Monte Cook's Numenera

[Substitution]

There is an anti 3rd edition DnD thread that was first made before more information was available.

This is something completely different. Something I'm excited about and will one day want a full group of players for. This is about what piques your curiousity about a roleplaying game based more on role-playing than gaining a perceived rules advantage through assuming the designers wrote the rules under an electron microscope.

The Amber Monolith

I want to start out with a piece of fluff, something every GM would run differently. The most interesting read of it comes if you follow the kickstarter' blog and think about things like "The GM doesn't roll, it's all the players??"

The Kickstarter Page.

[crimson77]

I supported this kick starter campaign a few days after it was announced. I am excited to play this game. I up-ed my pledge so I can get the play tester materials. I am hoping to run a campaign in the near future. I think this system will be really awesome.

[Inglenook]

It looks interesting, but Monte Cook makes me stabby. I am withholding my enthusiasm for now.

[Substitution]

Numenera just passed it's main goal on release and has a special, kickstarter only leatherbound edition.

The project is quickly coming to a close and Mr. Cook has a blog post up about how dice rolls will work in Numenera.

The new D20

I'm curious if the additional positive feelings that come with 17, 18, 19 will diminish the excitement of a natural 20 all players feel.

[crimson77]

Originally Posted by Substitution

I'm curious if the additional positive feelings that come with 17, 18, 19 will diminish the excitement of a natural 20 all players feel.

I think that d20/3.x already diminished the natural 20 feeling. I am a little concerned that this might be too much.

[Knaight]

Originally Posted by Substitution

I'm curious if the additional positive feelings that come with 17, 18, 19 will diminish the excitement of a natural 20 all players feel.

I actually like the idea of making 17-20 special in their own ways. That said, the very rare d6 that still shows up from time to time already seems like an irritant that could be taken out of the system, and I'm not liking the percentile dice as GMs dice on account of how "The Numenera book is going to be filled with lots of tables for the GM, mostly to help in adventure creation. Tables about the weird aspect of an isolated community, about mutations, about bioengineered effects, about incredible devices, and much, much more", with this being their main use.

[Substitution]

The GM doesn't have to roll dice. Those percentile are just like the tables in 3rd edition that I personally have never touched and didn't need to keep me giving my players a variety.

Why roll for an NPC quirk when I can give my own?

Also, I can not for the life of me understand how the d20 system diminishes the positive feelings of a natural 20 Crimson.

[Mando Knight]

Originally Posted by historiasdeosos

It looks interesting, but Monte Cook makes me stabby. I am withholding my enthusiasm for now.

Sorry, it's a Monte Cook system. You can stab, but while you try to do so, the wizard will turn your brain to mush while having tea with a divine being or two.

Originally Posted by Substitution

Also, I can not for the life of me understand how the d20 system diminishes the positive feelings of a natural 20 Crimson.

Critical Threat. Besides increased threat ranges on certain weapons, requiring you to confirm a threat means that at least some of the time (depending on your accuracy vs the enemy's ability to dodge) all a natural 20 will do is guarantee a hit.

...And then there's Concealment...

[crimson77]

Originally Posted by Mando Knight

Critical Threat. Besides increased threat ranges on certain weapons, requiring you to confirm a threat means that at least some of the time (depending on your accuracy vs the enemy's ability to dodge) all a natural 20 will do is guarantee a hit.

Exactly....

I grew up playing AD&D 1E and 2E with a house rule that a "natural 20" always hit or succeeded. House rules and groups change with the editions. It just never felt the same when you got a 20 and had to role a confirm critical or your buddy rolled an 18 with an increased critical threat range and does the same thing. (However, there is always the times when you roll a natural 20 followed by another natural 20 to confirm your critical. That can always make the table scream out in joy with a descriptive old school DM).

