Numenera - For me?

I was in my FLGS the other day to pick up some stuff (future post will reveal) and I spotted a copy of Numenera on the shelf.

Now I mentioned Numenera in my post on New RPGs for GenCon but didn't really go into my thoughts about the game.

Some background - the game is written by Monte Cook and if you click on the link to his name you'll get his bio.

My exposure to Monte was through his work on D&D 3rd Edition and in turn the d20 system. As I've said before this particular edition of D&D was a trigger in my previous rediscovery of my hobby of roleplaying and for that I kind of thank Monte for his part in that.

The d20 system also brought about my principle of only buying if I'm going to use it...  How? Well the "d20 glut" as it's referred to in some areas also resulted in me buying a LOT of RPG products that both never used and in many cases never even read.

So, did I buy Numenera?  No.  I just can't see me running it and so I decided to stick to that principle.  It is however exactly the sort of game that pre-principles I would have bought.

It does looks great though, the artwork is impressive and the overall product quality is excellent and I'm sure it would look great on my shelf.  The issue is that it would do just that, sit on my shelf I mean.  So I didn't buy it.

I also have a slight irritation with the name...  Numenera = New Men Era.  Nice play on words and it fits for a setting in the far future but I dunno, as a name it feels kind of rubbish...

If I was gaming more frequently and indeed up for running another RPG in addition to D&D Next and Star Wars EotE then I still wouldn't choose Numenera.  This is no reflection on the game itself (the reviews are all very positive) but I'm already running Fantasy and Sci-Fi (well Space Opera) and as I've said elsewhere I plan on picking up the Atomic Robo RPG when it comes out which is sorta Sci-Pulp.

So if I was going to run another game then I would need to increase my gaming frequency (beyond the Friday night only slot at present) and it would need to be set in something other than a Fantasy or a Sci-Fi setting.