Close
Close
Advanced Search

Glitch: A Story of the NotClick to magnify
Quick Preview
/gs_flipbook/flip.php?xml=/demo_xml/337139.xml&w=500&h=324
Full‑size Preview
https://watermark.drivethrurpg.com/pdf_previews/337139-sample.pdf

Glitch: A Story of the Not

ADD TO WISHLIST >
Selected Option:

Glitch is the first modern installment in a long-running series of games (starting with the RPG "Nobilis") for people who like recreational philosophy and metaphysics and thinking about how their fundamental experience of the world works. These are games built, from the ground up, to take thought experiments and goofy arguments and self-expression on the core of one's meaning and identity and blend them in seamlessly with the banter, conflict, exploration, and (in this case) mystery solving that you'll find in a tabletop RPG.

Sound interesting?

So, this particular game is a game about living in a broken world. It's a game about hope and struggle.

It's a game about people who've found mistakes in the way the world's put together; seen that the world itself is wrong; and, therefore, of course, developed eldritch powers, gotten inducted into a mystical society, acquired a passel of enemies, frenemies, and dubious allies, and picked up a tragic backstory.

Oh, and, just possibly, a horse.

And/or ... a crown?

Anyway, though, the most important thing they got, the most key and the most critical, was the power to fight back, the power to make answer to this vale of suffering, this vast great hill of woe: a literal or metaphorical world-slaying weapon, just tossed into their hand, only, you know, the problem is, and they all do eventually figure this out---at least the player characters do---

World-slaying weaponry doesn't actually help.

Fixing things with a world-ending weapon, well ... that'd be like blowing your nose with a trout!

So, if you're more interested in finding hope and solving mysteries than in blowing your nose with, well, any kind of fish, really, just stick this game in your cart, read the note at the bottom of the page to make sure you know what you're getting into ... and buy!

Note: An earlier edition of Glitch was available
(with different art, layout, and a few text changes)
until the inexorable progression of time
and the cruelty of the world
trampled its existence on 1/27/2021.

Product

This is an ePub & PDF bundle, with a print-on-demand release also available.

Note that the book itself is black & white, with one all-but-hidden exception; "color" printing is used for the hardcover print-on-demand to gain access to a heavier paper.

Art for the PDF was contributed by Alexander Benekos, Sadia Bies, Silvia Cucchi, Elena Albanese, Maria Guarneri, Jenn Manley Lee, Kirsten Moody, Lee Moyer, Camille “Karma” O’Leary, Beatrice Pelagatti, Robin Scott, Elizabeth Sherry, Melissa Spandri, and Mel Uran!

System

Glitch uses a simple but heavily nuanced diceless system.

Players control two "spotlights" per "chapter" of the game, allowing them to direct the group's attention; they earn experience points through the use of those spotlights and through the specific activities tied to their "quests."

Characters have five traits rated from 0-7, associated with a total of ninety individually versatile abilities: each is bound to a particular trait and given a difficulty from 0-12. To use one of these abilities, the character must accumulate [difficulty-Trait rating] points of a "Cost;" these Costs may or may not have immediate meaning in play but regardless accumulate to become wounds, suffering, and, eventually, a final ending. Players are not generally expected to have all of the abilities memorized; rather, in addition to the richness of possibility in the individual abilities, there's always more to discover that your character can potentially do.

Setting

The setting of Glitch is an urban fantasy version of Earth ... found upon a tree of worlds, which is set inside a cup of flame, in an endless, lightless nowhere-land, a troubled sea of nothingness:

That country that is not a country, that kingdom that came before the world, in that place that is not a place at all, that goes by the name of Ninuan.

 

Trigger Warnings: Existential horror; missing eyes; references to or
supernatural analogues to depression, anxiety, PTSD, executive
function issues, dissociation, and arguably self-harm;
some pseudoChristian and some pseudopagan theology;
blurring of the definition of reality; implied violence;
and short and non-graphic descriptions of a large number of very horrible fates.

pixel_trans.gif
pixel_trans.gif
 
 Customers Who Bought this Title also Purchased
pixel_trans.gif
pixel_trans.gif
Reviews (23)
Discussions (6)
Customer avatar
A. D May 20, 2022 11:36 am UTC
PURCHASER
Hiya! I am thinking about buying the physical edition of this game. The thing is I am not a huge fan of hardcovers and I am gravitating towards the softcover. But I am concerned the print quality of the softcover is not as good as the hardcover and being such a beautiful book I am worried I might be losing the beauty of it only because of a small preference.

