I remember reading someone’s tips of writing for TTRPGs and one of those tips was: “A spare, terse and suggestive description is better than detailed and in depth. People can fill in the gaps.” And boy howdy was this something that TTRPG writers back in the early 2000’s did not understand.
So I have played... god literally every game in Jenna Moran's catalogue ever since she went rogue and started self publishing. GMed a 4 years long Nobilis campaign, still going on Chuubo for over 5 years, just started mastering Glitched, been a player on two distinct Nobilis Campaigns, both 2nd and 3rd Editions. I also mastered Wisher, Theurge and Fatalist; arguably the oddest and most insane of the four. With that out of the way I can say, the Jennaverse is not a game series. It is... a set of obtuse guidelines to do some shared make believe with your friends mixed with a verbose worldbuilidng text and an attempt to make a system out of a narrative. Am I invested in its lore? Sure, Jenna's world is full of character and concepts strange enough to be engaging without even talking about the canon flexpoints to change as a GM. Do I enjoy the loose guidelines to hallucinate with my friends? Of course. Do I hate dice? BOY do I. But the thing that I find the most fascinating about the whole set of systems is the (I'd dare to say, ever improving) attempt to make a system out basic narrative rules a good story has. "Nah I'd Win" perfectly encapsulates the constantly one upping stakes common in anime, 2000s cartoons and... professional wrestling of all things. The act of bidding sets up the stage of what to win versus what to lose and constructs the setup of a scene, the failure is usually not lethal (every character in this system is virtually immortal, and purposely so) and allows to up the stakes even further and risking collateral damage or reaching a point of no return where your Unlimited Carpet Works swallows your character's loving family and now you have to deal with that trauma. Chuubo is interesting to me in the way quests essentially offer a guideline to "how much is enough" and "how much too much" for a character's arc. Bonus XP sets up the mood of the quest, makes it constantly relevant to the story and avoids players forgetting about the important thing they were doing until they have a big climatic moment that usually doesn't feel deserved due to how sudden it was / how long it was since that plot point was introduced. Quest milestones are those "big dramatic moments" that are a fundamental part of the story moving forward, and is particularly important how those are usually... not good for the players. For example, a sample quest in the book (remembering off the top of my head here) is taking care of a small child or creature. One of the milestones in it is having that thing you are caring for disappoint you or ruin your day to day life. This is something you, as the player, from a meta perspective WANT to happen, because it progresses the story, but at the same time, in character do not want to happen because, come on. It sucks. And there lays why I love the Jennaverse's system. It encourages (and in the case of Chuubo, outright forces) the players to treat their characters as what they are. Characters in a story. It pushes players to take a bit more of a game master-y role in each session and prioritize what is the most narratively and thematically interesting thing to do, rather than just what their characters as people want to do. You want to do the action that encourages drama and an interesting resolution above the most optimal or most effective action to resolve a problem. That is why I think the playgroup IS everything in the Jennaverse. No amount of lore, cool systems or concepts can change the fact the systems are fundamentally broken, the mechanics are kind of half expected to be forgotten (hell, Glitch outright says so) and the entire thing would collapse by having a single player who wants to "play" the game the same way you would play any other TTRPG. The entire playgroup needs to be, at a bare minimum, this collage of pretentious/neurodivergent/just flat out insane people who all come with the expectation and acceptance that they are not here to play a game. They are here to tell a story in a weird ass world of high concepts and verbose text. Quoting the woman herself: "It is less of a roleplaying game and more of an improv ethical philosophy and comedy jam session" (... Still waiting for her to actually market one of the books as such)
When I commented about Jennaverse on the community post, I thought you were gonna cover come game I didn't know of from the animator who uses the name Jennaverse. Unrelatedly, my unwillingness to walk back public statements about my dislike for Chuubos and PbtA is how I lost a friend. Golden Sky Stories is the only diceless I've touched that I like, and I still think it would benefit from some sort of core randomization method.
I've played and ran Nobilis before. In both vases, I had to make a setting primer, a character freation guide, and a mechanics index/cheat sheet, because the book itself doesn't care to present that information in a usable way. I do like Moran's writing, mostly. It just happens to be this massive obstacle that makes introducing the game to other peope effectively impossible. It seems to want you to play your actual, bonafide *god* as a flighty neurodivergent teenager, rather than a soldier in a divine warrior with the power to casually smite a fucking continent in half. And that, right there, is why the game is impossible to recommend. Because if you get a player who wants to make the flighty teen, and a player who wants to make the divine soldier, the game is going to be fundamentally off and inevitably succumb to several people pulling this tortured system in too many directions. God I love it tho
The concepts are somewhat interesting.... but I do not have what it takes to delve through a 400+ page manual filled with LORE - at least not ever since I've moved past the high school lol. I would love an amazon prime show based on glitch and nobilis, though.
