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I regret purchasing this in the ePub format. It is the most unfriendly, cumbersome, irritating format. I should have stuck with PDF. I will never buy anything in that format again. It has sucked the life out of trying to enjoy the material.
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This book was very helpful for getting a solid handle on Excrucians in general and Deceivers in particular. As is typical for a Nobilis product, it's excellently written and full of entertaining bits of short fiction. There's also some great art. The quality of the softcover book is also excellent; the pages are thick, quality paper and the background images and the other art is well-printed.
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This book is incredibly helpful in running Deceivers, but also excrucian NPCs. It has rules for playing them, so I suppose you could have that Nobilis/Excrucian team-up game you've always wanted.
It also has another of the 24 finales!
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Not only did this book help me understand Deceivers, it helped me understand Excrucians in general -- how they break through into reality, how they can be formed from the core of a human being, why they do what they do, and so on. That alone was worth the price of the book. But of course the meat of this supplement is the Deceivers themselves, and we get a WEALTH of information about them, particularly rules for building them from the ground up (with a clear and complete example), starting with an avatar/lifepath and ending with the actual attributes, bonds, etc. In theory, you could use this to play a Deceiver PC (and there are rules for that!) but in practice, this will help me (as GM) flesh out my Deceivers (and, to some degree, other Excrucians) and make each one a fully-developed character.
A strong recommendation for GMs, entirely optional for players (who may appreciate the general insight into Persona and be inspired by some of the concepts, which could equally apply to Nobles).
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I think it's hilarious that the largest complaint about this book from existing Nobilis fans is "They changed the art!!!" Why? Because this (third) edition changes so many major things. Literally half of the attributes have been replaced (goodbye Realm and Spirit, hello Persona and Treasure). Bonds and restrictions have gone from a mild weakness to one of the most expanded and important systems in the game. Chancels and Imperators are designed more loosely now, with no point system to min-max. Everything works BETTER in so many ways!
And I guess that's why people whine about the art. Because it's the only possible thing to complain about. (Well, that and the organization. I think this core book can be a little schizophrenic or ADHD in how it presents sections, even if those sections themselves are very clearly written. But that's not enough to knock off more than half a star, at worst.)
Well, I'm here to say that the art is GREAT! The relaxed, anime-style approach is exactly what Nobilis needed -- it's a wonderful change from the Serious Art Pieces of the second edition. I think it will help to dispel this notion that Nobilis is some pretentious, serious, intimidating game. Seriously, there are a LOT of gamers who look at Nobilis and think, "I can't run that. I wouldn't even know where to start!" and a large part of that is presentation. When the truth is, at heart, Nobilis really boils down to, "OMG I'm a demigod now. I can do cool miracles and stuff! I'M GONNA GO DO COOL STUFF!!! :D"
Nobilis can be played seriously or lighthearted, but no matter what, it's supposed to be FUN, and this new edition really puts that in the foreground. So five stars from me for taking an RPG I already loved and making it better, clearer, and more accessible. Thanks, Jenna and everyone involved!
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Let me start out this review by saying that, prior to its release, I had been eagerly anticipating Nobilis Antithesis, Minibook 1i for for several months. Ever since I first heard about its potential existence. A book on the Excrucians was something that I very much wanted since 2nd edition, and craved with the arrival of the 3rd edition. This book seemed to deliver on that promise, at least in part, purely from the concept. I was excited! The fact of the matter, however, is that author Jenna Moran both met and exceeded my expectations and delivered a book that completely floored me.
First, this book talks a good bit about Deceivers... where they come from, the kind of power they have over Creation, how the Flower Rite or the Rite of Two Skins function in play. It introduces a Lifepath system to let you flesh out Deceiver antagonists for your game or to actually create them as characters. The same system accomplishes both flawlessly! There's even character creation guidelines for a Deceiver that 'probably' balances well with the Nobilis characters, and numerous nods within the text (and the Lifepath system) to allowing a Deceiver character to co-exist with a Familia of powers. If that is what you want to do.
The book doesn't stop there. It does more than just explain to us what Deceivers are and how you might create one for your game.
It does one better: It gets into the nuts and bolts behind the way that their powers work. It gives us a number of Excrucians in varying level of detail, supplies guidelines on how their Persona-based powers work in game, provides worked up "Persona Miracle Charts" for most of the Decievers mentioned in the book. One of the new Deceivers so mentioned, Morrowen Hollow, is fully developed from concept to full-game stats as an example of the Lifepath system in action. The book even discusses creating Properties for the Excrucians' Pseudo-Estate, while the Lifepath system can help you do something that I've found quite difficult to do on my own. Namely, come up with interesting example Pseudo-Estates for Deceivers.
