Talk to the Fish: Instant Adventure -- Part II
Last time in Planning to Improv: Make Your Own Instant Adventure, Part I, we looked at what goes into an Instant Adventure. In Part III, we look at GM Intrusions for your Instant Adventures.
Here's the example using Numenera. 
Notes:
Ignore the references to mooks in Numenera unless you have Dread Unicorn Game's The Sun Below: City on the Edge, or The Sun Below: Sleeping Lady. If you don't know how to run an rpg montage, see the Sun Below adventures, or the Blogger’s Roundtable of Doom: The Montage.
Summary
Liskal is a stunted machine intelligence that would like to repair itself. Its mind is truncated by being forced to exist in our dimension. In the past its mind was transdimensional, but that was a long time ago. Liskal needs a sphere from Le Temple De Toadue to start to reclaim its own mind. It can’t go itself, but it can teleport people. Which is where the players come in.
Details
- Liskal wants the sphere of night.
- The sphere is at Le Temple De Toadue.
- The Toad King regards this sphere as a prized possession. The Toad King can’t remember his own name.
- Klaru, a Nibovian Wife is in the temple. The Toad King fell for her tricks once, not again. Yet he lets her stay.
- There are 3 Toad Queens. Queens Deepi, Onea, and Sloomah.
- Sloomah wants the moon pool fixed. If the PCs do that, she can help convince The Toad King to give up the sphere of night.
Starting Point
The PCs have heard of the giant stone fish, high in the mountains. As they approach, they see blinking lights inside the mouth. Inside is a busted up synth column with 2 shins per PC strewn about.
Wrap Up
The PCs acquire the sphere of night, either through force of arms or by enlisting Queen Sloomah’s help. They bring it back to Liskal, who awards them each 15 shins and a cypher.
Future adventures: If you like, Liskal is not done, and you can use the machine mind to teleport the PCs all over the ninth world and beyond as it slowly builds itself up, piece by hard to get piece.
Keys
- Toadling servant of Queen Sloomah. Will try to take PCs to the Queen.
- Moon Pool Power device. It’s a head-sized green gelatinous egg that glows.
- Dead explorer with a detonation (desiccating) cypher. Journal’s last entry: “I got away from the Toad King, now I just have to survive his damned poison.” If found in the fish, it will mention teleporting on “a fool’s errand for a machine.”
Making Instant Adventure Notes:
Each node should have a way for the PCs to interact with it. A person is either at a place or will find the PCs. A location should have something to do there.
What Not To Do
I ran an Instant Adventure using 13th Age rules, and had three "people" (a nasty cultist and two devils) that could find the PCs. And an item that could summon a really nasty devil as a key. I put all four in the secret temple location, and it was a mess. Not every person who wants to find the PCs has to show up at the same time. Doh!
How to Encourage Roleplaying
Bloggers Roundtable of DOOM!
Lex Starwalker asked a group of Cypher System bloggers to discuss various topics in roleplaying games. He asked James August Walls, Marc Plourde, Scott Robinson, and me, to all address the same roleplaying topics. Lex himself would chime in as well. For January, we all get to respond to the following question:
"How would you, as GM, encourage roleplaying in a player who doesn't roleplay as much as you'd like, whether it's roleplaying with NPCs, being more descriptive in combat, or referring to themselves in the third person? If you want to take the roleplaying at your table to the next level, how do you get your players on board?
Before I start pontificating on my own ideas, I thought I'd share what my players said when I asked them the same question:
Leslie said I think there are two things that made me feel comfortable testing the role playing waters - and here role playing means exactly that, playing the role of a character vs. playing the RPG game (which I've done for years).
First, having other players that do it really helps. This group made role playing the characters the norm. This created positive pressure without me feeling like "I had to" in order to enjoy the session. Its the best kind of peer pressure.
The GM did a great job of creating "space" at the table for characters to be played. It was rewarded not only socially, but mechanically in the game through incentives that were meaningful, but not critical to me being successful as a player.
Matthew (who has just started GMing Numenera) said Learn what each player finds motivating for playing in character, and what takes them out of it. Then you can play to various strengths and avoid those detractors. Does a player find the grind of dungeon crawling boring? Does counting and calculating costs to perform actions boggle them and take them out of character? Does a player withdraw when their skillset isn't useful for the game? Add specific moments that are personal for each character, to bring someone back into character.
After my all of one day GMing, I've noticed that different characters are more interested in certain subplots than others, and I'll work to include those characters more into the subplots they like.
