Day's going fine, and I'm totally geeking out on RPG thinking.

[demiurgent]

So far, the day's going fine, as I said in the subject.

I have a weird overpowering urge to run a Nobilis game. It's sitting alongside my weird, overpowering urge to run an In Nomine game. The latter should really take precedence, but Nobilis is... well, Nobilis.

Both, of course, dovetail into my weird, overpowering urge to run Dead Inside. But then, there are ways to connect all three games if one can find a metasystem capable of handling the differences. Though the cosmologies are all independent of one another, that's not a dealbreaker if DI's spirit world was actually a Chancel, which itself had pathways to the Far Marches, which also had pathways interconnecting the Vale's two Chancels (Beleth's side and Blandine's side, which have an open border between them).

If you interconnected the Tethers to any given Word together into an interconnect web of entry points to each Superior's Tether, and made the Superiors and Ethereals on all sides Imperators, then the Magi of Dead Inside could become Soldiers, and the DI themselves would become proto-soldiers, but also one step away from being Undead -- which means Saminga is behind Magi and DI being able to crack humans and steal their souls. The human nature of Lilith (a Noble of Lucifer instead of a Superior in her own right, yet somehow able to act as an Imperator and create Lilim) implies that Lilim, in their dealmaking, might also be soulstealers.

What scares me most is how well all this works.

What scares many of you is how much of a geek I really am.

Comments

[howardtayler.livejournal.com]

I don't know any of these game systems, but I DO know that if you run that game, I want to play it.

Who's the real geek here?

[shiffer.livejournal.com]

What scares many of you is how much of a geek I really am.

Dude. You're the premier webcomics critic on the web. Who doesn't think you're a geek?

As for the game - you should go for it. I ran two Nobilis campaigns, and it is the best game EVAR. I'm currently working on a Nobilis/Armageddon/In Nomine hybrid and if there's one thing I've learned it's that cosmologies are the easiest things to blend. As long as you don't care overly much about System you're all set.

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

I've run Nobilis before. I'm a huge fan. Same with DI. Same with IN.

Too many games!

[shiffer.livejournal.com]

I've run Nobilis before.

I know, I originally found you through visc_historical, back in the back when (we were all young and on the Nobilist... ah, [enter Nostalgy here]).

Just, y'know, felt the need to show support to the wacky hybrid-ing.

[wednesday]

Right. So this would be "scare" as in "not scare."

Okay!

[mrbankies.livejournal.com]

Geek it up, my good man.

Also, sign me up, my good man.

[kipplentoast.livejournal.com]

I can't believe you did it...

You finnaly cracked my brain. Now I'm going to have to dredge through my old boxes o'manuals to see if I can sell this to my group.

You've topped the charts in my book of awesome, Mr. Burns.

[chadu.livejournal.com]

Would you make the Superiors/Ethereals/Imperators also Imagos?

You might want to consider making Magi "angel/demon equivalent" and Sensitives as Soldiers, with Dead Inside being proto-Soldiers.

The Worldtree would probably grow up out of the Wood.

One very interesting thing to deal with is that when you combine Nobilis and DI, it's more likely to have a direct pathway to God/the Source than IN. You might want to throw in some of Hite's Aziluth stuff from GURPS CABAL.

CU

[cpip.livejournal.com]

Duuude. I don't even know Nobilis or DI, and I am enchanted.

[xnrrn.livejournal.com]

I don't know why, but on every cool thread that I read I see you. Thus after all those years, Im friending you. Since I almost never write in english (if I do write at all), Im not expecting anything in return, but I just have you read you. :P

[cpip.livejournal.com]

Wow! I'm flattered. I'm also really, really boring -- but thanks nonetheless. :)

[xnrrn.livejournal.com]

Yes, but I am really, really hungover, so it doesn't matter. :> I have short attention span! Maybe. Or something. Or something else!

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Head hurting now... And you'd have to translate it all into GURPS, because the other three systems are completely incompatible, and at least In Nomine and White Wolf's basic systems have already been ported over.

And I urgently request that you re-post this on the IN list. Puh-lease?

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

GURPS isn't freeform enough. (In fact, it's nearly the opposite of freeform.) I think it'd end up having to be tiered. It's worth considering.

[archangelbeth]

While it is possible to do GURPS pretty free-wheeling -- witness IOU, say -- it takes a fair familiarity with it and a willingness to go for the drama "because, hey, you have it at that level? Sure, no sweat."

Sounds like DI or Nobilis' mechanics would be better, eh?

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

You can do GURPS freeform. You have the power. You, as they say, rock.

I... need to stick to what I know I can do freeform.

(I wouldn't mind seeing a GURPS Dead Inside one day, though... GURPS Nobilis might be... harder...)

