Well, this is definitely a game I'd like to play sometime sooner than later -- POSSIBLY one I'd like to run, too. Next mission: find people to play with. ( )

Spectacularly imaginative. Recommended even if you're not an RPGer (I'm not myself), for the world-building and the writing.

It's pretty funny to say this, since Nobilis is a roleplaying game, but... my biggest complaint about the book is the intrusion of gameplay into the world it describes. Let me explain.

I bought Nobilis not for the game itself, but for the setting of that game. Borgstrom has created a mythical world designed for the playing out of mythical stories, in which the players take the roles of guardians, or perhaps better incarnations, of aspects of reality itself (the power of Roads, the power of Regret, the power of Currency Exchange). There's a whole meta-mythical superstructure, on which lots of our myths can be hung with a little translation of terminology, and which is described in Nobilis both explicitly (in suggestions and background information for players and 'Hollyhock Gods' running games for others) and implicitly, in the scraps of narrative in every margin. And then there's the balancing.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not objecting to the technical details of gameplay. They're needed to make it a game. But then there are features which are obviously (to my eye, at least) there to make it a playable game, and which sadly get tangled up in my suspenders of disbelief. I'm thinking particularly of the Excrucians, the Big Bad Baddies who are out to destroy reality itself.

On the one hand, these are a magnificent creation. They're the ultimate Ungood -- not evil, but anti-... anti-everything. That's the point. Their aim is to destroy reality itself. And they're beautiful, and awesomely powerful, and there's a gorgeous unresolved rumour that what they destroy lives on inside themselves, and will be reborn into a new and greater universe once this pesky malformed reality we're all so attached to is swept out of the way.

And they come in four flavours.

That's the point that the sharp edges of the game start pushing through the tapestry draped over it. They come in four flavours because that makes them quantifiable for a Hollyhock God planning a campaign and for the characters coming up against them. It's a feature of game design that, unfortunately, works against the world design Borgstrom does so well. Because the four flavours don't have any mythical resonance or conceptual symmetry, they don't ring any Jungian --or even Pavlovian-- bells. They're there, pure and simple, as a mechanism for structuring the design of a game.

It's a testament to Borgstrom's ability that the numerous other places where she's tweaked the system for balance or for ease of use (because they must be everywhere, it's a game and it's playable and some people play it and it works), that there's only this one point that sticks out like a sore thumb. All the other similar structurings hang off conceptual structures we recognise (heaven and hell, personal freedom, nature worship versus the glorification of the individual) and incorporate scraps of myth that make it hard to see exactly what it is that Borgstrom has done that's so new, until you take a step back and realise that you've been assuming that Odin's nine days on the tree are of course the same sort of sacrifice as the power of Pollution giving up smoking, and of course this should grant him a Word of Power just like it did Odin because obviously that's what the myth means...

Anyway, that's the criticism. I guess it's already clear that I'm a raving Borgstrom fanboy, so it shouldn't surprise you that beyond that criticism I'm absolutely in love with Nobilis. The design of the book is also generally excellent, with a couple of minor reservations (some rules that clash with the heavily-swashed titling font and are extended unnecessarily into the margins, and some gratuitious misuse of that same calligraphic titling font for the N of "Noble" in running text are the main complaints). It's enormous -- hardcover, square format, I guess 25cm to a side, double-column text and generous margins with (as mentioned) scraps of colour description on every page-spread. Illustrated, eclectically. All in all, quite something.

I recommend it not just to RPGers (for whom I should mention: it's a diceless system, pretty much all significant actions are miracles by ordinary human standards, and the design emphasis is on storytelling rather than stat-building) but to anyone who appreciates world-building. (Ok, and game design; at least, you'll get even more out if that's an interest as well.) Borgstrom also writes online at
Hitherby Dragons, although that's likely to be somewhat incomprehensible unless you take some time to go through the archives. And I hear tell that a supplement to Nobilis (player's manual? I believe perhaps?) is getting pretty close to completion -- keep your eyes peeled for Society of Flowers, it's sure to delight. ( )