So, Is the softcover edition good enough or I definitely should buy the hardcover edition to fully appreciate the book?
Customer avatar
Vivian D February 21, 2021 3:47 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I'm 25 pages into this rulebook and already consider it a masterpiece worth the price without seeing the core rules. The worldbuilding and tonal setting here are simply amazing - dealing with some incredibly relatable and meaningful concepts of alienation from reality, and introducing some very good rules concepts.
Reply
Customer avatar
Jason S April 12, 2021 8:45 am UTC
Seconded. Got this on IPR, but dang, what an amazingly well-written book on philosophy and worldbuilding.
Customer avatar
Brian H January 14, 2021 8:12 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Is there an update on when the print version of this title will be available?
Reply
Customer avatar
Randford B January 27, 2021 11:23 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Good news on that front!
Customer avatar
Alon N November 29, 2020 9:31 am UTC
PURCHASER
I am Alon N, who dies of the Lack of Print Versions. I've been waiting for this since Nobilis 2 :)
Customer avatar
Cliff A November 27, 2020 2:29 pm UTC
Hello, is there a coupon for the pdf for those like me who bought 0th edition? Tx!
Reply
Customer avatar
Jenna M November 28, 2020 12:49 am UTC
PUBLISHER
I opted to send a coupon for $11 off to those who'd purchased 0th edition between 9/1 and the release of 1st edition, but it looks like DriveThruRPG only had authorization to email it out to about a quarter of those people, and my attempt to be clever and make it valid for everyone on that list by customer number (so I could share it publicly) ran into a character limit. Feel free to contact me at Jenna.Moran at google's mai1 if this is a hardship!
Customer avatar
Sean C November 24, 2020 9:56 pm UTC
PURCHASER
This looks super cool! It's a print and pdf bundle: Does that mean we can pay now and the POD coupon comes later? Any ETA on that?
Reply
Customer avatar
Jenna M November 24, 2020 10:39 pm UTC
PUBLISHER
This is a PDF & ePub bundle. I do usually send a coupon for a discounted or at-cost print-on-demand release to those who've bought the PDF when I make print-on-demand available, but note that said coupon only goes out to those that DriveThru authorizes me to email, which is usually about 1/4 or 1/3 of the people who've actually bought the product in question.

In short, that's my intention, but I cannot make promises.

I've uploaded the files for the PoD; with luck, I'll only need one proofing cycle, in which case PoD will be available in late December.

Best wishes,

Jenna
Reply
Customer avatar
Sean C November 25, 2020 3:33 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Oops, misread the listing. Thanks for clearing that up. I'll definitely buy the whole thing when the print edition comes out.
Reply
Customer avatar
Sean C July 09, 2022 9:51 pm UTC
PURCHASER
So, I bought it, and it's gorgeous! It'll take me a while to get through it, but I'll definitely give it a review! Looks like an easy 5 stars so far!
Browse Categories
$ to $
 Publisher
 Follow Your Favorites!
NotificationsSign in to get custom notifications of new products!
 Recent History















Product Information
Gold seller
Rule System(s)
Pages
422
File Size:
70.26 MB
Format
Original electronic Click for more information
Scanned image
These products were created by scanning an original printed edition. Most older books are in scanned image format because original digital layout files never existed or were no longer available from the publisher.

For PDF download editions, each page has been run through Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software to attempt to decipher the printed text. The result of this OCR process is placed invisibly behind the picture of each scanned page, to allow for text searching. However, any text in a given book set on a graphical background or in handwritten fonts would most likely not be picked up by the OCR software, and is therefore not searchable. Also, a few larger books may be resampled to fit into the system, and may not have this searchable text background.

For printed books, we have performed high-resolution scans of an original hardcopy of the book. We essentially digitally re-master the book. Unfortunately, the resulting quality of these books is not as high. It's the problem of making a copy of a copy. The text is fine for reading, but illustration work starts to run dark, pixellating and/or losing shades of grey. Moiré patterns may develop in photos. We mark clearly which print titles come from scanned image books so that you can make an informed purchase decision about the quality of what you will receive.
pixel_trans.gif
Original electronic format
These ebooks were created from the original electronic layout files, and therefore are fully text searchable. Also, their file size tends to be smaller than scanned image books. Most newer books are in the original electronic format. Both download and print editions of such books should be high quality.
File Last Updated:
September 22, 2023
This title was added to our catalog on November 23, 2020.