In Nomine Second Edition: What have we learned?

[Omegonthesane]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Sure.

Much abridging was unfortunately necessary, but the link to the original quote is there.

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Oh, they have. With the exception of two game lines that are blatantly and unapologetically rooted in the idea that the supers in the setting leave ordinary mortals in the dust (i.e., Exalted and Scion), most of their games these days assume that the challenges that the protagonists face will be things that a group of mortals has at least a fighting chance against — as far as starting characters go, at least.

Depends on your group of mortals. As far as "this thing is too OTT for a game" goes, I'd draw the line at - in In Nomine terms - "can reasonably be expected to laugh at an assassination attempt - not even a fair fight, an assassination, i.e. striking it when it is out of power and at its weakest - by an entire "mundane" squad of the SAS with the best non-Disturbing equipment Laurence/Baal can have crafted". Most Superiors at their full power are way past that, hence my preference for Superiors being portrayed as unable to directly do anything at full power without consequences they'd really rather avoid due to their sheer size - and repeated advocation that an Invoked mini-incarnation should be no less (or more!) stoppable than an 18-Force grotesque combat monster PC. That way you at least have more than "the plot said so" to fall back on when you inevitably let the PCs run like sissy little cowards from the Baal avatar who then doesn't gun them down with an Unholy Rapid Firing Rocket Launcher/6 or whatever.

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Heck, you need to go with a Saint before you start getting a human who isn't completely outclassed when dealing with celestials.

Part of that is canon raw power IMO, but Saints really start to push the envelope - they have Tether hopping, they have multiple lives, they can Cel Form to join that bit of the fun in a Tether, and while they lack resonance, they also lack dissonance - either from Choir or Superior - and thus have no strictly forbidden behaviours whatsoever, so long as they can convince the inevitable Triad that they were justified.

Admittedly I've also not seen the group ever even think of enforcing the canon "corporeal Songs only" rule for humans. As expostulated before, I could see "no Songs ever" or "all Songs ever" being available to humans, but the "corporeal only, need to spend 10 of your maybe 28 points being plugged into a Superior to cheat that" rule is arbitrary, difficult to remember, and massively nerfs humans for no thematic purpose.

[Acolyte]

Incidently, I find it interesting that you suggest playing a human-turned-celestial (using a backstory Intervention to sidestep the firmly established principle that humans never become celestials) as an alternative to "doing something that IN isn't meant to do".

Well pointed out, although I think it's pretty obvious that by "IN isn't meant to do" I meant mechanically, not thematically, since that's what all the recent discussion about human PCs problems has been about.

But Acolyte's point wasn't that Celestials get the spotlight; his point was that you shouldn't play humans. If he's right, then a hypothetical IN2e should remove humans from the core book's character creation section, and relegate it to a supplement.

I would have absolutely no problem with that. I think the core book's error was even mentioning the option, when the rules so very clearly don't support it. Someone (Jason, I think) mentioned above that he has issue not with human/angel disparity, but that humans by RAW fail at daily tasks without including variants about extra skill points and automatic successes that are spread across a large number of books, which suggests that humans-as-PCs wasn't a thoroughly playtested option.

Just flipping through the character generation section again, I think that the inherent problems of playing non-celestial PCs are brutally highlighted by the example, the Mummy who (because the potential player is rightly scared about getting killed and never having a way to return to the game) must be a a dumb brute. It also suggests that he play the Servant of another player's celestial! Also, the quotes, pg. 27, "celestial beings, the heart and soul of the game, are the default In Nomine player characters", and pg. 32, "This game revolves around the exploits of fantastically powerful angelic and demonic creatures, and their superhuman lieutenants." The latter quote might suggest Soldiers as viable PCs, but the previous page says "Few Soldiers can win a slugging match with a healthy angel or demon--but that's not their job." In short, although the core does have rules for creating human PCs, they also make it clear from the get-go that choosing to play a human being is choosing to be weaker than the assumption because of a greater roleplaying decision. Heck, that same section has rules for playing a Remnant (!!!), which would be even more useless than a Soldier and probably less fun to boot. That section also introduces Word-Bound celestials (with a note, in the character creation section, that "Characters should not start the game with a Word", pg. 28). Poor layout is a well-known plague of IN's core, but I stand by my assertion that IN is a game mechanically intended for celestial-level PCs (and really only 9-12ish Force PCs, because much higher and everyone's Skill TNs climb above 12).