I am just worried that a 1 in 5 chance for "something special" will cheapen the effect. Really, you could just use a d6 (or d5) - statistically speaking. I think that system would work better for a "normal curve" type of dice roll (e.g., 3d6). However, Monte has said he rejected the normal curve idea but will have an optional rule to instate it in the back of the book.

Despite my pessimism about the large range for a critical effect, I still have spent (or pledged) way more than I thought I would for the system. I am really excited to start to see the play-tester materials as well (and yes, I did opt to spend extra for the dice).

[Friv]

So, I was reading Monte Cook's essay on why altering difficulties is easier than altering die rolls.

It's not! It's exactly the same thing! There is no difference in calculation between the two things in any possible way!

More worryingly, he's contradicted himself in a huge way within two paragraphs. Allow me to bold them:

Originally Posted by Monty Cook

Anyway, each difficulty level (1-10) has a target number associated. It’s basically 3 times the level. That’s the number you need to roll on a d20 (or higher) to succeed. Because there are not a lot of modifiers to the roll, that means two things:

1. Target numbers like 3 or 6, which would be boring in most games that use the d20, are not boring. If you need a 6, for example, you still have a 1 in 4 chance to fail.

2. The upper levels of difficulty, 7, 8, 9, or 10, are all but impossible, since the target numbers would be 21 or higher. But (you knew there was a “but” coming, right?)…

It’s quite common for players to modify the difficulty of a task. I wrote about this earlier. Using training, assets, working together, or–perhaps most importantly–effort, difficulty levels can be moved down multiple steps to make them easier.

So there aren't many modifiers, making the roll super-important, but it's very common to apply modifiers that majorly change the rolls?

[Substitution]

Numenera has had it's most explosive day yet on Monday and is growing more rapidly every day as it comes to a close.

For 50 dollars you can get a PDF of everything, including the soon to be unlocked world book and the GM's screen and the decks of cards. That seems like an amazing deal that I hope more people take up on. 50 dollars for an entire role-playing system and accessories (albeit digital) can make for some amazing google plus games.

That being said..

Originally Posted by Friv

So, I was reading Monte Cook's essay on why altering difficulties is easier than altering die rolls.

It's not! It's exactly the same thing! There is no difference in calculation between the two things in any possible way!

So there aren't many modifiers, making the roll super-important, but it's very common to apply modifiers that majorly change the rolls?

I could not agree more, Friv. Taken in the context you took it, you couldn't be more correct. There is basically no difference between:

Example 1: Player: "I try and deal a killing blow with my ranged weapon"
GM: "That's pretty difficult, he's watching for you so that's difficulty 5, you'll need a 15 or higher on the die"
Player: "I expend effort so it's only difficulty 4; so all I need is 12 or higher!" -rolls- a 14, perfect I puncture him with my arrow and do X damage (Static)

Example 2: Player: "I fire at him with my +1 longbow"
GM: Okay, give me a roll.
Player -rolls-
GM: "What'd you get?"
Player: "Is he secretly undead? I get a favored enemy bonus"
Gm: "Not this time"
Player: "Well, I got an 14, plus 3 from my BAB, plus 1 from magical, plus 1 from weapon focus, +3 from my dexterity bonus, oh wait and +1 for being small!"
Other Player: "Don't forget my +1 from inspiring courage"
GM: "Well, he's got soft cover against your attack so his effective AC is.. 20, you hit!"
Player: "Okay, I get to roll 1d8 + 2 from deadly aim +1 from magical +2 for my strength bonus -rolls- Looks like I do 10 damage!"

There is clearly zero difference between modifying difficulty and rolls. They are identical.

[Chambers]

I'm mildly disinterested in Numenera. I don't have any personal grudges against Monte's game design, I just think most of it is merely average. The only thing that made me go "Oh, that's cool" was Ptlous. I thought that was interesting and well-done.

