InXile Entertainment - Torment successor set in Monte Cook's Numenera
 

In a must-read interview at Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Inxile boss Brian Fargo reveals their spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment will be set in Numenera, a new, original Monte Cook setting.
If you recall, when the Torment mark expired InXile registered it and hired Colin McComb to lead the efforts on a spiritual successor. They have now decided to collaborate with Monte Cook, celebrated PnP designer and one of the original authors of Planescape along with Colin, for this spiritual successor.
First, a quick snip from the Numenera website:
…and from the RPS interview:
More information.

Ever since Kickstarter happened, my gaming future seems to get brighter and brighter :D.

I was not aware of this recently Kickstarted Numenera but I really like this setting. A Torment themed RPG within this setting simply sounds fantastic!

Yeah the setting seems really interesting. It's heavily reminiscent of Jack Vance's "The Dying Earth" - which makes a lot of sense since that's pretty much where the original DnD games lifted their entire magic system (mechanics and spell nomenclature not abstract lore).

Those stuff is definetly a must read. Exotic… Bizzare… Etc…
Can't wait for more news.

Why are they doing this anyway? I feel like stoned now. Cmon, finish the details, show it to us and let us just drool over it for days. They're not fair!

I have a feeling that if they had announced this with the Numenera kickstarter still ongoing, it would have broken a million easily because people like us would have gobbled it up as background material for the new torment game.

In the meantime, seriously consider giving some of the "Dying Earth" stories a read. Should give an idea of just how weird the setting might be, and they're also pretty damned important influences in modern scifi and fantasy. To that extent George R.R. Martin, Dan Simmons, and about a dozen other popular scifi and fantasy authors have written tribute stories (a collaborative "Tales of the Dying Earth" collection of short stories) and also referenced him in their more well known works.

This is really great news and I like everything Fargo said in the interview.

Numenera looks like a fascinating new setting and I also love Vance / the Dying Earth series. And we know that Monte Cook is good with game mechanics so the game system should be sound.

For such a huge project they asked for a very small amount of money. I will hold judgement till I see the final project.

You do realize there has not been any kickstarter for this video game yet right? There has been one for the PnP RPG from which the game will get its setting; for one of those kickstarters the 500k+ garnered is pretty sizeable.

Good had me worried about it. Thanks for clarifying the kickstarter. I thought it was for the game.:blush:

What are the chances of them waiting until October 2013 before doing the Kickstarter? I'd like to see if InExile can produce before I send more money their way.

I'll probably do it anyway, but it the principle of the thing.

Quite a surprise on all fronts—-I'd have a hard time thinking the KS won't launch sometime this year though since they went to the trouble to do the interview and all to be highly conservative. Will not be surprised if they try to jump in for Spring/Summer as that was when some of the various failed Winter KS bids cited as the next Active Time.

I hope this snowballs, and we get all kinds of crazy stuff going forward like a new Tunnels & Trolls PC RPG to follow the good favor their new T&T P&P Edition is getting on KS and pretty much any other wild entrances along similar lines. Never been a better time to get P&P properties represented in PC gaming!

If it snowballs then I want my Rolemaster "Dark Space" RPG out next! I only ever got to read those rules, never actually play them.

The only book I brought with me 19 years ago when I moved to Uppsala to start my studies were Cugel´s saga, by Jack Vance.

There are definitely interesting times ahead!

C

Take my money! Take it!

Yes, I'd support this as a KS project without a doubt. I see lots of potential here: Very interesting setting, the right people involved, a lot of good ideas. It certainly sounds very, very promising.

Edit: I think this just hit the top spot of my most wanted list along with Project Eternity, despite not knowing a whole lot about it.

I really like the potential of the Numenera setting. System-wise its got a good core for cRPG, but it's not ideal in and of itself (it is focused on GM-agency and simplicity, neither of which translate 1-on-1 to PC). I already discussed that stuff with the core team and they've got a lot of flexibility.

I'm excited!

Honestly? Not too big. inXile has a core team in place right now. Colin, Kevin, Adam, working out the outline, setting up the basics, but as it rolls into pre-production they need more writers, concept artists, etc., even before Wasteland 2 is finished. That all costs money. inXile has some of its own revenues but not a lot and they absolutely refuse to take a cent from Wasteland 2's budget (naturally). If it was feasible I think they'd wait until Wasteland 2 is out, but that would only be possibly by firing Colin, Kevin, Adam and putting the project on hold until then, and then try to get the team back together and start from pre-production. As Brian explained, that's just not an ideal way of doing things.

You're right to be concerned and I don't think anyone can object if you go "I'll wait and see for Wasteland 2 before pre-ordering", but at the same time they're stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to budgeting and project planning. They do need to do this or create a very unfavorable project rollover environment.

Insta-pledge. The setting sounds intriguing and I am curious to see what they can come up with.

