Monte Cook’s Numenera has recently been dominating my gaming table: I’ve run twelve sessions of it for three different groups in the last two months and it seems to be a hit with just about everybody. I’ve posted some cool stuff about it recently, so you may already be aware of this.

What you may not be aware of is that Monte Cook and Bruce Cordell have joined forces to create another game using the same engine: The Strange is a multi-dimensional romp in which your characters will change depending on which world they’re currently inhabiting. It’s generally conjuring up images of Torg, Planescape, The Matrix, and the best parts of Amazing Engine. But it also feels like it’s got its own unique little vibe.

They’re currently running a kickstarter for it and I’m mavening for it pretty hard: They’re currently at $351,130 as I write this, but they’ve got a stretch goal at $360k to release an additional 96-page adventure supplement. Since I’m generally a pretty big fan of adventure designed by Cook and Cordell, that’s something I’d really, really like to see happen.

If you’re interested in just taking a peek, you can drop $25 to get PDF copies of the core rulebook and the Player’s Guide. But the real juice starts at $80 (when you get a copy of the rulebook plus PDFs of all seven books that have become part of the kickstarter at this point). There are a bunch of other pledge levels and add-ons, but the next significant plateau for me is the $200 level (where you get printed copies of all seven books). But I’m also going to take a moment to pimp the Superfan packages, which currently look like this (but will continue to improve as more stretch goals are met):

I just recently upgraded my pledge to the $450 MCG Superfan level: It’s getting me 16-18 titles at an average price significantly lower than retail. But, on top of that, I’m also getting the $120 limited edition, the short story collection, decks of cards, and a plethora of pretty awesome goodies.

I’m very, very close to upgrading my pledge by another $200 to get both Superfan packages. I’m not saying it’s something everybody needs to do, but I’m really looking forward to receiving a steady stream of awesome RPG products for the next few years.

Someone named “Cynthia” just posted the most magnificent piece of comment spam I have ever seen. It might be an automated script that just blew a gasket, but I suspect it’s actually someone who accidentally copy-pasted their entire text file of vague commentary.

I’ve removed the comment, but I couldn’t bear to destroy something of such horrid beauty. Besides, there’s always the chance that it’s actually a semi-sentient memetic virus seeking to animate its way out of the ‘net. (And that kind of horrific creepiness seems seasonally appropriate.)

Thus, below the fold, you’ll find a complete and utter waste of your time which nevertheless holds all the fascination of the abyss.

CYNTHIA, HERALD OF NYARLATHOTEP

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Some quick mechanical background for people unfamiliar with Numenera: In this system, you deal flat damage based on the type of weapon you use. (A light weapon does 2 points of damage; a medium weapon does 4 points of damage; and a heavy weapon does 6 points of damage.) You can increase the amount of damage you inflict by exerting effort or by rolling well on your attack roll. And, finally, you subtract the target’s armor value from the damage inflicted before applying it to their health pool.

This means that the key armor values in Numenera are 2, 4, and 6: At armor 2, you can’t hurt it with a light weapon unless you use effort. At armor 4, you can’t hurt it with a medium weapon unless you use effort. And so forth.

Now, let’s talk about items: Items are assigned a health pool and an armor value. The armor value for an item can be 1 (hard objects), 2 (very hard objects), or 3 (extremely hard objects).

This means that, mechanically speaking, the game is asking the GM to make an assessment: Can you hurt this with a dagger? Can you hurt this with a dagger if you use some effort?

Once you express it in those terms, it becomes pretty easy to see that, objectively speaking, the system is producing really unrealistic results. (If you’re wielding anything larger than a dagger, you’re going to be able to break literally anything in the game world. And you are probably going to be able to break it very quickly and with very little effort.) And from a mechanical standpoint, it would be much more interesting for the GM to have a richer panoply of assessments to trivially choose from.

My recommendation is to set the object armor values at the key armor values indicated above:

Tagline: A strong card game, reinforcing this line of family-oriented card games which made a name for itself with Twitch.

Last year Wizards of the Coast released a series of four family-oriented card games (in the tradition of Uno and Skip-Bo): Twitch, Pivot, Alpha Blitz, and Go Wild!. After reading about it in an RPGNet review I picked up Twitch and quickly became completely addicted to its fast-pace play style. On the strength of Twitch I ended up buying the other three games in this abbreviated line and have been slowly playing my way through them (in addition to Twitch I have also reviewed Pivot here on RPGNet – a review of Alpha Blitz will pop up whenever I get around to playing it).

So far I have been heartily impressed, and the games have readily taken their place alongside other family favorites, such as the aforementioned Uno and Skip-Bo.

Go Wild! is a trick-based game (like Hearts or Spades) designed for 2-6 players. There are six suits of cards – five colors and the wild cards. Each player is dealt twelve cards, which forms their hand. The game is played in a series of rounds, each of which is made up of three tricks. You win a trick by more cards of a particular color — which is determined by whoever leads the trick — than anybody else.

At this point it sounds like a pretty tame, typical game. You might as well pick up a copy of Hoyle’s. But this is where the designers throw you a curveball: You score a variable number of points depending on which trick in the round you win, plus, if you win the first trick of the round, you become the Wild One. Here’s how it works:

If you win the first trick of the round, you score 1 point. In addition, you become the Wild One (there’s a card included that identifies the Wild One). On the second trick you score 2 points, and on the third you score 3.