Fixed that for you. D&D is a terrible, terrible example for "this game is not about that concept" arguments because it has so little wedding of fluff to mechanics.

Didn't really fix that. If a player came to a DM before starting a D&D 3e campaign and said, "my character concept requires me to take levels of commoner", and the DM allowed it, and the character failed to shine in the game, the fault does not lie with D&D 3e. That is the extent to which the reference goes.

Taking the discussion briefly out of mechanics entirely and onto fluff, if a GM preparing an IN game gathers the players together and collectively they decide that they really want to explore in-game the sort of long-term "associations" that angels and demons who've been on Earth together longer than they've been in Heaven can build, a la everyone's massive love of the book Good Omens, and then one of the players comes back to the table saying "actually, I reread the rules and I absolutely desperately want to play a Kyriotate of the Sword in a human war hero's body because it's very topical to the War On Terror and it seems really fun to play", that gaming group has a problem. There's nothing mechanically wrong with that concept, and it IS topical and potentially very fun and a great idea, but an angel of the Sword is going to have a hard time in a group of Flowers, Trade, Dreams, Creation, and/or Destiny angels, because his presence will disrupt their plots, limit their ability to interact with demonic NPCs without a brawl starting, and generally make things very difficult for the group to keep cohesion. (A quick fix isn't mechanical, it's fluff-based--an angel of War with the Role of an Iraq war veteran who takes to heart the rivalry but not-willing-to-fight-just-yet relationship that Michael has with Baal, a relationship he emulates with demonic NPCs. The less elegant fix, that Laurence simply orders the Kyrio not to attack, is less satisfactory because it doesn't replicate the 'quasi-going-against-orders" relationship of the characters in Good Omens.)

Back to mechanics. A human PC in a mixed group presents all sorts of problems, just as an inappropriate Superior choice does. But the problems aren't fluff-fixable (unless you utilize one of the very admittedly bizarre options I mentioned in the previous post, none of which, for the record, particularly excite me), and (as the length of this discussion suggests) aren't easily mechanically fixable, because the game is built around the 9-Force, celestial model. Tether travel and surviving Vessel death are key components to standard IN gameplay, and humans (except perhaps Saints, but it's clear that Saints aren't supposed to be losing their bodies and popping up to Heaven for replacements) can't access them. Compared to celestials, humans are weaker, less tough, less skilled, have less potential, and don't have access to the same number of supernatural abilities. The same goes for Relievers or Demonlings (or fully fledged, 7-Force demons) or Undead or Remnants or whatever else. To make those character options work (remember, celestials are the "default" and "heart and soul" of the game), you have to either alter fluff or mechanics, both of which cause headaches. Or you could play the game as it is intended, starting with 9-Force celestials (who aren't Remnants, who aren't Word-Bound, who aren't protoSuperiors, who are favored Servitors, who aren't pushing paper in Heaven, who are assigned to Earthly duty, and who fit all the other basic assumptions). It isn't

unspeakable heresy

to play a human, it's just not what the game does well, mechanically, and wasn't designed to do well.

And IMHO, it's a flawed design that subsequent supplements have done their utmost to get around.

I disagree. I don't think that focusing on celestials is a flaw, and no supplement has ever come even close to bringing humans in line, PC-wise, to celestials. Saints, the closest thing, are very heavily limited by their goals, which are small acts of holiness (or as Michael's sleeper agents). There isn't, and shouldn't be in my opinion, a supplemental and mechanical upgrade to humans in IN.

humans simply have too much resonance with, er, other humans to be relegated to the "don't bother playing" category

When describing IN to RPGers unfamiliar with it, what's the one-line summary? Saying that it's an RPG where you play angels and demons is more accurate than saying that it's an RPG about the War between Heaven and Hell. And in fact, before getting to "Cold War version of the War" in a quick notes summary, I talk about the tone--that you can have angels supporting Neo-Nazis and demons who just want to kick back and have some fun. The ability to take on the role of a fundamentally alien being, with incredibly inhuman motivations (not to mention abilities) is what IN offers that your average RPG does not provide.

