# Cypher System by Monte Cook Games: what do you think about it?



## Strider1973 (Jun 9, 2021)

Hi everybody! I'm thinking of investing my time and money on the Cypher System, by Monte Cook Games. I'm thinking of buying the Core Rulebook, Revised Edition, and the Expanded Worlds Supplement, but first I'd like to hear and read opinions and experiences of those who know the game and have played it. 
There are a lot of thinks that I love about this game, from what I can see, and some things that I'm quite uncertain about if I like them or not, or how could they result at the gaming table.
In particular, I really like these things, about the Cypher System:

it's a generic, universal setting and time agnostic rpg. Love this kind of game, I really like systems like Gurps (even if it's much crunchier), Fate or Savage Worlds. I really like the idea of customizing several settings using just one set of rules. 
it's narrative and fiction focused, with a rule system simple (without being simplistic) and elegant, from what I can see from reviews, videos and gameplay sessions
it features terrific systems for character creation and development, with a lot of options for character customization
the core rulebook has a fantastic "meta-" and "system agnostic" approach when it talks about storytelling, adventure and setting creation
Things I'm uncertain about:

At a first impact, I'm not exactly an enthusiast of systems in which the players, and not the GM, roll all the dice, à la Dungeon World. First, for me the GM is a player too, and as a player I like rolling dice. Second, Game Masters, and not players, should roll for things like Perception, Stealth, Insight, Search, Survival and things like that. If the players roll for them, it could take away some of the suspense at the table: it's a small problem I have also with D&D 5e. Third, if as a GM I don't roll any dice, I can't fudge any roll, so, If I want to save o spare the life of some characters who have been unlucky, I can do only through the fiction and the narrative, which might be cool, but it could also be too "open" and "clear" to the players (es. okay, the orc just stunned you instead of killing you, the GM didn't want to kill you"
I don't know if Adjectives (and even more Characters Arcs, even though they should be optional), might restrict too much the players' freedom in roleplaying their characters. I mean, if I play a "Furious Fighter who fights with Heavy Weapons" (I don't know if there are exactly these descriptors in the game), can I play it as thoughtful or cheerful for some sessions? Of course yes, but my questions remains, because I think that the game features mechanical advantages linked to the descriptors and the adjectives.  What do you think?
One last thing: cyphers. I know that they are one of the fundamental aspects of the game. I'd like to know how much essential they are to the game. I've enjoyed them playing "No, thank you evil!" (an rpg for families also by Monte Cook Games with mechanics similar to Numenera and Cypher Systems), I think that they work great in sci-fi or fantasy, as Numenera, The Strange od Gods of the Fall, but I think that they could require a little bit of thought and work by the GM if they are to be included in historical settings and the like.
So, what are your experiences, thoughts and considerations about the Cypher System?
Many thanks indeed, and I apologize for my English, very convoluted: it's not my mother tongue!


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## Retreater (Jun 9, 2021)

I've had nothing but bad experiences with it. My characters were all flat and didn't have options to do more than one or two things in a combat. Mechanically, the system is set up where I've seen half the party unable to contribute anything meaningful in encounters.
It's been a few years since I've tried it (thankfully). It's one of the few systems I actively avoid.


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## Emerikol (Jun 9, 2021)

The system uses plot coupon style mechanics where you trade back and forth meta tokens to enable some things to happen.   That turns me away right off.   I think it is a very streamlined system but again I didn't play past the first Numenera because I didn't like the plot coupons.


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## Retreater (Jun 9, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> I think it is a very streamlined system but again I didn't play past the first Numenera because I didn't like the plot coupons.



IME, it's "streamlined" to the point of just being a line. As I've heard other things described, it has the depth of a tablespoon.


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## Campbell (Jun 9, 2021)

My personal experience is that the rules get out of the way in that they are really just a thin veneer over the GM deciding what happens. Outside of the cyphers I never really felt like the players had any meaningful tools to disrupt the status quo. It wasn't horrible. It's just the game did not really add to the experience of play. We would have been better off with freeform play.


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## DeviousQuail (Jun 9, 2021)

I DMed about a dozen sessions of Cypher. A couple were standard fantasy dungeon delves and the rest were in a modern setting using the super hero variant rules. 