James (who is also an Edge of the Empire GM) said Be an encouraging GM. That is, a good GM never says "no" or "you're wrong" to a player. If you want roleplaying and creativity from your players, you encourage them to make things up, and if those ideas aren't quite up to snuff, you roll your own creativity into it and help the player make their idea better... even if you're totally going to murder them all later anyway. :-)
I had my players posing as repair workers on a ship they were thinking about stealing. They learned that the ship had a backup control center hidden off the bridge, and they'd need to find and disable it before they could steal the ship. One player was having a hard time getting into the RP aspects as she searched for clues as to where it might be, and I kept encouraging her to just roleplay any idea she wanted for how she'd find the hidden location. Finally she went with "I see a big red line on the floor going down the hallway from the bridge into a particular room."
Now, obviously, this isn't the most "plausible" way to find a secret bridge, but I ran with it, and basically "covered" for the idea. "Ah yes," I said, "with your thermal goggles down, you see a red glow, highlighting a suspiciously warm series of deck plates leading to an otherwise innocuous looking cabin. It seems a large number of energy conduits are routing from the bridge to here."
Bottom line, there should be no bad ideas.
Nicole (who also GMs from time to time) said If you hope for your players to rp, then rp your NPCs as well! Hardly a player can resist to answer in character, when an NPC addresses them in first-person speech, modified voice, mannerisms of shaking the head and an obvious lisp.
Writing a gaming blog is like GMing. Just listen to your players. The big stuff having been said, I'll just add a few ideas:
For me system matters. Highly crunchy rpgs with minimal support for storytelling engage the part of my brain that used to do computer programming all day. I find myself thinking about rules, tables, and numbers. I find it much easier to roleplay as a player and as a GM in more storytelling focused rpgs, such as Numenera. As someone whose played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons, I'm very happy to see games like 13th Age, Dungeon World, and 5E that support storytelling.
There is no one right way to play an RPG. You'll never get everyone to roleplay at the same level. Some players are less comfortable improving than others. Some may be worried that they will "do it wrong." Others just haven't come up with an idea they think is useful. Encourage, model, but don't force.
Happy gaming!
Making it Matter in Numenera, Part III
Factions
Previously we talked about making what happens in your game matter to your players by making things personal, and then we talked about letting your players tell you what's important and how to use the old reoccurring mastermind trick.
This time we'll talk about factions. Groups of people who have their own agendas and have plots and plans in motion.
Factions are useful in a lot of ways.
World Building and Continuity
For one thing factions help with building the world in your players minds and with continuity. If your players keep bumping into The University of Doors, The Order of Truth, the Convergence, and other factions, your version of the Ninth World comes alive with the give and take of organizations and movements bigger than the adventure you are running. It's a big world out there, and the PCs aren't the only movers and shakers in it.
Anchoring PCs to the world
Factions can create ties to player characters. If a glaive in your party has a backstory of being in an order of bodyguards to Aeon Priests, that player is just begging you to run adventures that include the Order of Truth. If not, you can invite them into such an organization after an impressive performance that aligns them to the order. Give them a badge or amulet that shows they belong.
En Garde
Factions are great adversaries. The party may have defeated one plot from the Convergence, but the Convergence can always be relied to up the ante next time. The organization itself become the reoccurring villain.
The Amber Papacy
The biggest faction in the Ninth World are the Aeon Priests and their Order of Truth. They can be a big help to the characters, and may act as patrons. But what of the ties between the Order of Truth and the Angulan Knights? How does that sit with a mutant character? Are there factions within the Order of Truth who support mutant rights? Factions within factions?
For the Queen!
The Steadfast is full of monarchies, all of which contain factions. Are the PCs acting for the Queen of Navarene? One of her enemies?
Factions with Faces
Players won’t react strongly to abstract factions. A faction needs a face. Use NPCs that you roleplay to represent the faction. For examples, check out the People of Renown at the back of MCG’s The Ninth World Bestiary. What if Magistrix Nelgadara tries to recruit a player character into the Convergence? If the PC refuses to go along, will the Magistrix use him as a double agent? And what if you then throw the players into a Convergence scheme, such the Three Sanctums adventure from the core book?
Watch your players. If they react strongly to a faction, think of ways to bring it into your adventures. If the faction matters to them, then the adventure with that faction will matter to them.
Good gaming!
See Also:
- Making it Matter, Part I: Making it Personal.
- Making it Matter, Part II: Letting Your Players Tell You What’s Important and The Reoccurring Mastermind.
Making it Matter in Numenera, Part II
In Making it Matter, last time we talked about making it personal. This time we cover letting your players tell you what matters and the old recurring mastermind trick.
Let the players tell you what’s important. This is a bit of improvisational game mastering. Listen to your players. If you hear a lot of table chatter about a town, an NPC, or anything else in the game world, make it a key part of your games. If the players are always going on about Qi, make Qi the setting for a good number of your adventures. If the very thought of the Jaekels of Aras makes them ready to smash heads, use the animalistic pirates as villains every so often.
