I dip in and out of Numenera and have used it frequently as a convention game which it is well suited for. A simple system with some avoidable gotchas that let me narrate and go with the flow as I only had to remember 1-10 ratings of anything I cared to throw in the way. I remember first running the system and feeling liberated. Simple systems work for me and though Cypher has D&D crud in it to entice in a demographic, it remains a fun system to flow things quickly forward (I’d be tempted to Ninth World PbtA it).
Cyphers just about make sense in the original Numenera setting, but are a stretch elsewhere. Some of the
alternative approaches to providing an extra oomph work very well, and better than one shot gonzos. I like the ‘Aspect’ nature of ‘collected inspiration; applied at just the right moment and other playful and ‘subtle’ extensions to the core system. So, taking the apparently integral Cyphers out of the Cypher system and I’m pretty happy with it.
Every time I sat down to consider offering a campaign I started to construct my own 8 epochs, desiring to have the depth that the players could contribute to in play. But instead i found with the supplementary books and especially the third party visions I had compelling situations and settings that drew out very human stories that I could tuck into without needing to obsess about the ‘real’ story of the Nine Worlds. in my Numenera it would be much more about creating a new world to live in that made sense to the characters and the peoples around them than unpicking and understanding the historical context of the Flabgasteronical machinery that litters their path.
But you know? I haven’t run a campaign, and I’m not sure that I will be able to successfully pitch it to my group. The system isn’t felt to be deep enough to some (I can’t really get PbtA or Fate past a couple of them either) and the weird characters in a post apocalyptic science fantasy malaise possibly doesn’t float their boat. I’d like to give it a crack at a LongCon, but for now I’ll be running one at UK Games Expo quite soon.
Actually I’d love Numenera a lot more if they offered Print and complementary PDF as with my other favourites, but that is the subject of another post.