The Stange

[Tal_Akaan]

The Strange (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/129405/The-Strange-corebook?term=the+strang)

I just ran across this game on DriveThruRPG, and I must say it looks intriguing. I do have some questions before I purchase though.


I’m not sure I’m sold on the system. Is the book worth the money if it was only used for the setting?
I understand that Recursions spawn from the myths, legends, and fiction of humanity, and that people can travel to different Recursions, what I don’t understand is why. Below is an excerpt from the entry on DriveThruRPG:


“In our own world, there are individuals who secretly travel to these recursions—perhaps for adventure, perhaps for profit. But there are others with more nefarious motives, and conspiratorial organizations operating in the shadows, looking to exploit the Strange and its recursions for their own ends. And some of them are also very, very dangerous.”

In what way is the Strange exploited?
I guess what I’m really getting at is, other than dimension hopping just for fun/adventure, what kind of stories do you tell?


I think that’s it for now.

Thank you.

[Kaun]

Ok i own the book and i'm yet to do much more then skim through it.

The cypher rule system works well enough but its not for everybody.

As to stories, i know there is a lot of setting info for inter-dimensional cops/conspiracy style play. Tracking down fugitives that escape into other dimensions, smuggling rings... and so on.

I really should pick up the book and read it cover to cover.

[Tal_Akaan]

I found an actual play podcast and from what I’ve heard you seem to be right. It seems like you take modern day obstacles and use the Recursions as settings/resources.

[Tal_Akaan]

I don't know if anyone here is interested in conversing about this game, but I went ahead and bought the PDF for the core rule book...

It looks like a pretty good game. I really like the setting, still not sure about the system. I'm thinking about using a slightly modified version of the setting, but using different systems based on the recursion they are in; i.e. Mutants and Masterminds, if they are in a recursion that features superheroes. Granted this depends entirely on whether or not my players are willing to keep track of that many character sheets/make a new character for each new recursion.

[NichG]

I convinced a friend to start up a campaign of this, and so far it's been pretty fun. The party is a mix of various oddball types in India in 1936, chasing down a gem from Ardeyn that we think is causing the manifestation of super-powers in the local population (I forget the terminology, but basically that its 'awakening' them to the Strange on contact or exposure), and we just found out that the gem is somehow linked to a second one in Berlin.

[Tal_Akaan]

That sounds pretty interesting. How do you like the Cypher system?

[NichG]

There's some wonkiness in terms of option balance, but otherwise it seems reasonable. Certainly it's improved from the version in Numenera.

I think its important not to run it 'flat' though. A lot of the cyphers in the book are just kind of boring or nonsensical. But, for example, the initial set of cyphers my character had in our game was a book where when you wrote on a page, it would do a particular thing related to the contents of that page. So for example I could ask it to show a map to something (I burned that one experimenting with it). Another page let me visually (and with subtitles) spy on someone I was familiar with. A third page let me obtain a visual representation of something I could name. So those have a lot more interesting uses than a cypher that recovers 1d4 points of your Strength pool, but you have to be willing as a GM to go off-road a bit and make stuff like that up.

[Tal_Akaan]

That book idea is pretty cool, I might have to steal that.

As far as the cyphers in the book go, it seems like they really encourage the players to use them, not horde them, so making them less than spectacular was probably done on purpose. I was already thinking about making cyphers really special (custom) but few and far between. We're talking about an item that can function in multiple realities where each one relies on different rules, mad science, psionics, magic, etc., they just feel like something that should be really special and significant.

[NichG]

That book idea is pretty cool, I might have to steal that.

As far as the cyphers in the book go, it seems like they really encourage the players to use them, not horde them, so making them less than spectacular was probably done on purpose. I was already thinking about making cyphers really special (custom) but few and far between. We're talking about an item that can function in multiple realities where each one relies on different rules, mad science, psionics, magic, etc., they just feel like something that should be really special and significant.

Well I was trying to buy in to the idea of Cyphers, so I almost completely used up the book in a single session :)

I don't think they should be rare. They need to be super-common, so that players don't hold back from using them. But I think they shouldn't be dull. They should be weird and inspire creative uses. Actually, if its overly mechanical, the issue is that it might be too useful to use up. For example, another party member has a ring that reduces the difficulty of their next task by 2 and then is used up. That's quite powerful, but bland, so I think its likely that he'll hoard it because he can think of so many potential situations where it might save the day.

But a book which lets you spy on a single person? That's nice, but its not so nice that you can't afford to use it up. It has a niche application, so when an opportunity arrives you think 'aha, now I can use my book' rather than 'hm, do I burn the book on this one or save it for the next?'

[Tal_Akaan]

I think cyphers being common makes sense if you use the cypher system. The game is designed with them in mind, but if you're stripping the system out and just using the setting, like I will probably do, I think they might work better with a bit more rarity.