If you have a player who can’t get enough of their pet or a favorite NPC, use that it to tie the character to an adventure. The loyal Seski runs through the portal. The favorite innkeeper vanishes leaving clues of a involvement with in a plot about to engulf the PCs home base.
Remember, it's not wrong if the players fixate on something in your world you haven't planned on. It's awesome! They are telling you what they find engaging. Go with it.
The Reoccurring Mastermind who always gets away to start trouble again. Despite being a gaming cliche, it can still be effective. Over and over again the players confront the evil mastermind, and over and over again she gets away. In a world with teleportation cyphers this isn't hard.
Every time she gets away, the players might be just that much more invested in the game.Players can obsess on how to finally bring her down. The trick is to make the characters feel she won't get away forever. It may be impossible to stop her, but the player characters are used to doing the impossible!
One trick is to have the major threat be able to teleport only to their lair. This way, they can always get away, until the characters track them down. In The Sun Below: City on the Edge, the King of the Praithians has just such a power. When the characters finally confront him in his throne room, his teleportation power can't save him.
Or give it a twist -- the enemy who got away has grown to appreciate the player characters. Perhaps she will aid them in a future adventure, which could confuse the players wonderfully. Will they trust the healing cyphers that come from the woman who tried to stake them in front of the Iron Wind?
Or the old enemy could have run afoul of a new and bigger enemy. Their old nemesis begs for help from the characters. If they refuse, the new enemy is becomes stronger and more bold. If the accept, they have created an interesting alliance. Where will it lead?
See Also:
- Making it Matter, Part I: Making it Personal.
- Making it Matter, Part III: Factions, Using major organizations to make it matter to your player characters.
Making It Matter In Numenera, Part I
Numenera is a game of exploration set in a world where anything can happen. Anything. Places and people are incredibly weird. Creatures more so. Which makes for a wonderful sense of awe and wonder.
But some players may worry, why should I care about anything in the Ninth World? It’s so damned weird, how can I relate to it?
Some games, like The Strange or Star Wars: Age of Rebellion, come with a set of built in ties to the world. The player characters are part of an organization (The Estate, The Rebellion) and what’s important to the organization becomes important to the characters. Other RPGs, like Call of or Cthulhu, Trail of Cthulhu, or Hunter: The Vigil come with built in sets of adversaries all characters are expected to take on. If you join a Call of Cthulhu game, you know you’re going to be investigating and struggling against the machinations of Elder Gods.
However, in most RPGs, including Numenera, PCs are likely to be freelance operators.
The GM has a few tools to help player characters care about the world. This time I’ll talk about how to make it personal. Next time we’ll discuss how let the players tell you what’s important, the reoccurring mastermind, and factions with faces. They are not mutually exclusive.
Make it personal. This is the key in any kind of story. You know the cliché from all those movie trailers, This time it’s personal? While you don’t have to say that in the deep movie trailer voice (oh, go ahead, your players will love it), you do want to make the stakes personal.
Survival is damned personal. For example, in MCG’s The Devil’s Spine, at least one player is put at risk. If the group doesn’t succeed in the adventure, the player character dies. Or in Beyond All Worlds, another from MCG, the entire party is trapped in a Ninth World Hell. Escape or die, it’s that simple.
Family is personal. Kidnap a character’s mother. Cripple or murder a younger sibling. These plot hooks, when not overused (“What? My mother’s kidnapped for the third time?”), are great for making the players care about the outcome.
An appeal to the character’s morals is personal. The Sun Below: City on the Edge, includes the player characters witnessing the kidnapping of two young children, and an appeal from their grandmother to rescue them. When a PC tells themselves "I may be an opportunistic bastard at times, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let these children suffer," they care.
When PCs have a personal stake, they know why they are taking action. They are not just tourists.
See Also:
- Making it Matter, Part II: Letting Your Players Tell You What’s Important and The Reoccurring Mastermind.
- Making it Matter, Part III: Factions
Using Fronts in Numenera and The Strange
Ever notice when you’re reading a great book or watching a great movie or TV show how tense everything gets? You are on the edge of your seat because the characters you are rooting for are under tremendous stress and the stakes are sky-high. How do you bring that to your game?
One trick I use is called “fronts,” a concept I stole from the dungeon bashing game called Dungeon World. Like Numenera and The Strange, Dungeon World is rules light and focuses on story telling. Its aim is to create great stories of heroic adventurers in a medieval fantasy setting without the rules getting in the way. Here’s an online version of the rules.
