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Old 04-15-2005, 07:02 AM   #1
Archangel Beth
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Frozen Wastelands of NH
Default My Book Recommendations

Based from this thread. I thought it might be a good idea to have a sticky of What Books An IN Fan Might Want And Why.

Mostly because I fielded a question about it last night when I was far too distracted to re-generate all these answers again.

If other people want to chime in, I'm not locking the thread. I'd like this to be more a "reviews" thread than a conversational one, and will edit or delete posts as needed. (Or spin them off to a thread, etc.)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doc
I guess my first question should be, have I bitten off more than I can chew here? Should I start off with something a little more light-weight, albeit less satisfying?
Well, there's nothing saying you can't play In Nomine in a "light-weight" fashion - see also In Nomine: Anime.

Quote:
Really I am wondering if anyone has any tips for someone starting out with In Nomine? For instance which resources are essential and which can wait a while (I could only afford to pick up maybe 3 or four books in the near future). Should I wait for a revised edition of the core rules?
Don't wait for a revised edition. I've not been told anything about a chance to revise it, and I should know. I have many notions on how to do it, (GURPS In Nomine could be considered an example), but I've not been given a "Hey, we need to do a second edition" sign yet.

So long as you grasp that the book isn't necessarily best-read from front to back, and it has a few quirks (mainly Songs) where information is spread out, you'll be fine. (How did I read it? I got up to the d666 mechanics, then I skipped ahead to the Choirs, Bands and Superiors sections, and finally went back and read the rest.)

What you want... I'll try to order these and explain what's in them and why you might want them.

*The Core Rules, either plain IN or GURPS version. Duh. O:> They are now available on e23, only.

*The Game Master's Guide. As a new GM, this could be very useful to you. You may also want Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering, which SJGames published, which is system-neutral - it's a 32-pager, as I recall, and may couple with something else useful.

*If you like anime, and your gaming group does, In Nomine: Anime. It's a 32-page book, so relatively inexpensive. It may also be a good lead-in for "practice games."

*The Liber Canticorum (Book of Songs) or Liber Reliquarum (Book of Relics), for "spells" or "magic items." The Liber Reliquarum has an adventure in it which, in hind-sight, presumes a more conflict-prone Heaven than the default seems to have shaken out to be.

*The Angelic Player's Guide, Infernal Players Guide, Corporeal Player's Guide, or Ethereal Player's Guide - each of these are useful for what they focus on. Frankly, if you wanted to run a "small gods" campaign, you could get the core rules and the EPG and chuck 99% of the background. (See also a paragraph of http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/sample.html?id=3268.) I am partial to the IPG and EPG because I had a lot to do with them, and the CPG is just plain useful if you want important humans. The APG, I didn't have my hands on the reins enough, in my arrogant opinion, but it still has a lot of useful stuff in there, like Kyriotates.

*The Superiors Books (War and Honor, Pleasures of the Flesh, Hope and Prophecy, and Rogues to Riches). if you can get your players to "cluster" around the four Superiors in a given Superiors book, I'd say that one should be your third choice. They have all the data from the core rules (with any errata fixed) to reduce book swapping, as well as additional Servitor Attunements and Distinctions. Not only do they discuss the Superior, but also what it's like to be a Servitor of that Superior. They also have adventure seeds that can be fleshed out. (See also http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=SJG82-1005.)

*The Liber Servitorum (Book of NPCs and/or pregen PCs, basically), the Liber Castellorum (Tether-book; making and short samples), and You Are Here (a bunch of locations and the adventure seeds associated with them). None of these are in the top three you should have as a GM, unless you happen to flip through and be the sort of person who'd be incredibly inspired by them, but I'm rather fond of them. (The Servitorum also expands on Roles and Servants.)

* The Revelation Cycle. I believe you'll want to cherry-pick these. (I mean, eventually, you want it all, but...) Don't feel that you have to use the "official adventure." (My own campaign has cheerfully jumped the tracks, for instance, before the Rev Cycle's adventure even "got started.") So unless you want more on a topic (Night Music = Austin, Tx; Marches = Marches; Heaven & Hell =...; Fall of the Malakim = Los Angeles; Final Trumpet = a lot of Superior write-ups), these are unlikely to be top-three picks.

And to order them... Well, there's always www.warehouse23.com... O;>

EDIT: e23 now has In Nomine stuff. Note that most e23 material has GURPS 3rd edition (GURPS In Nomine) conversions. (Originally, such conversions were not going to be done because in a dead-trees book, that would eat up the space for In Nomine data. This is a less pressing concern with e23.)

The Liber Umbrarum expands ghosts. It also contains GURPS conversions for the basic ghost types from the CPG.

In Nomine Superiors: Lilith is the expanded expansion - the material from FotM, revised and expanded with data on both Free Lilim and contracted "employees" of Freedom.

In Nomine Superiors: Litheroy is the expansion for the minor Archangel (who first appeared in "Feast of Blades") and his Servitors.

In Nomine Superiors: Eli expands on the Archangel of Creation. It gives hints as to what he might be up to, and lots of data about his Servitors.

In Nomine Superiors: Asmodeus is the expanded expansion. Inludes a lot about actually playing the Game as a Servitor... There're also suggestions for something even more important (to quote one of the authors): how to make them go away.

In Nomine Superiors: Zadkiel is the expansion for the Archangel of Protection (first appearing in Heaven & Hell). She's rather changed, and mechanics have been clarified.

The e23 adventures:
Strange Bedfellows: has pre-generated characters (both IN and GIN), and is meant to be a simple adventure for 1-2 sessions. It's one way the "Strange Bedfellows" adventure seed in Superiors 1 could go. (Servitors of Judgment and War are sent, with the aid of Stone and Sword, to recover an Outcast Cherub of War. Mayhem and snark ensue.) A version of this appeared in Pyramid, but the e23 one is more polished.

The Rats' Revenge: a locked-room mystery, expanded with original notes that didn't make it into Pyramid, and with a few additions of my own that I thought of while running it myself. (My PCs did things out of order, of course, and wound up not doing the second part.)

A Very Nybbas Christmas: from the original paper version of Pyramid, updated a bit, and free.

Feast of Blades: the adventure that came with the out-of-print GM screen, updated to agree with the Superiors 4. This is the first appearance of Alaemon, Prince of Secrets, and Litheroy, Archangel of Revelation. It's also a fun little adventure, though the sorcerer NPC may not entirely agree with the CPG.

City on Fire: an adventure that appears nowhere else, and is definitely full of mayhem. I have neither played in, nor run, a game with it, though. Alas.

The Sorcerer's Impediments: a free "In Nomine Lite" adventure! It has sample characters, simplified rules, and a short plot. If you prefer your In Nomine "Hevvy," this sample Pyramid article gives suggestions (and an entirely new pre-gen character that was cut from the Lite version).
__________________
--Beth
Shamelessly adding Superiors: Lilith, GURPS Sparrials, and her fiction page to her .sig (the latter is not precisely gaming related)

Last edited by Archangel Beth; 01-20-2010 at 08:21 PM. Reason: Stuff on e23!
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