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You now have a rough idea of what Noumenon is like.
Comparisons aside, this game single-handedly wins the prize for being the weirdest RPG in our hobby’s history. The following review will attempt to convey what Noumenon is like, but I expect it won’t succeed because it’s really the kind of product you have to read from cover to cover at least once in order to get what it’s all about. Still, I’ll try my best, and hopefully that will help some of you to decide if checking it out is worth your hard-earned cash.
Before you read on, I urge you to take the time to read the preview of Noumenon available here, as it will introduce you to a few basic concepts, to the game mechanics, and to part of the tone of the book’s prose.
Style – An overall impression
Physically, Noumenon is of standard RPG size and is 112 pages thick. The binding seems well done, and the paper used feels like it’s of better quality than most RPGs published in black and white. The font size is reasonably small, but the editing is rather generous on the margins space. The layout is very well done, however, and those large outside margins never feel empty thanks to a cool, tarot-inspired border (the same one used in the preview linked above). The choice of fonts serves the game well, although I’m under the impression I would’ve found the font used to mark chapters and subsections ugly if it wasn’t so in-synch with Noumenon’s mood and contents. Lastly, I haven’t noticed a single typo in the whole book, which is just awesome considering how typos and RPGs often go hand in hand.
The book’s illustrations are very well done, and set the mood of the game wonderfully. If you took the time to check out the game’s preview, you got to see a fairly representative sample of the art of Noumenon. Moreover, the huge majority of those illustrations actually fit the content of the page on which they are featured, which is something of a rare treat in RPGs.
Finally, the book’s prose – just like the rest of Noumenon – will not be everyone’s cup of tea. This said, I found that it was mostly very good. While the two chapters dealing with the game aspect of Noumenon are written in a straight-forward fashion, it bears mentioning that it isn’t so with those parts of the book that present the setting (which is to say, most of it). The tone of those parts keeps changing from section to section almost randomly. Some of it is written in the first person, some of it is third person narration, some is objective descriptions, and some is almost conversational by including lines in italic that comment or contradict stuff that’s written in normal format. These changes in tone can be confusing, but they’re actually the whole point as they end up providing a very impressionist grasp of what the game is all about. As you’ll read below, that approach is very much of a design goal, so it can’t be chalked up as a lack of coherence.
Content – Chapter by chapter
The book begins with a chapter called “invitation”, which is presented in its entirety in the preview under the header “introduction.” Basically, this chapter sets the stage for the rest of the book by presenting the basic concepts of the game. Here, we are told that the players are Sarcophagi, insects that walk as men. We learn that they are trapped in a weird structure called the Silhouette Rouge, and that other creatures called the Others also wander it. The story of the Lost One, the only being who managed to escape the Silhouette Rouge, is also recounted. Apparently, the only way out is by solving the Nine Enigmas, which can be achieved by exploring the seventy-eight rooms of the weird environment that is now your new home.
Another page and a half of the first chapter deal with the game aspect of Noumenon. It presents the themes of the game (mystery and abstraction), and the goal the players are supposed to pursue (to experience the Silhouette Rouge). It warns that the game was written for experienced gamers, and that it will thus not bother explaining standard terms. Finally, it introduces the key element behind Noumenon’s design, which is pretty darn essential in order to both understand the game and appreciate it for what it is : the game is built like a Rorschach.
(For those of you who don’t know what a Rorschach is, or don’t clearly understand what the implications of Noumenon being built like one are, I’ll take the time to make a tangent and explain it as best I can. A Rorschach inkblot test is a type of projective test used in clinical psychology. (You can view the best known Rorschach inkblot by clicking here.) Basically, the assumption behind any projective test is that presenting an ambiguous stimulus to a patient and asking him a question related to it (in the case of the Rorschach: “what do you see?”) will help along the expression of inner thoughts that would not have otherwise been expressed. In other words, there is no right answer. The same is true of Noumenon. The things left unsaid, the questions left unanswered, are what actually matter. Its setting is built with huge gaping holes in it, and its surreal imagery obviously has symbolic meaning behind it, but that meaning is never revealed and rarely hinted at. The gamble of Noumenon’s design is that by providing gamers with such an ambiguous “gamescape”, something interesting, fun, and original will emerge during the either GM’s prep work or the actual course of play. Or both. In any case, that’s how I understand it.)
