Yes, I'm in the middle of a redesign. Longtime Thought-Records readers will note that things are certainly different around here. We've added a mascot ("Nature" by Alphonse Mucha), changed the color scheme and moved things around. As I type this, mascot and sidebar are on the left and the main text on the right. But that may change. (Sidebar used to be on the right and it may head back.) One particular block type still generates a blue text that is now completely inappropriate.
We've also got some new features almost ready to go. I made it a holiday project to really learn Movable Type, the content-management software I use to maintain Thought-Records. That has enabled me to perform a couple of tricks. For instance, Mr. Mike "Epoch" Sullivan said he rarely read Thought-Records because he can't stand campaign-specific material in blog form. For him, and those like him, I've created "campaign-free blog view." It's the Thought-Records blog with only general-interest material. If that's not service, what is?
I'll probably set up a "campaign-only" blog too, for the same reason Magneto built a nonmagnetic spaceship once: just to prove I can do it.
I'm also almost done with a "traditional website view." (No link yet.) It's what it sounds like: a separate index page that looks much more like a regular index page than a weblog, but dynamically updated as new material gets added, all thanks to Movable Type's template and archiving capabilities. The trad site page is not ready for unveiling yet, but it may be by Monday.
If you log in and things look really messed up, I'm probably in the middle of a change that isn't quite working yet. (Unless you log in with Netscape 4, in which case it's your own fault.) Right now, for instance, the website has a serious problem in Opera for Windows - the sidebar is on the right, but below the entire contents layer. No Good. I like Opera, so I'm going to try to make the site work for it.
After you create your Noble and your anchors, we'll build the anchors using the Over the Edge character generation rules. We won't actually use OTE resolution mechanics, but the scores will be a useful guide. We may adapt System DL's system to OTE traits, which looks easy, for those occasions when we want a formal way to resolve anchors doing mortal things. (Every anchor will have a starting Luck pool equal to his Noble's Spirit score plus one.)
OTE chargen is fast, easy and fun, and it gives you a good idea not ony what your character can do but what he or she is like.
UPDATE: Once again, the following rule change. The GWB says that Powers must love or hate a mortal to anchor that mortal. Our adaptation is that the mortal must also love or hate the Power. Note that the two parties do not need to feel the same emotion! The possibilities are:
Power loves Mortal who loves Power
Power loves Mortal who hates Power
Power hates Mortal who hates Power
Power hates Mortal who loves Power
In the Mark I campaign, I believe we had every combination except the last one. Actually there's another:
Power loves and hates Mortal who loves and hates Power
For anchors created before the campaign starts, you'll have complete license to declare which emotions go where. If you wish to anchor someone once the campaign begins, the roleplaying will need to support your contention.
UPDATE: On second thought, we won't do this after all. I'm onto another method. But now I'm primarily interested in testing the new "most recent mods" section of the sidebar.
For the new campaign, we will indeed use the following as the five Roots of the World:
The Salty Root
The Sweet Root
The Bitter Root
The Sour Root
The Savory (Umami) Root
(See the earlier discussion, Roots: With or Without MSG.)
As stated in the GWB, the roots of the world are "Imperators who embody the concepts on which all three views of Earth depend [Prosaic, Mythic and Spirit - JH]." the classic set is Earth, Air, Fire and Water, but those have been done to death.
Saltiness is associated with the First Age, Sourness with the Second and Bitterness with the Third (present) Age. The coming age is said to be the Age of Sweetness, when the Excrucians have been driven back and Heaven routs most of the Fallen Angels from the Tree. Of course, the coming Age is said to be the Flavorful Age by others, so whom are you going to believe?
A pretty useful "secondary" character sheet is available here, thanks to the work of two Noblist contributors. (Credits available at the site.) This is intended as a cheat sheet that players keep with them during play. Looks useful.
Warning: The host puts up about three popups, one of which is the size of a full browser window. One of the popups will respawn as long as you have the web page open. There is also a closeable banner ad in the upper right.
The sheet is printable, if you do the following:
1) Close the banner ad.
2) Set page orientation to landscape and margins to 1/2" all around.
3) Choose "Print selected frame only."
NOTE: The banner ad will also respawn! So if you, for some reason, print, sit for a spell and then decide to print again, you'll need to kill the banner ad a second time.
In RPG.Net's fora, Bruce Baugh sticks up for the Western tradition - in gaming:
Very few gaming authors seem to actually have much interest in Western traditions. Look at how many treatments there are of Japanese fantasy in various styles, or China, or even (thanks to Atlas Games) Africa. Look at how there are multiple treatments available of Asian pop culture in various styles, and look at how few treatments of anything anchored in the West that go beyond glosses on RenFaire imagery and kiddies' versions of Mallory. There's Pendragon, which also uses the medieval moment but with a lot of richness and nuance. There's White Wolf's Dark Ages line, which again does that particular moment. There's...not much. Fulminata, I gather, though I haven't seen it yet. (Been busy with my own work, and sick much of the time; it is on my list to check out.) And essentially every game that's worked with Western influence beyond medieval moments has been a horror game - Kult, Nephilim, and the like.
