I've been a GM of a Numenera game for almost a year now, here's my experience. The game world is super hard for people to wrap their heads around, including myself, because it is just so weird and...
I've been a GM of a Numenera game for almost a year now, here's my experience.
The game world is super hard for people to wrap their heads around, including myself, because it is just so weird and fresh. This can make it difficult to write for, because the game intentionally challenges a lot of tropes. Tropes are usually the basis for DnD campaigns, so its a bit harder to write for. I don't agree with MCG that a GM only needs 10-15 minutes of prep, the game is so narrative based, you need to have a pretty fleshed out story.
Descriptions make and break Numenera, be that the GM describing the environment, effects, monsters, artifacts, etc. That means you need a lot of material to pull from, which generally means more prep work. It also comes in in a big way in combat. Combat in Numenera is pretty damn bland, but, very open ended. This means its meant to be a more narrative based combat, rather than a tactical one like DnD, Pathfinder, Shadowrun, etc. Having players that will describe their actions and come up with things other than just "I stick it with my sword" is kind of crucial to making combat interesting.
Cyphers also generally have more complex descriptions than something that facilitates a fast fly by the seat of the pants style. I like to make little cards with the cypher name, level, what the object is, and its full description, so when they find some ciphers, I can just toss out a few cards, and bam, looting done. Rather than reading a paragraph long description of each cypher, and explaining it to the players so they understand, they can just look at the card. This is especially important given the lack of space on the character sheet and if your players actually put in the effort to log things.
All in all, there's a lot more talking and a lot less doing in Numenera as opposed to other game systems. Its a game about discovery and figuring out the world that surrounds the players. Discovery and Destiny remove a lot of the annoying rules, and expand the game in good ways, like the Jack being reworked entirely to be its own unique thing instead of "we need a third class other than technowizard and fighter," "Uhhhhh what if we just took half the abilities from each and gave them to a class that is basically a do anything." Thats basically the first edition Jack. And its not like the Glaive abilities in first edition are very inspiring either, bash, pierce, whatever the third one was, are just basic attacks that add some damage. The game as a whole felt like combat was an after thought to the crazy pipe dream of MC's world building.
So, you really need to have "active" players more than any other game system. You can't really just sit there and stack dice until its time for barbarian clubbing time and expect to get much out of the game.
One of the things I love about MCG's new system Invisible Sun is the cards. They include more than 1000 cards for the game's equivalent to Cyphers so that you never have to read them out to...
One of the things I love about MCG's new system Invisible Sun is the cards. They include more than 1000 cards for the game's equivalent to Cyphers so that you never have to read them out to players, and there's enough variety you're never likely to give the same player the same one twice. But all in all, Invisible Sun is ridiculously and delightfully prop-heavy for a tabletop RPG.
I'm an enthusiastic player of Monte Cook Games' games, devoured Discovery and Destiny when they were released and recently received my delightful box of Invisible Sun books and props. There's a...
I'm an enthusiastic player of Monte Cook Games' games, devoured Discovery and Destiny when they were released and recently received my delightful box of Invisible Sun books and props. There's a lot of fun and flexibility in MCG's systems, and the worldbuilding is often top notch.
The pacing of the game has just gotten a major overhaul with Discovery/Destiny, with recognition that not all of everyone's lives has to be tracked in detail and sometimes people need a couple...
The pacing of the game has just gotten a major overhaul with Discovery/Destiny, with recognition that not all of everyone's lives has to be tracked in detail and sometimes people need a couple months off to tinker, rest and gather supplies. There are now long term actions that are measured in months that bring different sorts of benefits, so a session could cover 15 minutes of game time, or it could cover a couple of years, depending on what your players want to be doing with their time. It also can mean that the story happens faster, but that's really up to you as the storyteller.
It's good to be generous with XP for a couple of reasons: when you give XP as part of a GM intrusion, in addition to the excitement of the intrusion it gives the player an opportunity to gift XP to another player, binding their characters closer together. Also, not all XP will be used for character development. Your players should be willing to hold on to some XP specifically to block an intrusion or get a reroll at a crucial moment when they really really want things to go well. Because those moments where there's short term gain to be had are generally super exciting and interesting, you want your players to have enough XP that they can feel justified in spending a few points at those crucial moments. That also means that you can throw even more exciting things at them, knowing that they can pull out all the stops. :)
Also, if players become more personally powerful, there's limits to how much they can affect. They are still one individual and can only do so much if an army of abhumans are marching against their town. As they grow more powerful, you can change the kinds of challenges they face to be ones that they still have to have creativity and luck to surpass. The Iron Wind will always be a threat even if they can blast a 40 foot hole in a mountainside.
Part of the glory of Numenera as a system is that all you have to do is move past the Steadfast where most of the people-focused worldbuilding is and you aren't going to have any problems at all. Different beasts, different tech, different powers? Who cares? Numenera is nothing if not a flexible world given how little the people living in it really understand the powers they excavate and use.