The second chapter, named “chrysalis” recounts the birth of the colony of Sarcophagi – in other words, the gaming group. It tells us that they used to be something else (humans, most likely), but that they are “born” into the Silhouette Rouge as tabula rasa. It also introduces the Logos, a divine-like presence the Sarcophagi are linked to, and the Lodestar, the avatar of the aforementioned Logos that appears in the guise of a man in a business suit with the head of an elephant. There’s everything you need in there to play the “entrance” of the PCs into the Silhouette Rouge as your first adventure, plus rules for character creation.
Creating a character is fairly simple. You choose a birthright, which is a cool insect feature like mandibles or wings, and then you put a score of one in each of the nine sometimes oddly named attributes you have as a character, which can ultimately rated from 1 to 5. (You can find the character sheet here if you’re wondering what those traits are.) Then you get nine points to spend on other birthrights or higher attribute ranks, on a one-for-one basis. Finally, you have to choose which of three principles you want to be slightly good at for starters. Depending on which you choose, you get to do cool things like see through someone else’s eyes, read and control thoughts, or control time and be just like Hiro Nakamura from Heroes (except, you know, the fact that you’re an insect trapped in a metaphor.) That’s all there is to it. Because the Sarcophagi don’t have a past, there is no need for character background, contacts, resources and some such. And because the Sarcophagi have a past, they have access to any and all skill they might need, though they don’t know why or how. I think the correct latin term is tabula sorta rasa.
The third chapter, “initiation”, presents the first floor of the Silhouette Rouge, called the Prima Materia. Imagine a big central room (the Grand Foyer), and three hallways leading to seven doors each. Initiation, the lengthiest chapter of the book by far, is dedicated to presenting each of the twenty-one rooms of the Prima Materia, which are supposed to form the basic alphabet of the Silhouette Rouge. The writing style for each room varies wildly, as does the content. Some deal with the story of the Lost One, others present ethical dilemmas, yet others allow the PCs to discover about their past life, some lead to epiphanies while other still are simply mysteries or physical challenges. Mind you, I’m still not exactly sure which room deal with which. Finally, the chapter shortly describes a spiralling stairway called the Conch that leads to the upper floor of the Silhouette Rouge.
Chapter four, “chaos”, presents a phenomenon that sometimes strikes the Prima Materia – reality spasms. When one of those strikes, the internal logic of the Silhouette Rouge goes out the proverbial window in an unexpected way, like the whole place tilting or sounds being muted. Interestingly, while the Others are left thoroughly messed up by this phenomenon, the Sarcophagi themselves can adapt to it because they have free will and can evolve. Also, weird individuals that come from elsewhere, called Surgineers, sometimes appear during those reality spasms in order to try to abduct the Sarcophagi. Yet another mystery added.
The fifth chapter, entitled “symphony”, deals with the upper floor of the Silhouette Rouge. The central hall is a decrepit shadow of the Grand Foyer, and there are four hallways rather than three. This time, the focus is on the hallways rather than the rooms, as the doors found in each hallway (and most of the time the rooms that lie beyond them) are thematically linked. Once again, the writing style varies from one description to another.
The sixth chapter, “antithesis”, deals with Nowhere. It seems that the Silhouette Rouge is located in the middle of nowhere, because Nowhere is basically what lies outside of the Silhouette Rouge. Snow, abandoned vehicles, radio static and giant bats that prey on the Sarcophagi. Nowhere is creepy as hell – at least, it creeps me out.
The seventh and last chapter dedicated to the setting of Noumenon, “marionettes”, deals with the Others. After underlining how different they are from the Sarcophagi – they are mostly two-dimensional beings going through the motions – a few of the most interesting Others are presented. From a butterfly who dreams she is a woman to a minotaur, with a blender-like messiah called The Machinery of Virtue thrown in for kicks, the Others presented really do manage to be interesting.
The eight chapter, called “experience” switches to a more straight-forward style of writing and presents the system, which uses dominoes. The basics of the system are presented in the above-linked preview, so I’ll focus on dissecting it rather than explaining it. The system leaves me under the impression that it’ll work very much as advertised. This said, it’s not that impressing. Very rules-light, it’s not the kind of system that impresses with its bits and pieces. Clearly, it was designed to do two things : be a simple method of task resolution, and put the emphasis on how much stronger (in the broad sense) the Sarcophagi are when they stick together as a colony. It does the latter very well, and does the former okay.
The game achieves putting emphasis on the strength of the colony above that of the individual in two ways. First is the group action mechanics, which are explained in the preview. Second is the fact that the hit points in Noumenon, called Salubrity, are collective. When a Sarcophagi suffers, the whole colony suffers.