While the game mechanics aren’t at all like the cypher system, the use of fronts to create tension comes across beautifully. A front is a set of problems (called dangers) that will only get worse if the player characters don’t solve them. There is usually more than one danger, so while the PCs work on one, the others fester and grow worse. This forces the players to prioritize and make hard choices.
Throw in multiple fronts, each with their own dangers, and watch the PCs sweat!
Here’s an example I call Bantion, Village in Peril.
First I have to choose between a campaign front and an adventure front. A campaign front is a big, long running front. Say how The Convergence (Numenera) or Lotan (The Strange) are going to devastate nations.
A shorter term front is an adventure front, and Bantion, Village in Peril is an adventure front. The problem with Bantion is that it is built into ancient ruins. Yes the ruins provide shelter and a source of cyphers or magic, but they also provide the dangers. The village could be in The Beyond or the hinterlands of Ardeyn. To keep things simple I’m going to use Numenera examples, but the basic story elements can work just as well in The Strange.
A front has two to three dangers, so I’ll choose two. Both involve mental powers and villagers acting strange, which will probably confuse the PCs. Yay!
For my first danger I’ll choose a cursed place that wants brains. The Chamber of Unity, deep in the ruins below Bantion, has recently been activated. It seeks to unify people into a hive mind. To do that, it wants everyone’s brains to be taken out and placed in a big soup of nutrients and nanites. It uses mental powers to force people to do its bidding. Those people become angry and emotional.
The second danger will be a nano seeking mental powers. Kavlon the Seeker has found a way to build his mental powers by injecting himself with nanites grown in brainstems of psychic parasites. First he’ll create hosts out of villagers, and then after the parasite kills off the hosts, he’ll harvest the brainstems. A win-win! To create a contrast, the hosts will lose all affect and become emotionless.
OK, we have two dangers, now what? For each danger we come up with 1 – 3 grim portents. A grim portent is something bad that happens if PCs don’t defeat the danger. This way, if the PCs are out fighting Kavlon, the Chamber of Unity will be ticking off its grim portents.
Here are the grim portents for the Chamber of Unity: 1. Villagers vanish (they sleepwalk to the chamber) 2. Scapegoating: Paranoid villagers turn on one another, guards arrest many “troublemakers” (guards are under the influence of the Chamber and deliver the prisoners there) 3. People rounded up en-mass and driven to the chamber
Besides grim portents, each danger has an impending doom that happens if all the portents get ticked off because the PCs didn’t defeat the danger.
For the Chamber of Unity, the impending doom is that the entire village will be emptied into the brain soup. Yay!
And for Kalvon, the grim portents are: 1. Villagers become hosts to the parasites and become affectless 2. Hosts vanish to be replaced by new hosts 3. Mass grave of dead hosts discovered
And the doom? Kalvon’s mental powers become such that he makes all villagers thralls or experimental subjects. Or both. Yay!
How do you GM this? Pick one or both of the dangers and set off the first grim portent. Then just follow the players. While one danger gets worked on, the other ticks off another grim portent.
Have fun.
(For those following along with the Dungeon World rules, the Chamber of Unity is a Cursed Place, a Shadowland. The Doom is Destruction. Kalvon is an Arcane Enemy, a Power Mad Wizard seeking magical power. His doom is Tyranny.)
Hipster PDA + (Numenera or The Strange) == Awesome Sauce
One of my favorite organizing tools it the Hipster PDA, also known as a stack of index cards with a paper clip. Index cards are the perfect tool for keeping things going while GMing Numenera or The Strange.
The idea is while you are playing, you are shuffling a stack of index cards, and you pull one and add something from the card into the current scene.
Step 1: Make a card for every PC. Write down the Descriptor, Type, and Focus. Add the suggested GM Intrusion for the focus. Add any powers and artifacts the player likes to use all the time. For example, "Sneaking, Bounding Boots." Add anything from the characters background that is fun to bring into play, like "remembers a past life experience from when she was Lady Ash's lover and they explored space together."
Step 2: Make cards that say Smell/Taste, Hear, Feel. I don't bother with See, because I'm telling them what they see all the time, but you might want to throw that in too. I put smell and taste on the same card, as taste is great, but it doesn't always come into play.
Step 3: Make a Reoccurring Dealies card. Put down NPCs, creatures, and events that your players have latched onto. These are things you've used in the past that intrigued the players. If it helps, add a note of how the concept got into your campaign For example "purring invisible lion (GMI for Opal: Commands Mental Powers)", and "Lebby the Pan-Dimensional girl (NPC from The Sun Below: City on the Edge)."
Step 4: Shuffle the Deck
Step 5: Play
Now, while you are playing, keep pulling a card and finding something on it to add to the current scene.