Though, as far as I can see, the connection with PST is a loose one at best (other than some of the original creators being involved)…

I almost pledge to Numénera despite not doing any table top. I guess that I should have. I collection PnP manuals. ;)

Fargo sure knows how to say the right words… I really like what he said about the game here, and the team sounds excellent. I get the feeling they have a clear vision of what they want to achieve here, more than PE did. I am also rather glad that this is a thematic or spiritual sequel rather than a direct sequel to PS:T, which told a complete story that really doesn't lend itself very well to a sequel, imho.

Monte Cook's name on this gave me pause since he isn't known for having any regard for game balance, but the setting sounds cool. As long as they keep him away from the cRPG rules, it should be good.

A game that relies mostly on name recognition for a license they don't own. I guess I'm a little bit skeptical at this point. But, for me, having Monte Cook on the team is a positive. We'll see…

How is this a successor to Torment?

Only in a spiritual and thematic sense, although inXile owns the "Torment" name. Still, you have the original creators of the Planescape setting, a writer and concept artist from Torment, Chris Avellone's blessing and, of course, Fargo headed up Interplay.

Interesting infobit. I hadn't heard that and I was playing D&D as a kid when it was a new thing. It makes sense, though. I recognized Michael Moorcock's alignment system right away, and of course the Tolkien influences are inescapable. The creators of D&D seem to have had the same interests in fiction I did, though as far as I know I never read anything by Vance.

The Planescape setting means nothing if they can draw their ideas from the same sources that the early PnP designers did. Provided they do an equally good job of it, that is. And if they don't, well… there's a pretty good chance they wouldn't have done a good job of capturing the spirit of Planescape, either. Franchise licenses just restrict devs to complying with somebody else's requirements and there's no guarantee that won't hurt rather than help the end product, considering none of those franchises are still under the control of the original creators. And how many of today's gamers really have such an emotional investment in obscure (relatively speaking) game systems that were created 30 or more years ago that having the name on the title screen is a make or break for them, anyway? The connection to Torment is much more important.

Whichever direction we ultimately take it, we’ll be giving combat considerable attention – we are aware that one of the criticisms of PST (including from Avellone) was its combat and we want to improve upon that aspect. The Numenera combat system provides a stronger starting place for a cRPG than AD&D 2nd Edition did and we’ll prototype early so that we have ample time to iterate over the course of the project.

Rules-based combat systems are great and I hope they use a good one, but the specific rules chosen have never been the problem. Somebody here want to tell me that Fallout 2 had more tactical, more challenging and more interesting combat than Jagged Alliance 2? No? Well, that's certainly not the fault of D&D, is it? Doesn't really seem like rocket science to understand why devs whose game was about combat first and foremost were able to make the combat better than devs who viewed the combat as filler their storytelling game. I want both. I want it all. If I don't get it, too bad for me, but I don't want to hear all that crap I used to hear about limitations of the rule system that was being used.

Well the first edition DMG actually had a bibliography in the back listing all their inspirations, if you're curious as to how much your interests align beyond that:


Anderson, Poul. Three Hearts and Three Lions; The High Crusade; The Broken Sword
Bellairs, John. The Face in the Frost
Brackett, Leigh. Entire body of work
Brown, Fredric. Entire body of work
Burroughs, Edgar Rice. Pellucidar series; Mars series; Venus series
Carter, Lin. World's End series
de Camp, L. Sprague. Lest Darkness Fall; Fallible Fiend, et al.
de Camp, L. Sprague, and Fletcher Pratt. Harold Shea series; Carnelian Cube
Derleth, August. Entire body of work
Dunsany, Lord. Entire body of work
Farmer, Philip Jose. The World of the Tiers series, et al.
Fox, Gardner. Kothar series; Kyrik series, et al.
Howard, Robert E. Conan series
Lanier, Sterling. Hiero's Journey
Lieber, Fritz. Fafhrd & Gray Mouser series (a.k.a. Lankhmar series), et al.
Lovecraft, H.P. Entire body of work, especially his Cthulhu series
Merritt, A. Creep, Shadow, Creep; Moon Pool; Dwellers in the Mirage, et al.
Moorcock, Michael. Stormbringer, Stealer of Souls; Hawkmoon series (especially the first three books)
Norton, Andre. Entire body of work
Offutt, Andrew J., editor. Swords Against Darkness III
Pratt, Fletcher. Blue Star, et al.
Saberhagen, Fred. Changeling Earth, et al.
St. Clair, Margaret. The Shadow People; Sign of the Labrys
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Hobbit; Lord of the Rings trilogy
Vance, Jack. The Eyes of the Overworld; The Dying Earth, et al.
Zelazny, Roger. Jack of Shadows; Amber series, et al.
"Countless hundreds of comic books…the long-gone EC ones certainly had their effect. Science fiction, fantasy, and horror movies were a big influence."

