A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Numenera Discovery

Numenera Discovery by Monte Cook, Bruce R. Cordell and Sean K. Reynolds is a role playing game supplement published by Monte Cook Games. This is one of a pair of supplements that make up the core books for the revised version of Numenera, the other being Numenera Destiny. Numenera is a Cypher System game, but the Cypher System rulebook isn’t needed to play as this is a complete system in and of itself.

The supplement is available as a 418-page PDF from DriveThruRPG for $19.99 but was purchased at a reduced price as part of a special bundle. It is also available in printed form from sites such as Amazon. The PDF is the version reviewed. One page is the front cover, three are the front matter, one the Table of Contents, three the Index and one is an ad.

A Billion Years in the Making is the introduction to the setting, one a billion years in the future where any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

The Amber Monolith is a piece of fiction set in the Ninth World.

Part 1: Getting Started begins with Chapter 1: Welcome to the Ninth World which starts by explaining that eight civilisations have risen and disappeared, though leaving behind remnants, leading to this, the Ninth World. It briefly covers people and explains what numenera are; the more powerful items are artefacts, cyphers are smaller, single-use items and oddities are neither and serve no obvious function. A sidebar explains that Numenera Destiny isn’t needed to play but the two books are designed to work together, so Destiny is referenced in places. This concludes with the explanation that this is a science fantasy setting.

Chapter 2: How to Play Numenera has an overview of some game mechanics, starting with difficulty levels. When to roll, combat, weapons, a glossary, ranges, other rolls, experience points, cyphers, dice used places to explore.

Part 2: Characters starts with Chapter 3: Creating Your Character. It explains the carious stats used; there are only three, Might, Speed and Intellect. This is followed by the other stats, Pool, Edge and Effort and how they work. Character descriptor, type and focus is the basic overview of a character, presented as “I am an adjective noun who verbs”; though it might look like a way of coming up with anything you want, each of the three has specific options that have specific effects. Example skills are also given.

Chapter 4: Character Type covers what are essentially the three classes of Numenera, the types; Glaive, Nano and Jack. This is the noun part of the character. Glaives are fighters, Nanos are essentially mages and Jacks are jacks of all trades. Each class is given an overview with its abilities, background, how to advance and six tiers of advancement. Player Intrusions are a counterpoint to GM Intrusions and are how players can swing events in their favour. Each character type has example intrusions.

Chapter 5: Character Descriptor has 12 different descriptor options for characters. Each descriptor, which is the adjective part, grants different abilities, and in some cases inabilities, and has links to a possible starting adventure.

Chapter 6: Character Focus has 26 different foci, the verb part of the character. Each of these is described, and they gain new abilities as tiers advance.

Chapter 7: Equipment covers currency, various unusual materials and all types of equipment, together with prices and descriptions.

Part 3: Playing the Game starts with Chapter 8: Rules of the Game. Characters take actions, and those that require rolls usually require a d20. Rolling equal or over the target number is a success; rolling under is a failure. There are various things that can give bonuses to the roll. There’s a section on determining difficulty; these range from 0-10 but the target number ranges from 0-30. What each difficulty level would entail is given. Players always roll the dice; if they are attacking, they roll for attack, if being attacked, they roll for defence and so on. Certain numbers trigger effects. Rolling a 1 triggers a GM intrusion, 17 and 18 a damage bonus, 19 a minor effect and 20 a major effect. Distance is covered, which is more abstract, and timekeeping, including in combat. There are various attack actions and damage from hazards and how to recover points. Attacking also has certain modifiers. Many different types of actions are covered along with one that is essentially anything not listed but could happen. How experience points are given and used and the different things they can be used for is next, along with progressing to the next tier. It’s stated that tiers, given there are only six, are not like levels in other games.

Part 4: The Setting starts with Chapter 9: Living in the Ninth World. This starts with some scraps on previous civilisations, what the world is like now, a billion years in the future after being inhabited by civilisations with the ability to move stars, the inhabitants and their life, including religion, class, language, literacy, history and animals. Mentions are made that everything has changed in the interim.

Chapter 10: The Steadfast describes the nine countries of that region, essentially the heart of civilisation for the Ninth World. Each nation is described in turn. It is given an overview, and a map of its location and points of interest. The locations are then described, together with important locations or interesting features within them if relevant, as well as some NPCs, if there are any, and rumours and unusual sights. Following on from the nine kingdoms, the Western Seas are covered in a similar manner.

Chapter 11: The Beyond is not divided into nations but into regions. In other aspects, it is similar to the previous chapter, though each region tends to have less areas of interest than a nation.

Chapter 12: Beyond the Beyond is other regions, again similar to previous sections, one of which is a university outside the bounds of the Ninth World. This section finishes with a list of other communities that haven’t been given a fixed location and can therefore be dropped in as required.

Chapter 13: Organisations details six different organisations of the Ninth World. Each is described along with members of note and membership benefits.

Part 5: Creatures & Characters starts with Chapter 14: Creatures, with a couple of pages explaining how the stats for creatures work. The bestiary entries follow; most are a monster to a single page and they also have what are essentially adventure hooks for each monster, along with the stats, interaction and loot, if applicable.

