I'm not sure if it's a storygame or if it counts as a tradgame (I think it's probably considered a little of both), but here's the info compiled thus far that I've copied from the Reddit community.  I'm combining two different posts, so hopefully that will make it clearer.

QuoteFirst, you have 3 bases for character creation: warrior, wizard, rogue.

QuoteWhile those names do describe (roughly) what they do, those are not the actual names. The fighter is called a Glaive. The wizard is called a Nano. The rogue is called a Jack.

Basically your typical D&D party (sans cleric) with the serial numbers filed up.  But here's where things change a bit.

QuoteYou build your character with a sentence that includes a descriptor & focus. One of the developers said that it works like creating a sentence: "I am an adjective noun who verbs." The adjective, or descriptors, are things such as "Tough" or "Mystical." The verb, or focus, allow the character to excel in a certain role, such as "speaks with the dead."

Examples:

    A mystical wizard who has a pet.
    A clever rogue who rages.
    An intelligent warrior who controls gravity.

QuoteWe learned that characters are made with a sentence: "I am a [descriptor] [type] who [focus]." Type, such as Glaive, obviously grants you a chain of abilities related to that profession. Focus gives outside-the-norm extras -- controlling gravity, phasing, creating illusions, etc. A more mundane example I came across was "bard-like entertainment to coerce or provide more knowledge." A more wild example is called "Bears a Halo of Fire" and grants a fire aura and summoned fire servants. A Descriptor will typically grant you additional points for pools and provide you with skills or even equipment and also help with providing a link to other party members.

Abstract mechanics that I can't tell if good or not.  Would need to see more information.

QuoteNext, you have 3 stat pools. The only one I could get a name for is Might. Stats are all like Hit Points, in the sense that they all wear down in a fight or challenge. One pool falls to 0 and you're Impaired, 2 at 0 is Debilitated, all 3 is Dead.

QuoteI also said there were 3 abilities for each character, but I didn't know the names of those abilities. I've found that they are Speed, Might, and Intellect.

Not sure how much I like this.  I've played a game in which there was a similar premise (Iron Kingdoms) and it was shitty.  Maybe Monte Cook does it better (unlikely).

QuoteNot only do stats wear down from enemies, but you also wear down the stats on your own in an attempt to lower "target numbers." Those are like D&D (and Pathfinder) "difficulty checks" in the sense that there is a number you have to meet or beat in order to accomplish a goal. Target numbers to start hover around 3-12. As usual, you roll a d20 to see if you hit the target number. Not as usual, there don't appear to be any bonuses you can get to the roll. Instead, you sacrifice your stat pools to buy down the TN.

Example: You are trying to break down a door, and the target number is 9 (60% success rate on a raw d20 roll). You spend 3 points of Might to drop the target number to 6 (75% success rate). Now you roll the d20 and hope for the best. As you level up you are able to pay less, and possibly nothing, to lower TN.

So it's basically very careful odds and constantly gauging if you should manipulate the TN, and if you are willing to risk lowering your stat temporarily in order to do it. I'm not clear on how you replenish your stats, but apparently it's an expected & normal process.

This is the mechanic that most intrigues me.  I know a lot of tradgamers will balk at this, but I think the mechanic reasonably represents fatigue.  If, for instance, the fighter wants to break down the door (as in the example above), he can really put his shoulder into it, but it'll wear him down.

QuoteWe previously discussed how you spend your ability pools to "buy down" the target number (or TN) for a task. To recover from this, you can make a recovery roll after one action, ten minutes, one hour, and ten hours. Each recovery roll is 1d6, plus a point per your level, or tier.

When you spend points in your pool of abilities, this is called "effort." In addition to spending effort to lower a TN, you can use skill or assets (items). You can also use something called "Edge" but I don't have a lot of details on how that works yet.

The recovery mechanic is a little weird.

QuoteSkills

If you're skilled at something, you are either trained in it, or specialized in it. Being trained reduces the TN by 3, being specialized reduces it by 6.

There is a small list of sample skills, but it's an open skill system that can be expanded.

The math is all on one side and you use a raw d20 roll.  Interesting.

QuoteThis is Earth, one billion years in the future. During that time, eight great civilizations have risen up and either died out, moved on to other worlds, ascended to a higher plane, etc. Humans as we know it have been extinct for millions of years until the start of the Ninth Age, where they have reappeared for reasons that are mysterious even to them.

BARF

An old friend called me up to rave about this game today, but he had to go take care of family stuff before I could get any solid info out of him.

Can I play Thundarr in it? I'm not interested in some angsty White-Wolfy serious thing about Big Questions of Deep Time and human existence, but playing "Thundarr on Vance's Dying Earth with a dash of Gamma World" would be fun.