Besides Tolkien, Gygax singled out "de Camp & Pratt, Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, H.P. Lovecraft, and A. Merritt" as having the most significant influences.

Easiest way to see the Vance influence would be to read the short story "Mazarian the Magician."

"Entire body of work" for many entries! I like it. They were compulsive readers, like me. I've also read the entire body of work of many of those authors, such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, Michael Moorcock, L. Sprague DeCamp, Tolkien (of course), Robert E. Howard, etc. In fact, I'd say I've read the entire body of work of about 3/4 of the authors on that list. But then there are cases such as Vance where I'm familiar with them but decided not to read anything they'd written. Odd! I assume I have tastes in common with somebody, but not with somebody else.

Thanks for posting that :)

I just hope they don't get too bogged down in dialogue again in this new Torment. I enjoyed PS:T but the excessive verbosity just made me quit playing. I don't usually mind text but in that one it was too much. I also sometimes feel like I'm the only one that had a problem with it, like I'm the only one here that didn't like Gothic.

I liked the first Gothic but I think that was mostly because there wasn't that much else on the market, and it was different. The rest from those guys I'm kinda "blah" about. On the other hand, I liked Torment a lot :)

It's very story and narrative heavy, that's one of the things that ties it to PS:T. If you didn't like PS:T for those reasons, you're unlikely to like this game. Just the way it is, doesn't have to appeal to everyone!

Nope, you're definitely not the only one. I quit Torment about 2/3 of the way in. I also couldn't get into Gothic at all. I enjoyed Gothic 3 for quite awhile though.

I didn't mind the verbosity, but for me the "with pause" combat was a real turn off and I eventually put it down for that reason. I want to say that turn-based combat is just inherently better, but I guess that's not reasonable.

I kinda liked what they did with JA:BIA with that "plan and go" thing. Real time with pause is better than real time without pause, but that's about all I can say about it. I find myself chronically pausing and stomping all over my own orders because I'm never sure which characters have done what they were told and which haven't at any given point.

I actually prefer RTWP to pure turn-based. I cringe when I hear people say that they think the Infinity Engine games would have been better with TB combat. Are you kidding me? Baldur's Gate would take about a year to play through if all those encounters were turn-based. :)

If you'd actually played the Gold Box games first (before the infinity engine games) you might understand much better the argument regarding turn based combat. ;)
I think those formative experiences (which ever you played first) in some way provide a framework by which many other AD&D rules based games are judged in our minds.

I thoroughly appeciated my experience with Torment via the dialogue…the writing was so strong and vivid, yet it wasn't even with a mage styled playthrough, thus I probably missed many options.
However, I did struggle with the combat and remember mostly fleeing my way through Baator.

It's definitely a game I need to play again to rekindle those memories and for the writing alone.

If by that you mean later D&D games were much better that's the only way that statement makes sense to me. The gold box games were way tedious and ugly, the way most SSI games were IMO. Much better were the Ultimas and Bard's Tale's of the world.

I liked them too in the way I liked PS:T. I simply got tired of getting so bogged down.

Uh, no. I didn't say anything about D&D games being "better", so that's purely your own thinking and interpretation.

I simply responded to JDR's post (responding to Screeg's) with the suggestion that our formative/early RPG experiences provide some measure by which many later gaming experiences within a similar genre and style are judged upon.
Thus, the logical connection is between the Gold Box and Infinity games.
It's a reasonably straight forward argument actually. :)

I'm sorry to hear that the Gold Box games didn't do it for you. I also played "the Ultima's and Bard's Tales of the world" and loved them as well, but for different reasons. Let's not muddy the waters too much though as it's not what this topic is actually about.
So, to keep the posts flowing: Torment successor with turn based combat or RTwP? Discuss. :)

I hear what you're saying, and I agree that early experiences definitely shape what a person prefers later on, but I don't think it has anything to do with that when it comes to my opinion of the IE games. Even though I never played the Gold Box games, I've been playing computer and console RPGs since the early-80s, and the majority of those were turn-based.

I just happen to think RTWP works perfectly for the IE games, and I wouldn't want them any other way. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to play ToEE with RTWP.

PoR: Ruins of Myth Drannor could have definitely benefited from RTWP though. :)

See, saying that about Ruins of Myth Drannor kind of validates my point a little. ;)

I can't imagine anyone saying that if they'd played the original Pool of Radiance first…but maybe that's partially my early gaming bias to the Goldbox turn-based combat showing.

Interestingly, you can utilise the menus to make the infininty games more traditionally turn based-like (by choosing when the game auto pauses) but I largely agree that playing them in that fashion wasn't where they worked best.

Nah, I was referring (half jokingly) to the popular complaint that some encounters take way too long to play out in that game due to the animations of certain enemies.

Athough I do think RoMD is one of those rare games that could have worked with either style. Too bad it's not a better game in general.