What I liked: 

A lot of the mechanics of the game are great. Things like how crits work, being able to use effort to boost rolls, ease of using TotM compared to 5e, etc.
The list of Foci is extensive and it was really easy to make custom foci to plug into the game.
The classes are varied enough in their tier to tier choices to avoid every Warrior looking exactly the same.
What I didn't like:

Might shouldn't also be Health. I like the idea of losing Might, Speed, and Intellect if you have no more Health left. But just starting with Might taking 90% of damage sucks.
The way advancement is handled is not fun. Every 4th XP gets you a new tier of abilities from your class and unlocks a new foci ability. XP's 1-3 give small changes to pools, recovery, etc. Packing all the good stuff into 1/4 of your advancement makes the other 3/4 boring by comparison.
Using XP as currency, and meta currency in general, is a facet of gaming I don't enjoy. At all. So it's a negative for me but may not be for others.
Overall, the experience with Cypher was fine. I've stolen numerous mechanics from Cypher for use in other games making it worthwhile just for that. I don't see it being anything more than a change of pace game when we want a break from D&D though.


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## Faolyn (Jun 9, 2021)

I've only played it a few times, and it was OK. It has its problems, though. You (the GM) are expected to randomly roll for cyphers whenever they're found, instead of deciding what seems logical. This also means that when PCs start out with cyphers, they might get something useless. That's what happened the last time I played--I had two cyphers that had no use for either me or the situation we were in.  I dunno; I almost never roll randomly for treasure in any game I run, _especially _not for things that are effectively magic items.

Also, for a game that supposedly is about exploration, discovery, or knowledge, it really doesn't have a lot of rules on that and a very large percentage of their monsters have "hungers for flesh" or similar as their motivation. You know when people say D&D is primarily a combat game with exploration and social interaction tacked on? It's like that, but Cypher describes its system as "about both discovery and exploration, as well as achieving personal goals" then I would expect that discovery, exploration, and personal goals should get a section of the book in the same way that combat does, and that you would be able to get more non-combat abilities. And you mostly don't. Even most of the "exploration" abilities you can choose are combat/getting out of combat related.

I also feel that the company is putting out too many little physical things like decks of cards and even a big board (the guy who runs the cypher games at my table kickstarts them so gets all the goodies), which I think makes it awkward to run at times. Like you need all the expansion packs or something for a proper game.

System-wise, it's OK. I haven't played any one game long enough to be annoyed by things like your Might also being hp (also because our GM hasn't run us through combat adventures).


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## Lord Mhoram (Jun 12, 2021)

It's my system of choice these days (edging out Genesys and Modern Age) - I love how simple it is. If you are looking for detailed tactical combat to drive the flavor - stay far away. It's up to GM and player to make descriptions in combat interesting - if you group defaults in D&D to "I rolled a 17 do I hit" "yes" "11 damage", then Cypher will be really bland.

My wife and I (we play this game solo) invest in character description and world that has our mechanics fit, but our imagination brings it alive. We find it really fun, and while this isn't a great description just a few big steps from freeform roleplaying  (which we do often with characters in conversation and investigation, no matter the system), and it's a light enough system to work really well with that kind of approach.

WE also love using the idea of the "Subtle" Cypher - not an item, but a bennie or bonus you have, and when you use one, you get another. They can really work to support a character - with a bonus to attack meaning chi to a martial artist, magic burst to a spellcaster, or "power stunt" for a superhero.


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## Gnosistika (Jun 12, 2021)

I started playing last year. I've been a long term GM for a long while and after my group decided to take a long extended break from Genesys my one player suggested that she wanted run Cypher we all jumped in. And it is been a great experience.

I'll start with my criticism. I would have preferred a different magic system.

What I like.
      Character creation is the most fun I've had in many years. It allows me to run with any crazy idea I have  and make it work.
      The "attribute" as resource is great, mimics getting fatigued when you exert yourself.
       I like that combat is just part of the game, not a focus.

      If you don't like engaging in the narative during encounters, the game is going to bland. This what ultimately ended our last Genesys game. Once we got to 400+ Xp things started slowing down, reading the dice became a chore and players became fatigued. CS is easier but requires player engagement.
     If you are looking for more mechanical bite to your systems, this game is going to be bland.
     If you like subsystems, the game is going to be bland.

I like the system, a lot, and will probably replace Genesys in future for a while at least.


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## Ghost2020 (Jun 17, 2021)

Get the Rules Primer for a quick look 








						Cypher System Rules Primer - Monte Cook Games | Cypher System | Free Products | DriveThruRPG.com
					

Cypher System Rules Primer - Learn to Play the Cypher System! Victorian horror? High fantasy? Espionage? Galaxy-spanning space opera? With the Cypher




					www.drivethrurpg.com
				




and
Cypher Shorts








						Cypher Shorts - Monte Cook Games | Cypher System | Free Products | DriveThruRPG.com
					

Cypher Shorts - You could be playing ten minutes from now! Experiment with a new genre. Try something weird or different. Or just enjoy




					www.drivethrurpg.com
				



You should be able to get some good ideas from these supplements about what to expect.