Sounds very similar to Hero Wars from Robin D. Laws, at leas as far as the descriptor.

Not a big fan of spending attributes to get bonuses, and also losing those attributes as damage. It creates a rapid downward spiral and the reliance of recovery times means that there is an assumed encounter per time period which can cause issues if not adhered to.

I use my psychic powers to command the ubiquitous nanites to do things that appear to be magic!

At least, that's my understanding of the setting riff for Numenera.

/shrug

QuoteNot only do stats wear down from enemies, but you also wear down the stats on your own in an attempt to lower "target numbers." Those are like D&D (and Pathfinder) "difficulty checks" in the sense that there is a number you have to meet or beat in order to accomplish a goal. Target numbers to start hover around 3-12. As usual, you roll a d20 to see if you hit the target number. Not as usual, there don't appear to be any bonuses you can get to the roll. Instead, you sacrifice your stat pools to buy down the TN.

Very Robin Laws'-y (you see similar resource mechanics in Dying Earth, Gumshoe).
I don't see the point. Is it fun having the wizard breaking down doors later on in the adventure because the fighter ran out of Might? Are players supposed to like the abstract challenge of working through the math of how many points to burn for maximum ROI? Does he just love 5-minute workdays? Do we want players sit around refusing to spend brain points to advance the adventure (finding clues or whatever) because burning Intellect brings them closer to death?
0/10. I expected better from Monte.

Still not seeing why I shouldn't just play D&D and lean heavier on the sci-fantasy end of things than is commonplace these days.

Heck, why not discuss divorce and the desperately moronic measures some men will take to Kickstart a creatively bankrupt career to avoid an actual job?

Oh boy, Kellri nailed it. Sounds more depressing when someone says it aloud compared to me just thinking it.

QuoteThis is Earth, one billion years in the future. During that time, eight great civilizations have risen up and either died out, moved on to other worlds, ascended to a higher plane, etc. Humans as we know it have been extinct for millions of years until the start of the Ninth Age, where they have reappeared for reasons that are mysterious even to them.

I think that Wikipedia's version of the Earth in a billion years is more interesting.

Quote from: Wikipedia EntryOcean-free era

By one billion years from now, about 27% of the modern ocean will have been subducted into the mantle. If this process were allowed to continue uninterrupted, it would reach an equilibrium state where 65% of the current surface reservoir would remain at the surface. Once the solar luminosity is 10% higher than its current value, the average global surface temperature will rise to 320 K (47 °C). The atmosphere will become a "moist greenhouse" leading to a runaway evaporation of the oceans. At this point, models of the Earth's future environment demonstrate that the stratosphere would contain increasing levels of water. These water molecules will be broken down through photodissociation by solar ultraviolet radiation, allowing hydrogen to escape the atmosphere. The net result would be a loss of the world's sea water by about 1.1 billion years from the present.
 
In this ocean-free era, there will continue to be reservoirs at the surface as water is steadily released from the deep crust and mantle, where it is estimated there is an amount of water equivalent to several times that currently present in the Earth's oceans. Some water may be retained at the poles and there may be occasional rainstorms, but for the most part the planet would be a dry desert with large dunefields covering its equator and various evaporating salt ponds similar to those in the Atacama Desert in Chile, resembling how Saturn's largest moon Titan looks today. Even in these arid conditions, the planet may retain some microbial and possibly even multi-cellular life. Most of these microbes will be halophiles.

I could run an entire Traveller campaign about terraforming the Earth.

Quote from: Kellri;676841Heck, why not discuss divorce and the desperately moronic measures some men will take to Kickstart a creatively bankrupt career to avoid an actual job?

Ouch.

I've been happily married for 13 years so I can only imagine the pain of divorce. I wouldn't kick a man down further for taking measures to get on with his life in a career in which he is successful.

Half a million dollars says that enough people have faith in someone to produce a game that they will like.

Quote from: Kellri;676841Heck, why not discuss divorce and the desperately moronic measures some men will take to Kickstart a creatively bankrupt career to avoid an actual job?

Might as well.  It would be better for Cook if we did; he might figure out how to save his own ass.

Well, he's done a good job of it, he's also working on the successor to Planescape Torment which uses Numenara as its setting.

The setting looks great to me. I have only heard bits and pieces about the system from the Numenera page. Right now, I am interested in giving it a go when it comes out. I don't think the book ships until mid-august or so.

Quote from: Orpheo;676866Ouch.

I've been happily married for 13 years so I can only imagine the pain of divorce. I wouldn't kick a man down further for taking measures to get on with his life in a career in which he is successful.

Half a million dollars says that enough people have faith in someone to produce a game that they will like.

That, and regardless of what one thinks of Numenera, he has done some solid work as a designer. Some of the best books on my shelf have the name Cook on them. I do not think that is an accident.