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OK I love gi, ginant "widescreen" adventures, so you know I'm big on Rifts and Heroes UNlimited
But I've totally passed by BTS and Nightbane, BTS seems like an X-files type game, with fairly normal folk going against "things man was not meant to know" but still playing "normal folk" just seems a bit uninteresting to me

I thought Nightbane was the same way, mabe a bit more emphasis on Horror, more "cthulu-esque" but the same game more or less

but then I got a back issue of the rifter, where more than a quarter of the book was devoted to customization of, well,I forget the name, but the best description I can give is "avatars" superhuman manifestations of folks inner selves

so whats the deal folks? does Nightbane let me be "more than human"? would it be "widescreen" enough for me?

--Russell

Hehe, I believe "Morphus" is the word you're looking for.

Nightbane is theoretically our world, and most of the inhabitants of it are norm's as well. There is however a giant malevolent force taking over the world from another dimension, replacing people with their subservient clone-like beings, etc etc. If you are playing a "Nightbane" in the game, you are so much more than human it isn't even funny. You kinda alternate between being human, and turning yourself in to your Morphus... the super powerful, super strong, super fast, super agile, supernatural warrior type being to fight the Night Lords.

If you ask me, it can be played very much like an HU setting. Most people are normal, but the players and the villains are anything but. Generally, the villains are trying to harm the world of normal people, and the heroes are using their super powers, in secret, to try and stop them. Add some dimension hopping and globe-encompassing new world order type plots.

The people of the world are on the edge of awareness. After Dark Day, everybody knows something is up, but most just don't want to acknowledge or deal with it.

I'm not sure what you mean by "widescreen", but if you like Rifts, Nightbane may not be for you. Nightbane has no rampant power creep, no completely incoherent "everything and the kitchen sink, too!" setting, no bad writing by Big Kev... In other words, it's nothing like Rifts.

That being said, most people run Nightbane as sort of supernatural-superheroes instead of outright horror. Characters - especially Nightbane - start out as ordinary people, but develop supernatural abilities (unless you want to run a Spook Squad game, that is). In tone, most people's games run toward something like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Gargoyles. The bad guys are extremely powerful and horrific, and much of the time the good guys are scary-looking, but in the end they can do *something* to thwart them. Not necessarily save the world, because the Nightlords are very powerful, but the player characters do have ways of fighting back on a small scale.

It's much better than Rifts, and much more suited to something beyond the typical 13 year-old "hey, let's get kewl powers and kill something!" mentality.

Here's a quick overview of the setting that I wrote up:

http://www.necromancerbob.com/bane.shtml

Sightblinder wrote:Funny that you mention Nightbreed...

I'm 99% sure that it was partial inspiration for Nightbane...

And the rest of us are 100%.

Cj stated it was a number of Clive Barker books that were the inspiration for it.


It's got elements from all of them, and even more so in his Witchcraft supplements.
...

thanks for the info guys, at the very least sounds like it's worth tracking a second-hand copy

are they still making books for it though? we have rifts, and the occasional Heroes unlimited or Palladium book pop up from time to time, heckwe now have BTS-2 (who I notice know one spoke up for hmmm), Chaos Earth and Splicers books apparently in the works

so is nightbane....dead?

Dead? Not exactly. Jason Vey will not be writing the next book. Big Kev has no interest in writing for it. But who knows? Maybe some enterprising fan will send in a manuscript someday...

:whistles innocently:

bathawk wrote:...BTS-2 (who I notice know one spoke up for hmmm),...

That's because it needs no speaking up for. You described it pretty well originally,it just doesn't sound like your cup of tea. There is the option to play the O.C.C.'s that have special powers, psychic and magic abilities. They are not as powerful as in Nightbane or Heroes Unlimited(unless something changed since 1st ed.), but thet are special abilities. I played it once, modified to include TMNT and HU; granted it was unusual for a BS game, but cool nontheless. It is a lower powered game and X-files isn't a bad way to describe it. If it's not your thing that's cool, but it doesn't mean nobody likes it.

I just can't believe I missplled...."no" it's only two frickin` letters!

Happens to us all...
well, maybe only you...

bathawk wrote:I just can't believe I missplled...."no" it's only two frickin` letters!

your still not as bad as Cherico

he's misspelled "a"

Azrael wrote:Wait a minute. How is it possible to mis-spell "a"?

"uh" "ah" "e" "u" "ay" "ai" and quite a few other ways. I saw most of them in the last paper-scoring project I was doing.

just an update, based on suggestions here, I went to a local bookstore and bought the nightbane corebook, and "through the glass darkly" for 19 bucks (they had the other books too but at full price)

planning on ordering some chicken pizza, getting a mountain dew and set in for some heavy reading tonight

I kid you not, sat down with my mountain Dew and chicken pizza, I open the nightban book up, and geuss what I see scrawled on the title page?

"K.Siembada"

cool find huh? unfortunately my copy of through thlooking glass darkly didn't have it as well

Autographed from the book store? That's cool, I got a bunch; but I had to fight crowds at GenCon.

ok, about finished with the Nightbane core book, except for maybe the last few pages, though I did skip the vampires section having already read it in rifts

what do I think? well don't think I wasted my money or anything, it wasn't a let down at all, think it focused a bit too heavily on the "nightbane" RCC

yeah I know the book is about them, they are the "stars" so to speak, but I don't think palladium has devoted so much space on a single RCC or OCC, dividing the nightbane into otherclassess (animal, biomecanical ect;) with a few table fromthem to both roll on (like stigmata) would seem easier to me
but Guardians and sorcerrors seem just as interesting to play (though psychics got the short end of the stick)

on to "through the glass darkly"....

bathawk wrote:ok, about finished with the Nightbane core book, except for maybe the last few pages, though I did skip the vampires section having already read it in rifts

what do I think? well don't think I wasted my money or anything, it wasn't a let down at all, think it focused a bit too heavily on the "nightbane" RCC

yeah I know the book is about them, they are the "stars" so to speak, but I don't think palladium has devoted so much space on a single RCC or OCC, dividing the nightbane into otherclassess (animal, biomecanical ect;) with a few table fromthem to both roll on (like stigmata) would seem easier to me
but Guardians and sorcerrors seem just as interesting to play (though psychics got the short end of the stick)

on to "through the glass darkly"....

go back and re-read the vampire section, there's something new....