I got on the Nobilis train during Nobilis 3e, and then found Chuubo's, and then the Kickstarter. I read mostly the prerelease version of this for a long time, not bothering to update because the full version wasn't that different. I read it over and over and over, never really able to put it down for good, no matter what. I didn't end up actually looking at the release version until I had to redownload the book for a new computer.

All of this to say, thank you for adding the little section on the Strategists in Appendix A. I needed it. -nim

If you've played any verison of Nobilis, Glitch is the game about playing from the other side. If you have not played any version of Nobilis, Glitch is a game about being caught up in a struggle between two rather terrible groups of entities over existance itself. It is also a game for people who really want to have an extended philosophy discussion along with their improv storytelling.

It's certainly a thing I like, but be aware that it's not really like most other RPGs when deciding whether or not it might be yours.

This book was exactly the kind of thing I did not know I wanted. After how great the Deceivers book was, I fully expected that it would be near impossible to do Strategists well, but I was truly stunned by how great this book ended up being.

I have read a lot of TTRPG books that touched me on a fundamental level, but none, not a one ever felt so resonant as this one. Glitch: A Story of the Not has already moved me all over the emotional spectrum from just reading the thing. There is a lot to read to here, it's a big book! But all of it is amazing. I generally go for smaller, simpler games. PBTA is my jam. I don't usually have the attention span to get through such a tome, but Glitch is simply so excellently written, so packed full of vivid details and compelling philosophy, that I made it through this one no problem. This right here is a gamechanger. The rules can be a little loose, but they are clear where they need to be and the rest is flexibility. There is an incredible amount of freedom here that is still bounded enough and in the right places by the rules to keep the game on track and focused. The elaborate examples of play really help understanding how this game is supposed to run and they were the most true.to-life examples I have ever read. The players in these examples make mistakes and forget things and leave tons of loose ends all over the place. They get the rules wrong. This is obviously pointed out by the book so you know what the "correct" ruling would have been, but the point here is to show that these things, too, are a part of playing Glitch.

I am rambling, I'm sorry. It is difficult for me to focus on any particular thing about Glitch because it is simply such a marvellous, special whole. This is one of those games that's worth buying even if you don#t think you'll ever get aorund to playing it, it's that good. But you should ABSOLUTELY play it, too. Because the play experience is absolute Gold. This game goes from knee-slappingly funny to absolutely disastrously (but beautifully) sad in no time flat and I love it so much.

So what is it even about. Here's my two cents. Glitch is about disability and coping. It is also about being a divine, epically powerful harbinger of destruction, called an Excrucian Strategist, albeit one who has given up on destruction is trying not to fall off the bandwagon. Each PC is a member of a self-help group for world-destroying monsters who don't want to destroy the world. And they are also so achingly human. This is a game in which the average character can easly do a bunch of really impressive, cinematic stuff and if they push themselves can be a wondrous storm of change and destruction, but may on any given day, not manage to shower or hydrate. The Strategists are comically tragic people, all dying all the time of an Infection that is unique to them and causes the world to break them. They have every reason to want to fight back. But it is also futile. And in the end, perhaps the best thing they can do is just try to make the best of their situation, whatever that may mean for them individually.

I don't think any TTRPG character I ever made has ever been so relatable to myself as this not-quite-a-person with the falling stars in their eyes that can turn themself into a Kaiju and go on a rampage, but also lives in utter chaos, because cleaning your room taxing in a way that miracles generally aren't helpful with.

That's the kind of game this is. And I don't think I will ever find one that I will love more than this.