If you pull a character card and they haven't had a GM Intrusion this session, give them one. Otherwise, look at what's on the card. If you pull the character with Bounding Boots, you could say "They way forward is blocked, but up on a ledge you can see a ladder that's been pulled up. The ceramosteel wall looks almost impossible to climb. Anyone have a way up?"
If up pull the Smell/Taste card, you might say "There's an oily, minerally smell wafting from the pit."
When you use something from the Reoccurring Dealies card, see if your players still care about it. If they don't cross it off. If they like the purring invisible lion, keep using it.
Keep a note of fun things that come up in the current game that your players might like to see again, and add them to the reoccurring list.
I stole this idea from Ash Law's talk on 13th Age Adventure Design and modified it for Cypher System games, but you can use this in most any RPG. Ash's talk on index cards starts at 27:25.
See Also: Spotlight Cards.
Numenera: Greatest Internet Hits
On to the Greatest Datasphere, er, Internet, Hits for Numenera. If I missed a favorite of yours, let me know.
(edited April 10th, 2015)
1. Companions in Numenera. The MCG blog is always worth reading, but this puppy by Monte Cook I use all the time. I have it favorited on all three of my browsers. An elegant way to make your loyal seskii, zombie, or zombie seskii useful without adding a bunch of complicated die rolls.
2. How Story Gives Life to Mechanics, by Bruce Cordell. As a GM and game designer, I reread this every so often to keep my head in the game. Highly recommended.
3. Using Points for Defense, by Monte Cook. I've had a a player at my table say "No way am I going to spend hit points? That's crazy!" This post explains the concept clearly and helps me explain it to others.
4. Optional Rule: Effort for NPCs, by Monte Cook. A new one and one I tried just last night. I used it to help wrap up a combat where the players were defeating a group of chirogs. I had already used a GM intrusion in the combat, so this was perfect. I used Method 2: Based on Health, which made the chirogs both more dangerous and easier to finish off.
5. Quick and Dirty Adversaries, by Ryan Chaddock. It's easy to say "Level 5 thingy" but this post shows an easy way to make a creature memorable. I often start with an image or mini and go from there.
6. How to Play Numenera, the best game play video ever!
7. Transmissions from the Ninth World Podcast. This two time Ennie nominee is not to be missed. Highly informative.
8. I'm Vaux, an Informed Jack who Tells Tales. This is my Signal. Oh yeah. Ennie winner The Signal is a transmission from the Ninth World. This must be a lot of work but I wish there were 28 of these every day. The signal has gone quiet, but word in the datasphere is it will return.
9. The GM Intrusions Podcast. This since morphed into the very nice system neutral Game Master's Journey. It still covers Numenera among other games, and the old podcasts are in in archive. Check it out!
And of course there are vibrant Numenera communities on Facebook, G+, the Ninth World Hub, and The Ninth World.
See you in the datasphere...
Whine: You know that cool layout Monte Cook Games uses in their products? I heard Monte wonder on Lex Starwalker's GM Intrusions why other people don't copy it from him? After all, he copied it from Dorling Kindersley travel books. Well, I copied it, and it's hard to keep all the art, internal sidebars, the outer sidebar, and the text all together. Add a paragraph and a sidebar topic needs to move to the next page. Blah, blah, whine, blah.
But it does look cool and make it easy on the GM. The Sun Below: City on the Edge will be wrangled into shipping shape soon. I swear! (Edit: Available now!)
New to Numenera III: GMing Action Scenes
Here are two techniques I find helpful when I'm GMing Numenera action scenes. Numenera is not a game of all combat, all the time, but the Ninth World has plenty of action.
1: GM Intrusion
I always look for a way to add a GM Intrusion. In fact, I often start the combat out with one. This grabs the players attention and usually puts one player character at risk. Most creatures come with GM Intrusion suggestions right there in their descriptions.
For example, if I'm using a travonis ul, I can see the core book has a very nice GM Intrusion: a character is overwhelmed by a flurry of tendrils and becomes lost under the massive creature. Each round the character automatically takes 10 points of damage as they are crushed into the drit. A Might task will free them. I'm pretty sure I've got that player's attention.
It's so easy to create your own creatures in Numenera, and here are some ideas for designing GM Intrusions tailored to your own creatures.
Other GM Intrusions may occur to you. An explosive cypher may kick back bits of twisted metal from a ruin as shrapnel. The floor can cave in. Another travonis 
ul can show up. Gravity could reverse. All of the above!
The core book has lots of great advice on GM Intrusions. Want more? I recommend Taking the Narrative by the Tail: GM Intrusions and Special Effects. It's 99 cents, so go ahead and splurge.
2: End With a Bang
If combat is looking to go longer than about 3 rounds or so (I look around the table and look for flagging interest), I change things up to End With a Bang.