Most of the chapter is dedicated to explaining better what attribute comes into play under what circumstances, and giving advice on how to set difficulty levels. Also explained are the mechanical effects of birthrights. The combat rules are a logical offspring of the regular task resolution mechanics, with a rule or two added. The most interesting part of that chapter, however, is definitely the section on how the Sarcophagi can harness and manipulate the energy of reality spasms. Basically, a level of difficulty is set for each type of manipulation. The details of those manipulations (like binding or hurting someone with those energies, possibly anywhere in the Silhouette Rouge), however, really manage to make the Sarcophagi downright scary when you consider the amount of world-shaking power they actually have at their disposal. That, coupled with the section that details the way the three principles work, contribute a whole lot to making the Sarcophagi more than puny insects running in a maze.
The last and final chapter, ”abiogenesis”, is basically GM advice. It provides are tips to portraying the Others and underlining how inherently different (less human) they are from the Sarcophagi. It also underlines a bit more the central themes and motifs of Noumenon, and gives advice on how to use the mysteries of the Silhouette Rouge to help along character development. Some of the advice given on that last part, namely writing backgrounds for the characters and revealing them slowly to the players, would be bad advice for most game. However, since the whole thing is central to Noumenon, it’s pretty safe to assume your players are aware that such things are bound to happen if they agreed to play it. It also takes a page or two to put further emphasis on the fact that Noumenon is built like a Rorschach where you decide what the answers are, while providing a few ideas of what the truth might vaguely be. Finally, very simple rules for experience points are provided. Once again, group actions are rewarded.
At the end of the book is the appendix, which presents the various stats of most of the Others presented throughout the book, and the character sheet, which I linked to earlier in this review.
The Bottom Line
Style-wise, Noumenon earns a five. The artwork is excellent, the layout is okay, and the text has an amazing lack of typos. What really earns the five, however, is how thoroughly Noumenon’s prose contributes to the game. Had it been written otherwise, the rating I’m about to give it for content would not have been the same.
This said, I want to underline something that might not be obvious from this review or from the preview I linked to. Throughout the abstraction, the references to psychology and philosophy, the tone of exaltation of some of the prose, Noumenon manages not to come across as pretentious. Weird, sure. Written while under the influence of drugs, maybe. Ambitious, you betcha. But not pretentious. The game doesn’t pretend it’s the next thing in gaming, nor that it’ll change your life, or lead to insight about the true nature of your inner psyche. Basically, the authors come across as people trying to come up with something different. Not better, just different. Frankly, kudos to them, because that’s the only way a game like Noumenon can float.
Content is a tricky thing, especially considering how the lack of content in some areas is basically a design feature in Noumenon. I’ll state the obvious : Noumenon is not for everyone. While I like it, I’m sure a lot of people won’t. Yet, I want to judge the game on its own merits – which is to say : does it reach the design goals it has set for itself?
It bears mentioning that Noumenon really does give you the freedom to choose your own answers, and does not hint in any way at an “official” answer that you might eventually discover. You may not know it, but that’s a tremendous achievement. Let’s compare it to Tribe 8, for instance. Every book in the line encouraged you to interpret a bunch of elements of the setting for yourself, yet you totally could tell that there was an official interpretation buried underneath. To me, there’s nothing more limiting than knowing that a right answer exists, and then being told to come up with my own answer. I’d much rather know the official answer, and decide for myself to discard it if I don’t like it. Not so with Noumenon: there really is no official, no secret explanation. The Silhouette Rouge can be a prison like in The Matrix, the last dying moments of a man like in Jacob’s Ladder, a purgatory like in some interpretations of Silent Hill, or an experiment like in Cube. Or something in-between. It’s all about what you read between the lines.
In the end, Noumenon earns a four in regards with content. It would’ve earned a five if not for the fact that its internal design logic might very well be self-defeating in the end. While I can imagine myself running a game of Noumenon, I’m guessing some people will love the game to death but won’t ever be able to come up with an adventure for it because it’s so abstract. While that abstraction is very much a design goal, a universal design goal for RPGs will always be to be easily played by everyone who dig the game’s concept. With Noumenon, the very nature of the game makes reaching that goal difficult, if not impossible. Not everyone will be able to play that game, even if they want to. However, because that problem is unavoidable due to the nature of the game, it still deserves a four.
Happy Gaming, Jocelyn
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