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Old 02-04-2019, 01:25 PM   #31
thalcos
 
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Default Re: Can In Nomine be resurrected?

I love In Nomine and would love to see a new, revised edition. Brainstorming my wishlist:

1) Rules cleanup. Important core rules are spread out between the Game Master's Guide and the core book (and others), with enough variations that it makes the game harder to learn / teach.

2) Fast-forward the timeline. Tons of opportunity to play off of modern events to create relevant new Words, Demon Princes, etc. (What Balseraph just got the Word of Fake News???)

3) New art. Loved it at the time, but it's very 90s-looking now.

4) Expanded setting material. So much of what was compelling about the In Nomine setting isn't actually in the main book -- it's spread out in a dozen adventures, source books, etc, and it evolved into something better over time. Compared to modern RPGs, which are much better at presenting setting information up front, In Nomine needs some help here. (Actually, I think it needed help compared to late 90's RPGs too, probably the result of tonal shifts and editor changes during playtesting).

5) Tilt IN characters away from superheroes. A lot of the core songs and abilities are pretty standard Marvel fair. Later books added some much more interesting and unique celestial powers. There's moments where In Nomine characters FEEL so different from what you can play in other RPGs -- push these concepts more through the selection of abilities!

6) More GM advice on how to run adventures (and/or better sample adventures). Again, the core book doesn't do a great job here, it's really hard to tell what a good In Nomine adventure is supposed to feel like, and I don't think I ever figured it out until I played through half the published adventures and found what worked and what didn't. Obviously, there's lot of variation here. I've had success with epic operatic adventures and others that felt like a good Law & Order episode, but with Seraphim. But the setting isn't intuitive for new GMs without some more guidance, and it's too easy for new GMs to accidentally create a campaign that blows itself up (esp. with demon games).

Not a lot of deep thinking here, but love watching this thread appear!
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Old 02-04-2019, 01:42 PM   #32
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Default Re: Can In Nomine be resurrected?

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Originally Posted by thalcos View Post
1) Rules cleanup. Important core rules are spread out between the Game Master's Guide and the core book (and others), with enough variations that it makes the game harder to learn / teach.

4) Expanded setting material. So much of what was compelling about the In Nomine setting isn't actually in the main book -- it's spread out in a dozen adventures, source books, etc, and it evolved into something better over time. Compared to modern RPGs, which are much better at presenting setting information up front, In Nomine needs some help here. (Actually, I think it needed help compared to late 90's RPGs too, probably the result of tonal shifts and editor changes during playtesting).
I agree so much here, I love the setting, the mechanics arent bad but feel too White Wolf for me. My main problem is the core book really needs to be read start to finish to get it all, a lot is repeated and spread out.
It makes it easy to understand if you follow along as the author intends, but harder to quickly cross reference or just pick up with a quick read.
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Old 02-04-2019, 02:41 PM   #33
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Default Re: Can In Nomine be resurrected?

It's a game of modern fantasy featuring supernatural protagonists. It's going to feel a bit like White Wolf no matter what you do. Not that that's a bad thing.

That said, I'm not sure what could be done to make the mechanics feel less like White Wolf without damaging them. The die rolling mechanic has nothing to do with how White Wolf does things. The characteristics are in a 2 to 12 range, not the one to five or 1 to 10 range that white wolf seems to prefer. Skills are 1 to 6, which I suppose could be a little too close to White Wolf five. Scale.

One area where In Nomine does feel a lot like White Wolf is character creation. It does not have character points. To me, that's a good thing. While I would want to revise character creation somewhat, I would not want to get rid of its overall approach. The main thing that I would change would be to decouple Resources from Forces. Give everyone a standard allotment of Resource points based on how much experience they have under their belt. Nearly everything else works just fine as is.
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Old 02-04-2019, 04:07 PM   #34
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One area where In Nomine does feel a lot like White Wolf is character creation. It does not have character points. To me, that's a good thing. While I would want to revise character creation somewhat, I would not want to get rid of its overall approach. The main thing that I would change would be to decouple Resources from Forces. Give everyone a standard allotment of Resource points based on how much experience they have under their belt. Nearly everything else works just fine as is.
Thats the part that bothered me at first, the d666 mechanic felt like a cute gimmick, the Forces being spread with different chareteristics and how they relate to Resources and such, thats the parts that rubbed me the wrong way.
And the writing style felt like storyteller.

However I just reread the core rulebook (had to buy a new copy) and some of my opinions have changed. At least a little.
The Dissonance mechanics are a bit abstract but more usable than I remembered.
Still by far my favorite part of the book is the setting.

