We played Numenera again at the weekend. It was good, though the dungeon design in the adventure was both overly linear and didn't really use traps well. (Neither of which is the fault either of the GM or the system.)
Beyond that, I don't really have anything to say.
Due to the repeated delays in the release of the hardcopy, I finally weakened and picked up the PDF of Firefly. Given that this was only $20, this wasn't any great hardship. That said, I'm really not a fan of reading PDFs - the use of a tablet/eBook reader may make this more enjoyable, but as I don't have either of these things they don't really help. Still, I've managed to read through a chunk of the book, enough to get a partial impression of it.
So, my initial thoughts...
It isn't the "second edition" I had expected. Instead, this game represents a complete revision of the Serenity RPG, to the extent that none of the rules material from that game is useful. That's not a bad thing, though - Serenity was fine for occasional use, but I wouldn't have even tried to run a campaign using it.
There's less to the characters, and more flexibility. This is probably the biggest thing I've noticed, and it's frankly rather welcome. In particular, I found that statting up Serenity PCs frequently left me with both a whole bunch of unspent points and a fairly poor representation of the character I wanted to build.
That said, it's very heavy on opposed skill rolls. By and large, I prefer a "one-roll" system, where there's a fixed target number to beat and the 'active' character must roll to beat it. Instead, this game requires both a roll to "set the stakes" (set DC) and then a roll to "raise the stakes" (success/failure).
I'm really not sure an "Episode Guide" is really a good use of 100+ pages. I've seen the show. And, frankly, if I wanted reminded of what happens I'd watch the show again. Plus, failing even that, there are better episode guides available online. Mostly, this seems a waste of a lot of text, which isn't ideal in a PDF, but it actively bad in a hardcopy where weight is an issue - the book would probably be better 100 pages lighter.
And, while we're at it, I'm not sure that "Episode Guide" is really the best way to teach the rules. I mean, I get that they're trying something new here, and I guess that's admirable - RPG rules are very frequently presented really badly for new players learning the game. But, you know what, I think I'd actually rather just have a rules digest; those 100 or so pages of the rules I actually need, without the rest getting in the way. After all, I mostly just want to play the game, not learn it. (Plus, the piecemeal approach isn't doing too much for my retention of info.)
All that said, I'm reasonably sure that this is going to prove a significant improvement over Serenity, which was fun but lacking somewhat in robustness. I suspect this game will, at the very least, be just as much fun, and probably a better fit for the 'Verse. So I genuinely do look forward to giving it a try-out, and I would be surprised if it doesn't replace Serenity as one of my go-to games.
Of course, the sooner that hardcopy arrives, the better...
