Hmmmm.
Doyce is playing around with the Nobilis gaming rule system. We did a small mini-intro on Sunday evening.
Being diceless and mythic, the obvious comparison is to ADRPG. It’s not tied to Zelazny’s Amber universe, of course (though there are superficial resemblances to Lord of Light). But you still play Powerful and Mysterious Characters of Epic and Reality-Warping Ability Slipping Between the Shadows. It’s Amber meets Sandman meets Dark City meets The Matrix. I think.
The gaming system seems a bit more structured than ADRPG so far, which is largely a good thing. Or, put another way, where there is structure, the structure seems better built than ADRPG’s.
There seems to be a fair amount of supplementary material on-line, in addition to the $45 (!) rule book.
It’s going to take a bit to get a feel for the system, so that I really know and understand what my character (let alone others) can really do. But, so far, I like.
I found it here for less.
It’s been my experience that the answer to “what can my Nobilis character do?” is “pretty much anything”. Oh sure, some things cost a bit more to achieve (and occasionally you may have to ask someone else for help or, worse yet, permission… and that will cost even more), but it can always be done.
I agree, the structure of Nobilis is a big step up from Amber’s lack of any real structure, particularly in the fact that there ARE benchmarks of what each power level means. They’re fairly vague, strongly GM-interpreted benchmarks, but that’s better than the purely relative to other PC’s benchmarks of ADRP.
The only thing I miss in the new, stunningly laid out $45 rulebook is the example of play from the original book. It’s a rare game where the sample of play features the player characters stepping out of the game into the play sessions, deciding the players and GM clearly know too much about the nature of reality and so killing them to reduce the threat they pose. Like many of the pieces of mini-fiction in Nobilis, it served to grind the “fourth wall” into dust, a conceptual step that’s invaluable to getting into the Nobilis mindset.
Hmmm. Interesting.
And thanks for the price ref, Stan.