I wasn't impressed when he started doing work for D&D Next. The Legend and Lore columns he wrote seemed to show that he didn't really understand 4th edition and thus made me wary of him shepherding in 5th edition. I'll wait for it to come out and read the reviews, but I probably won't buy it as I don't do a lot (or any) Science Fiction gaming, though I am a fan of SF.

I think a thing that would really grab my attention and get me interested would be....hmm. I'm not sure, but short blog posts of dice mechanics and brief world descriptions aren't doing it. Come on Monte, sell me your game! Right now it just feels like another heartbreaker but done on a larger scale.

[Knaight]

Originally Posted by Substitution

For 50 dollars you can get a PDF of everything, including the soon to be unlocked world book and the GM's screen and the decks of cards. That seems like an amazing deal that I hope more people take up on. 50 dollars for an entire role-playing system and accessories (albeit digital) can make for some amazing google plus games.

50 dollars is quite expensive for one role playing system in hardback. In PDF it is completely absurd. It's cheaper than D&D, it's cheaper than HERO, it might be cheaper than GURPS, and that's about it for major systems.

[Substitution]

I want to add some on-topic discussion before the off-topic.
Numenera is nearly at 340,000, it has sizeable support at over 3000 backers and is appearing to be a very easy to learn system so I have high hopes for getting my local group to play it. Only 4 days to go!

I cringe a little at the fluff sometimes reading the blog posts, but all the gaming system posts resonate extremely with me as a GM for over a decade. It's clearly being made by someone who cares about RPGs and wants it to be better than the rest.

That being said. How come no one ever rants about Monte Cooks World of Darkness? Wasn't it ridiculous how humans were less powerful than werewolves or vampires or mages? I think that there were some definite game design issues that my normal human with a 9mm couldn't even be even with a werewolf tossing cars around.

Originally Posted by Knaight

50 dollars is quite expensive for one role playing system in hardback. In PDF it is completely absurd. It's cheaper than D&D, it's cheaper than HERO, it might be cheaper than GURPS, and that's about it for major systems.

I'm not sure I understand your reference point. If I enter a google search or Amazon search for role playing game, I am having a problem finding ANY gaming system that includes even the main rulebook for less than 40 or 50 dollars; much less the bestiary and several add-on fluff books and accessories.

Many players also utilize things such as iPads to read and browse these books in a very, very portable sense. Though I don't like the idea of that compared to tangible books.

Unless we are talking about bankrupt/decade old systems. I found a very interesting steampunk RPG at Gen Con for only 5 dollars from a company that bellied up.

[Friv]

Originally Posted by Substitution

I could not agree more, Friv. Taken in the context you took it, you couldn't be more correct. There is basically no difference between:

Example 1: Player: "I try and deal a killing blow with my ranged weapon"
GM: "That's pretty difficult, he's watching for you so that's difficulty 5, you'll need a 15 or higher on the die"
Player: "I expend effort so it's only difficulty 4; so all I need is 12 or higher!" -rolls- a 14, perfect I puncture him with my arrow and do X damage (Static)

Example 2: Player: "I fire at him with my +1 longbow"
GM: Okay, give me a roll.
Player -rolls-
GM: "What'd you get?"
Player: "Is he secretly undead? I get a favored enemy bonus"
Gm: "Not this time"
Player: "Well, I got an 14, plus 3 from my BAB, plus 1 from magical, plus 1 from weapon focus, +3 from my dexterity bonus, oh wait and +1 for being small!"
Other Player: "Don't forget my +1 from inspiring courage"
GM: "Well, he's got soft cover against your attack so his effective AC is.. 20, you hit!"
Player: "Okay, I get to roll 1d8 + 2 from deadly aim +1 from magical +2 for my strength bonus -rolls- Looks like I do 10 damage!"

There is clearly zero difference between modifying difficulty and rolls. They are identical.

Ah, good old sarcasm.

But your two examples aren't actually different on the "input/output" front, you've just added twenty conditional modifiers to the second example to confuse things. Allow me to give you a counter-example.