On Nobilis: I played Nobilis before, another game by Jenna Moran and the game where the setting of Glitch originated. Ever since those days, I always wanted to play an Excrucian. With Glitch that's finally a real possibility. I did not expect to want to be a Strategist out of all of them, but Glitch recontextualises them in a way that has catapulted them to the top of my list of entities in Nobilis. If you've played Nobilis before, I should say, I haven't actually played a lot of it. I always read more of it than I played, because I found playing it very taxing. The possibility space was simply way too big at any given time. There were too many options! And in miraculous combat my brain would simply overheat trying to think of all the ways miraculously empowered enemies could counter my every move and ruin me. Glitch does not have this issue. Miraculous conflict in Glitch is remarkably freeing, dynamic and fun for the simple reason that tactics aren't really a thing there. You can certainly still win a fight simply by devising the perfect miracle if you're the kind of person who can do that. But you don't have to be that kind of person in this. In this, all you need to do to win, if you want to win, is to pay for it by overtaxing yourself with miracles and actions that are dramatic and difficult for your character. This approach works so incredibly well. And it fixes the main problem that has always held me back from fully enjoying Nobilis.

So if you bounced off Nobilis for being too obtuse, too free, too daunting: Give Glitch a shot. It has all the good stuff, but is so much easier to manage.

I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to play or run Glitch- previous works in this line, like Nobilis and Chuubo's, stayed on my shelf for years before I ever got a chance to actually introduce my friends to them. But much like those works, you just need to read Glitch to recognize immediately that this is the kind of experience that you absolutely cannot get anywhere else. When the stars finally align and a game does come together, you're not going to forget it anytime soon.

Speaking of shelves, Glitch is a very attractive book and I recommend getting a print copy if you're the sort of person who enjoys having pretty books around. Even the digital editions are quite fun to read, helped in large part by the copious full-page illustrations of demigods dying of absolutely ridiculous things (personal favorite: Vilita Skaudus). As always, the author's microfiction and ability to spin tangents is a treat.

If you enjoy a little introspection about the nature of fiction and created worlds, I recommend picking up this book to read it. If you also like having a pretty book on your shelf, I think the printed book is worthwhile. If you're feeling a little burnt-out on traditional RPGs and would like to try something kinda crazy and different with your regular group, this is definitely an option you should consider.

[Excerpted from my personal blog]

I think most people, if asked to boil Jenna Moran's work down to a single word would describe it as "whimsical." There's a lot of that here. There's a character in this book who is "dying of trademark infringement" - fate conspires that her actions just happen to strongly resemble those of a "famous idol" with a similar name, and the universe punishes her for her unintentional plagiarism. There's another character whose title is "The Prince of the French Fry that Fell in the Corner." At one point he saves the universe (though the canonicity of this is dubious - it was in one of the always delightful microfictions that are a Jenna Moran signature). If you're coming to this for the whimsy, you're going to find it.

However, Glitch made me think, and I'm persuaded that a better word for Ms Moran's body of work is "intricate." The good kind of intricate, mostly. The kind of intricate that demonstrates craftsmanship and care, that you largely marvel at because of the elegance of its many interlocking parts. But also the kind of intricate where material you're reading on page 320 would have come in really handy for understanding concepts introduced on page 30. Also, sometimes, if it's late and you're a little zonked from the time change, you'll have no fucking clue what's going on.

As a follow-up to Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine it's fascinating. Chuubo's was a singular accomplishment that will likely never be repeated, but I think it's fair to say that the thing it accomplished was to expose the superstructure of rpgs as a storytelling medium and point the way towards designing new games that took its insights to heart. Glitch is exactly that sort of game. It owes a lot to Chuubo's, but it's not Chuubo's.

In many ways, it's a strictly superior game. When it directly inherits a concept, that concept is usually subtly improved. For example, "genre actions" have been replaced by "spotlighting." If you read closely, spotlights replicate a lot of what genre actions actually did, but they're presented as more abstract and more like a character power than a player obligation. You use a spotlight to make the GM or another player stop and elaborate on whatever they were just talking about. The specifics of what they're supposed to do with the spotlight are often similar (for example, Chubbo's epic fantasy genre had the "Decisive Action" where you're supposed to give a speech about what you're going to do, and then do it and Glitch allows you to "spotlight a test" and buy an automatic success if the character gives a speech about what they're about to do), but the difference in framing, and, heck, the new, more evocative name, make the concept a lot more attractive.