Admittedly I've also not seen the group ever even think of enforcing the canon "corporeal Songs only" rule for humans.

I am a fan of that rule, actually. It makes thematic sense for a Soldier to be so plugged into the Corporeal world (having a body and not a Vessel) that she can only access its mystical chords. I do agree that the CP cost for the attunements to sidestep that base requirement are prohibitive (as I think the CP costs for almost all non-Choir/Band attunements are--forcing demons of Gluttony to purchase the overpriced Consume makes them inherently less capable than your average celestial of the same Forces at a wide variety of tasks). Either the idea of 'unlocking' Ethereal or Celestial Songs should be removed or it should be made functionally attainable.

[dataweaver]

Originally Posted by Acolyte

Well pointed out, although I think it's pretty obvious that by "IN isn't meant to do" I meant mechanically, not thematically, since that's what all the recent discussion about human PCs problems has been about.

IMHO, the issue of what IN is and isn't meant to do should be decided by the gaming group and facilitated by the rules, not the other way around. If the fan base shows sufficient interest in playing humans, the rules should be adjusted to facilitate this — as opposed to telling those fans that they're wrong to want to play humans.

That's what I was trying to get at when I mentioned that later supplements have attempted to work around the anti-human bias in the core book: in particular, the GMG made a point to include options for beefing up humans in general and human players in particular.

Originally Posted by Acolyte

I would have absolutely no problem with that. I think the core book's error was even mentioning the option, when the rules so very clearly don't support it. Someone (Jason, I think) mentioned above that he has issue not with human/angel disparity, but that humans by RAW fail at daily tasks without including variants about extra skill points and automatic successes that are spread across a large number of books, which suggests that humans-as-PCs wasn't a thoroughly playtested option.

From the number of bugs that have cropped up over the years, I suspect that a lot more than merely humans-as-PCs lacked thorough playtesting. But that's the past, and I'm more interested in the future: and the hypothetical IN2e needn't abide by the design decisions that were made in IN1e. Otherwise, what would be the point of a second edition?

Originally Posted by Acolyte

Taking the discussion briefly out of mechanics entirely and onto fluff, if a GM preparing an IN game gathers the players together and collectively they decide that they really want to explore in-game the sort of long-term "associations" that angels and demons who've been on Earth together longer than they've been in Heaven can build, a la everyone's massive love of the book Good Omens, and then one of the players comes back to the table saying "actually, I reread the rules and I absolutely desperately want to play a Kyriotate of the Sword in a human war hero's body because it's very topical to the War On Terror and it seems really fun to play", that gaming group has a problem. There's nothing mechanically wrong with that concept, and it IS topical and potentially very fun and a great idea, but an angel of the Sword is going to have a hard time in a group of Flowers, Trade, Dreams, Creation, and/or Destiny angels, because his presence will disrupt their plots, limit their ability to interact with demonic NPCs without a brawl starting, and generally make things very difficult for the group to keep cohesion. (A quick fix isn't mechanical, it's fluff-based--an angel of War with the Role of an Iraq war veteran who takes to heart the rivalry but not-willing-to-fight-just-yet relationship that Michael has with Baal, a relationship he emulates with demonic NPCs. The less elegant fix, that Laurence simply orders the Kyrio not to attack, is less satisfactory because it doesn't replicate the 'quasi-going-against-orders" relationship of the characters in Good Omens.)

Bottom line: when the problem isn't mechanical, you don't go looking for a mechanical fix for it; and conversely, if the problem is mechanical, don't expect fluff to fix it. I agree with this philosophy, but I disagree about its applicability: To me, the problem here is entirely mechanical. In Nomine may not have started out with human PCs in mind (although even that's a highly debatable assertion); but it has subsequently become much more friendly to the notion. Heck, there's even an entire supplement dedicated almost exclusively to the notion of human PCs: the Corporeal Player's Guide. When and if a 2e ever gets written, my hope is that the core rules will be less human-antagonistic, whether or not human PCs are mentioned in the core book, so that when the 2e CPG or its equivalent comes out it doesn't have to hack the rules to make corporeal characters mechanically viable.