Example #1
Player: I fire an arrow into his face!
GM: Right, I'm calling it a difficulty 5, roll a 15.
Player: Is he an undead? I'm -3 difficulty against undead.
GM: No, not an undead.
Player 2: And I'm providing aid! Don't forget the aid! So it's actually difficulty 14.
Player 1: And I'll expend effort to drop the difficulty by 4, to take it down to 10. Oh, and did you remember my ability to ignore half of the difficulty from cover?
GM: Crap, no I didn't. Okay, then, base difficulty is 12. How much were we reducing it by? 4, right?
Player 2: No, 5. Aid.
GM: Right. Okay. So roll a 7.

Example 2: Player: I fire an arrow from my +1 Longbow. I'm +8 to hit.
GM: Roll it.
Player: 19. Is he undead?
GM: No, but it hits anyway. Good job!


So, for the first thing, the existence of modifiers doesn't mean anything to whether or not they are applying to the entry or exit point of the die roll. The effect is identical. The second thing is that if there are a lot of modifiers, there can't be not a lot of modifiers. One of those two statements has to be true.

[Knaight]

Originally Posted by Substitution

I'm not sure I understand your reference point. If I enter a google search or Amazon search for role playing game, I am having a problem finding ANY gaming system that includes even the main rulebook for less than 40 or 50 dollars; much less the bestiary and several add-on fluff books and accessories.

Burning Wheel: 650ish pages, everything in one book. 25$ hardback.
Terra Incognita: About 150 pages, setting and rules. 22$ paperback.
Savage Worlds Explorer's Edition: 100-200 pages, 10$ paperback.
REIGN: 450ish pages, setting, creatures, and game. 37$ paperback + PDF.
Fudge 10th Anniversary Edition: 320 pages, 35$ hardback.
Spirit of the Century: 420 Pages, 30$ Softcover + PDF.
Fiasco: 110ish pages, 14$ Softcover + PDF.
Qin: 272 pages, 30$ Hardcover + PDF

I can continue in this vein all day. Most games are made complete in one book, without having some PHB, DMG, MM breakdown with a separate bestiary and GM guide, and they are usually in the 20$-40$ range for actual physical books. PDFs alone are frequently much less, with half price being fairly high (e.g. Spirit of the Century, a 30$ game is 5 dollars as a .pdf). 50$ for a few .pdf files isn't a good deal by any stretch of the imagination. It's equivalent to 100$ worth of actual physical books, which is enough to snap up decent collections of lines which actually do have a fair few books to them.

[Substitution]

Originally Posted by Friv

Ah, good old sarcasm.

But your two examples aren't actually different on the "input/output" front, you've just added twenty conditional modifiers to the second example to confuse things. Allow me to give you a counter-example.

Example #1
Player: I fire an arrow into his face!
GM: Right, I'm calling it a difficulty 5, roll a 15.
Player: Is he an undead? I'm -3 difficulty against undead.
GM: No, not an undead.
Player 2: And I'm providing aid! Don't forget the aid! So it's actually difficulty 14.
Player 1: And I'll expend effort to drop the difficulty by 4, to take it down to 10. Oh, and did you remember my ability to ignore half of the difficulty from cover?
GM: Crap, no I didn't. Okay, then, base difficulty is 12. How much were we reducing it by? 4, right?
Player 2: No, 5. Aid.
GM: Right. Okay. So roll a 7.

Example 2: Player: I fire an arrow from my +1 Longbow. I'm +8 to hit.
GM: Roll it.
Player: 19. Is he undead?
GM: No, but it hits anyway. Good job!


So, for the first thing, the existence of modifiers doesn't mean anything to whether or not they are applying to the entry or exit point of the die roll. The effect is identical. The second thing is that if there are a lot of modifiers, there can't be not a lot of modifiers. One of those two statements has to be true.

