs.

Chapter 8: One Chapter to Rule Them All
And now we begin with the primary rules of doing stuff, much like many other RPG systems. The DM determines the DC in increments of 3, decides whether you lose your Fighter, Rogue, or Mage HP (optionally or not), and apply various +3 modifiers from the character. There's an important paragraph:

A character’s tier does not determine a task’s level. Things don’t get more difficult just because a character’s tier increases—the world doesn’t instantly become a more difficult place. Fourth-tier characters don’t deal only with level 4 creatures or difficulty 4 tasks (although a fourth-tier character probably has a better shot at success than a first-tier character does). Just because something is level 4 doesn’t necessarily mean it’s meant only for fourth tier characters. Similarly, depending on the situation, a fifth-tier character could find a difficulty 2 task just as challenging as a second-tier character does. Therefore, when setting the difficulty of a task, the GM should rate the task on its own merits, not on the power of the characters.

I am certain most DMs will ignore this in practice as they are wont to do in MTP, but I feel better knowing this exists. This goes for double when you consider the fact that training & equipment usually can't give more than a +6 each. The RNG is essentially under a fairly tight reign, though there's enough arbitrary to go crazy; I still can't tell you whether the Stasis spell even requires a check.

There's a reiteration for the natural 17-20 effects, and a reminder of the fact a Natural 1 will summon bears.

Combat structure is a simplified 3E, rounds are ~6 seconds, NPCs go at the same time and are assumed to have rolled their level, everyone does one thing (10' steps are kind of implied to exist).

NPCs have their level in HP and KO when they run out. PCs get a damage track that goes from injured to staggered to dead, and you go down the track when you run out of mana in a stat or from special effects. You regain mana with rest, up to 4d6+(level * 4) per day in total, rest can restore from the damage track.

The standard modifiers for varying situations are roughly described. We also get a single paragraph of the special situation of combat between NPCs, which is have the more player-friendly one roll dice; while PC vs PC is the one situation for opposed rolls. Chase scenes are a single check against the NPC you're trying to catch/evade or the DM decides you need to fail by running a dice program. Stealth is ultra-simplistic (make a check, they don't see walk by if you beat their level), which technically makes it better than 3E.

Crafting is the so far universal "beat the level the DM decides."

Now we get to the Experience Points system, which is all the crap people have pointed out and more. Natural 1s give the DM a free intrusion, so he can just inflict more reasons to roll dice and wallow in fumbles.

Finding cool stuff inherently gives the players XP, which makes the Telekinesis power even more awesome because of the 10% chance to summon a random magic item. There's also the rough guideline of 1 XP per session. You spend XP for all sorts of temporary stuff; re-rolls, gain a feat for a single scene, etc. There's also the long-term stuff, like becoming the Mare of Ponyville or gain a language, ultra-specialized skills (picking locks in Jack's Ivory Pillar), along with just advancing your character.

Chapter 9: Really Unplaytested Rules
This optional rule chapter is where we find fiddly crap. We have the option to not half kill an NPC in order to disarm them, extra fiddly details on weapons, ways to poorly incorporate miniatures, focus options, XP rules that work, explicitly getting power now in exchange for XP debt, optional races of varying power (hint: be a mutant).

[fectin]

So, this seems like good design work slathered over an incredibly poor framework. Am I missing anything?

[Username17]

Here's the part I don't get: Monte Cook has been working on his "convert some bonuses to reductions in Target Number" system for at least two years. Why? What possible purpose does it serve?

Right now, he is taking some of your bonuses, dividing them by 3, multiplying them by minus one, adding them to another value which then gets multiplied by 3 and then added to your target number. But that doesn't change anything. At all. It's four extra math steps, but they all cancel. Literally nothing happened.

It lowers the sizes of the absolute numbers being talked about, but I don't see how that's even an advantage in this case. It doesn't keep numbers from being three digits, because the bonuses only go up to 30 in any case. It doesn't keep numbers from being two digits, because you're still rolling a d20 and that goes to two digits by default. It doesn't keep you from having to use carry places, because the numbers on the die can have an 8 or 9 in the ones place and you still have 2 points of unconverted bonus.

All this does is keep you from literally adding a 2 digit number to another 2 digit number. But I can't reasonably fathom that dividing by 3 and multiplying by 3 every time you want to do anything would be any better.

Seriously, what the fuck? Monte Cook has spent really a lot of time obsessing about this mechanic, and I can't see a single thing it does that I would regard as good. It slows down the game for as far as I can see: no conceivable benefit.

-Username17

[angelfromanotherpin]

Why? What possible purpose does it serve?

Right there with you.

[Voss]

Maybe he feels that the illusion of complexity adds something to his side of the equation. I'm not sure why or what that would be, but it is reason I can think of to do this.