I have played Noblesse in the past, and then know people who love Chuubo's. It's all starting to make sense on why I never enjoyed Noblesse, and didn't care to even try Chuubo's.
I tried to listen to Glich and my eyes rolled over so hard I could see my own brain. It was painfully fucking boring and obstuse. Maybe its because it can't be explained in a brief summary, but its amazing how little of an absolute fuck I gave about the lore when too much of the explanation was a "you are this, you are this, you do this, you, you you..." When I rather have a well defined world and setting and decide myself who I am and how I fit in that world, and actually do the roleplaying and my character development
400 pages of lore and 50 rules. I stare at what i have literally called a chuubo's heart breaker, and yes, that is entirely true, the game barely cracks like 80 pages. And i'm including a full set of arcs, and a totally different rules set. Also i found it easier to make my own than teach chuubos, lol.
I am heartbroken Chubbo's isn't what I expected: a light-hearted romp with rules aimed at a younger audience which can be their gateway out of Dee and Dee. Alas, it's not.
I ran Nobilis back when 2e came out. Maybe. I think. I had the book out and looked at it. I was never sure whether I was actually running the game the way the author intended though. It was mostly because I wasn't sure what the author intended. Having seen her answer that question since then, I still have no idea. I find the woman's writing style to be impenetrable even in short forum posts. It's like she is incapable of just saying what she means in plain language for the benefit of us simpletons. Everything is a performance even a simple rules explanation.
Teleport people into your pocket dimension of carpets so you can shout "WELCOME TO _MY_ WORLD!"
I remember reading someone’s tips of writing for TTRPGs and one of those tips was: “A spare, terse and suggestive description is better than detailed and in depth. People can fill in the gaps.”
And boy howdy was this something that TTRPG writers back in the early 2000’s did not understand.
So I have played... god literally every game in Jenna Moran's catalogue ever since she went rogue and started self publishing. GMed a 4 years long Nobilis campaign, still going on Chuubo for over 5 years, just started mastering Glitched, been a player on two distinct Nobilis Campaigns, both 2nd and 3rd Editions. I also mastered Wisher, Theurge and Fatalist; arguably the oddest and most insane of the four.
With that out of the way I can say, the Jennaverse is not a game series. It is... a set of obtuse guidelines to do some shared make believe with your friends mixed with a verbose worldbuilidng text and an attempt to make a system out of a narrative.
Am I invested in its lore? Sure, Jenna's world is full of character and concepts strange enough to be engaging without even talking about the canon flexpoints to change as a GM. Do I enjoy the loose guidelines to hallucinate with my friends? Of course. Do I hate dice? BOY do I.
But the thing that I find the most fascinating about the whole set of systems is the (I'd dare to say, ever improving) attempt to make a system out basic narrative rules a good story has.
"Nah I'd Win" perfectly encapsulates the constantly one upping stakes common in anime, 2000s cartoons and... professional wrestling of all things. The act of bidding sets up the stage of what to win versus what to lose and constructs the setup of a scene, the failure is usually not lethal (every character in this system is virtually immortal, and purposely so) and allows to up the stakes even further and risking collateral damage or reaching a point of no return where your Unlimited Carpet Works swallows your character's loving family and now you have to deal with that trauma.
Chuubo is interesting to me in the way quests essentially offer a guideline to "how much is enough" and "how much too much" for a character's arc. Bonus XP sets up the mood of the quest, makes it constantly relevant to the story and avoids players forgetting about the important thing they were doing until they have a big climatic moment that usually doesn't feel deserved due to how sudden it was / how long it was since that plot point was introduced. Quest milestones are those "big dramatic moments" that are a fundamental part of the story moving forward, and is particularly important how those are usually... not good for the players.
For example, a sample quest in the book (remembering off the top of my head here) is taking care of a small child or creature. One of the milestones in it is having that thing you are caring for disappoint you or ruin your day to day life. This is something you, as the player, from a meta perspective WANT to happen, because it progresses the story, but at the same time, in character do not want to happen because, come on. It sucks.