Originally Posted by Acolyte

Back to mechanics. A human PC in a mixed group presents all sorts of problems, just as an inappropriate Superior choice does. But the problems aren't fluff-fixable (unless you utilize one of the very admittedly bizarre options I mentioned in the previous post, none of which, for the record, particularly excite me), and (as the length of this discussion suggests) aren't easily mechanically fixable, because the game is built around the 9-Force, celestial model. Tether travel and surviving Vessel death are key components to standard IN gameplay, and humans (except perhaps Saints, but it's clear that Saints aren't supposed to be losing their bodies and popping up to Heaven for replacements) can't access them. Compared to celestials, humans are weaker, less tough, less skilled, have less potential, and don't have access to the same number of supernatural abilities. The same goes for Relievers or Demonlings (or fully fledged, 7-Force demons) or Undead or Remnants or whatever else. To make those character options work (remember, celestials are the "default" and "heart and soul" of the game), you have to either alter fluff or mechanics, both of which cause headaches.

Altering fluff needn't cause headaches, as long as the game is written with multiple styles of play in mind. Fluff-wise, I think that another problem with the core book was that it wasn't written thus: for instance, it assumed that all games would be what is now referred to as dark, low-contrast games. By being so single-minded in its approach, it limited its audience; I think that IN has done as well as it has despite that initial tunnel-vision, and because it has taken steps since then to broaden the appeal of the game.

Originally Posted by Acolyte

Or you could play the game as it is intended, starting with 9-Force celestials (who aren't Remnants, who aren't Word-Bound, who aren't protoSuperiors, who are favored Servitors, who aren't pushing paper in Heaven, who are assigned to Earthly duty, and who fit all the other basic assumptions). It isn't "unspeakable heresy" to play a human, it's just not what the game does well, mechanically, and wasn't designed to do well.

Which is why I say that it's a flaw in the rules. Again, the gamers should decide how they intend to play the game, and the gamebooks should respect and support their choices.

Originally Posted by Acolyte

When describing IN to RPGers unfamiliar with it, what's the one-line summary? Saying that it's an RPG where you play angels and demons is more accurate than saying that it's an RPG about the War between Heaven and Hell.

For you, sure. For me, presenting that one-line summary would result in my friends shaking their heads and walking away. OTOH, if I summarize it as "an RPG about the War for mankind's soul" draws them in and gets them interested. Do I think that the game should be rewritten so that the only way to play it is as a proxy war between Heaven and Hell? Certainly not; but neither should that option be marginalized in favor of "everyone's an angel or demon". Multiple play styles should be facilitated; and a version where humans take center stage and celestials play a supporting role should be among them.

Originally Posted by Acolyte

I am a fan of that rule, actually. It makes thematic sense for a Soldier to be so plugged into the Corporeal world (having a body and not a Vessel) that she can only access its mystical chords. I do agree that the CP cost for the attunements to sidestep that base requirement are prohibitive (as I think the CP costs for almost all non-Choir/Band attunements are--forcing demons of Gluttony to purchase the overpriced Consume makes them inherently less capable than your average celestial of the same Forces at a wide variety of tasks). Either the idea of 'unlocking' Ethereal or Celestial Songs should be removed or it should be made functionally attainable.

Interesting. I'd expect you not to bother, since human player characters aren't important to the game.

[Archangel Beth]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

In Nomine may not have started out with human PCs in mind (although even that's a highly debatable assertion);

I don't have inside information -- early playtest versions of IN did not catch my interest (!!) -- but from what I do know, it would be very plausible that the concept of "human PCs" was mostly a throwaway because people knew that players will wind up insisting on playing the outliers now and then, out of sheer contrariness. (Same with Remnants. Also, despite what it says on the tin, the CPG was aimed at NPCs nearly as much, to give GMs something besides Yet Another Demon/Angel Plot. Humans are important, right? They needed some ways to be important with less GM fiat.)

