Mankcam
Hallowed Be Thy Swo
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The Numenera slipcase is supposed to deliver tomorrow. I kept avoiding it because one of the guys I know complains about the "sameness" of the characters, largely due to the limited number of "types" and abilities per tier. That's not really where the variety is designed to come through. Plus I realized he tends to be one of the most difficult ones to schedule around, so I'm ok if he doesn't play in the game.
Sounds like your friend may have some preconceived ideas that he has read somewhere
The concern about the character 'sameness' is an example of very straight-jacketed thinking, because he likely assumes that Class/Archetype may be how you tell characters apart. That's treating characters like they are toons
I hail from BRP origins - we never had Classes - we only had Profession backgrounds which were definately not the same thing. We could have an entire party of warrior characters yet they all felt different. Which is why Mythras remains my favourite crunchy game to run and play.
To an extent it's the same thing with Cypher and Numenera.
The generic Cypher rules has four archetypes (Warrior, Adept, Explorer, Speaker).
Numenera replaces these with three archetypes in the core rulebook (Glaive, Jack, Nano), and the second volume adds another three (Arkus, Wright, Delve).
As you mentioned, it doesn't make much difference even if the entire party is from the same Type, as that's only one part of the character creation choice, and even then there is scope for variation within the Type choice. Once you pick the Descriptor and then the Focus, things get spiced up significantly. As a result, you could have an entire party of Glaives, for instance, yet they will all feel very different
By the way, the Numenera Revised Edition Slipcase (Discovery/Destiny) is truly a thing of beauty, I'm sure you'll love it
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