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Review of In Nomine
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The Symphony, for reference, is pretty much everything. It's what normal life would be like in the cosmos, were it not for angels and demons who tend to run about on Earth and muck things up. When a celestial (In Nomine's term for an angel or demon) interrupts the flow of what otherwise would have happened, it causes Disturbance in the Symphony. (Doing damage to _anything_, in other words, causes Disturbance.)
Ahem. On to the review.
The book starts out with two vignettes, "A Bright Dream" and "A Dark Dream", which demonstrate rather aptly that angels aren't always necessarily good and kind creatures, and that demons don't necessarily always have to be dens of evil and corruption - although they generally are. In Nomine, you see, makes it clear that a good angel isn't necessarily good, just selfless - and that a good demon isn't always going to be evil, per se, just selfish.
In Nomine then goes on straight into mechanics - after the obligatory "If you don't like a rule, then change it" bit - and pretty much starts out with character creation. The background information that White Wolf players have come to expect from the beginning of any given book or supplement is, instead, mixed in with the rules. In a way, this is good, because you can go directly to Archangels instead of having to wade through pages and pages of other background to get to it - but on the other hand, it's so mixed in with the rules that many players simply miss information because they don't want to have to deal with learning another table.
This is where I bring up the first Weak Point of the book - it's not organized very well at all. Yes, character creation does start on page 27 (right after the half-page character sheets), but it breaks in the middle for game mechanics and combat and then returns, on page 70, and continues fully through page 187. Fortunately, the angels (and their Archangels) are clumped together, as are the demons (and their Demon Princes), and they're even within a reasonable approximation of being close to each other. The rest of the book, unfortunately, is abominably organized.
In with character creation I've lumped the sections on Celestials, because they are, technically, part of the process; however, these sections really deserve their own mention, because not only are they absolutely central to the entire game, but they sport what in my opinion is the best art in In Nomine. There are seven major Choirs of angels, and thirteen main Archangels; the demons have a requisite number of Bands and Demon Princes; and each has its own advantages and disadvantages, as well as a fairly direct opposite number. The Balseraphs, Hell's finest liars, for example, are Fallen Seraphim, Heaven's greatest truth-tellers. Likewise, Dominic, the Archangel of Judgment, has his opposite in Asmodeus, Demon Prince of the Game - and so on and so forth. I truly like this section, for the art, for the amount of description in it, and for the expandability - these are only the major Choirs and Bands, the main Superiors.
This last paragraph gives rise to possible Weak Points Two and Three, which are Bloodline Syndrome and Cartoony Art. Bloodline Syndrome is the problem of giving the players the option to make whatever character class seems appropriate - so that, in some campaign out there, there's bound to be the Bloodline That Wears Silly Hats, or something to that effect. I don't consider this a problem; many do. Cartoony Art is a problem some people have with Dan "Smif" Smith's art; they claim that it's, well, too cartoony for the subject matter. My opinion is that In Nomine is as humorous a game as it is a serious one, and that Smif's art is completely appropriate, silly when it can be silly and darkly serious when it has to be darkly serious.
The fourth Weak Point of In Nomine is its mechanics; for every roll, you roll d666 - 3d6, in standard terms - where the first two dice determine whether you succeeded and the third by how much you succeeded or failed. Skill level, up to a certain point, does not determine how well you do, but how much of a chance of succeeding you get. Exceptional Skills and Characteristics do increase how well you do after a point - but only once you gain autosuccesses, and that only happens when your target number gets to 12 or higher. Skills also have GURPS-style defaults; if you don't have the skill, you subtract a certain number from the related characteristic, which in many cases drastically lowers your chances of succeeding, and in some cases may give you a negative target number Combat, on that note, is very fast, fluid, and cinematic in In Nomine.
Most of the time, if you have even a semi-physical character, you'll be rolling against very high target numbers, which means that it's very hard to miss - but using weapons with which you're not familiar can be very dangerous; each weapon skill has a required specialty, and if you're using an unspecialized weapon you pay the full default penalty, which on some weapons can subtract 4 from your target number...
The last segment of the book deals with non-angel or -demon characters, such as human Soldiers, relievers and imps, as well as containing sample characters and rules for character advancement. These are good summaries - but someone who wants to play one of these ought to check out the Player's Guides (Angelic and Infernal are out now, and Corporeal will be coming soon).
All in all, I enjoy In Nomine, both as a book and as a system and world to play in. I recommend this book to anyone looking for a superheroes/supervillains game with a mix of humor and deep sobriety; I would hastily shoo away those looking for system and mechanics, as these are not the game's highlights.
Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)