Except you are still misunderstanding and even added in a bunch of roll modifiers to your first example. That difficulty 5 would take into account The relative difficulty including aid, cover, and etc. He used modifier once to mean little nitpicky bonuses, which despite you shortening(unlike most players in the world) they are all there, and once to mean the general difficulty reduction.

It's a gridless system insofar as released so little annoying factors like cover and aid come only in the roleplaying variety and will likely not work as you demonstrated.


And Knaight, while I would consider a few of those bargain bin, let's compare to the base 60$ pledge. You get the Color hardback rulebook and pdf. As a pdf you get four! 32 page adventures for the game, a beastiary, the equivalent of the adventurers armory, a giant world book full of fluff (like pathfinders inner sea world guide,) for a purported total of about 1400 pages. Soon to be all color.

[Knaight]

Originally Posted by Substitution

And Knaight, while I would consider a few of those bargain bin, let's compare to the base 60$ pledge. You get the Color hardback rulebook and pdf. As a pdf you get four! 32 page adventures for the game, a beastiary, the equivalent of the adventurers armory, a giant world book full of fluff (like pathfinders inner sea world guide,) for a purported total of about 1400 pages. Soon to be all color.

1400 pages, almost entirely of .pdf*, sure. Each dollar gets you 14 pages, compare to Burning Wheel where each dollar gets you about 26 pages of actual, hardback book. Burning Wheel is one of the better deals by page count listed (though REIGN comes close if you count it's pages twice).

The $60 pledge is reasonably good, unlike the $50 pledge, but it still isn't some sort of great deal, or really all that far off from standard.

*I suspect the main hardback is counted twice for that value in any case.\

EDIT: Verification produced this:

Originally Posted by Monte_Cook

Pledge $60 or more

THE REAL DEAL: You get the PDF of the Numenera corebook, the PDF of the Player's Guide, and the character creator app. You also get a print copy of the hard-bound, fully illustrated, full-color Numenera corebook. Contributors outside the US, please add $10 for shipping (sorry).

Note that this is the core book, the players guide, and the character creator app, without adventures, and with only the core book also in physical. That's a shift from reasonably good to quite expensive. The bestiary isn't there, and neither are the adventures.

[Chambers]

Not sure if bargain bin is used as an insult or to admit it's a good deal, but Burning Wheel is definitely worth the money, in my opinion. One of the better independent (read: Not WoTC, Paizo, Steve Jackson, WW, other big names, etc) RPG's to be released in the past decade.

[Substitution]

Originally Posted by Knaight

1400 pages, almost entirely of .pdf*, sure. Each dollar gets you 14 pages, compare to Burning Wheel where each dollar gets you about 26 pages of actual, hardback book. Burning Wheel is one of the better deals by page count listed (though REIGN comes close if you count it's pages twice).

The $60 pledge is reasonably good, unlike the $50 pledge, but it still isn't some sort of great deal, or really all that far off from standard.

*I suspect the main hardback is counted twice for that value in any case.\

EDIT: Verification produced this:

Note that this is the core book, the players guide, and the character creator app, without adventures, and with only the core book also in physical. That's a shift from reasonably good to quite expensive. The bestiary isn't there, and neither are the adventures.

I did not count the corebook twice but it's amusing to me that I sort of thought you would think I did. (I did round up after all, down would have made more sense what with index pages etx)

I'm afraid rather than reading the pledge description that is unchangeable perhaps you should read the kickstarter homepage that actually describes each reward level.

[Jade Dragon]

Originally Posted by Knaight

Spirit of the Century: 420 Pages, 30$ Softcover + PDF.

Also, just PDF, or online SRD, without the Spirit of the Century fluff that at least 50% of people will pretty much ignore or borrow their friend's hardback to read, 0$.

[Knaight]

Originally Posted by Jade Dragon

Also, just PDF, or online SRD, without the Spirit of the Century fluff that at least 50% of people will pretty much ignore or borrow their friend's hardback to read, 0$.