I would have to ask my French-reading friend if INS/MV had any allowance for human PCs. I have a sneaky suspicion that it didn't, but I A: don't read enough French to be sure, and B: can't find my INS/MV book anyway. O:(

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by Archangel Beth

I would have to ask my French-reading friend if INS/MV had any allowance for human PCs. I have a sneaky suspicion that it didn't, but I A: don't read enough French to be sure, and B: can't find my INS/MV book anyway. O:(

In the 2nd edition core book, there's about 1/2 page on human characters, with flavor text that could be interpreted to mean "this is to make NPCs with' or ":this is a choice if you want an unusual PC.' So, pretty much like in the SJG version.

[Azel]

INS/MV is essentially free online. Humans are an afterthought at best, btw. There's far too much going on anyway for it to be a loss besides. If you think SJ IN can be gonzo...

Anyway, I like SJ IN specifically because it tones down the gonzo and allows various methods of play. And I think it allows humans to play as well -- quite well I may add. (They just play differently, and not with the entire play group glued to the hip.) It just doesn't encourage "hodgepodge D&D adventure party" where there's expectations of "balanced XP growth," "power equivalence," and "role/niche protection." But then I also believe it shouldn't.

Angel choirs and demon bands are already hard enough to mix in an "adventure party" if you pick just one side for a campaign. It gets even crazier (and often terribly contrived) if you mix both celestial sides, along w/ band/choir, for a lengthy campaign. Throwing in ethereals, immortals, and soldiers into this mix really begins to strain this adventure party style of play. Wandering motley crews make sense in brief periods, even for humans (note the framework of Mission Impossible), but longer relationships require lots of working apart, even if towards similar goals.

Now throw in mortal humans with the expectation they can "carry their party weight" within this same "adventure party" structure is, I feel, just a flat out ludicrous stretching of the game's inherent conceits. I find that the game's fine in handling what it intends to handle. Trying to squish it into this mode of play for your table, however, obviously leads to dissatisfaction.

So I think the big contention is: one's table's adventure party style of play v. system's independent actors occasionally collaborating structure. Perhaps the issue is not so much the system being accommodating to all styles of play, but the expectation that every system should be responsive to your specific style of play. And if seen from that angle, and knowing that GIN exists which might suit better, it seems defeating to struggle against something needlessly.

[dataweaver]

This is not a debate between mature role-players on one side and hack-and-slashers on the other; so please don't trot out the usual anti-H&S arguments. My position, at least, is a bit more nuanced than that. Expanding on that:

Originally Posted by Azel

Anyway, I like SJ IN specifically because it tones down the gonzo and allows various methods of play. And I think it allows humans to play as well -- quite well I may add. (They just play differently, and not with the entire play group glued to the hip.) It just doesn't encourage "hodgepodge D&D adventure party" where there's expectations of "balanced XP growth," "power equivalence," and "role/niche protection." But then I also believe it shouldn't.

It's also not what I'm suggesting it should do. But I do take exception to your claim that it does a good job of allowing humans in play. In my experience, the situations where humans do well are predominantly cases where their game stats don't come into play. It's all well and good to play a game where the human host saves the apartment from burning down by suggesting that his celestial guests order out; but if that's the predominant mode of play for your group, there's very little reason to have a rulebook. And that's not a knock against that style of play; it's just an observation that that style of play is largely independent of the quality of the rules.

So it isn't that style of play that you look at in order to determine whether or not the rules work well. Instead, you need to look at play styles where humans make extensive use of their game stats. Yes, the stereotypical hodgepodge band of random adventurers is indeed one such example; but it isn't the only one, and it certainly isn't the first thing that comes to my mind.

As I've said before, the only sort of "play balance" that I'm interested in is spotlight time. Restricting ourselves to cases where game stats are a factor, this pretty much translates to niche protection — which is an entirely different beast from "balanced XP growth" and "power equivalence", which I have absolutely no use for; and you do niche protection a disservice by lumping it in with them.