Bruce is responding, I think, to a visceral abreaction that many gamers seem to have whenever a game rests heavily on not just Western traditions in literature, saga and hermeticism, but on Christianity specifically. The world of Nobilis is not Christian. But it is built on a solid grounding in Judaism, Christianity and Gnosticism. This drives some gamers nuts, apparently. I see it enough of it in gaming circles to recognize it for what it is: animus.
In the specific RPG.Net review of Nobilis that prompted Bruce's post, reviewer Ben Lehman cavils that
Another major problem I have with the setting is that, though the setting is clearly world-spanning, the setting is strongly dominated by Indo-European traditions. God, Angels, Lucifer, Heaven, Hell, Eden and Christ, to name a few, are all clearly defined in the setting. Are Amaterasu, Lao Tzu, The August Jade Emporer, Maasaw, White Buffalo Woman, the Five Suns, Heart of the Sky, the Rainbow Serpent, and other great figures simply to be left in the dust? As frustrating as this is, I imagine that it will be rectified in later supplements, and I am confident that it will be handled in a way that puts the other religions on an equal footing with the Indo-European themes.
But why should Nobilis have to do this? Why can't someone else write a game making serious use of Chinese traditions or American tribal lore? Is there no such thing as strength deriving from focus? Is hash the only thing we're supposed to cook?
Hello again! This site has been deathly quiet since the end of August. We quieted down because:
1) Schedules changed, and we were playing a lot more Amber. As I stated in an early entry, Nobilis has been our "GM's Night Off" fill-in for our regular face-to-face Amber campaign. As the summer waned, our GM, Nate, simply missed many fewer sessions.
2) I decided that Nobilis wasn't working as a fill-in game for six players GM'd by me. The focus just wasn't there, on either side of the GM/player divide. So I pulled the plug.
3)One thing led to another, then, at the beginning of October, a couple of maniacs began shooting up my stomping grounds. Their names are Muhammad and Malvo and you've heard of them. Because it was my neighborhood they were shooting up, I got really busy on my political weblog covering the story.
4) As a substitute "GM's Night Off" game, we agreed on a superhero campaign based on Nobilis/Dynamic Nobilis mechanics. Our codename for the system was, naturally, The Game of (Super) Powers. We made considerable progress on working out what would change from the base Nob/DynNob rules (little), and what wouldn't (much), and people got relatively far along with character creation. I figured at some point I'd post our info here as a variant, and I still may.
Now we're back in business as a Nobilis blog.
Our Amber GM, Nate, announced his desire to take a hiatus from GMing for several months.
A couple of the group really liked Nobilis from the fill-in sessions and I really liked GMing them. Nate decided he'd like to try Nobilis too.
So. New campaign, starting early in the new year, meeting weekly on a schedule, with several fewer players. (It looks like the folks who won't be playing Nobilis during Nate's hiatus will be playing Spacemaster.) That wiped out just about all the reasons I had for ceasing to GM the game: uncertain schedule, too many people, variable enthusiasm. We're currently in the very beginning of the prep stages. We haven't decided, for instance, whether Bill and Mike will carry over their characters yet, though it may prove better to start completely fresh.
I've done some housekeeping on the site. I've redone the categories - everything relating to the old campaign is now in the Old Campaign bin. Added "Elsewhere" for items about other sites. Added categories for new campaign material. (Currently empty, so they don't appear.)
I hope to mess with the site template over the holiday weekend. The great design work on Stand Down, the antiwar group blog in which I participate, has me thinking again about ways to manage content on gaming sites. Also an internet pal who shall remain nameless says he avoids gaming blogs with campaign-specific material. I'm thinking about ways to use categories to keep him from having to see such unsightly material.
For any poor, misguided soul who gets his Nobilis news exclusively from Thought-Records, today Hogshead announced that they were getting out of adventure gaming completely. "We are not broke," writes James Wallis, "It is refreshingly solvent. However we are bored, creatively frustrated, and increasingly despondent about the future of the specialist games industry." Guardians of Order takes over the entire Nobilis franchise in what seems to be an orderly transition. (You can find GOO's Nobilis press release here.)
On his own Noblog, Bruce Baugh writes
Color me very happy about this. The folks there clearly know how to put out books that are beautiful to look at as well as good to read and play with; they're among the few companies I felt really comfortable about when it came time to consider possibilities. They love Nobilis, and I have every expectation that they'll treat us right.Nobilis freelancers, our existing contractual terms are still in effect. You are not getting stiffed, screwed, or otherwise disadvantaged.
GOO are Amber people, so I tend to trust them. (Yes, that would be a weird thing to say if we were playing Amber.)