I'm specifically ignoring free games, as they are largely irrelevant. This is also why I went for physical books, as those are fairly substantial, have significant production costs, so on and so forth.

[Friv]

Originally Posted by Substitution

Except you are still misunderstanding and even added in a bunch of roll modifiers to your first example. That difficulty 5 would take into account The relative difficulty including aid, cover, and etc. He used modifier once to mean little nitpicky bonuses, which despite you shortening(unlike most players in the world) they are all there, and once to mean the general difficulty reduction.

No, I wasn't misunderstanding, I was pointing out the fallacy in your argument by deliberately reversing which of the two examples was laden with heavy modifiers, and which was laden with no modifiers. To be clear, and without using examples: There is no correlation between a lack of modifiers or a surfeit of them, and whether or not a game tracks those modifiers by the ultimate difficulty or the initial roll. Claiming that such a correlation exists is either misleading or incorrect.

In addition, it is impossible for a system to simultaneously have very few modifiers and a large number of modifiers, as Monte Cook claims in the quote that I was bolding. That is just basic logic. If you have training modifiers, cooperation modifiers, effort modifiers, and asset modifiers, you have a lot of modifiers that have to be taken into consideration for the difficulty on each roll.

[Substitution]

Numenera has reached 364,000! with three days left. It's growing faster every day. Full color on every product is assured. I have always found black and white rulebooks to be much, much less appealing.

I'm very excited to see one of my players act as casually to ridiculous super-science as his character does to magic. "Meh, flesh-eating undead made out of ten thousand tiny parasitic demons, that's not even as unusual as this magic hat that lets me change hair colour"

I've started planning out my own setting adjustments. (I understand that nearly everyone wants to play a human but I don't much like "humanocentric" games) I think I could work this nicely as a prequel to the entirety of Exalted.

Knaight, my apologies about the short answer earlier, I try and be more eloquent but I was on my way into work and my phone isn't the best for long responses.

Numenera corebook. Approximately 416 pages
Numenera Guidebook. Approximately 200+ (minimum)
Numenera technology approximately 160 pages
Numenera Bestiary. Approximately 160 pages
Numenera Players guide. Approx 64 pages
Numenera Adventure x4. Each Approx 32 pages
(All books in full color, all of them!!!)

Also included is the full SRD as a phone/PC app
PDF copies of all relevant accessories such as decks of cards, GM screen, etc

For a total of only 1128, before it was unlocked the guidebook was originally purported as more pages than it will be. I anticipated 350 as blogged and was incorrect.

Originally Posted by Friv

No, I wasn't misunderstanding, I was pointing out the fallacy in your argument by deliberately reversing which of the two examples was laden with heavy modifiers, and which was laden with no modifiers. To be clear, and without using examples: There is no correlation between a lack of modifiers or a surfeit of them, and whether or not a game tracks those modifiers by the ultimate difficulty or the initial roll. Claiming that such a correlation exists is either misleading or incorrect.

In addition, it is impossible for a system to simultaneously have very few modifiers and a large number of modifiers, as Monte Cook claims in the quote that I was bolding. That is just basic logic. If you have training modifiers, cooperation modifiers, effort modifiers, and asset modifiers, you have a lot of modifiers that have to be taken into consideration for the difficulty on each roll.

I realized you added non-existant modifiers to the first example and deliberately obfuscated all the heavy modifiers of the second example.

If I understand correctly you are now claiming that there is no difference because no matter how it is achieved a similar outcome is made? Then you want to misinterpret a quote by the game designer by ignoring most of the leading context and making your own claim that it has a lot of modifiers despite then being extremely simple and, so far as revealed, extremely few in comparison to 3rd edition DnD.

Such as (Excuse my extreme exaggeration) getting a piece of pie by buying it with earned money or murdering several strangers and only taking the quarters from their wallets to purchase the pie. You get pie no matter what. You even bought it both times.

