Numenera - What's it for, how does it play, and general questions

[Gamgee]

I think I'll give the core book a try. Even if it just turns out an interesting reading experience on what other people are thinking about such a type of campaign.

Items that do the job of a mundane tool but slightly better have started to bore me for quite a while. Especially when you think of magic items as a writer instead of a player or GM, they don't really do anything unless the bonus is huge. But say a character in a story gets a +1 sword. Apart from the scen in which he is amazed over this magic sword, the magicness won't ever become noticeable again, unless it also doubles as a key (of a door, or unlocking the invincible overlords death). +2 Strength is nothing, it only makes a difference when you get to +10 or above. But potions and bombs, that's where all the fun is happening. Not a potion with 2 points fire resistance, but a potion of total fire immunity.


Yeah, that was something I was afraid of. Most RPGs are terrible at explaining how they are supposed to work outside of combat, treating it as something completely obvious that any first time GM will obviously know inside out. And Monte Cook always seemed one of the worst offenders to me who doesn't appear to understand why anyone would be interested in player agency. I love mystery and ambiguity more than most people, but it's important that there is the appearance that there is a reason and explaination for everything, even if we can never learn the answer. Just throwing some glowing lights and tentacles at the player and calling it weird and mysterious doesn't do it. (Which is why I don't like most of Raggis LotFP adventures, even though those by most other writers are great.) Things are only weird and mysterious if they don't fit into the normal pattern. If there is no pattern for the ordinary, then nothing is extraordinary. Planescape is super weird, but when you are familiar with regular AD&D, then you know the patterns that are being violated. From what I've read of Numenera, the Ninth World sounds like a super freaky joyride completely disconnected from anything familiar, which is why the setting doesn't sound very appealing to me.

Do you think the game still works decently when there is some pattern and familiarity with the cyphers, or does the fun come from constantly trying out new weird toys?

Numenera has a pattern considering it has warring kingdoms. Also ciphers can be very minor or they can be quite dramatic. My player got what he didn't know was a time delayed thermo nuclear charge. He was trying to discover its secrets and at one point wanted to implant it in himself because he thought it would do something cool. He is playing a cyborg. Then came a bad encounter and he had to hurl the thing at an enemy. He was disappointed to see it do nothing and then several rounds later explodes killing the enemy and nearly killing everyone else. It also destroyed several important NPC's for that location but eh. By then they were getting near the ending.

This same player discovered some beetles in a forest and is determined to find out what they are and what use they could be (he found them at the beginning of the campaign IRL a year ago), and if they are harmless he wants ot mutate them into something more interesting. To this end he is slowly building up devices in his lab and or looking for one to conduct experiments in. Most people in the world consider him to be a crazy wizard. Which he actually is. Then there are teleportation ciphers, wall phasing, mind reading, ray projectors, wall projectors, ropes, seeing devices, implantations and the list goes on. Not all of them are mechanical and many of them are biomechanical or chemical in nature.