The actual rules of play are fairly simple, but take the time to think about what the mechanical aspects mean for the narrative aspects. Things like GM intrusions and the players spending XP for short term gain are meant to support a very collaborative and engaged style of play from moment to moment. Cyphers being one-shot items with harsh restrictions on carrying them means that they need to continually get more loot to push them to use their cool things regularly. If a player just hoards their best cyphers for the future and saves every XP for more future power they aren't having an awesome now. Push them to use their resources; they should be confident that there's more treasure around the corner. In fact, since all but the most powerful of artifacts have depletion rolls, everything is a consumable. It isn't like D&D where at some point they'll have a castle full of gear they've collected and no longer use; things come and go, and the cloak that saved them three times may shrivel to nothingness unexpectedly when they try to use it the fourth time. Especially with the new rules for salvaging and crafting, even things that would otherwise have been held on to might be salvaged to make something better (or better in this moment).
As far as getting the old corebook: I wouldn't bother. The new books have benefited from years of play and refined thought on how the rules work. The old one won't really help.
I think the "Into the..." trilogy can be a lot of fun to read through to get deeper into the feel of the world for your own benefit but that you wouldn't want to start your players there. They...
I think the "Into the..." trilogy can be a lot of fun to read through to get deeper into the feel of the world for your own benefit but that you wouldn't want to start your players there. They were the first plan for what to do when your players wanted more challenge, and while community-building hasn't replaced the interest in going under the sea, into space, or into other dimensions, it's filled some of that advancement space that those farther-ranging adventures filled before.
Tying your players more into a geographic space by giving them the opportunity to foster a community means that travels further afield will be more special, so I'd pick them up eventually, but they aren't needed from the get-go.
The player's handbook is, in my opinion, best distributed to all of your players as a PDF. That way they can each read it, refer to it when needed, not have to share. I wouldn't consider it useful as a physical book.
There's a number of other books, but they're all compendiums of adventures, gear, or worldbuilding. If you'd like more ideas about the world and how to play in it they've got a wealth of content but they aren't crucial to getting going. If you're ever low on ideas they're a great resource. If you played the Numenera computer game you might be interested in the Explorer's Guide, as that gives stats and description for the things seen in the game, but if any of your players also played it you wouldn't be able to crib too heavily.
One of my players once botched a mildly challenging jump to get to a chunk of floating masonry over the Voil Chasm, and it took a hour of play with a combo of skydiving and cleverness on the part...
One of my players once botched a mildly challenging jump to get to a chunk of floating masonry over the Voil Chasm, and it took a hour of play with a combo of skydiving and cleverness on the part of the rest of the party to catch him. At this point, they were deep, deep in the chasm and all of my plans for the next few months got to be pushed back in favor of spelunking and survival in the process of making their way back toward the surface.
I've been a GM of a Numenera game for almost a year now, here's my experience.
The game world is super hard for people to wrap their heads around, including myself, because it is just so weird and fresh. This can make it difficult to write for, because the game intentionally challenges a lot of tropes. Tropes are usually the basis for DnD campaigns, so its a bit harder to write for. I don't agree with MCG that a GM only needs 10-15 minutes of prep, the game is so narrative based, you need to have a pretty fleshed out story.
Descriptions make and break Numenera, be that the GM describing the environment, effects, monsters, artifacts, etc. That means you need a lot of material to pull from, which generally means more prep work. It also comes in in a big way in combat. Combat in Numenera is pretty damn bland, but, very open ended. This means its meant to be a more narrative based combat, rather than a tactical one like DnD, Pathfinder, Shadowrun, etc. Having players that will describe their actions and come up with things other than just "I stick it with my sword" is kind of crucial to making combat interesting.
Cyphers also generally have more complex descriptions than something that facilitates a fast fly by the seat of the pants style. I like to make little cards with the cypher name, level, what the object is, and its full description, so when they find some ciphers, I can just toss out a few cards, and bam, looting done. Rather than reading a paragraph long description of each cypher, and explaining it to the players so they understand, they can just look at the card. This is especially important given the lack of space on the character sheet and if your players actually put in the effort to log things.
All in all, there's a lot more talking and a lot less doing in Numenera as opposed to other game systems. Its a game about discovery and figuring out the world that surrounds the players. Discovery and Destiny remove a lot of the annoying rules, and expand the game in good ways, like the Jack being reworked entirely to be its own unique thing instead of "we need a third class other than technowizard and fighter," "Uhhhhh what if we just took half the abilities from each and gave them to a class that is basically a do anything." Thats basically the first edition Jack. And its not like the Glaive abilities in first edition are very inspiring either, bash, pierce, whatever the third one was, are just basic attacks that add some damage. The game as a whole felt like combat was an after thought to the crazy pipe dream of MC's world building.