Here's what I say about nasty opponents when I want the combat to finish soon:
The big beast with mouths on its claws roars and charges, disregarding its own safety in an attempt to finish you off. Its Speed defense drops one level, but if it hits you, you're going to be hit hard.
Then I add the creatures level to it's damage. I wing it if adding the level feels too hard or too easy.
For minor creatures, like minions or packs of lesser creatures, I say:
The little squirmy guys back away from the big beast, seemingly shaken by its mad rage. Their Speed defense drops one level, and they won't hit any harder than before.
The PCs will hit more often, and really want to spend effort to avoid the "boss monster's" attacks. The little guys might flee once the big guy goes down.
Enjoy! I'm sure you'll find your own techniques. Like anything else, the best way to learn to be a great Numenera GM is to do it.
PS: Most combats in Numenera are over before they get old, so you may never need my End With a Bang idea.
However, I'm the kind of GM who really likes to challenge my players, so I throw terrible foes at them. They say they can tell if I'm running other people's adventures because the creature levels are "so low." Usually with the right cyphers, effort, and die rolls, my players find a way.
Sometimes, they don't, and I want to end with a bang. I've explored stealing mechanics from 13th Age to use the Escalation Die and Escalating the creatures, but in reality, I don't do that. It says something about the simplicity of the Cypher System that a very simple rule from the d20 world feels overly complicated when you use it in Numenera.
My End With a Bang is inspired by 13th Age's Escalation die, but feels more Numeneraish.
New to Numenera II, What's Your Second Book?
I am an exiled Jack who Consorts With the Dead.
I talked about what you need to play Numenera in my last post.
Before I talk about what you might want to get next, check out this wonderful new video on How to Play Numenera from Monte Cook Games.
Now that you know what you need to play, you may notice all these other books and gaming aids available. What do you need next?
I recommend Character Options, and you can get a free preview here. This book opens up the field for players with over a hundred new options to choose from.
In Numenera, you create your character by filling in the blanks of:
I am an <ADJECTIVE> <NOUN> who <VERBS>.
The core book gives players plenty of choices, and Character Options expands the list considerably. It includes over 40 new adjectives and dozens of new verbs. New adjectives (called descriptors) include Exiled, Guarded, and Weird. New verbs (foci) include Consorts With the Dead, Fights Dirty, and Moves Like a Cat.
There are no new nouns (types)--you still use the three from the core book: glaives (warriors), nanos (nano-tech wizards), and jacks (jacks of all trades). But now you can be a Guarded Jack who Fights Dirty.
When a player spends experience points, they can gain powers based on their type. New fighting moves for glaives in Character Options include Danger Sense and Daring Escape. New esoteries (spells) for nanos include Force Field and Wormhole. Additions to ticks of the trade for jacks include Erase Memories and Uncanny Luck.
All these new powers fit perfectly with those found in the core book. Players can mix and match from both books.
There are also rules that allow characters to switch descriptors and foci, and play beyond sixth-tier.
That's my recommendation, if you get a second Numenera book, get Character Options. If you can, I'd suggest having a copy before you make new characters at the start of your campaign. My players love it.
OK, now back to editing The Sun Below: City on the Edge. It's getting close, I promises my preciouses!
Next: GMing Numenera Action Scenes.
New to Numenera? What do you need?
Maybe you've heard about this Numenera game, roleplaying 1 billion years in the future, but where do you start, what do you need?
First of all, Numenera is a roleplaying game. You need a few friends. One of you will be the Games Master (GM), the others will be the players. I suggest at least two, preferable three players. I like five players, but some people prefer less.
OK, you have your friends, what else? The GM needs the core book. The players need dice (they can share). What kind of dice? d100 (percentile dice), d20 (twenty sided dice) and d6 (six siders, aka normal dice). If you're experienced in other roleplaying games, you probably have the dice. Your local hobby shop probably has lots of dice (and the core book as well), or if you don't have a good game store near you, the internet is your friend.
You can download free character sheets here.
If you are an experienced GM, most of the published adventures are good for beginning player characters. If you're already good at improvising, read through the four adventures in the back of the core book just to get an idea of the system. If you want an easy introduction to GMing Numenera, start with The Beale of Boregal in the core book. It was written to teach the rules as you go.
That's it. Go have fun.
In the next post, I talk about what's the one book I recommend you get next?
Escalating the Other Side of the Table
In Stealing the Escalation Die for Numenera, about stealing the escalation die mechanic from 13th Age for use in Numenera games, we talked about using the escalation die as a way to speed up long combats. You may have noticed the line "Monsters and NPCs do not add the escalation die bonus to their attacks."