All of this, and its written in author Jenna Moran's usual voice, which adds color and humor to every page. So, Minibook 1i isn't just a great RPG manual but also a joy to read. Still not done singing its praises though; I was holding off on this review until I got my PoD. Rather than simply commenting on its quality (excellent; great binding, layout, no issues with 'full page bleed' or anything), I find myself once again simply overwhelmed. What was already a beautiful PDF is a breathtaking Print-on-Demand Full Color Softbound book with a very distinct (and gorgeous) art style. The illustrations just leap off the page, artist Miranda Harrell helps the Deceivers breakthrough into our reality through her medium, and her talents are joined by too many other wonderful artists for me to mention (except for Alexander Benekos, because, wow...)
Do you like Nobilis? Buy this now, and buy the PoD. You can thank me later.
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If you play Nobilis, or if you just read it, this is a worthy investment of your funds. It transforms the Deceivers from a cypher to a mandala of meaning, explaining what they do and why they do it in a way that doesn't spoil mysteries, but spawns them. It will enlarge the scope of your game and the ease with which you can include Deceivers in it.
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This expansion to the Nobilis game covers the Deceivers, one of the four kinds of Excrucians, making these enemies of reality playable at last. The book includes lifepaths for Excrucian characters and guidelines to designing and using pStates, the bizarre self-referential powers that Deceivers use.
Deceivers range from the hilarious to the terrifying and are frequently both. (Iolithae Septimian, whose lies frequently supplant reality, reaches out to the reader and says sweetly, "No one can really know whether God exists or not.") This book is completely suitable for those who want to play them or who want to use them as antagonists for standard Nobilis games.
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If you've ever taken a look at either of the Nobilises and thought "this is delectably ingenious, but I'm not sure I can swing getting inside the head of a being kissed by a god, ever dancing between transcendence and humanity. What would that even look like?"
It'd look a hell of a lot like this.
Now, while this isn't explicitly a Nobilis product -- though there's certainly an argument to be made in that direction, and I'm curious what "Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine" will spawn next -- _Fable of the Swan_ is, like its cousins, a mind-bending melange of the mythic and mundane built over a pretty awesome cosmology. You'll laugh (probably), you'll cry (possibly), you'll ponder the nature of storytelling and the topography of the soul (most definitely). Take a look!
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A worthy successor to Weapons of the Gods, ironing out the many small kinks of that previous edition and increasing the level of accessibility for all players.
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Absolutely buy this game. No excuses. Slogging through the occasionally clunky prose is more than worth it for the elegant core mechanic, simple and versatile combat system, and downright delightful character-advancement system. Seriously. Shut up and get your credit card out.
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The game itself is worth 4.5 stars, but mrs Moran hauntingly beautiful style of writing is worth half a star more. Each little entry , based on fictional books, which adorn the game has more sense of fantasy and wonder that most rpgs manage to cram in the whole work. One of those rare rpg books that can be readen once and again, even if you never intend to play it. It reminds me somewhat of Amber Diceless, another of my old time favourites. If you liked that game, youll probably like this one too.
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I was going to write a longer review, but then I decided that I've wasted enough time with that "game" already. Shortly put, the book is a mess. There's no better way to put it. Though the core rules could be presented in no more than 3 pages, somehow the author managed so spread them throughout the entire 900 page e-book. The style is horrible( The word "maybe" is etched in my mind forever. Every odd sentence begins with it.). I'll not delve into the absurdity of the flurry mechanic, which acts as the conflict resolver round, I'll just say it doesn't do the trick. This whole concept of the book pretends to support causality, but in fact there's none. As a narrative game Fate does the job more effectively and elegantly than Nobilis could hope to ( and btw the fate coins do the exact same effect as the miracles).
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The text is _excellent_ and the game is a fine one.
However, the illustrations have burnt through my eye to devour my soul and spit it into the far-beyond-the-world abyss. The horror. The horror of it all...
A text-only version with only the layout kept (logos, frames, etc) would be real good news.
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I hesitated between four and five stars, but the presentation problems are sufficient to knock a star off any book, even one this good. I've posted a fairly extensive review here
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/15/15366.phtml
if you want an extended overview. As far as the style of the book, the free download Preview will clarify that better than my or any other review.
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