Changes to the Cypher System: What I Hope to See

The Cypher System is a game system created by the folks over at Monte Cook Games. The system is less full game and more of toolbox for GMs to take and use to create their own games.

Less D&D, more GURPS.

My experience running the system is limited to a mini 3 shot campaign and some solo sessions. Despite this, the system has stayed in my mind due to its unique nature and elegance.

With news of changes to the system incoming, I hope to go over what I like, dont like, and hope changes in this new revision of the system.

Quick Overview

Cypher system is rules lite, flexible and still provides plays a wealth of character customization.

There are many games that give you 1-2 of the above things. Cypher system is the only one I know of that gives all 3.

The system works by rating anything the players interact with on a level scale of 1 - 10. 1 is something simple that most people should just be able to do. 10 is something requiring an expert, some gear and will still likely be hard to do.

The level is then multiplied by 3 to get a DC players need to roll over in order to succeed. The thing about it is that players get to reduce this level by using their skills, gear, and also expending resources from 3 pools. If they can reduce the level to 0, they auto succeed. Else, they roll a d20 against the adjusted DC.

Characters in the cypher system have 3 main stats. These pools of points are the characters HP bar as well as the resource characters can use to activate abilities or apply effort to reduce the level of challenges they face. The way these 3 pools are created is fairly involved, players need to choose a type, a foci, and a descriptor. These choices also give players the list of possible abilities they can choose from. The system provides a large and ever growing number of possible choices for players. Resulting in character customization that is on a similar level to PF2.

What Works

Cypher system was one of the easiest systems to run as a GM. Its also incredibly easy to homebrew new monsters and challenges. So easy in fact, it can be done on the fly mid game.

If you can rate something on a 1 - 10 scale, then you can run cypher system. Assigning a level to something gives you all the statistics you need for it. It can be a monster, a trap or any other challenge you can think of.

Players also get a good amount of support too. The wealth of options allows for players to make any character they can imagine. There is also a long list of abilities for players to use too.

What Doesnt Work

Cypher system does not function like any other TTRPG. This grants it unique strengths, but also comes with a learning curve. Players in particular might be overwhelmed by the long lists of options they have. They also have to get used to the strange math of the system. They never apply bonuses to their roll. They always ease tasks by X number of levels based on gear, skills and effort.

Being a universal system, the system does not come with a defined list of skills or descriptions of where skills apply or how to use them. Instead, players have to be asking the GM if their skill applies to a task. Most of the time, it will be fairly obvious when a skill applies or doesnt but sometimes its less clear.

As a toolbox, while its easy to run the game when it gets going, its incredibly hard to actually set it up. There are no pre made classes for you or your players. Each option has to be looked at and the GM has to decide if that option fits for the genre and theme they are going for in their current game. I remember vividly the amount of reading I had to do in order to organize possible choices for my players before they could make characters. It was a big effort and I did not even go over everything! I only looked over options in the main Cypher System book.

Cypher system is implicitly humano-centric. Adding different racial options to the system can be done, however most must be homebrewed. The core book only came with a few fantasy races. Creating races is easy enough but still. It stuck out when I looked over the system.

To provide challenge to players, the cypher system leans heavily on attrition based gameplay. That is, players must expend points from their pools in order to overcome certain challenges or win in some fights. Some players might find this un-fun. Character pools double as the character’s HP. Having to expend HP in order to avoid being hit and losing a larger amount of HP could feel a little bad. Healing abilities in the cypher system also usually come at the cost of the Healer’s pools as well.

What I hope to See

According to the announcement, the core mechanics of the cypher system are going to remain the same. This is fine since I believe the system is very solid. The learning curve is a fine price to pay for what you get.

What I believe would really help the cypher system is to have things be a little more predefined.

In a word, Templates.

Give me a list of common character types organized by genre and the abilities / other character options that could be used to build this type of character.

Skill lists for specific genres would also be nice. Describe how these skills can be used and what they are for.

Perhaps provide some tactical options. I am unsure if this would fit in with cypher system because it mainly seeks to be a little more story based. The challenge of the system does not come in how you defeat a single fight, the challenge is figuring out how to beat the list of challenges before you to complete the scenario.

Provide better guidelines for ability creation. I remember the core book being fairly good about giving the GM guidelines on how to create their own content for use in the system. The one exception to this was in the creation of new abilities. The core book does help categorize abilities based on what they do but it does not provide guidance on the creation of new abilities. GMs are instead left to reskin abilities. While this is’nt really limiting, the core book alone has all sorts of special abilities, the work of going through each ability to find something similar to what you have in mind is tedious.

Conclusion

Despite it’s flaws, the Cypher System holds my attention.

With this new revision, I hope the folks over at Monte Cook Games can make this toolbox into something that resembles more of a complete game. The system is really cool. I also think that if you are running the cypher system from something like Numenera or Tidal Blades then the game is really quick and easy to run. All the set up is done for you. However, the promise of the cypher system is that it is an easy way to run any game. It certainly is possible to run anything in it, however, the set up required is rough!

I will be looking out for news on what actual changes are coming. The only things we know for certain right now is that the core system is not changing, all previous material will remain compatible and … thats it really.

I look forward to seeing what the folks at Monte Cook Games have in store.