Which is the 13th Age general rule. However, in 13th Age, some monsters do use the escalation die. Which monsters? Why the ones the players least want to see using the escalation die! Dragons. Demons. Other big fat boss monsters.
Many of these monsters have special attacks that only go off based on the escalation die. For example the Balor (AKA the Balrog) often gets to do a large amount of extra damage, multiplied by the number on the escalation die. 13th Age PCs really want to take down a Balor fast. Or run away.
What does that mean for Numenera? As we talked about in Numenera GM Intrusions: Creatures, most creatures have a nasty GM Intrusion.
So here's one suggestion: When the escalation die is 3, and then again at 6, use a GM Intrusion when the PCs are facing a fearsome opponent.
Now I like to start fights with a GM Intrusion, and three GMIs in one fight feels a little excessive, so if I start off with one, I give the PCs a second GM Intrusion when the escalation die hits 4. Again, for fearsome opponents only, gazers need not apply.
Maybe an extra GM Intrusion is not enough to strike fear into the party. I like to add the escalation die to the damage a fearsome creature does. The higher the escalation die value, the more important it is to dodge the next blow.
So what's a fearsome opponent? You could set it relative to the party, say any creature 3 or more levels higher than the maximum tier in the group. Or you could pick a level. Or decide on a creature by creature basis.
I like scaling with the party. When characters advance in tiers, the creatures that gave them such problems at early levels are now outmatched by the PCs awesome skills. At the same time, I think any 8th level creature is pretty awesome, so when my PCs hit 6th tier, I'll still let the 8th level creatures use the escalation die. Dark Fathoms define fearsome.
So here it is, how I like to use the escalation die for the good guys. I mean those terrible opponents battling my sainted player characters:
Creatures who are 3 or more levels higher than the highest tier in the party are fearsome. 8+ level creatures are fearsome. Fearsome creatures add the escalation die to their damage and do a GM Intrusion when the escalation die is 0 and 4. 3 and 6 if I forget to start the battle with one.
After trying this a bit, I've found it feels a little heavy-weight for the Cypher System. Inspired by the Escalation Die, here is what I do to End with a Bang.
Stealing the Escalation Die for Numenera
One of the great things about Numenera is that combats are short and fun. No hour and a half battles that drag on and on. But sometimes, even a Numenera combat can outlast it's welcome. This can happen when the players consistently roll badly. Or the creature level is too high. This can happen when you have a mix of tiers in the party. What challenges a tier 3 character can frustrate a tier 1. And if the tier 3s keep rolling badly...
In cases like this, I steal the escalation die from 13th Age. 13th Age is a wonderful game, and if you haven't checked it out yet, you should.
How does the escalation die speed combat? Let me quote from the 13th Age SRD:
Escalation Die
The escalation die represents a bonus to attacks as the fight goes on.
At the start of the second round, the GM sets the escalation die at 1. Each PC gains a bonus to attack rolls equal to the current value on the escalation die. Each round, the escalation die advances by +1, to a maximum of +6.
Monsters and NPCs do not add the escalation die bonus to their attacks.
Put your biggest d6 out on the table and let everyone add its value to their attack. At 3 and 6 it effectively lowers the difficulty by 1 and 2, but don't count this as an asset.
Story-wise, as the battle continues, the clever PCs are learning how to fight these creatures. Or the shock of entering combat has faded and their successes in past combats gives them growing confidence. Or they are getting more desperate. Whatever fits the battle at hand.
So when do you do this? You could do it every combat, like 13th Age does. But you don' t have to. When you notice a combat is taking longer than you want, just put the d6 down, and set it to the correct number. For example, if you're about to start round 4, set the die to 3 and tell all the players they get to add 3 on all attack rolls, which drops the difficulty of the attack by 1.
If you do use this for all combats, balance the player bonuses by adding an extra point of armor to your creatures. This will result in fewer one round combats as well as fewer four round combats.
Next, see Escalating the Other Side of the Table and GMing Action Scenes: End with a Bang.
Getting Social with Numenera GM Intrusions
Last time in Numenera GM Intrusions: Creatures, I talked about creature specific action GM Intrusions. But Numenera is about so much more than confronting weird creatures. And so are GM Intrusions. When putting together an adventure like The Sun Below: City on the Edge, I like to give a lot of choices for the players and the GM. Besides action scenes, I like to include a lot of social scenes.
To have dramatic tension, a social scene revolves around somebody wanting something from somebody else. Help, love, shins, numenera, something. One side, the petitioner, wants, the other side has to decide if they grant or deny the petitioner.
The players may want help, captives released, a singing statue, whatever. Or they may being asked for something, usually help of some kind. (Robin Laws made a whole roleplaying game centered on these kinds of social interactions: Hillfolk, it's worth checking out.)
