Numenera Thread

Can someone Red Pill me on Numenera?

As far as I know it's far future setting where everything is fantasy...

Kek`d.

Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Earth is a billion years in the future.

There have been 8 great civilizations.

Humans left.

Humans came back.

Octopi were still there.

I've started a game with my players, but we're on a break for RL drama. One's breaking up with her fiance, my pet turtle of nearly two decades just passed, and fiance's brother's choir group is eating his life.

Anyways, I'm excited for it, and after two sessions I think they're getting a feel for what I'm trying to do. They wanted something less cynical after Shadowrun, and I'm making the game a lot about discovering lost knowledge and solving puzzles, more Myst or ST:TNG than Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. We've got a techpriestess from an order interested in nightmares, a sort of genetic Dunedain looking to claim her rightful place as a ruler of men, and a couple other characters (hologram illusionist, empath, stabby guy) who don't seem to have a story focus yet. The gist of the plan is that they're all going to found a new temple-settlement (going for a more classical/ancient world vibe and less of a feudal one), and I'm really not sure how detailed I want to get with actually managing that, but it should be a good jumping off point. I'd love some thoughts.

This is pretty accurate. Has kind of a Phantasy Star IV vibe if you ask me. It's supposed to be aping the Gene Wolfe Book of the New Sun books, but I've never read those and can't speak to that one way or the other.

I did an adventure inspired by Soderbergh's Solaris, the movie with George Clooney from 2002 or so. A mysterious forcefield in a village seems to make crops grow nearby really well, but nothing ever leaves the field, and no one who's gone in has come out. Until a woman emerges, the wife of a villager. She died six months ago.

The gist of it turns out to be (the players got most of this) that she's essentially an avatar for the facility who's trying to understand the human settlement; it crafted her from the husband's memories. She's more or less unaware of this.

So we're talking isaaaaaane future rather than like 200 years of future?

How fleshed out is the time between now and the setting? Like do you know how all 8 of the civs fell.

Also were any of them cat people?

You guessed right, but it's also about teamwork, as evidenced by assets rolls, and exploration, by way of the past and by physically exploring the world and beyond.

The other one I've already done was basically that I wanted the PCs to meet some nonhumans, so I had them do a search and rescue for a team of octopodes manning a riverboat (they can't really go in the freshwater long term without "drowning") of supplies. The boat was hit by lightning, which they'd never personally encountered before. I really tried to emphasize that this was an extreme environment for them, this inland research and trading post the boat was going to, like an Antarctic base is for us.

Not at all fleshed out. 99% of everything is supposed to be a mystery to everybody, since exploration is supposed to be a big deal.

How do you guys deal with intrusions? Do you mostly plan them ahead of time, or improvise? Do you have any good examples of intrusions that created drama without just being negative for the players?

Very much not fleshed out. They know at least some of the civilizations were not human. They don't know where they went. They don't even have a good idea when, and the number 8 may in fact be wrong. The new civilization, whose own origins are a bit mysterious (why are humans and these other people here again when they were gone for geologic eons?), doesn't have the sophistication to ascertain that. It's all the black monolith from Space Odyssey to them, pretty much.

They don't go full Starfish Alien, frankly because I don't think the creators were all that inspired in that regard, but the octopodes are the only other intelligence in the setting AFAIK that clearly bears a resemblance to specific present-day Earth species.

I suppose that makes sense

Lets you have random super weapons that wiped out nations without any lore issues.

My most well developed session idea for the future is something with kind of a House of Leaves thing going on, some plot that I haven't figured out yet revolving around a mansion or structure with a shifting inner space larger than the outside. Might just be them getting lost in there, but I want to get more creative.

Exactly. It also makes the discoveries that much more interesting for the players, since they know enough about the setting to be interested, but little enough to still be surprised and awed.

What I think I need at this point is an overarching plot, or opponent, or something. I think I could maybe make a plot arc for the genetic heiress involving her right to rule, and maybe something involving dreams and technology with the priestess, but nothing's come together for me. I've got an idea of using a witch whose family curses are essentially tailored viruses as an opponent, but it's the motivations and plots that I don't quite have in hand.

We're doing a shortish campaign. We're helping a living skeleton take over the castle of the neighboring lands (or at least escorting its ruler back). There maaaay have been a "Nyah" and a mention of a pesky hero that might show up.

There is also literally one horse.

I love Numenera. But you need to really know what you're doing with your campaign story because the game sure isn't going to help you much in that regard. You have to flesh out a lot of the world on your own.

The Ninth World Guidebook and the Into the Ninth books are really useful and entertaining too. They help flesh out the setting a lot more. Not to mention the Torment Explorer's Guide.

Remember to houserule some of the common problems away. The biggest problem the system has is the XP system, thankfully it has a very simple fix, by just separating xp into longterm and shortterm xp. Short term for rerolling and short-term benefits, long term xp for leveling up.

The system just doesn't work if you use xp as intended.

Fighting gigantic monsters
youtube.com/watch?v=iCDMm7uslCI

Is this good for one shots? I like to do one shots to be sure the system is good before I buy the book and make actual campaings

Skein of the Blackbone Bride is the one off that got me hooked, use that to get a read on the game

As someone who has been running a campaign for over 2+ years now, I couldn't disagree more. Having players decide on their personal balance of long and short term goals is a big part of the game, and in my case at least they don't put enough aside for tier advancements.

It unfortunately has the problem attached where sometimes you are forced to reroll, or let characters die. This can just cause problems where a particularly unlucky person can be a few levels behind everybody else.

Where's that at? Not a familiar name.