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

The real trick to running GURPS freeform, I've found, is rolling 3d6, glancing at what's on the character sheet, and saying "Yeah, you make it" or "Nope."

not geeker than thou

[nanzerdivision.livejournal.com]

I've grown acustomed to being the most geek in the company I keep, the feeling has become cozy, like an old coat that's been worn smooth and supple in all the right places.

You, sir, are geeker than I shall ever be. My hat's off to you.

-tim

WOW

[archon-divinus.livejournal.com]

I've never played any of these, but all the gibberish you rattled off has me convinced that it WILL be awesome.

[debatable-truth.livejournal.com]

I am not afraid; for I stand for the l- er. Well, not afraid at least, for I recognise the overpowering feeling of having many ideas just screeching to be allowed fruition. And to be involved in several rule systems enough to be able to connect them is - indeed - geeky, but also a sign of admirable commitment.
I say this because of course, I do the exact same things. Despite never having players to rule over, or GM's to be ruled by. Sitting in a corner, writing adventures nobody sees.
All hail! :>

[wednesday]

DI's spirit world was actually a Chancel

Excuse me. I'm going to go beat my head against the street sign by my apartment.

[chadu.livejournal.com]

(Note re: http://www.websnark.com/archives/2005/04/the_aesthetics.html since I can't seem to comment over there.)

There are only five people on the planet, to my knowledge, who have Nobilis, In Nomine, and Dead Inside. . .

And I'm not one of them, unless GURPS IN counts. :)

Some say this is the way that Lilith, a human, became a Superior. Others say she is some kind of Anchor of Lucifer's, and her Word of Freedom is bitterly ironic.

I think you're right. I think she was a Dead Inside, who became a Sensitive/Soldier, who graduated to being a Mage/Sorcerer, then gained True Immortality through completing the Rituals of Severance and Mystic Wedding, and then became Lucifer's Anchor.

If you think about it, I'm even handicapping myself. I've decided to run angel/demon style games using Nobilis, and human level games using Dead Inside.

From what I recall, you could probably do N with DI mechanics (just scaled up) or DI with N mechanics (scaled down).

If you don't want to play favorites: just use RISUS, FATE, or OtE for the rules engine, and spend your time reconciling the cosmologies in plain English. Don't get hung up on the mechanics -- that's the biggest pothole in your path. And submit it as a Pyramid or Dragon article or something when you're done.

Heh. Here's an idea: PDQ Core Rules, with more than 2 dice. (2 dice for human level; 3 or 4 for IN level; Miracle Point resource management for N). Build 3 different Rank tables.

Voila, done.

CU

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

One reason I'm thinking Nobilis for Celestial games and PDQ for Human games is the diceless/dice dichotomy. In In Nobilis Inside, by design, Celestials and Ethereals, when contending with one another, do not have randomness as a part of the process. They have their abilities, and their resource management, and their skills and strategies, but not randomness.

But humanity is random. They throw a monkey wrench into the whole thing. Take the focus away from Celestials and Anchors and put it firmly on Dead Inside humans bootstrapping their way up, and not only is there the chance of failure on the part of the humans, but even the angels and demons find themselves screwing up.

So I agree -- in fact, that's why I want to go with PDQ instead of IN mechanics -- PDQ really can scale up and down in a way that In Nomine -- love it though I do -- can't.

Of course, I need to figure a way to put Interventions into all this....

[chadu.livejournal.com]

Of course, I need to figure a way to put Interventions into all this....

That's the three dice with the 1 or 6 results, right?

Going back to my stuff above:

PDQ Core Rules, with more than 2 dice. (2 dice for human level; 3 or 4 for IN level; Miracle Point resource management for N). Build 3 different Rank tables.

So, at DI-level (2d6), when characters roll dice to do something, GM rolls die.
At IN level (3d6), happens as usual.
At N level, no dice, and thus no chance for a "random" invtervention, because Superiors/Imperators *aren't random*. It's plot, directly, at that point.

Also for PDQ: for Imperators/Superiors, everything's a Simple situation under PDQ (straight Rank reading). Give them Miracle points equal to the Modifier or the Target Number of the Rank to finesse things.

CU

Read your websnark

[xiombarg.livejournal.com]

Are you aware of this:

http://www.amadan.org/nobilis/IN-Nobilis.html

It's by David Edelstein, who you should be familiar with from In Nomine, at least...

Re: Read your websnark

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

Yup -- I actually credited him (though I'm going down a different conceptual path) in an e-mail to the In Nomine Mailing List.

As the Metal slug series says it:

[xnrrn.livejournal.com]

You are great!

This whole thing had me looking into DI, although I have IN and N. And from what I see on the site about its fun!

:D