More than anything, it reminds me of reducing fractions in elementary school- mindles busywork designed to do nothing but grind some semblance of understanding into the slow kids the hard way.

[Dogbert]

GUMSHOE uses a numerically simpler version that uses 1d6 (in addition of being the original system), but then the game wouldn't have been DnD enough without a d20.

[fectin]

Here's the part I don't get: Monte Cook has been working on his "convert some bonuses to reductions in Target Number" system for at least two years. Why? What possible purpose does it serve?

As described here, it does make it easier to keep track of different bonuses not allowing more than two steps of reduction each. That's still a shockingly baroque system, but at least it does have a purpose.

It also shifts most of the math work to the MC. That's not usually a selling point, but when it is, it really is.

I can imagine that maybe he tends to hand out difficulty reductions instead of circumstance bonuses too? And maybe there are perks that let you auto-succeed on easy tasks?

[Cyberzombie]

Here's the part I don't get: Monte Cook has been working on his "convert some bonuses to reductions in Target Number" system for at least two years. Why? What possible purpose does it serve?

With Monte, I'd say his biggest flaw is his addiction to bonus accumulation and number porn. My guess is this new system is to try to silence his critics and make the system look more bounded by hiding the bonuses behind DC reduction.

[Voss]

Huh. I'd say limited use bullshit abilities that don't do anything. Arcana Evolved is filled with that kind of crap. The numbers there were pretty much exactly 3.0 numbers

SKR is the one with the real number fetish (and is bad at it to boot). The horrible Mage subsystem in Monte Cook's World of Darkness was an SKR production, complete with bullshit that allowed infinite buffs and alternate-time flow planar hideouts by level 6. Or consider his terrible attempt to turn feats into a numerical system

[hogarth]

I would have thought people had already discovered it by 1987 and WEG Star Wars RPG skill points.

The Marvel Super Heroes RPG predates that and had the same crap (spend Karma on bonuses to rolls vs. permanent advances), although the cost for permanent advancement was so expensive that it was less of a temptation to hoard your Karma.

[virgil]

Virgil Presents: The Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bridge of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Review of the Paginated, Mutant, Alien, Cybernetic, Modified, Poorly-Built, Heavily Flavored RPG Part 2: In Shocking 3-D

Chapter 10-14
This is the setting and gazetteer. I am going to be succinct here. It's an evocative setting filled with adventure and is early in the setting's history, enough time for there to be a kingdom; implying a level of instability to allow for the PCs to actually be the first to do something in an area without constraining WSoD.

Chapter 15: A Graveyard Smash
Here we have the Monster Manual. A side bar notes that you can/should combine groups of 6 to 10 into a 'single' monster with a +2 level (+6 for those using real math) and double damage. The monsters are about as detailed and functional as something out of 1E D&D, enough numeric differences to be more than just a level, and comes with abilities and backstory that both fit and differentiate them from each other.

Chapter 16: Yearbook of NPCs
Here we have the various NPCs, stuff like Aeon Priests and Nanos. None of them are using abilities and stuff that a PC couldn't achieve.

Chapter 17-20: Grease-Monkey's Dirty Magazine
This is the magic item section, cyphers are potions and scrolls, while artifacts are permanent magic items. I actually really like how Monte handled the consumable dilemma that Frank & K struggled with; the psychology of the typical player is risk-adverse to hoard potions out of fear of wasting them. Here, every PC has a stat listing how many consumables they can safely carry with them, and exceeding that number will inflict something akin to 2E's potion miscibility chart. Now they'll drink potions or be consumed in a singularity (you have a 1% chance of something that bad only if you're carrying 10 over the limit). The threat alone should be enough to overcome the typical risk-aversion with consumables.

Artifacts are largely permanent magic items, but some have limited use and will randomly run out of juice, which I don't like.

Chapter 21: Archmage Earl Grey
We open up with Monte ranting about story of gaming and ignorantly states that having fewer rules leads to fewer contradictions in the game. We also see a glimpse as to what he's thinking with the DC = level * 3 mumbo-jumbo; it's supposedly easier to ask someone to rate something off-the-cuff on a scale of 0 to 10 than 0 to 30. Not that such an 'advantage' is worth a fvck because as we've seen with 3E's Stealth, one man's impossible is another's quotidian. Oh, and so they don't ever have to do more arithmetic than adding +2 to their d20 when it's time to roll the die; so yeah, fvcking THAC0.

We also get a few pages on DM intrusions, which I like to call Monte Cook's XP for Bears Exchange Program. Granted, there's also a built-in feature where players will fumble into bears.

Otherwise, so far it seems to be vague advice you see in so many other RPGs, don't make them mindlessly roll dice in mundane situations but don't be afraid to use intrusions on routine actions to make things more interesting.