Chapter 15: Nonplayer Characters briefly explains that NPCs don’t follow the same rules as PCs, and that to understand the stats, refer to Chapter 4. A number of different NPC types follow, using the same method of display as the monsters. This is followed by a number of briefly detailed NPCs.

Part 6: The Numenera starts with Chapter 16: Technology. Numenera refers to anything that seems supernatural that comes from one of the prior ages. Unlike magic, people don’t disbelieve in the numenera; they know they exist and work and use them. The appearance of numenera is then covered; they can be scavenged, cobbled, bonded or fashioned.

Chapter 17: Cyphers covers the single-use pieces of technology that are the fundamental part of any Cypher System game. They are powerful, but can only be used once so that power is limited. Characters are limited with the number of cyphers that they can carry. Cyphers are meant to be found and used, not hoarded. There’s a table of dangers coming from cyphers then a large number are described.

Chapter 18: Artifacts covers these. Artifacts are in many ways more powerful than cyphers, because they can be used many times before depleting. As such, they can be more unbalancing than a single cypher. Artifact quirks are listed, then some sample artifacts are described.

Chapter 19: Oddities & Discoveries are bits of technology that don’t fit in the other categories. Oddities are oddments of technology that do something, possibly useful in nature but quite often just inexplicable. These are briefly listed. Discoveries are things that can’t be carried off; a bio lab is one of the given examples. Finally, there are explanations as to how to create new numenera.

Part 7: Running the Game is the GM’s section. It starts with Chapter 20: Using the Rules opens by saying that this section of the book is different, as it’s the author speaking to the reader, game master to game master. It explains that the story is more important than the rules, how to set task difficulties, GM intrusions, an important part of the system, and player intrusions. It moves on to the rest of the rules, which to a large part is how to run them, and some options for customising characters.

Chapter 21: Building a Story covers imparting the rules to players, running the first few sessions, handling combat, crating stories, handling pacing and preparing for game sessions, as well as designing encounters, finishing with an example of play.

Chapter 22: Realising the Ninth World is on running the setting. How to make things weird, by altering terminology, and that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. There are adventure ideas for different settings; cities, villages, wilderness and ruins.

Part 8: Adventures has some starting adventures. It begins with Chapter 23: Adventures Overview, a single page briefly giving an overview of the three.

Chapter 24: Take of Sorrow is the first adventure. In it the characters are escorting someone through a region, in payment of a debt, when they encounter strange creatures that have become more common of late.

Chapter 25: Vault of Reflections has the characters exploring a strange area that is in truth the head of an even stranger being.

Chapter 26: Legacy is done in a different style, though one that’s common to Cypher System adventures. Much of the adventure is a two-page flow chart showing how events unfold.

Part 9: Back Matter starts with Appendix A: Species Origins. This starts by explaining that visitants are beings from elsewhere who now live in the Ninth World, before then giving options for two, varjellen and lattimor. A third species is mutants, who have a series of tables for generating mutations.

Appendix B: Bibliography and Resources has a short list of fiction, non-fiction, television and films that can be used for inspiration.

Appendix C: Billion and Five Club is a list of Kickstarter backers who backed both the original Numenera and the Numenera 2 Kickstarters.

Appendix D: Character Creation Walkthrough lists the process.

Appendix E: Glossary has a glossary of Ninth World terms and a list of commonly used words and phrases in the setting.

Finally, there is a two-page character sheet.

Numenera Discovery in Review

The PDF is well bookmarked with major and minor sections linked. The Table of Contents is less thorough but is hyperlinked. The Index is also hyperlinked. In addition, there are various internal links from the sidebars that lead to parts of the book referenced in the nearby text, though this isn’t obvious. Navigation is very good for a book of this length. The text maintains a two column with sidebar colour format and appeared to be free of errors. The sidebars, as well as having the previously mentioned internal links, also include supplemental data, references to Numenera Destiny and stats. There are a lot of colour illustrations, all of which appear to be custom, up to full page in size. Presentation is very good.

This is an all-in-one core book, so there’s everything needed to play a game of Numenera in it, from adventures to rules top bestiary to a substantial amount of detail on the setting. As well as the actual adventures, there are also a lot of adventure hooks, scattered through the setting and bestiary sections. The system itself, despite the size of the book, is at its base surprisingly simple. Partly this is because, with this being an all-in-one book, a good chunk of it is taken up by material other than rules. The section on running the game is quite substantial, but it could be described as being in many ways the philosophy of running the game, rather than the game rules for doing such.

In addition, the story is considered to be the most important thing and rules should not get in the way of that. As such, Numenera doesn’t do what more complex systems do and have a rule for everything. Though there is a list of skills, it’s just a list. The skills aren’t described in detail, and it’s stated that there’s no reason why a player can’t come up with their own skills, as long as the GM is happy with them. Those used to more complex games will find this surprisingly rules-lite in comparison.

This book does contain everything needed to at least start playing Numenera. There are the included adventures, plus details on how to create more and plenty of adventure hooks throughout the supplement that can be used as starting points; there are plenty of commercial adventures available as well. The final adventure shows the streamlined style a Numenera – and Cypher System – adventure can be, being based around a two-page flow chart. Numenera Discovery is a complete, and a bit different, game and it can be found by clicking here.