A Review, on Nicotine Patch Day 50

[spectremeat]

I purchased In Nomine today. For those who don't know, In Nomine was written by a Frenchman named Croc way back in the day, and is a RPG about angels and demons fighting each other on Earth, with the human population caught in the crossfire. Originally, its title was In Nomine Satanis/Magna Veritas, and it was sold as two books in a black box --

Comments

[arcanusvitae]

According to RPG folks, Jackson's In Nomine doesn't hold a candle to the original Croc version. In fact, IN seems to be the prime example of what not to do with a translation.

Not that that takes away from my love of the book, of course.

-Patrick

[spectremeat]

...IN seems to be the prime example of what not to do with a translation.

Based on what?

[arcanusvitae]

I don't see it myself.
But according to the people on RPG.net, Steve Jackson took a whole LOT of liberties with the original work. Something about Blandine, the Archangel of Flowers. *shrug*

-Patrick

[spectremeat]

The people on RPG.net are therefore ignorant of the fact that Jackson had nothing to do with the writing of the book -- he just supervised the system development. But that's just me picking at nits -- and a little bitter at those people and their general narrow-mindedness.

[pope_guilty]

Mmmm, IN.

[spectremeat]

It scales horribly (so it only really works for characters under 200 points)

The standard point value of a character is 100 -- meaning Joe Average. If you want to play Joe Average, or the starting shmuck in a straight fantasy RPG, then that's what you get. The reason it scales horribly up until characters hit the 150-200pt level is because that's where most people are going to start playing, if they're familiar with it.

it has insane twink potential (making the relative power scale worthless)

It has insane everything potential. If they left out the twink factor, it wouldn't be Universal. But something to keep in mind is that the game you're playing in is only going to be twink-happy if the sourcebooks are twink-happy, and if the GM is twink-happy. A lot of both are not.

and it's way too nitpicky.

It's supposed to contain all of the rules for simulationist roleplay. You don't have to use them all.

It also as john puts it a system that requires a graphing calculated to create a character.John would be mistaken. It was the

[spectremeat]

It scales horribly (so it only really works for characters under 200 points)

Sorry... I misread what you said. I thought you'd said it scales horribly FOR characters under 200 points.

But hey, even then, if the system only scales right if you have a low-point character, how can it be too twink-friendly? That doesn't add up, man.