Nobilis

Overall score:

It's hard to start this review, knowing how rabid the fans of the system are. I don't want to go right into the gripes I have about this game, but that's the most appropriate place to start since one of those complaints has to do with the book itself.

The book is a very non-standard size, being about as tall as a standard d20 manual but about twice as wide. This makes it difficult to fit on a shelf, and makes it look like a coffee table book. This might compensate for being such an unusual size (and the fact that its size makes it difficult to flip through), but other than the cover it's not a fun book to just look at. The cover, I admit, is very pretty, but most of the internal artwork falls far short of the expectations set, and there isn't enough artwork for you to just thumb through it and look at the pictures.

There's no need for the book size to be so rebellious either, as far as content goes. There's plenty of negative space and the flavor texts could be worked in as text boxes rather than forcing those margins onto every page. My assumption is that he made it this way to draw contrast from other rpg books and to highlight how different it is, even on the shelf. And it does stand out, and it is different, but that's hardly a reason to inconvenience your readers.

The second problem is the organization. It'd be easy here to make some arguably justifiable comparisons to the organizational skills of Kevin Simbieda, but that's not entirely fair, since Simbieda mostly has his problem because he cuts and pastes to write the rules sections of his books and then never edits to see if it's comprehensible or even comprehensive enough. Nobilis on the other hand, is a new system and book (ok, published in 1999, but my point is it isn't a variation on a previously extant system), and was written this way... presumably on purpose. All the information is is scattered: parts of character generation appear in at least three different chapters stretch across at least half the book, and there is no summary of the process. These are some big negatives for a game. A book that's hard to use on so many levels is frustrating and in poor taste.

Ok, so where does it shine? Once you've actually learned to play, one can argue, the book isn't as big an issue. And ok, I'll admit the system is neat. Nobilis is a diceless system. I'd wondered, having never played a diceless rpg before, how a diceless engine would work. And it's interesting.

Characters are built on a point system, and that gives you a certain number of "miracle points" that can be used in each of four areas. How strong your abilities are define how many points (if any) it takes to perform a task. You can also pump in extra points to make a miracle even more potent than it would be otherwise. You then compare that miracle's effectiveness against the targets attributes. Higher number wins. This nicely avoids the problems of just direct ability comparison, and gives the player a very high degree of control over their abilities, which, I believe, results in a much higher emphasis on story-telling through the game.

There are a few problems with the mechanics. Some of the descriptions of what attributes do are excessively vague. And really, when you look at it, there's no way to even change the system to work with a different setting. So perhaps we should look at the setting.

Basically, you're a semi-divine being. Really, that's most of what you can rely on. You're the agent chosen by an angel, or an equivalent sort of supernatural creature, like a devil, or agents of the Dark, Light, Wild, or some monstrous snake living on the World Ash. You live in that creature's chancel, a sort of supernatural fortress located on the earth and a focus for your abilities, and you work against the Excrucians, beings with no comprehensible motivations who come from outside the limits of creation as even supernatural beings know it.

There is a lot of artificial mood that is forced upon you, while at the same time Nobilis tries to tell you that you should change it as you want. The fact that no one you deal with has any sort of mortal sympathy and is completely unfamiliar makes it fun for mood for a few hours, but drags after a while.

Borgstrom (the author) is intentionally vague on many, many ideas. How you move from world to world, the effects that has on your powers, even the relationships between different powers and Nobles. It's implied that the reason is so you can make your own decisions and build your own world, but it smacks of lack of effort and indecision. At any rate, with a set of mechanics so heavily dependent on a setting, you'd think that there would be a little more detail about how the setting works instead of just suggestive hints. It's sort of like a Lovecraft description with no plot and magnified to several hundred pages.

Which is the real problem. It's not that the setting is vague and makes you work as a referee. I'd much rather do my own world-building and customization to fit my story anyway. And as for being inextricably linked to the mechanics, well, saying that you have to play as a semi-divine being is really no more restricting than saying you have to play in a Tolkien-esque fantasy setting, or a hard sci-fi space-farer. So the real problem is that he spends so much time being so vague. Pages and pages and pages of material. All so he can repeat the same essential information and try to say you can focus on tea-parties or on danger, all the time being unconvincing that a tea party would be exciting and not getting a solid grip on what he's trying to say anyway.

And one more complaint. The use of the phrase "Hollyhock God" is perhaps the only term I find more annoying than Hackmaster saying "Gawd."

So there you have it. The mechanics are really roleplaying intensive. You think about what you're doing a lot more than "I attack," and asa player you have to describe more details about what you attempt. But the book is too unwieldy, both in size, organization, and verbiage. It'd be fun to play, but it has limited scope and it's hard to recommend the actual product.

Amendment:

It has been pointed out, and accurately, that I didn't give enough information about the basis of the game. My reason for not describing much about the fundamental concept of the game is because I felt that Borgstrom was far too vague about it. I don't withdraw this criticism: I think she is very vague. She tries to evoke a certain mood, and then the next page she attempts to convince you that any "genre" is possible. This might be possible, but it's clear that the system is intended for one type of campaign, and that if you're looking for cinematic action you probably need to use a different system.

But the suggested type of campaign does have a description, and despite being vague it's the foundation of the system. As I said before, the PCs are semi-divine beings known as powers. They are generally elevated humans, but some come from stranger stock (like animals or faerie). The powers have been elevated by Nobles, which describes several categories of beings: angels, fallen angels, the Light, the Dark, the Wild, or even Aaron's Serpents (giant snakes that inhabit the trunk of the World Ash). The philosophies of these beings is not always clear, and in fact, Borgstrom occasionally contradicts what she has written earlier and uses terms in ways not consistent with their English definition. This makes it hard to decide which side you root for (even the angels are real jerks). It's not so much that everything is so foreign (though that does make it hard to identify), it's that she uses familiar concepts and then claims that they're nothing like what we know of the concept. The game is fraught with this sort of elitist reversal.

Angels and fallen angels fight each other, and the Light and the Dark are (obviously) opposed. The Wild occasionally gets on everyone's nerves, and the Aaron Serpents have their own motivations. This means that their servants (the PCs) will come into conflict with each other over achieving disparate goals. PCs and Nobles rarely die, although the mortals will probably not be so lucky in most games. These conflicts may happen over trying to change something in the nature of the real world, or they may involve the governance of the PC's chancel (the fortress their noble has built on earth as a sort of headquarters).

Another conflict is also available. A group of beings called Excrucians have arrived with the goal of eliminating our reality. Oddly enough, they function exactly the same way that nobles from our reality function. Naturally, they must be stopped, because even if you're a power of the Dark and want to see humanity destroy itself, it simply wouldn't do for the Excrucians to remove their existence before that goal is achieved. (I admit that last line sounds trite, and it is over-simplified, but it is not wholly inaccurate). Excrucians may also attack the Earth or your chancel, and they'll be a little bit more mean about what they do to you.

And THAT is the idea in a nutshell. There are rules for building your character, your character's noble, and the chancel, so at least that's not left out. Again, my primarily complaints are not the creativity of the setting, but that Borgstrom is so insistent on some points and then is equally insistent that you can change it easily. She's vague and contradictory, and the mechanics really can't bear another genre like she claims. She brings up ideas and then doesn't even apply them in any examples. The mechanics of the system are fast and clever, but the book and ideas are virtually impossible to use.

Written by SaintEhlers on August 22nd, 2003