Another idea to promote visibility would be a card game. I can really see a card game based on this setting. Munchkin, sure but a more competitive one like Werewolf or Vampire had would be something I would sign up for a kickstarter for. Toss in a Superiors book as a stretch goal and you help In Nomine by getting a new product and fresh visibility..
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Old 02-04-2019, 05:16 PM   #35
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Default Re: Can In Nomine be resurrected?

One thing I'd like to see in any revision / new edition would be the inclusion of "historical" (i.e. former) Attunements, Rites, (etc.) for Superiors in prior eras. For example, Janus has a rite that is simply IMPOSSIBLE to achieve before the 20th Century, if I recall correctly.[*]

Thanks,
Franklin

* -- This specific glitch came to my attention when I tried to write-up a historical character from his "start" in the American Old West, with character advancements in the 1920s, '40s, and 60s (i.e. as if he were a PLAYER character, and not an NPC created ad hoc).
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Old 02-04-2019, 05:19 PM   #36
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Another idea to promote visibility would be a card game.
(blink)

Chez (Geek) In Nomine -- You can't send them to Hell; they're your roommates!... ;-)
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Old 02-04-2019, 11:56 PM   #37
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Default Re: Can In Nomine be resurrected?

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Would IN: Soldiers be playable by itself? Because anything that requires potential investors to buy other books in order to use what they get from a KS would severely cut into the project's viability. It's why I was talking in terms of a second edition. But you did say “IN-Lite for humans”, which does make me think that it might be self-contained.
The plan was a self-contained game, yeah, focusing on Soldiers, as an introduction to the world. I was trying to hit a 32 to 48 page count, IIRC, and a chunk of the concept was that the GM would want to be willing to work off a reduced selection of celestial powers (for celestial patrons/handlers/enemies), and/or ad-lib stuff, or own the full core rules and be suckering gamers into the world with an "entry level" kind of concept: humans who get to run around dealing with supernatural cruft, and having a few Songs and magic items, er, relics to do it with.

Obviously, being a non-published gleam in my eye, that'd be flexible. One person's "sure, this is enough to grab and run with and make up whatever extra I need" is another person's "...where is the rest of the game?" And another person's, "Gaaaaawd, there are way too many rules in this 'light-weight' thing!", probably. >_>

IF (big if! Huge if!) the accounting people at the office thought that this would be a potentially workable work-to-return project at some point in the future, I would probably want a small playtest group for firming up the concept or seeing if it was too loosy-goosy for anyone but me.

(Honestly, whatever lets me get an array of human-PC types across the front, with an old plump nun toting a broadsword that comes up to her chest? Would Write. O;D )

(If it was too hand-wavey to live, then it would probably be reasonable for me to consider an overhaul of the core rules and seeing if a 3d666 mechanic could be made to work with the skills -- not as complex as GURPS (INING! In Nomine Is Not GURPS! KINS! Keep In Nomine Simple!) -- but maybe a little less punishing on human characters. Again, however, see the disclaimer:)

Expectations-setting disclaimer: I am not at the office, don't know the accounting constraints, and this is all me meebling about what I'd like to do if the numbers played out well. Please do not allow hopes to get high enough to be dashed while everything is still chillin' out in Limbo.
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Old 02-05-2019, 12:28 AM   #38
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Default Re: Can In Nomine be resurrected?

And reading the rest, ha. (Please excuse me being a little fragmented -- it's 2am and I had very broken sleep recently.)

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Originally Posted by dataweaver View Post
What do you find wonky about the rules, and how would you change them?
If you ask me? The exact granularity of the 2d6+1d6 checkdie is... Well, I kind of like it, but the 2d6 part makes it hard to have characters who middle-of-the-road. One tends to get extremes, which isn't a bad thing with celestials and ethereals -- gives them a reason to hang out together and cover each other's weaknesses, from a purely mechanical standpoint -- but humans are really, really shafted.

Years back -- and I copied and pasted the posts into a file, muwhahahah -- there was a discussion about some possible alterations. Two things I liked, off the top of my head, were:

• Different point-pools for Stats and Skills. (And maybe other Resources, too, depending.) Suggested point-pool levels for Newbie, Decent, Mature, and Experienced (off the top of my head), so you can get high-skilled characters without necessarily having Force inflation. (This idea definitely was in the IN: Soldiers prototype.)

Or high-Force characters who just came to Earth and are bumbling around like kaiju kittens.

It's possible that allowing skills to do more of the heavy lifting for character effectiveness would help a lot with the "...I can barely tie my own shoes OR I'm Bruce Lee" problem. Not sure.