And even there, I'm not expecting the system to strictly enforce niche protection. What I do expect of the system is to allow you do do that sort of thing without having to fight the system. Reducing the disparity in power between humans and celestials facilitates this and does so without losing the themes of celestials being the stars of the show (because so much of their dominance has nothing to do with the power disparity); it also addresses the concerns about humans being objectively incompetent — not just in comparison with celestials, but in any situation where their characteristics are put to the test. Automatic successes on "routine tasks" are a useful patch in this regard, in that it guarantees that humans aren't going to be failing at the stuff that they do every day; but the moment that the task ceases to be routine, you're right back in the same mess where a human's characteristics simply aren't up to the task.

And note that this is a problem whether or not you isolate humans from celestials, as the problem isn't just a matter of the power gap.

It's worth noting what started this debate: paraphrasing, another poster said that it's OK if humans are incompetent in IN because they're not what the game is about. That was the main thing that I took exception to: the attitude that humans should be an afterthought in the game, and that it's fine to pile on the drawbacks because nobody should be playing them anyway.

I can accept humans being mechanically inferior to celestials (though I don't think that the game would be diminished if humans were merely different, with their own strengths and weaknesses), and I can even see the argument that there are some thematic reasons for it; the main issue I have is the severity of their inferiority, to the extent that you have to hack the rules or largely dispense with them in order for humans to be viable. And I'm especially bothered by people not even bothering to look at the issue, because they're "only humans" and thus not worth the effort.

Originally Posted by Azel

And if seen from that angle, and knowing that GIN exists which might suit better, it seems defeating to struggle against something needlessly.

As I've indicated before, GIN often doesn't suit better: while it does a better job with competence, it introduces a host of complications by virtue of being GURPS. Not a tradeoff I want to make. I suppose that a version based on GURPS Ultra-Lite might be an acceptable alternative; but: A) it doesn't yet exist, and writing it seems like it would be a lot of effort if the only reason for doing so is to address the competence issues; and: B) I'm still not sure that the end result would be as satisfying as an improved but non-hybridized version of IN would be.

[Omegonthesane]

Originally Posted by Azel

Anyway, I like SJ IN specifically because it tones down the gonzo and allows various methods of play. And I think it allows humans to play as well -- quite well I may add. (They just play differently, and not with the entire play group glued to the hip.) It just doesn't encourage "hodgepodge D&D adventure party" where there's expectations of "balanced XP growth," "power equivalence," and "role/niche protection." But then I also believe it shouldn't.

Long term no, IN doesn't and shouldn't support "band of murdering hobos" play given the themes and details present.

However as dataweaver said, "niche protection" is orthogonal to murdering hobos play. You wouldn't be happy on a Shadowrun table if thesStreet sam was better at hacking than the hacker, or on a Vampire* table if the Ventrue socialite had a better information network than the Nosferatu spy and was strictly better in combat than the Brujah martial arts master. It's an essential part of giving people time to shine and contribute.

As for your other... strongly worded opinions... "balanced XP growth" has no downsides for the group. If people are expected to start weak and get stronger, there's no reason they shouldn't be doing that at the same rate. If people are meant to be basically stuck with one statline forever and a day, there's nothing added by deliberately letting some people advance regardless while others are left in the dust. "Power equivalence" is confusing unless you specify what types, if any, of power you mean; combat power equivalence is a pipe dream not worth pursuing, but "ability to contribute overall to the party's goals and/or to the players' enjoyment" approaches equivalency if all characters are actually getting sufficiently stuck in.

*Not that I'm convinced you'd be happy on a Vampire table anyway if you're keeping to rules written by White Wolf, but that's orthogonal to the point.

Originally Posted by Azel

Angel choirs and demon bands are already hard enough to mix in an "adventure party" if you pick just one side for a campaign.

Bands maybe, at a loooooooong stretch, but I have never once seen evidence that Choir tensions alone make it difficult to justify a... party? coterie? pack? team? band of murdering hobos? Let's stick with group for now... staying together for the duration of a mission and maintaining good relations afterwards. Word-relations can be more problematic, as I've seen... most times I've played an angel - the Flowers Elohite (me) and Dreams Lilim didn't get on with the Sword Malakite; the Judgment Seraph annoyed everyone except said Sword Malakite; and the Stone (me) and Wind Ofanim hated eachother, even if they could stomach one another for long enough to complete the immediate objective.

