Quote from: SpikeThere is a reason I created Borgstrom Wars.  Can we fucking drop the Noblis shit already?  Pundit hates it, Grimgent likes it. Poof! Lets seal them in a fucking bubble in a shard of Amber to duke it out for all eternity. Pundit with his 1st rank punditry, and grimgent with his Miracle points in teh domain of 'Noblis Love'.  If you get bored you can peek in and watch.

Meanwhile the rest of us can get on with the serious business of talking about gaming between bouts of actual gaming.

You know, you can just not open a thread about Nobilis. You have the power within you!

Quote from: James McMurrayYou know, you can just not open a thread about Nobilis. You have the power within you!

To be perfectly honest, I have read less than half of the ones currently on, particularly the redundant ones. I will admit to peeking at one or two of the other ones to verify that, yes, they are in fact redundant.

On the other hand, if any given Noblis thread did not grow to mammoth proportions I would likely ignore its existance. It's not the Noblity of the thread, or lack thereof, but the fact that it seems to have sucked much of the posting to RPGsite into it that forces me to read it. If I want to communicate with people on the site, these threads perforce MUST BE where I go, as the rest of the posting is positively missing in their wake.

Ergo my hate for the threads themselves, and their continued proliferation.  At least the Borgstrom Wars, short lived though it was in comparison, has the advantage of being generically amusing, rather than being an angry debate that is long past its expiration date and kept alive by the polarized opposites of the two major combatants... rather like the mythic battle between two opposed champions where their evenly matched fight destroys everything around them, then themselves, then taints the spirit world, because neither can win, and neither, apparently, can LET IT FUCKING GO!:mad:

Ash and Chrysanthemum appears to be gone now, by the way, although the Wayback Machine can still take you there.

I really don't advise 1e. It's organized like tech docs (Chapter 1, secion 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.31, 1.32, 1.4...). And as much as people complain that 2e is unplayable, 1e almost deserves the label.

What I DO advise is the LARP rules for Nobilis (Game of Powers, I think?). It offers some clear, basic ways to resolve a number of things (like combat).

Quote from: WillI really don't advise 1e. It's organized like tech docs (Chapter 1, secion 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.31, 1.32, 1.4...). And as much as people complain that 2e is unplayable, 1e almost deserves the label.

That sounds like an improvement to me

Quote from: WillWhat I DO advise is the LARP rules for Nobilis (Game of Powers, I think?). It offers some clear, basic ways to resolve a number of things (like combat).

Boffer sunflowers?

Quote from: SosthenesBoffer sunflowers?

So you've read the book.

!i!

Boffer sunflowers would be more like live action Wraeththu...

No, things like 'if miracle A meets miracle B, here are some detailed ideas on the magnitude of the result.'

Whereas the main rulebook is pretty vague on how those interactions play out.

Hmm (searches for copy) Yes, it's 'The Game of Powers'

System is a simple 'Miracle - miracle, + modifiers' for amount of success.

A machine gun, for example, provides +3 toward relevant combat comparisons.

Time spent can also provide a bonus to a success. If it takes an hour to do something, the Noble might spend a year, instead, gaining a bonus when the conflict is resolved.

Lots of little details on firming things down.

Quote from: WillWhat I DO advise is the LARP rules for Nobilis (Game of Powers, I think?). It offers some clear, basic ways to resolve a number of things (like combat).

From personal experience, the separate subsections for the various uses of Aspect and Domain have proven useful, and the guidelines for Shifts can be convenient when you need to figure how mundane efforts relate to miracles.

Quote from: WillBoffer sunflowers would be more like live action Wraeththu...

Ewwwwww...

No thanks, I prefer my "I don't know where to shoot at!" succubi girls...

Quote from: StuartI agree with Willow.

Who doesn't?

Ian, absolutely, though art and photography books are that size for a functional reason.  By coffee table books I mean more books that are designed to be objects of admiration but not use, often sold at Christmas I tend to find.

I wasn't reading comics in the late 1990s, but it does sound like a similar phenomenon.

I sold my copy of Nobilis a while ago and my shelves are still thanking me.

It's really the poster child for the whole trend in industry circles to sell pretty books rather than useful ones.  Aside from being incredibly difficult to actually physically read (you can't read it on the bus, or even in bed), it has all of that hideous gamer fiction intertwined with the rules.

I did once find online a short version of the rules as a txt file and the game in itself is actually quite simple... the problem is extracting from the book what you need to run a game.

Having said that, I think the setting is so out there and weird and yet quite proscriptive that I'd have no interest in running it.  Writing for that setting doesn't appeal to me and just the thought of having to explain the terminology to players makes my balls ache.

Interestingly, I think that Borgstrom's writing style works when it's reined in quite a bit.  The exalted book she wrote was far more user friendly and the whimsy was deployed quite intelligently rather than sprayed all over the place.

Borgstrom's the textbook example of a writer who needs a strong editor with a big stick standing over her and rapping her knuckles when she goes overboard.  The problem is that, if anything, Nobilis encouraged her to be as weird as possible.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalI did once find online a short version of the rules as a txt file and the game in itself is actually quite simple... the problem is extracting from the book what you need to run a game.

Nobilis 101? Linking to that document is one of the first things I usually do whenever someone starts asking about the system. For a really short version of the basic rules you only have to look at page 48 of the book, though.

Yep... that's the one.  Thanks GG.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalYep... that's the one.  Thanks GG.

There are a few niggling details in there which could be amended, of course: the fifth of Entropy's laws is "Serve Thy Imperator Before the War, and the War Before Thyself" rather than anything to do with the Cammora, the Words of Command make it possible to perform miracles which exceed the appropriate attribute by more than four but never by more than eight (at the cost of 8 MPs and a Deadly Wound), no Divination can reveal detailed information about Nobles or Excrucians even if it pierces their Auctoritas...

Quote from: GrimGentThere are a few niggling details in there which could be amended, of course: the fifth of Entropy's laws is "Serve Thy Imperator Before the War, and the War Before Thyself" rather than anything to do with the Cammora, the Words of Command make it possible to perform miracles which exceed the appropriate attribute by more than four but never by more than eight (at the cost of 8 MPs and a Deadly Wound), no Divination can reveal detailed information about Nobles or Excrucians even if it pierces their Auctoritas...

Yet another thing I hate about Nobilis...

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