So, you really need to have "active" players more than any other game system. You can't really just sit there and stack dice until its time for barbarian clubbing time and expect to get much out of the game.
Good luck!
One of the things I love about MCG's new system Invisible Sun is the cards. They include more than 1000 cards for the game's equivalent to Cyphers so that you never have to read them out to players, and there's enough variety you're never likely to give the same player the same one twice. But all in all, Invisible Sun is ridiculously and delightfully prop-heavy for a tabletop RPG.
I'm an enthusiastic player of Monte Cook Games' games, devoured Discovery and Destiny when they were released and recently received my delightful box of Invisible Sun books and props. There's a lot of fun and flexibility in MCG's systems, and the worldbuilding is often top notch.
What did you want to ask about?
The pacing of the game has just gotten a major overhaul with Discovery/Destiny, with recognition that not all of everyone's lives has to be tracked in detail and sometimes people need a couple months off to tinker, rest and gather supplies. There are now long term actions that are measured in months that bring different sorts of benefits, so a session could cover 15 minutes of game time, or it could cover a couple of years, depending on what your players want to be doing with their time. It also can mean that the story happens faster, but that's really up to you as the storyteller.
It's good to be generous with XP for a couple of reasons: when you give XP as part of a GM intrusion, in addition to the excitement of the intrusion it gives the player an opportunity to gift XP to another player, binding their characters closer together. Also, not all XP will be used for character development. Your players should be willing to hold on to some XP specifically to block an intrusion or get a reroll at a crucial moment when they really really want things to go well. Because those moments where there's short term gain to be had are generally super exciting and interesting, you want your players to have enough XP that they can feel justified in spending a few points at those crucial moments. That also means that you can throw even more exciting things at them, knowing that they can pull out all the stops. :)
Also, if players become more personally powerful, there's limits to how much they can affect. They are still one individual and can only do so much if an army of abhumans are marching against their town. As they grow more powerful, you can change the kinds of challenges they face to be ones that they still have to have creativity and luck to surpass. The Iron Wind will always be a threat even if they can blast a 40 foot hole in a mountainside.
Part of the glory of Numenera as a system is that all you have to do is move past the Steadfast where most of the people-focused worldbuilding is and you aren't going to have any problems at all. Different beasts, different tech, different powers? Who cares? Numenera is nothing if not a flexible world given how little the people living in it really understand the powers they excavate and use.
The actual rules of play are fairly simple, but take the time to think about what the mechanical aspects mean for the narrative aspects. Things like GM intrusions and the players spending XP for short term gain are meant to support a very collaborative and engaged style of play from moment to moment. Cyphers being one-shot items with harsh restrictions on carrying them means that they need to continually get more loot to push them to use their cool things regularly. If a player just hoards their best cyphers for the future and saves every XP for more future power they aren't having an awesome now. Push them to use their resources; they should be confident that there's more treasure around the corner. In fact, since all but the most powerful of artifacts have depletion rolls, everything is a consumable. It isn't like D&D where at some point they'll have a castle full of gear they've collected and no longer use; things come and go, and the cloak that saved them three times may shrivel to nothingness unexpectedly when they try to use it the fourth time. Especially with the new rules for salvaging and crafting, even things that would otherwise have been held on to might be salvaged to make something better (or better in this moment).
As far as getting the old corebook: I wouldn't bother. The new books have benefited from years of play and refined thought on how the rules work. The old one won't really help.
Edit: Moved my reply into the thread.
I think the "Into the..." trilogy can be a lot of fun to read through to get deeper into the feel of the world for your own benefit but that you wouldn't want to start your players there. They were the first plan for what to do when your players wanted more challenge, and while community-building hasn't replaced the interest in going under the sea, into space, or into other dimensions, it's filled some of that advancement space that those farther-ranging adventures filled before.
Tying your players more into a geographic space by giving them the opportunity to foster a community means that travels further afield will be more special, so I'd pick them up eventually, but they aren't needed from the get-go.
The player's handbook is, in my opinion, best distributed to all of your players as a PDF. That way they can each read it, refer to it when needed, not have to share. I wouldn't consider it useful as a physical book.
There's a number of other books, but they're all compendiums of adventures, gear, or worldbuilding. If you'd like more ideas about the world and how to play in it they've got a wealth of content but they aren't crucial to getting going. If you're ever low on ideas they're a great resource. If you played the Numenera computer game you might be interested in the Explorer's Guide, as that gives stats and description for the things seen in the game, but if any of your players also played it you wouldn't be able to crib too heavily.
One of my players once botched a mildly challenging jump to get to a chunk of floating masonry over the Voil Chasm, and it took a hour of play with a combo of skydiving and cleverness on the part of the rest of the party to catch him. At this point, they were deep, deep in the chasm and all of my plans for the next few months got to be pushed back in favor of spelunking and survival in the process of making their way back toward the surface.