Similarly, there's a change to the quest system that is, quite frankly, inspired. Now, players take turns being the "focus" of a session. You can only advance your storyline quests while your character is the focus, but for the duration of the session, so can the other players. They can trigger your quest flavor options and earn one xp for you and one xp for themselves. The implications for player investment in each others' stories is staggering to contemplate. I am positively salivating for the next edition of Nobilis.

Which brings us to . . . not exactly the downside of Glitch, but let's call it a "caveat." Glitch is weird. Even for a Jenna Moran game it's weird. You may have noticed that I've not yet explained what Glitch is about. That's because what it's about is roughly 3-layers deep of Moran-verse self-referential. People think Glass Maker's Dragon is insular, but there's only one thing you need to know about Glass Maker's Dragon - and that's that we'd all gladly die to protect our Best Boi Leonardo de Montreal (or Seizhi Schwan or Jasper Irinka or, hell Chuubo himself - that is one damned charming campaign).

However, for Glitch I have to take several steps back. So, there's this game called Nobilis, and in that game you play people with the power of universal concepts. A character is something like "The Power of Fire" and you've got a broad ability to define what that means, getting as weird and as epic as you want. Set whole worlds on fire? Yes. Light a fire in someone's heart and convince them to pursue their dreams? Sure. Grant humanity the Promethean fire and boostrap it into a new age of technological plenty? If that's what "fire" means to you and the rest of the group doesn't rebel at you hijacking the setting, knock yourself out.

Now, the Nobilis have enemies. They're not just out there in the cosmos doing cool shit, there's a war going on. There's a faction called "The Excrucians." Their goal is to destroy the universe and their powers are beefy enough that they're uncowed by the frankly ludicrous strength of Creation's defenders.

With me so far? Good, because there are actually four types of Excrucians, and they all approach things a little differently. Deceivers have these infectious self-referential paradoxes that they use to corrupt the things of Creation. Mimics wield roughly the same powers as the beings that empowered the Nobilis, but in doing so they make a mockery of the laws of the universe. Warmains will just directly fuck your shit up. And then there's Strategists, with their signature power of The Worldbreaker's Hand, which can make things, even the abstract properties of ordinary objects, just not exist anymore, and because of this dread power they enter Creation doomed to die, usually pretty quickly, only to come back again and again in an endless cycle of resurrection.

Glitch is about the Strategists. But not the Excrucians. It's about the Strategists who decide to drop out of the war and live their doomed lives as best they can. They're still dying. They still share the Excrucian's fundamental conviction that Creation is a crime against the Void. But instead of attempting to slaughter the Powers that defend the universe, they solve mysteries.

That doesn't even begin to really describe the game. That's just what you need to know before you can say whether you're interested in what the massive expansion in canon will explain.

And honestly, you should be interested. It's very interesting. It's alternately funny and scary and thought-provoking, and Jenna's "wise, with a smirk" voice is used as artfully as it's ever been. But . . .

In Jenna Moran's own words, "You can think of Glitch as a kind of improv ethical philosophy and comedy jam session."

And that's . . . It's . . . Are you trying to sell the game or presage the exact parody your detractors are going to use to dismiss it as being made for absolute wankers?

There are several examples of play, and they're quite useful for understanding the game, but they are so arch and verbose that even I, no stranger to discursive quips and self-indulgent meandering, had to roll my eyes a couple of times. Even as I was being absolutely charmed by the wit, I was rolling my eyes.

Two out of the five attributes are called "Eide" and "Flore" and good luck guessing what they do (the other attributes are "Ability," "Lore," and "Wyrd," and they're not exactly straightforward, but at least they have existing fantasy provenance).

And look, I like this game. Quite a lot, actually. But if someone called it pretentious and impenetrable, I would not be able to deny the justice of those accusations. It's a niche within a niche and I'm actually kind of astonished that it exists at all.