Originally Posted by Azel

It gets even crazier (and often terribly contrived) if you mix both celestial sides, along w/ band/choir, for a lengthy campaign.

Define lengthy campaign. I've got used to taking ~10 sessions from character generation to "mission complete, Good End", with a justification that it's not a common thing at all for 3-8 celestial agents of the same side to all come together and pool all their resources to the end of one mission however broad it may be, and that such temporary groups will not necessarily last longer than the objective they formed to complete.

Originally Posted by Azel

Throwing in ethereals, immortals, and soldiers into this mix really begins to strain this adventure party style of play. Wandering motley crews make sense in brief periods, even for humans (note the framework of Mission Impossible), but longer relationships require lots of working apart, even if towards similar goals.

If the game's default mode of play can't support a sufficiently diverse choice of player characters and still result in a group that's somewhat cohesive in actual play, it's failed as a tabletop RPG. As far as I am concerned, the "sufficiently diverse" line is crossed when you strictly can't do a mixed party of one side's celestials (possibly with restricted choices of Superior - I entirely sympathise with banning War & Flowers parties!) and Soldiers aligned to that side, without restrictions based on Choir/Band.

For example, assuming game mechanics aren't a factor* in what's restricted, I'd call it fine to ban the Lust Impudite from the angelic party for being on the wrong side, or from the Fire & Death party for being actively at war with one of the primary sponsors, but not from a party including Balseraphs for being an Impudite.

* There is not a great deal of fluff reason why I can't spend all my points on Class 6 Level 1 Shedim servants for a demon or sorcerer. However, doing so would make my life far too easy.

Originally Posted by Azel

So I think the big contention is: one's table's adventure party style of play v. system's independent actors occasionally collaborating structure.

I can't see the appeal in going to all the bother of setting up a multiplayer TTRPG and then essentially running 5 solo campaigns as each "independent actor" goes and does their own thing, rather than one campaign where all 5 interact. I can't tell if this is simply the furthest extreme you were able to come up with from the "marauding adventurers" party model, or a serious belief that this is what In Nomine should promote.

For the mechanics concerns, dataweaver said it better than me, but one fluff paragraph to quote for truth:

Originally Posted by dataweaver

It's worth noting what started this debate: paraphrasing, another poster said that it's OK if humans are incompetent in IN because they're not what the game is about. That was the main thing that I took exception to: the attitude that humans should be an afterthought in the game, and that it's fine to pile on the drawbacks because nobody should be playing them anyway.

[Archangel Beth]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

As I've indicated before, GIN often doesn't suit better: while it does a better job with competence, it introduces a host of complications by virtue of being GURPS. Not a tradeoff I want to make. I suppose that a version based on GURPS Ultra-Lite might be an acceptable alternative; but: A) it doesn't yet exist, [...]

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=90478 ?

I hacked that out quickly, but having done so, I'm now curious to know how much bashing around it would take to be an elegant bastard hybrid instead of an ugly one. Should I try converting some characters (probably from IN, not GIN) and see what happens?

[dataweaver]

As I mentioned in the other topic, there are some nice ideas in there. In particular, I really like the notion of decoupling Resources from Forces. For an In Nomine 2e (or as a house rule for 1e), I'd be inclined to say that all starting characters get 40 Resource Points regardless of their Forces (four more than celestials currently get, and twice as many as ordinary humans currently get).

To clarify: for a celestial, "starting" doesn't mean that he was born yesterday; he's already been through Heaven's boot camp (or Hell's school of hard knocks). Particularly inexperienced characters (including, but not limited to, starting Relievers, Imps, and Gremlins) would start with fewer Resources, and particularly experienced characters start with more; but that sort of adjustment would be beyond the scope of the default character creation rules.

And where it does get addressed, the adjustment is made independent of Forces. A simple approach would be to rate a character's overall experience as Green (20 Resource Points), Regular (40 Resource Points), Veteran (60 Resource Points), or Elite (80 or more Resource Points).