I don’t know, Aura … the shit I find for you — if it isn’t steampunk cosplay outfits suitable for both a pandemic and kink, it’s American Gods: The RPG:
Nobilis: the Game of Sovereign Powers
“One of the weirdest RPGs in existence. American Gods meets Call of Cthulhu meets Sandman. Players are Powers, sometimes called Nobles, who embody aspects of reality. Fire. Knives. Crime. Medicine. They work for often jerkface gods and fight a Forever War against invaders from outside reality. Diceless system. Slightly crunchy. Disgustingly good art. Make sure you get the edition with the cover shown. Other editions are dodgy.” — Oscar, here.
The following books by Moran have been published for the Nobilis role-playing game:
- Nobilis: A Roleplaying Game (1st edition) ISBN 0–9673180–1–7
- Nobilis: The Game of Sovereign Powers (2nd edition) ISBN 1–899749–30–6
- Creatures Clothed in Strangeness (2nd edition, supplemental)
- Unlikely Flowerings (2nd edition, supplemental)
- The Game of Powers: The Live-Action Supplement for Nobilis ISBN 1–899749–36–5
- Nobilis The Essentials Volume 1: Field Guide to the Powers (3rd edition) ISBN 978–0–9833659–0–7
- Nobilis: Antithesis, Minibook 1i
I don’t think you’ll want to pay the astronomical price for the first edition rules at Amazon.
Although having said that …
“An incomprehensible masterpiece. If you want a tabletop game for actually playing, get 3rd ed. If you want beautiful art, darkly wonderful prose, and glorious presentation, get this one — although if you’re serious about running Nobilis, you should get this one in addition to 3rd edition, as it’s got some very detailed and interesting setting information as well”
So, if you can’t find it anywhere else, who knows? But the customer reviews may help you make your mind up.
There appears to be an even earlier (1999) first edition, which is much cheaper, but bear in mind the caveat re ‘dodgy’ editions.
The second edition is available here.
Dunno where you’d get hold of the third edition rules (q.v. the Wikipedia entry), as they don’t appear to be cheap either …
Here, maybe? (Dunno. I’m not about to sign up to find out).
Dunno if this is it (it’s a comparative steal, if it is though):
But here’s a review of it at least:
Although, as noted elsewhere: “The game is very atmospheric, but the atmosphere has changed a bit since the second edition. The earlier editions were somewhat dark and moody, which some people can find a bit off-putting. The new edition is based in the same setting, but seems to recast everything to be somehow…cuter,” so YMMV.
[Supplements]
… containing “rules on “Exclusive attributes” (various optional attributes covering powers such as High Summoning and Alchemical magic), rules to cover non-Nobilis/Imperator level characters in the system (from mortals up to transcendent creatures such as Yggdrasil itself), and some information on the nature of the Lands Beyond Creation and the inhabitants thereof.”
Creatures Clothed in Strangeness
Apparently “It contains updates to the Rules Templates described in Unlikely Flowerings, a collection of information about several entities found in the setting, and an extensive section on Talismanic Sempstry, i.e. miraculous clothing and accessories crafted and worn by miraculous entities. The Sempstry section also has detailed rules concerning fashion in general as a type of symbolic power.” — from here.
It may be found here … or here, perhaps … but there’s discussion of it here.
How available any of the following are, I really have no idea:
“This book tells you what the Deceivers are about. It tells you some of their stories and it tells you a bunch of useful stuff for creating and playing them in your game.”
I don’t know if it’s the same as the one listed on DriveThruRPG though:
[Hors Série]
The Fandom wiki contains some background material that might provide some insight into the ‘look and feel’ of the game, as it were:
There’s also a paperback The Game of Powers: Nobilis RPG Live Action Supplement available on Amazon (which “expands the worlds and rules of Nobilis, moving play away from the tabletop and into live action”), if you wanna take it into an IRL homage to your favourite actors in the medium of dance (or whatever) … but I don’t really see that they’d add anything to a (give or take) freeform game or that you couldn’t devise your own adaptations.
Right … that’s as much as I’m prepared to investigate but, although it may have taken time and serendipity to find the answer to your previous request for recommendations, I really do think this is probably the one for you: any game in which “philosophy […] is a full-contact sport” and “an assault on the colour yellow makes sense,” is probably worthy of your attention — if anyone I know is gonna do justice to the concept of a game in which the forbidden love between Yellow and Waves is betrayed by jealous Metaphysics, it’s you and/or Forrest the Great ¹.
Obviously, you are at liberty to choose another game … one of these (or indeed any other that tickles your fancy) … but you don’t need me to tell you how contemptuous I will be, if you pick anything but Nobilis and that, furthermore, any attempt to plead “but the rest of the group is invested in D&D and I can’t bring myself to attempt to change that state of affairs” (or any other such feeble-arsed excuse for being slack and not bringing everyone onboard for the new system and campaign(s)), will only result in a response of “Call the Samaritans,” if you’re lucky and I’m feeling charitable … something altogether less hippy-dippy “let’s all sit in a circle, holding flowers and sing Kumbayah,” if I’m not — compassion I have in abundance but, if you’re looking for sympathy, you’ll find it between shit and syphilis in the dictionary, not here.
Inspiration for your estate and/or chancel may be found in the writings of a teenage girl I encountered on the Jennifer Government Nation States site many moons ago, who devised the most impressively original material I’ve read … vastly superior to Gaiman’s characters and world — the major players (from Dementia to some six or so other archetypes decidedly more inventively original in conception than Gaiman’s ³) were all locked in their own (purple) realms by some great power, whilst the spirit of Scott Joplin (reincarnated as a player piano) orchestrated his bid for world domination behind the scenes.
I also recommend reading Barker’s Abarat series — perhaps Imajica and, maybe, Gallilee … (Weaveworld and Cabal at a pinch).
If you wanna get really fey, you could take a look at Moers’ Zamonia series — but I’m not sure it would serve any more than as a catalyst for thinking about things a bit differently rather than worldbuilding as such.
So, get it together and sort it out — I expect a report on how the first game went in the very near future (not later than Christmas). Yes, you can play it during a global pandemic (that’s what Zoom/Skype/whatever was invented for ⁴)— don’t be tedious … don’t make me hurt (or, at least, witheringly scorn) you.
—
¹ You should possibly both collaborate on it — it could be thing of terrible beauty ².
² A Canada-Aruba collaboration between two girls (at least one of whom is left-handed) … anything could happen!
³ Death? Really? How pedestrian — he’d been done to … well, death … long before Sandman.
⁴ Alternatively … during my explorations/investigations, I found a few places where people appear to have been playing it as a literary/dramaturgical ‘pen-and-paper/correspondence-style’ game — which wouldn’t be my thing, but I’m not a writer of fiction and it might be something you felt more comfortable with than me, I don’t know … but it goes to show there’s more than one way to slit a cat’s throat and you could, possibly play both D&D and Nobilis in different (ha) realms of your life.