And there lays why I love the Jennaverse's system. It encourages (and in the case of Chuubo, outright forces) the players to treat their characters as what they are. Characters in a story. It pushes players to take a bit more of a game master-y role in each session and prioritize what is the most narratively and thematically interesting thing to do, rather than just what their characters as people want to do. You want to do the action that encourages drama and an interesting resolution above the most optimal or most effective action to resolve a problem.
That is why I think the playgroup IS everything in the Jennaverse. No amount of lore, cool systems or concepts can change the fact the systems are fundamentally broken, the mechanics are kind of half expected to be forgotten (hell, Glitch outright says so) and the entire thing would collapse by having a single player who wants to "play" the game the same way you would play any other TTRPG.
The entire playgroup needs to be, at a bare minimum, this collage of pretentious/neurodivergent/just flat out insane people who all come with the expectation and acceptance that they are not here to play a game. They are here to tell a story in a weird ass world of high concepts and verbose text.
Quoting the woman herself: "It is less of a roleplaying game and more of an improv ethical philosophy and comedy jam session"
(... Still waiting for her to actually market one of the books as such)
When I commented about Jennaverse on the community post, I thought you were gonna cover come game I didn't know of from the animator who uses the name Jennaverse. Unrelatedly, my unwillingness to walk back public statements about my dislike for Chuubos and PbtA is how I lost a friend. Golden Sky Stories is the only diceless I've touched that I like, and I still think it would benefit from some sort of core randomization method.
I love her stuff, it's good shit. I dream of actually playing a Nobilis larp one day.
I've played and ran Nobilis before. In both vases, I had to make a setting primer, a character freation guide, and a mechanics index/cheat sheet, because the book itself doesn't care to present that information in a usable way. I do like Moran's writing, mostly. It just happens to be this massive obstacle that makes introducing the game to other peope effectively impossible. It seems to want you to play your actual, bonafide *god* as a flighty neurodivergent teenager, rather than a soldier in a divine warrior with the power to casually smite a fucking continent in half.
And that, right there, is why the game is impossible to recommend. Because if you get a player who wants to make the flighty teen, and a player who wants to make the divine soldier, the game is going to be fundamentally off and inevitably succumb to several people pulling this tortured system in too many directions.
God I love it tho
'Without you these things cease to exist'
NOOOOO SPRINGS!
If I ended up playing/GMing any of these, I'd look for any excuse to roll some dice.
The concepts are somewhat interesting.... but I do not have what it takes to delve through a 400+ page manual filled with LORE - at least not ever since I've moved past the high school lol.
I would love an amazon prime show based on glitch and nobilis, though.
I have played Noblesse in the past, and then know people who love Chuubo's. It's all starting to make sense on why I never enjoyed Noblesse, and didn't care to even try Chuubo's.
3:32
4:22
Is that a Fortissimo reference?
Fortissimo mentioned?
Oh boy.
I tried to listen to Glich and my eyes rolled over so hard I could see my own brain. It was painfully fucking boring and obstuse.
Maybe its because it can't be explained in a brief summary, but its amazing how little of an absolute fuck I gave about the lore when too much of the explanation was a "you are this, you are this, you do this, you, you you..." When I rather have a well defined world and setting and decide myself who I am and how I fit in that world, and actually do the roleplaying and my character development
5:20 so unlimited it lost an "n" from all these carpets
11:43 I've heard you BREAK
400 pages of lore and 50 rules.
I stare at what i have literally called a chuubo's heart breaker, and yes, that is entirely true, the game barely cracks like 80 pages. And i'm including a full set of arcs, and a totally different rules set.
Also i found it easier to make my own than teach chuubos, lol.
Oh God, not even 5 minutes in and I'm already confused
I am heartbroken Chubbo's isn't what I expected: a light-hearted romp with rules aimed at a younger audience which can be their gateway out of Dee and Dee. Alas, it's not.
Notepad lost the opportunity to put Judy Funny (Doug's beatnik older sister) theme song at the end. It would be perfect.
I ran Nobilis back when 2e came out. Maybe. I think. I had the book out and looked at it. I was never sure whether I was actually running the game the way the author intended though. It was mostly because I wasn't sure what the author intended. Having seen her answer that question since then, I still have no idea. I find the woman's writing style to be impenetrable even in short forum posts. It's like she is incapable of just saying what she means in plain language for the benefit of us simpletons. Everything is a performance even a simple rules explanation.
UNLIMITED CARPET WORKS
Can't ttrpg just be normal for once!
they are
But normal games aren't as fun to watch being dissected.
Coriel is cute