Ninth Worldbuilding
The Ninth World is the setting for Numenera. Building this world is one of the real joys for me as a game designer. As Shanna Germain and I develop the setting, we are using a technique that I developed for my book, Ptolus. That technique is something that I refer to as the microscope approach.
The Microscope Approach
With a microscope, you can closely examine things. And perhaps the best part is, you can choose different magnifications when you look at things. With the microscope approach to setting design, I do the same thing. When discussing a particular area, I might provide one level of detail that gives the reader information about the ruler of that region, some of the larger cities in the area, and maybe a paragraph with 1-2 interesting locations. For another region, however, I might increase the magnification and provide not just a bit of information about the ruler, but an in-depth look at her and the political situation of the land, and the other major players. Then, perhaps, one of the cities in that area gets an even further increase in magnification. Rather than just a few sentences, the city gets a map, a discussion of its own leaders, and descriptions of important locations.
Adventure material can be presented in the same fashion. At the lowest magnification, you might just have a list of adventure ideas. A greater magnification might provide a brief synopsis of the action with some of the potential outcomes. Still another increase in magnification would provide a map and a general outline of the ways in which things might go. The greatest magnification, of course, would be a full-blown adventure with each encounter provided in full detail.
The weird thing about this approach to some readers is that not all the material of a given type is presented at the same magnification. One huge city might get a few paragraphs while another gets a full page. Many villages might not get any description at all, while another might get a detailed write-up larger that the description of some entire kingdoms. This isn’t random or haphazard inconsistency, however. There’s a method to this madness. In effect, all setting and adventure material gets precisely the level of detail it needs.
Serving the GM
Sometimes, a GM needs different things from different bits of material. While a GM might need a great deal of attention on a village, he doesn’t need that amount of attention on every village (and he doesn’t need or want a book that is thousands of pages long, which is what would happen if everything got the maximum magnification). And sometimes, all the GM really needs is an example–a good look at one Ninth World village, for example, will inspire and inform most GMs to enable them to create their own if need be.
Further, different GMs have different needs. Some GMs have the opportunity to expand on material and spend time developing original creations. They appreciate a lot of room to exercise their own creativity within the bounds of the setting. They need little more than a few ideas to get them started. Other GMs have less time. They need a lot more done for them. They can use the fully-fleshed out material in the book with little time commitment.
Still other GMs might find the concepts in Numenera intriguing but difficult. After reading and using the more detailed material, they’ll be ready to create their own with more confidence.
Room For Creativity
While there will be plenty of material that gets a high level of magnification in the Ninth World, and there will likely be more with support products that come later, it’s an important goal of mine to make it friendly to GMs who like to create their own stuff. First of all, the very nature of the Ninth World, with its isolated communities, and difficulty and danger of traveling and communicating, makes it easy to insert an interesting site, village, town, or even a whole city that had been heretofore unknown. It’s a wild and unexplored world, full of mysteries of all kinds. There’s almost nothing that a GM could create that he couldn’t plunk down almost anywhere on the map and have it make sense.
And that also is due to the design approach of the world. Even the more settled areas, which are called the Steadfast, don’t present themselves in a “completist” sort of way. In other words, when I write about the land of Navarene, and I talk about some of the cities there, at no point is there any suggestion that those are all the cities of Navarene. Likewise (but even more so) with smaller communities, natural features, weird locations, fortresses and castles, ruins, crashed starships, secret bio-mechanical factories, ancient interdimesional gateways, and well, you get the idea.
It’s important, in fact, for the essence of the Ninth World, that at no point does it feel fully understood, fully detailed, or “finished,” because those things are incompatible with weird, with mystery, and with amazing, astounding discovery. And those are important parts of Numenera that we can’t do without.
-
Monte,
You can not believe how lucky we are that you decided to create this world. A true gamer writing and laying out the foundation of a fresh and exciting universe to explore. Of all people, we know you have the ability to give us what we need but are aware that the best part of the game is creating our own versions of your world. Customizing to our tastes to play off of the gamers at our tables. I am sitting at the edge of my seat with anticipation of painting adventures in this far out, limitless canvas you are stretching out before us. Mixing in scientific reality with multidimentional boundaries while influenced by 9 “lost” or “higher” civilizations really blows my mind. You have sparked my imagination in a way I have not been in some time. I have been an avid DnD player since 1977 and played tons of Gamma World and everyting else along the way. To have a system to enjoy that is streamlined and will not bog down table time is the icing on the cake for me. Later versions of DnD and Pathfinder just take the fun away with their unlimited rules and the rules lawyers they draw in. I can not wait to hold these books in my hand and get sucked in through word and art to a new and limitless place. You are doing this right. Thanks!
-
Thanks! That’s high praise!
-
-
What is that Shadowy figure?
-
Well … it’s not THAT shadowy.
Is it?
-
-
AH its a Philethis… whats a…
-
It’s a bit of a tease. I’ll reveal more soon.
-
It’s awesome…That’s what. Can’t wait to find out more…Is it “soon” yet Monte? ;D
-
-
My $ is on it being a Galchutt
-
Am I the only one to think Vorlon when looking at the shadowy figure?
-
Heh, it’s more like a Sith-Vorlon.
Out of curiosity, and maybe this isn’t something you can reveal yet, are there any major kingdoms or large governments? My favorite edition of Gamma world was the 3rd. There were lots of communities but most were fairly small and much of the former US was unexplored or heavily irradiated. I didn’t like it as much, in later editions, where groups and cities controlled large swathes of land with little left needing to be explored (even though exploration was still supposed to be one of the themes of the game). Every city was protected by numerous Level V (artifact level technology) which took away from the mysteriousness of it.
Numenera seems to harken back to that 3rd edition Gamma world feel that I liked so much but it still makes me wonder if any culture or group has managed to get back to the point of having standing armies or being able to provide a safe haven against the unknown wilderness or is safety an illuion in even the largest of settlements?
-
Hey Aaron,
I am right there with you on this one. I already have in my head that I want some area of the world that remained irratiated from some ancient war or experiment gone bad or planar breech just to bring about that small touch of my long ago GW campaigns. Monte is presenting such a vast array of possiblities with Numenera, there is room for everything to make sense (if it even needs to make sense). And I am sure he has many of the same thoughts and influences we have as he played the same games we did over the years. Plus I’m sure he is going to throw concepts into Numenera that will baffle us and get our creative juices flowing with a billion years of back influence for goodness sake. I’m loving it!
-
-
There’s more than a little bit of Vancian vibe here. And that’s a good thing.
-
Where does the previous civilization(s) fall on the expanded Kardashev Scale? It must have been at least a Type III I think.
-
Monte, if you used the actual Microscope system (http://www.lamemage.com/) to create your setting, it’s polite to credit them, rather than claiming you invented the system yourself.
-
That appears to be an actual game system with the name Microscope. I am talking about an approach to game design where you look at things with different levels of detail. I’ve never heard of the Microscope rpg, and have no idea what it’s about or how it works.
-
15 Comments