A GM Intrusion is there to make things more interesting. How do you make a social interaction more interesting? You mess it up and let the players figure a way to get it back on track.
Here are some of my ideas, I'm sure you'll have plenty of your own.
- I don't like you: When the players want something , an NPC takes offence to one of them. The King points at you. "Feed this one to the snake people and we can continue to talk."
- I like you too much: When the players are being asked to agree to something they don't think is a good idea, have one of them suddenly come under the sway of the petitioner. The rebel leader's charisma has you mooning over her. No matter how foolish her ideas, you find yourself agreeing with them, and arguing on her side.
- Hero worship: Once the players have proven themselves, but before the danger is over, an important NPC falls in love with a PC. And love is blind. "I'll go with you and keep you safe." You notice a tremble in his voice, how his eyes never leave you. His wife, who has the key you wanted, is not amused.
- Oops: While trying to impress some NPCs, a player makes a mistake. They say inappropriate things, slip on the floor, have to run for an emergency bio break, and so on. Trying to fit in, you crunch down on the tasty hors d'evours, and see your hosts looking at you with horror. You seem to have eaten Mylk, a treasured pet.
- Ouch: While negotiating in a dangerous environment, something goes wrong. Negotiations are interrupted by an action scene. Just as the Krim seem ready to grant you access to their sacred scrolls, one of the wall mounted machines jerks into motion and slams into you, knocking you face first into the pit.
- Mistaken Identity: A PC looks just like somebody else the NPCs know. They have strong feelings about this other person, and negotiations break down while this plays out. The Aeon Priest spins at you. "Thief! I saw you steal the serum!"
- History: The NPC actually recognizes the PC, as they have history that complicates things. You recognize this person. She used to run with your gang in Mulen. When the guards took the gang down, she always blamed you as the snitch who sent her friends to prison.
Numenera GM Intrusions: Creatures
One of the great things about Numenera, is how easy it is to make a new creature on the fly. Here goes:
"A human-sized blob with hanging tendrils (5)."
Done. The GM knows it's a difficulty 5 to dodge the blob, hit the blob, or if the blob is intelligent, sway the blob to the PC's point of view. If the blob gets mad and hits someone, they take 5 points of damage. The blob has 5 * 3 = 15 hit points. All from the number 5.
But take a look at the creatures in the core book or the Ninth World Bestiary. It's OK to add all sorts of individual quirks to a creature. Best of all, you can add a creature specific GM Intrusion, just like in the books.
When I'm designing new creatures for an adventure like The Sun Below: City on the Edge, I always add a GM Intrusion. But why? Why would you use one in game?
Ever forget to give every player a GM Intrusion? Forget no more. If you have a combat, open with one. That gets the players' attention and signals the situation is going to be intense. Have 4 players, and you think you'll be running 2 combats this session? Throw 2 GM Intrusions into each combat. Ta-da! You've met your quota.
And every time your players roll a 1, you know what to do.
Of course there are many non-combat GM intrusions that are just as fun, but I'll talk about those another time.
Here are my rules of thumb when designing a creature GM Intrusion. These are just mine. You will have your own, but you know, sharing is caring.
- In other games, creatures often get special powers that they use only sometimes. A dragon's breath, extra damage if they roll certain numbers, when they reach half health, and so on. A GM Intrusion is the Numeneraish way to give those powers.
- Make it flow from the creature's normal abilities. Got a creature with psychic powers? They can use Mind Control as a GM Intrusion. Are they giant size? They can stomp on a PC's head.
- Make it powerful, but tied to the creatures's level. A level 3 creature probably should probably not pop a death ray that drops a character 2 steps down the damage track. I often go with either an extra attack at 2+ levels over the creatures level for a ton of damage, or an automatic hit for half a ton.
- You don't have to "hit" to have an effect. If the player spends a lot of effort to avoid the effect, they are down points, and deserve the benefit.
- As your players go up tiers, they get free effort from edge, so don't be shy about bumping the difficulty to avoid the effect.
- If it's a high level creature to begin with, it's great to have a GM Intrusion that drops a character down a step on the damage track. Other fun effects are dazed, stunned, and knocked off a cliff. Into a sea of lava. With spikes.
- I stick to single target effects. Why? If I want to pass out GM Intrusion XP, single target keeps it simple. Yes, if the player rolls a 1 it might be fun to pop a big area of effect hurt on the players, but creature powers don't lend themselves well to group GM Intrusions for XP.
- I like to add a line I can use to describe how it feels.
You teleport into the flames and feel the searing hot bladed hands of the automaton dig deep into your body. Your flesh sizzles like meat on a spit.