• Possibility of switching over to a GURPS Ultralite kind of 3d6 (still keeping 111/666, of course!), but with the reduced skill-list, more wildcard-like skills, and ignoring easy/average/hard, etc. Advantages: everyone gets a lot better at Songs. Disadvantages: people want to buy five zillion Songs. (Fix: Songs and Artifacts get their own point-pool? Emphasize that disturbances in the Force, er, Symphony are BAD?)

I would miss the wonky 2d6 + 1d6 effects, but it is kind of a stunt-mechanic to differentiate from GURPS, and it might be better to go with something that's more familiar even if it is also more pedestrian. Let the mechanics get out of the way so players can get into the game.

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Originally Posted by William View Post
I GM'ed two campaigns of GIN which both lasted for several years, and very much enjoyed them. I did need to make some rules edits, but no more than I might with any other setting I used for that long.
Yeah, I think the Ethereal Plane had some... issues, in GIN. Ethereal Plane stuff is a little tricky anyway, but GURPS IQ Being King in the ethereal realm made for some iiiinnnnteresting effects.

Oops.

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Originally Posted by William View Post
GURPS 4e has an active userbase, and a core setting into which a GURPS-statted In Nomine world can be dropped. The Warehouse 23 Wish List has several categories into which potential 4e GIN material fits: a 16-pager description of the In Nomine corporeal world, its physics, and its associated planes would be an Infinite Worlds supplement [...]

An IN - 4e conversion of the Choirs, Bands, Ethereals, and various permutations of humanity in the setting would be a Fantasy Folk supplement, much of which could basically be lifted from GIN and updated to 4e.
*is intrigued*

*reminds everyone that she doesn't have the accounting stuff and can therefore only be unleashed by the dark masters, etc.*

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* Advance the timeline to the modern day. [...]
* Finally publish the IN-native Grigori and Skulker material, including the now-defunct Choir Attunements and potential Band Attunements. This could also be a major 2000s incident -- their existence is confirmed and Hell starts acquiring Skulkers, even while Heaven leaves them Outcast.
Spoiler: The second Cycle was always supposed to be focused on Grig and Skulkers. There are even tiny foreshadowing things hinted around in a couple of the Superiors books. >_> So, aheh, yeah, if the series did move on plot-wise and not just updating the current materials, there is stuff I could dust off.

I doubt I could get Genevieve Cogman back, though -- I was going to try to have her write the adventure part of the Cycle, but she's doing the Invisible Library series now. (Which I highly recommend, because that's a very fun series. She's a good writer, and the editor she's got is excellent at honing the drafts to fit into the chosen niche.)
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Old 02-05-2019, 12:40 AM   #39
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Default Re: Can In Nomine be resurrected?

You could still have the check digit with 3d6, just roll 4d6 so you get the bell curve but still keep that crit aspect as a side thing.
And Wiliam has it right there is a lot of opportunity on the W23 wishlist for a creative author. A GIN topic could slide into Monster Hunters or Cabal, much less IW, IOU or Illuminati.
The book needs be good enough to sell, but does not have to fit perfectly into the GIN or IN cannon, especially as in not requiring those books to use it.
The goal is to sell more books and for this topic to increase IN visibility.
A MH adventure (or series of them) that hinted at IN and used some of its plots could rekindle that interest.
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Old 02-05-2019, 12:48 AM   #40
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Default Re: Can In Nomine be resurrected?

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Originally Posted by Refplace View Post
You could still have the check digit with 3d6, just roll 4d6 so you get the bell curve but still keep that crit aspect as a side thing.
And Wiliam has it right there is a lot of opportunity on the W23 wishlist for a creative author. A GIN topic could slide into Monster Hunters or Cabal, much less IW, IOU or Illuminati.
The book needs be good enough to sell, but does not have to fit perfectly into the GIN or IN cannon, especially as in not requiring those books to use it.
The goal is to sell more books and for this topic to increase IN visibility.
A MH adventure (or series of them) that hinted at IN and used some of its plots could rekindle that interest.
Much as I'm fond of the check digit? I think it would be better to axe it if the system moved to a 3d6 mechanic. It's a cute stunt, but the word-count spent on explaining it might better go to more interesting things; this really might be a case of "kill your darlings, because they're distorting the rest of the work." The 111/666 mechanic is a more important flavor.

If someone got a go-ahead on "IN in MH/IW/whatever" as a concept, I would be happy to work with 'em on the conversion to get capitalizations right and all! (As William said, converting from 3e to 4e GURPS would generally just be adjusting point-costs.)

Again, managing expectations: I wouldn't be the one to give a go-ahead on such a project, however intriguing I find it. O:>
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