But you shouldn't necessarily let the book's worst qualities scare you off. It will also take you to places that you've never dreamed of and show you things you'll see nowhere else. It's the double-shot espresso of fantasy. The things there are to love about the genre, Glitch has, more extreme and more specific than just about any alternative.

i love this game very much

i could say more, but the other reviews say it better, so let me just say that: i love this game very much

This year I got to play a game of Glitch. This game will amaze you. It will bring you closer to strangers. It will improve your life, or at least your writing. This is only skirting shy of hyperbole from personal experience. This game creates bonds.

Underneath all the wonderful writing, the actual running engine is pretty simple, and even more intuitive to play than read. Everything comes back to Cost, which builds up as you take damage, attempt to file taxes, and use your sweet void-entity powers, and goes down when you take time to recover or earths in Wounds if you need a lot gone at once because you hit the cap, for instance. There are no dice; if you want something, all you need to do is be willing to pay for it.

Each of the powers is a narrative moment in it's own right, from characterisation flair to concept defence to capstone, and combined with the attentional direction of the Spotlight system this gives you and every other player a massive amount of control over the story you're collaboratively creating. Plot beats that are detrimental to the character are fun. Failing is fun. This is a game where being Worfed is fantastic, because it lets you show how serious the stakes are for the group's comeback, and hey, if you're not down for it, you can always convert the problem into that nebulous Cost. The game's Wound system encourages you to create fun problems for yourself; being a disappointment has mechanical advantage. All of this makes the moments when you choose to do something super cool (and you can do some balls to the wall amazing things even automatically) even better. You don't have to worry about permanently dying - even the Ending Book mostly exists so you can close out your character's story in a way that makes sense - so you can just run face first into things, it's great. Whenever I'd get stuck, I'd run up and down the power list and inspiration would leap out.

Everything hangs together, everything flows even with the eddies and messiness of actual play, it's just really fun. This will be folded in my heart as a treasured memory.

Last session, I killed my friend and maybe love interest, who is a clown. Next session, I expect to ride with a flaming spear of violence against a war criminal and nemesis, who is a badger. In between, I have been thinking long and hard about the nature of identity, and how the manifold ways we try to flee from the past, limping bloody and burned into a future that can promise us at best a tired, quiet survival. It's possible, if the prose daunts you, to skip right over it and play a perfectly sensible game about retired void-god detectives. I think that, even if you tried, and didn't read any of the microfictions and skimmed all the rest of the text, you would end up playing a powerfully compelling game. Glitch is a game of Strategists, each dying of a bespoke curse, but that's not why Rule 1 of the game brought me to tears. Glitch is a game that suits itself to philosophical monologues mixed with comic breaks from reality, but it's not about that. Glitch is a game about not dying.

The world is wrong, but Glitch makes it a little bit better. (It's also one of the best rpgs I've ever played!)

Glitch is easily my favourite of Jenna Moran's RPGs so far, and I was already quite fond of Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine. The central conceit -- you have developed a violent metaphysical allergy to an aspect of reality, and reality contrives to pull you into contact with that aspect with steadily increasing force and improbability -- is very easy to build characters around or retrofit onto existing characters. It makes a robust metaphor for chronic illness and disability, all the more so if you choose something mundane like Sleep or Slipperiness to bedevil your character, but with the promise of amazing void powers and an inability to stay dead in exchange for the indignity and inconvenience of your Bane interfering with your life.

Which makes it sound kind of gloomy, but that's usually not the case; if you want to focus on your characters' pain and tragedy you definitely have the option to do so, but from the example of play in the rulebook onward, every Glitch game I've ever witnessed or played in had a darkly comedic tone revolving around the protagonists' hilariously ill-fitting solutions to problems both ordinary and supernatural. The first time I used the spotlight mechanic, an incredibly handy system in which you can request a few times per chapter that a detail be elaborated upon, ask for a push in the right direction, hang additional narrative weight upon an action or a few other things in that vein, I spent it on giving an origami hat to a passerby's dog for no particularly good reason except to draw attention away from the vaguely suspicious behaviour of one of the other PCs. I feel this is illustrative.

