YMMV / Nobilis

• Audience-Alienating Premise: Due to the game's specific premise of demigods protecting reality from creatures outside existence, it can be difficult for newcomers to get into Nobilis, and that's not even getting into the specifics of the setting. This extends to mechanics as well, since it gives the players god-like powers, but also encourages them to not engage in direct conflict except in dire circumstances, which is somewhat unintuitive given everything. It doesn't help that the sourcebooks tend to be written in almost deliberately obtuse Purple Prose that will undoubtedly leave casual readers straight-up confused.
• Broken Base: The art style change between second edition and third has given the Power of Flamewars a massive boost in prestige.
• Friendly Fandoms: Since Jenna Moran has also worked on the first and third editions of Exalted, there is an overlap between the player bases, with the usual Hypothetical Fight Debate concluding that it would be awesome to watch regardless of who would win.
• Game-Breaker: Averted for the most part. Even though Imperators have access to Imperial Miracles, and are thus able to change the entire world and basically modify destiny so their desires are accomplished, they still have to rely on their Nobles on a regular basis. This has to do mostly because Imperial Miracles take a long time to be spoken, and because the exact methods through which they come to be can be dangerous if not properly defined.
  • Excrucian Deceivers have the ability to copy any skills and miraculous powers of Nobles or Imperators, in addition to any abilities they already have. This includes any Imperator's ability to use Imperial Miracles. In practice even this is not enough to completely challenge the Nobilis, usually due to a numerical disadvantage and the fact that copying someone's powers gives them all their strengths and weaknesses.
• Nightmare Fuel: Any Noble, Imperator or Excrucian can do truly terrible things, particularly to mortals. Even nice ones with seemingly-harmless Estates can mess up the entire world with some effort. It's part and parcel of being a god.
  • Lord Entropy's actions in general count, fitting for someone who embodies Scorn, Desecration, and Destruction.
  • The origin story of Iolithae Septimian in Antithesis 1i is a prominent example. From how the words on the stone begin to haunt the temple girl to how she is tortured and abused by the temple's priest, it doesn't relent on the nightmare fuel. The girl's subsequent transformation into Iolithae and her act of turning the seas to salt don't help this very much.
• That One Rule:
  • 1e's wounds system was very unclear but was massively improved for 2e. 3e gets confusing again because it covers any negative effect (like being turned into a duck or being massively humiliated in public) and has to cover 3e's lack of immunity to direct miracles.
  • 3e's mortal actions system is very hard to wrap your head around because it focuses on the effects of an action on your character's life or the world instead of normal immediate success or failure, to the point that at the top of the chart your actions are objectively "the right thing, for some fuzzy definition of right." Focusing on task resolution at that level is very hard for even experienced game masters, but here is a better explanation of how it's supposed to work.
  • Thankfully, these rules received more clarification in Chuubo's, as they have become more relevant and useful.