We also get Monte's insight as to what he wants you to take from the system and what Numenera is all about; consumable magic items.

Chapter 22: All Aboard!

In Numenera, there is no concept of a "balanced encounter." there is no system for matching creatures of a particular level or tasks of a particular difficulty to characters of a particular tier. To some people, that might seem like a bad thing. But as I've written earlier, matching character builds to exacting challenges is not a part of this game. It's about story.

For being the man key to developing one of the great advances in D&D, the CR system, I am disappoint.

He also outright points out that characters that are more interesting than each other will unbalance the game. If it so pleases the court, I wish to bring to order Carries a Quiver & Controls Gravity. When your party can unironically consist of Hawkeye and Loki, then we have a goddamn imbalance here.

Chapter 23+: Swallowing the Red Pill
Here we have good & helpful details on grokking the setting and using it for your game, including some starter adventures which I'm going to leave for someone else to review. As it stands, the book has not managed to drive me away from wanting to use it despite Monte's best efforts; I'm just going to think of it like Rifts in that regard. I have an evocative and weird setting, and the rules are no worse than 2E.

[Antariuk]

Thanks the review virgil, sounds indeed like a mixed bag with both chocolade and feces... Depending on how complete the upcoming Numenera setting book will be, I can see me picking it up, Numenera as a pure setting sounds ok so far.

[virgil]

Here's the part I don't get: Monte Cook has been working on his "convert some bonuses to reductions in Target Number" system for at least two years. Why? What possible purpose does it serve?

As described here, it does make it easier to keep track of different bonuses not allowing more than two steps of reduction each. That's still a shockingly baroque system, but at least it does have a purpose.

I guess, the number of different modifiers aren't actually capped, but the final total can't exceed two steps. The game essentially tells you that the best you can ever get is +14 to your d20 without spending mana; two steps from skill, two steps from assets, and a cap of +2 for your actual roll bonus (if it exceeds +2, it turns into an asset).

This is just a sample, but the whole spending XP instead of advancement. Getting a reroll from spending an XP is equal to getting a +3 to your d20, which is comparable to being trained in a skill. Very roughly, if you're going to use a skill more often than four times in a campaign before it collapses, it's better to get advancement rather than the temporary bonus. Yes, a re-roll will be used when it's needed and is much more flexible, but you can get more than training with advancement and the eventual tier-abilities include stuff like being immune to damage depending on the foci chosen.

[fectin]

Despite the names, didn't you say that "carries a quiver" lets you be Hawkeye, and "controls gravity" lets you be the best at carnie-style weight guessing?

[Sashi]

Oh, and so they don't ever have to do more arithmetic than adding +2 to their d20 when it's time to roll the die; so yeah, fvcking THAC0.

I wonder if there's some kind of totemism going on with using +2.

I remember the 3.0 DMG going on for quite awhile about how all of the temporary bonuses and penalties are 2, so it's easy to handle! If you charge (+2) against someone with partial cover (-2) it cancels out neatly!

It's this weird mindset like +2 +2 +2 -2 +2 -2 on your d20 roll is easy to handle but +8 -4 is torture.

[virgil]

Despite the names, didn't you say that "carries a quiver" lets you be Hawkeye, and "controls gravity" lets you be the best at carnie-style weight guessing?

I made the Hawkeye reference in regards to how interesting of a character you are. In the actual game, you don't even learn how to use a bow until level 3 with Carries a Quiver. Controls Gravity gives you levitation, flight, and immunity to ranged attacks.

[K]

Interview with Monte about Numenera.

[ishy]

And so the mechanics that are there are the kinds of things that, you know, so much of the time I feel like players in a particular game, you have to tell a story in spite of the rules. Like the dice roll indicates something that doesn’t really work for what’s supposed to happen, or the character ability doesn’t really let the character do what he wants to do. So I wanted to create a ruleset that didn’t have the rules get in the way. So that’s why we have mechanics like GM intrusion or player effort, where you can really shape what’s going on within the bounds of the rules as opposed to, “Well, let’s pretend that rule didn’t exist for a minute.”

While I'm in favour of the rules not getting in the way of roleplaying, saying fuck the dice I got a story to tell, doesn't inspire a lot of confidence.

[hogarth]

While I'm in favour of the rules not getting in the way of roleplaying, saying fuck the dice I got a story to tell, doesn't inspire a lot of confidence.

I'm not totally opposed to that, depending on the genre's conventions and how the game handles it.

For instance, Mutants & Masterminds allows the GM to give the PCs hero points in exchange for stuff like letting the bad guy temporarily get away, which is totally appropriate (IMO) if you're simulating 4-colour comic books.