Getting out of the fun; that depends on your definition of a lot. If you have training modifiers, cooperation modifiers, effort modifiers, and asset modifiers; that is a lot to most people. However since you put four I will say that it is Only four that can't even all apply to the same roll at once and it all modifies rolls in exactly the same, linear way, with no difference between them, not even different bonuses. (such as +1 vs +3)

However, I do not even want to talk about that, because that's just speculation on both our parts without knowing the rules. This thread is not about random speculation.
I've been avoiding saying it but this game has over half a year of playtesting left and I plan to bother the ever-loving fun out of Monte Cook for the entirety of that period. I want to see it succeed and change and I'll be damned if a thousand threads full of people who played thousands of hours of 3rd edition DnD and yet now follow the internet opinion, not even their own, that this or that (wizards and MONTE COOK!!) completely ruined the game and they didn't have fun during aaany of those thousands of hours.

[Zubrowka74]

If some of you guys dislike mr Cook that much you can always get the pledge package that lets you throw a pie at him.

[Friv]

This is going to be my last reply before giving up in frustration.

Originally Posted by Substitution

I realized you added non-existant modifiers to the first example and deliberately obfuscated all the heavy modifiers of the second example.

I did no such thing. I was using an example of what it would look like if a ruleset with lots of modifiers was applying those modifiers to the difficulty, and a ruleset with only a few modifiers was applying those modifiers to the die roll, to show that the difference lies in the modifiers, not the end point.

If I understand correctly you are now claiming that there is no difference because no matter how it is achieved a similar outcome is made?

There is no difference because it is the number of modifiers that matters, not whether those modifiers are placed at the roll or the difficulty. Only the number of modifiers matters. Everything else is obfuscation by the game developer.

Then you want to misinterpret a quote by the game designer by ignoring most of the leading context and making your own claim that it has a lot of modifiers despite then being extremely simple and, so far as revealed, extremely few in comparison to 3rd edition DnD.

No, I am saying that if your developer is saying two directly contradictory things within three sentences of each other, it's the sort of thing that makes me worried. It may not make you worried. That's fine.

However, I do not even want to talk about that, because that's just speculation on both our parts without knowing the rules. This thread is not about random speculation.

It's not? I sort of assumed that random speculation was basically all that we had right now. So what is the thread about?

I've been avoiding saying it but this game has over half a year of playtesting left and I plan to bother the ever-loving fun out of Monte Cook for the entirety of that period. I want to see it succeed and change and I'll be damned if a thousand threads full of people who played thousands of hours of 3rd edition DnD and yet now follow the internet opinion, not even their own, that this or that (wizards and MONTE COOK!!) completely ruined the game and they didn't have fun during aaany of those thousands of hours.

Honestly, I don't play much D&D at all, and I resent your implication that I'm only suspicious of this game because it's "cool". People are, in fact, able to have their own opinions. Maybe we just honestly don't think that there's anything here particularly different from games that already exist, and don't see the point.

Having a differing opinion from yours doesn't make us idiots. It just means we have a different opinion from you.

[Substitution]

I'll start by saying the Numenera kickstarter is at 377, 778 not counting the paypal donations which are not visible but count towards the overall goal. With only 70 hours remaining! At this rate we will probably just reach 400,000! Long ago having passed the highest funded RPG on kickstarter.

It was a pleasure Friv, looking through some of your other posts I think you are very reasonable and that it's merely a misunderstanding.

P.S. I also agree that giving sweeping absurd timelines is annoying, however it is definitely being used as an arbitrary number that has no bearing on the story other than to allow things like humans and give an excuse for ANY super technology. Just because the people of the "Ninth" world Believe there were nine great civilizations before them means Nothing.

Monte Cook's post on how he resents people saying he just made that number up is more reflective on how he wishes people could understand that it's an appeal to emotion and not a hard number. It's allowing him to be as completely open with this purported science fiction as his imagination can be.