Dr. Moran's newest work, Glitch, draws on the formula of diceless, philosophy-heavy design found in Nobilis and Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine to produce a system perfectly designed to capture the experience of playing, just, an absolute mess of a person with deep-rooted social and psychological problems and also a supernatural mandate to kill the world. The player characters of Glitch are people acausally connected with the land before time and the void before the world, imbued with its essence and violently opposed by their very nature to the fabric of Creation around them, and boy do they suck at being all of those things. It's an incredibly resonant experience as a marginalized person - someone surviving problems of gender and disability especially - under late capitalism.

The system itself is an excellent work of setting-driven design; it adapts many of the mechanics that worked best in Nobilis and draws on the more general system of CMWGE, but its best points are where it goes out of its way to highlight the experience of living as one of the Glitched with things like character design that disincentivizes having the ability to do any kind of professional work, or the fact that characters can recover, in part, from the damage they inflict on themselves in order to succeed by explicitly choosing to fail at actions and disappoint the people around them. Mechanics like the cost and spotlight systems force the player to empathize with the pain of the Excrucians, while at the same time, the lore and setting writing do the legwork of laying out exactly why they are the way that they are and paint an astonishingly beautiful picture of their beings.

Glitch's biggest weakness is frankly that, although part of its conceit is that the player characters are retired Excrucians - that they are no longer in a grand war against the world, and that the intended topic of the game is how they learn to live with themselves in their abstinence - it's entirely too tempting to try to hack it to do otherwise. (I eagerly await the publication of Nobilis 4th edition and potentially other books in the same setting which will offer more character options.)

In his video essay "The Future of Writing About Games", Jacob Geller discusses the kinds of things people write about video games, and argues that when evaluating if a game was 'worth it' to buy, you shouldn't just look at how many hours you spent playing it. He proposes an alternative metric:

"What is the hour count that a game lives in your memory? How often do you think of it, reference it, dream about it?"

I haven't yet been able to put together a group to actually play Glitch yet, but I think of it often. A major element of all of Jenna's games is taking the 'ordinary' elements of life and highlighting their importance - often by elevating them to mythic significance: in Nobilis you are its god and protector, in Glitch it is your curse, and the quest system introduced in Chuubo's and used again in Glitch, the ordinary is often given equal weight to the fantastic. It's not surprising to me then, that her works come to mind so regularly. Rarely a day goes by when I don't encounter something and wonder how it would fit into a a Glitch character - as a bane, technique or miraculously empowered item. Something will happen to me, or I'll hear a story and I'll think - what kind of quest would this fit into?

In Jacob's video, he argues that reading powerful writing about a game will unlock a deeper understanding and appreciation of it - an RPG rulebook happens to exist in a space where it can be both the instructions on how to play, and a compelling explanation of itself and what it means, all at the same time. Dr. Moran is undoubtedly a master at merging these two goals into one text, and while I'm sure there are some people that might prefer something drier, I wouldn't trade it for the world.

It's going to be one of my favorite games, and one I think about for a long time, even if I never do get a group together. There are parts of the book that I go back to and re-read because the writing is just that funny, moving or uplifting. It's not something that you ususally look for in a RPG rulebook, but its one of my favorite things about it.

One of the most beautiful games I've ever read. The writing really resonates, the art is beautiful and the system is a ton of fun. One to pick up if you like the sound of a game that encourages both soulful explorations of the pain that comes from living in an intrinsically hostile world, and the inevitable shenanigans that ensue when a group of ancient void gods tries to assemble ikea furniture.

I've only played a single game of Glitch, and I did not play it very well. Here is what the experience of playing Glitch poorly felt like: uncertainty quickly gave way to delight. The raw indulgence of playing a (retired) world-destroying nether god was liberating and silly. Now, there are games out there where enjoyment derives from mastery, and maybe this is one of them. It was definitely made with deep thinkers in mind, and if you brave the furthest waters, I'm sure you'll find all sorts of treasures. I'm writing this review to let you know that splashing around in the shallows is still an absolute blast.