Here’s the cool bit: Only the Wild One can use wild cards.

In other words, the strategy of the game is not just to win the most tricks – but to choose a specific strategy which allows you to win. Do you toss out as many cards as possible on the first trick of the round in order to secure the Wild One? Or do you gamble a little bit and hope to pick up more points by winning the later tricks?

The most important question to be asked of games like this, however, is: Does the concept actually work in execution? The answer here is: Yes. Absolutely. Go Wild! is an excellent game, exploring a new and interesting variation upon the old trick-based card game concepts. In that sense, Go Wild! continues the strong tradition I found in Twitch and Pivot. Not only are these fun games, but they are extremely innovative.

The only serious problem I had with Go Wild! was the rule for who got to lead the first trick of the game: The youngest player. Okay, fine. Works all right the first time. But when you play two or three games in a row, it becomes a little frustrating for the same guy to always have that advantage.

I was most impressed by the fact that the game proved itself to actually by playable by two players. Most games listing 2-X players are “playable by two players” only in the sense that the rules work – the entire dynamic of playing is skewed by the presence of only two players. Because of the complex tactical consideration of Go Wild!, however, two players can easily challenge one another.

Of the games in this line, Twitch is undoubtedly the best (it’s guaranteed to consume hours and hours of your free time). That being said, Go Wild! will definitely be placed on my To Be Played shelf, and not my Been There, Done That shelf.

Style: 4
Substance: 4

Author: Grezegorz Rejchtman
Company/Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Cost: $6.95
Page Count: n/a
ISBN: 1-57530-601-8

Originally Posted: 1999/10/23

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

I’ve engaged in a couple of discussions recently about designing games to eliminate powergaming or character optimization.

My personal opinion is that you can’t: Any system featuring 2+ choices in order to create or advance a character in which those choices have a mechanical impact is going to have people using those choices to optimize their characters. (Note: Equipment choices count.)

This becomes even more true if the content of the campaign can be varied: As a I discussed in “Fetishizing Balance” many moons ago, a character loaded up with seafaring skills is going to be non-optimized for a campaign based around Robin Hood, but is absolutely going to rock it in a campaign based around Treasure Island.

When game designers try to solve the “problem” of character optimization they generally end up falling into the fallacy I describe in “Ivory Tower Design“: The belief that you can allow for meaningful choice in any kind of complex system without having some choices be inferior to other choices. And the result is that they limit either (a) the flexibility of character creation, (b) the scope of the game, or (c) both.

(Which isn’t to say that game designers should just completely ignore issues of balance: Correct obvious imbalances between options aiming at the same effect. Remove anything that radically alters the fundamental experience or nature of the game in unintended ways. But trying to make Blackbeard just as effective in Sherwood Forest as he is on the high seas? Or making fighters specialized in a bow just as effective in melee as the fighter who specialized in a longsword? You’re wasting your time and your efforts will probably cause a lot of collateral damage.)

GMs vs. OPTIMIZATION

So we’ve concluded that all RPGs are going to feature CharOp and we’ve also concluded that there’s very little or nothing that game designers can do about it. But what if you’re a GM faced with optimization-obsessed players and you don’t like the effect it’s having on the game?

First, recognize that there’s nothing about optimizing your character to be good at X that’s incompatible with enjoying a good story. In fact, a lot of character optimization originates as a completely logical, in-character motivation: I need to be good at X to succeed/stay alive, so how can I be really good at X?

Where this becomes problematic is when it turns into an optimization arms race: The PCs keep getting better at X, the GM cranks up the difficulty of X to “keep things challenging”, and the players respond by making their characters even better at X. Rinse. Wash. Repeat.

When there’s a clash of expectations or problematic behavior at a gaming table, I generally recommend solving those problems by sitting down and just talking out the issues involved. But the optimization arms race is a slightly different kettle of fish because it originates in-character. A conversation about expectations may still be useful (particularly if the behavior has become reflex or habit), but you have to solve the in-character motivation first.

(1) Diversify your game. If X is the only thing that a character ever has to do in order to succeed, then the character is highly motivated to optimize X. If players have to do a bunch of different stuff in your game, then they won’t be able to hyper-optimize one facet of their characters.

(2) Worry a lot less about “challenging” the PCs at whatever the PCs are badasses at. For example, if one of your players creates a badass hacker, you shouldn’t necessarily respond by cranking up the difficulty of every computer system they want to hack. If you do that, they’ll respond by trying to figure out how to crank up their hacking skills a few more notches.

In other words, just opt out of the arms race. And this remains true even if the results seem extreme: Have they created a character that can hack the NSA on a whim? That’s OK. Cyrano de Bergerac was the greatest swordsman who ever lived. Edmond Rostand didn’t negate that or ignore it, but he also didn’t respond to it by creating an elite brigade of soldiers who could match Cyrano in a swordfight. (Think about it.)

Sometimes, of course, you’ll want to throw a hundred swordsmen at Cyrano. Or have the NSA contact the PC because they’ve seen what she can do and they need some help cracking the encryption on an alien artifact that the Martian Rover just found.

What I’m saying, though, is that you should spend less time trying to one-up your players and more time thinking about the interesting stories that result from the consequences of success rather than the risk of defeat.