There is indeed a lot of irrational hatred in the thought that he did not think about why he was using such an arbitrary form of history. It's just like using words such as Traditional or Old Fashioned.

He's had a lot of experience with working with games that have higher advertising research. If you're like me which I can tell is somewhat true, then such an appeal does nothing to me. I dismissed it instantly as an excuse to not have to account for every single century or millenia in the story.

Originally Posted by Friv

I did no such thing. I was using an example of what it would look like if a ruleset with lots of modifiers was applying those modifiers to the difficulty, and a ruleset with only a few modifiers was applying those modifiers to the die roll, to show that the difference lies in the modifiers, not the end point.

Your example hid all the modifiers that led to the +9 you gave, but I would like to point out that a game that reduces the difficulty keeps the entire game at lower numbers. Many d20 games in higher levels have modifiers of upwards of +40 to hit, with preposterously high AC's and many, many, many little modifiers, especially counting things that add to the bigger modifiers like stats.
Repeating myself, a game with only Four Modifiers that all work in the exact same way (reducing the DC of a roll by 3 we'll say) is extremely simple and easy to calculate by comparison.

Originally Posted by Friv

There is no difference because it is the number of modifiers that matters, not whether those modifiers are placed at the roll or the difficulty. Only the number of modifiers matters. Everything else is obfuscation by the game developer.

You and I were in agreement on this the whole time.

Originally Posted by Friv

No, I am saying that if your developer is saying two directly contradictory things within three sentences of each other, it's the sort of thing that makes me worried. It may not make you worried. That's fine.

Repeating myself, especially if you click the Link that is in the text you quoted on his blog. This one is very obvious if you don't cut his blog post into chunks, kind of like sound biting three words from a politician.

In one sentence he says there are a not a lot of modifiers to a roll (Only 4 possible)
In the following paragraph he says that it is quite common for players to modify a roll. [Adding 1 (rarely 2! or even 3!!) modifiers to it]

Originally Posted by Friv

Honestly, I don't play much D&D at all, and I resent your implication that I'm only suspicious of this game because it's "cool". People are, in fact, able to have their own opinions. Maybe we just honestly don't think that there's anything here particularly different from games that already exist, and don't see the point.

Having a differing opinion from yours doesn't make us idiots. It just means we have a different opinion from you.

I agree, that is a common opinion. However opinions based on logic and reason, in my opinion, are more valuable than opinions based on random illogical hatred.
I was not implying you were suspicious because it was cool, Friv, I was most definitely aiming it at the topic of Monte Cook in general. That's not to say that I didn't see your use of the word 'Us'. Posts about his work are a nearly constant tirade of venom without supporting evidence anywhere I go. I would link a 4chan thread on Numenera that could support my idea that most people are irrationally hateful of Monte Cook, but that kind of thing shouldn't be here.

I like to end posts on a positive note as I begin them so If the Numenera kickstarter gets another 50,000 (I'm thinking unlikely) then it will raise the size of all of the accessory books for free!

[eggs]

Originally Posted by Substitution

I agree, that is a common opinion. However opinions based on logic and reason, in my opinion, are more valuable than opinions based on random illogical hatred.

How impartial and unbiased of you.

[Substitution]

Originally Posted by eggs

How impartial and unbiased of you.

You clearly misunderstand, that is an opinion very biased against random opinions and definitely not impartial in the reasonable vs insane debate.


If you would like to respond to my posts you could at least contribute to the thread topic.
Be careful you smell of regeneration 5 (acid or fire) Either way thank you for the bump, short posts are more welcoming to new comers and I'm long winded.

Numenera has gained several hundred new players (backers) today and is nearing the stretch goal to make an Official character sheet..
Even though independant is almost always made with more effort and thought.

[Totally Guy]

Originally Posted by Substitution

nearing the stretch goal to make an Official character sheet..

For real? That needs a stretch goal?