On Saturday, I got my first chance to play "Numenera", the new game from Monte Cook. Amongst other things, this is one of three games in a "new wave" of RPGs that purport to do something genuinely new in the area. (The other two games in this "new wave" are "Thirteenth Age" and "Dungeonworld", neither of which I know much about.) So, I was understandably curious to see what all the fuss was about.
First, some peripheral matters:
The session itself was very solid. The game was GM'ed well, as always, by Brindy, and the group of players present was a good one - it gelled well, it had a good blend of personalities. That was all to the good. Some of what follows is rather critical, so I felt it was important to note up-front that any criticisms are aimed at the game/adventure, rather than at the group/GM.
Speaking of the adventure... oh dear. On the face of it, this was a straightforward enough adventure - there was trouble in the town, the PCs have to figure out what it is... go!
Unfortunately, the adventure is badly structured, containing at least two rookie mistakes in adventure design. I appreciate that it was necessarily short, but... I would have expected better from Monte, and I certainly would have expected better from an adventure intended to showcase a new game.
The first problem comes when the PCs try to figure out what the problem is. Here, the puzzle is laid out as a trail of breadcrumbs - go here to get the clue that points you to there, then go there to be pointed to the next place, then go there to do the next thing... The problem with that is that if the PCs don't start by going 'here' then the whole adventure grinds to a halt. There are other locations named in the adventure, but there's absolutely nothing of interest to be learned from them. The only way for the adventure to progress is for the PCs to go 'here'. That's a bad way to structure any adventure, but is especially poisonous for a puzzle or mystery adventure. Honestly, I thought we were beyond this - see "the three-clue rule".
The second problem tied in to the first. At the start of the adventure, the obvious thing to do was go "here". That was fine. But on arrival, the PCs were told, in no uncertain terms, "go away. Come back tomorrow". Fair enough. And the next day, we were told the same.
Now, at this point, standard RPG protocol is to decide something is amiss, and to break into the place to find out what. Except... this was a building belonging to the legitimate authority in the game, and guarded by a representative of that authority. Suddenly, that "obvious" course of action is cast into doubt.
But, fair enough, eventually we gave up on the other dead-ends and decided to break in. At which point, we discovered that, in order to gain entry, we had to find a hidden switch for the trap - a task requiring an extremely difficult roll (18+ on d20 - even applying all available modifiers it was still 12+; that is, a 45% chance of getting to continue the adventure). And there was another instance of just this again at the end of the adventure - make this roll, or you can go no further.
Honestly, is this where we are with adventure design? Still?
So... The Game Itself
I found Numenera to be something of a mixed bag.
The first thing that leapt out at me was that I really liked the setting. It was nicely done, it was evocative, and it had shades of both Vance's "Dying Earth" and of "Gamma World". Lots of good stuff there, and lots of scope for adventure.
I also liked the Numenera themselves, at least mostly. In particular, I liked the use of "cyphers" - one-shot items with a single, specific purpose. I liked that these were readily available, and I also liked that PCs could only carry a few of them. It seems that Monte has learned a thing or two from D&D's potions, wands and scrolls. I wasn't so keen on the "Oddities" - other than humour, they didn't seem to add anything to the game. Then again, maybe humour is enough.
Finally, I liked the core of the system - I liked the use of "pools", I liked the rolling system, and I liked what little I saw of characters being connected to one another mechanically. That was all to the good.
I wasn't so keen on character creation. On the face of it, it seemed really nice - describe your character as "an {adjective} {noun} who {does something}", where each of the three is taken from a short list. Then, look at the effect of each, and that's your character. So, my first attempt was "a strong-willed Jack who wields power with precision". Which sounds pretty good (you need to know what a "Jack" is, but since it's one of three character classes, that's not too bad).
Unfortunately, I quickly found that "wields power with precision" didn't mean what I thought it meant, and it really didn't fit my view of the character at all. So, I had to swap that out for something else, and ended up with "wields two weapons at once" - not ideal, but still pretty good.
Unfortunately, that experience gave me the distinct impression that it would be very easy to create a character who just sucks in this system - some of the {does something} options, and almost certainly some of the {adjective} options, are distinctly tied to specific {noun} options - if you take the wrong one, you're screwed. Which means that you're not really choosing an adjective/noun/verb combination because it describes your character - you need to choose these options based on mechanics. System mastery is still there; it's just hidden (which is even worse than having it out in the open).
(In theory, that can be fixed easily enough. Either provide individual adjective/verb options for each of the three classes, or (better) adjust the effect of the adjective/verb combinations based on which class is selected. That way, any combination should work, and the system then becomes fun rather than a minefield.)
My other big criticism was to become apparent quite late in the game. For the most part, the combat system is a good one - quick and fun, with the players making all of the rolls, and plenty of options for actions.
But...
The way damage works is as follows: you roll to hit. If you hit, your attack does a fixed amount of damage, reduced by a fixed amount by armour (and, in theory, can be reduced to 0). There are some powers that can grant an additional point of damage (presumably, more at higher 'level'), and you get extra damage if your attack roll is very high (17+).
Pretty much my character's defining characteristic was "wields two weapons at once". Specifically, he used two light weapons at once, which meant that each successful attack did 2 points of damage... and I had a power that could boost this by +1, for a total of 3. And that was it - barring a lucky roll, the absolute maximum damage my character could do was 3.
In the one and only combat encounter in the game, the enemy were wearing heavy armour, which reduced the damage of any successful attack by 3.
(Fortunately, my character was also carrying a bow which, as a medium weapon, did 4 points of damage, so I wasn't completely useless. Nonetheless, that was very disheartening.)
All in all, I'm afraid I'm really not a fan of the system. It has some nice features, but it also has some major flaws.
Parting Thoughts:
I feel quite bad about being so critical of the game. Physically, it's extremely nice, it's well presented, it's got a great setting, and it's mostly a good game. And I had fun playing - from the point where we'd completed char-gen up to the point where I realised my character's signature move rendered him useless.
But, overall, I'm afraid my impression was more negative than positive. It was okay. But it wasn't really any better than okay, and that was disappointing.
You don't mention effort in your post ... this is probably my fault for not explaining clearly, but you can expend effort up to your effort level that many times per round and on pretty much anything... including damage. However, for 3 pool points (less your edge if any) that would have only boosted your damage by one point.
ReplyDeleteThat all said, I think you're right that it was difficult / impossible for your character to do any damage so we were probably doing something wrong. I haven't had chance to review it yet, but when I do, I'll let you know if I work it out.
But a more general response is that Numenera is supposed to be system light / roleplay heavy. The system (checks vs levels, etc) is just there as something to fall back on and shouldn't get in the way of the story. "Your use of logic trumps any rule!" is boldly stated on the GM's screen. :)
As a whole, I feel that our group (Falkirk RPG) is still a very system based RPG group. I like a good system as much as the next man, but I am starting to feel like we let system get in the way of good stories at times.
I didn't realise you could spend Effort to increase the damage as well. That makes a slight difference - it would mean that by using that and Thrust together, I could boost my melee damage to 4 - just enough to get through even heavy armour.
ReplyDeleteYou're not wrong about us (me especially) being quite system-based.
I had a quick read on the train tonight - I've created a post on the FRPG site, but the key thing we got wrong is that melee attacks can be Might OR Speed based - player's choice (unless using an ability which states the type explicitly). That would have probably made all the difference!
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