Also, I would say, check out The Strange. It's a great setting, with some neat concepts. It involves going to other realities, and your character changes from location to location. There's also a few adventures, a book full of other realities.








						The Strange FREE PREVIEW - Monte Cook Games | The Strange | Free Products | DriveThruRPG.com
					

The Strange FREE PREVIEW - This is a FREE PREVIEW of The Strange. You can also get the full corebook. “Hands down the best RPG rules system and s




					www.drivethrurpg.com
				











						The Strange Bestiary FREE PREVIEW - Monte Cook Games | The Strange | Free Products | DriveThruRPG.com
					

The Strange Bestiary FREE PREVIEW -    This is a FREE PREVIEW of The Strange Bestiary. You can also get the complete book. 150 new creatures for The Strange




					www.drivethrurpg.com
				




It's a different system that's for sure. I would say the GM not rolling dice is quite different, but it does let you work on story, setting up encounters, keeping track of GM Intrusions - to complicate character's lives and keep the story moving.
Monster stats are super easy to manage.

I've enjoyed what I've run, and I'm hoping to run more at some point.


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## FitzTheRuke (Jun 17, 2021)

I don't have time for a bigger post right this second, but in a nutshell: I really REALLY wanted to like it (a LOT of how it work "sounds" great to me), but unfortunately I found it just "meh". It was okay, but like others have said, it seems to have points that resist where you'd like it to be. (If that makes any sense).


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## jeffh (Jun 18, 2021)

Here are two Facebook posts I've written about it at different times. TL;DR - tried it, didn't like it. EDIT: I should clarify that the second one is specifically about Numenera and a few bits of it may be specific to that implementation, but most of it will apply to all the main Cypher titles.


My group and I bounced right off Cypher. The mechanics are too weird and abstruse for our tastes. It's really hard to say what any of them mean in relatable, in-character terms. A high Might (for example) seems more indicative of endurance than strength, and higher scores don't (or only very indirectly) actually make you better at anything. And, especially when you see the stats in that light, there's almost nothing to differentiate characters from one another.

I feel like Cook was trying to find a middle ground between indie storygames (which don't appeal to me or some of my players at all, though I have one or two who like them) and D&D style crunch, and unlike 13th Age - a much more successful attempt at the same goal (thanks for introducing me to that one by the way!) - ended up with the worst, rather than the best, aspects of both.
Hard pass for me.

*

Not a fan.
As a GM I had a hard time translating the mechanics into anything that made sense to me and my players, and kept being put on the spot by natural 1s showing up at moments that made little narrative sense.

Players felt like there wasn't enough to differentiate their characters from one another.

I also never understood why "players roll all the dice" was supposed to be a selling point. Going in I didn't expect it to be better or worse than traditional RPG play, just different. Having actually tried it, my initial expectation was far too generous; I actively hated it. It makes me feel like a passive observer most of the time. It's also very unintuitive to most players, or at least most of _my_ players.

The math doesn't work well and making the creature designs basically "everything on a given critter has the same difficulty except for a few explicit exceptions" puts the emphasis firmly on its worst features. A one-level difference between two creatures can be the difference between a cakewalk and a nearly insurmountable obstacle and it's very hard to gauge where that line is, and the books contain no guidelines on this topic that I was able to find. You probably _could_ make a creature that, say, is easy to hit but packs a wallop, but the system doesn't naturally lend itself to it.

Lastly, this is more the fault of the adventure design (though the rules fail to do what good they could here), but when the game keeps telling you it's about exploration, it is, if not outright lying, at the very least displaying a profound lack of self-awareness. The books talk about this philosophy a lot but then present a system that doesn't read or play like it was designed around that philosophy at all. There's less mechanical support for exploration than there is in almost any other system I've seen. (But plenty for the sort of positioning-based tactical combat that the game explicitly says is at odds with its philosophy. It's like the system and the GMing advice were written, not only by different people, but by different people who didn't communicate much.)

And the adventures, at least the smaller-scale ones in the main books and various other sources... oh dear. They're almost completely linear, with not so much as a side passage with a treasure at the end to be found; there's nothing exploration-based about them at all. Vortex in particularly actively discourages it. It describes an environment that _could_ lend itself to extended exploration but gives you one path to follow that LITERALLY has a glowing outline around it, and a token sidebar on what to do if the players go off the path (using, IIRC, those exact words!), that mostly amounts to "shove them back on".

And that's one of the better ones in that it at least _acknowledges the possibility_, if in a contemptuous sort of way, that the players will take an interest in the world around them and actually play the game the way Cook keeps hammering home that they should be playing it. Most don't even do that. To give another example, "Natural and Unnatural" from one of the mini-adventure books stops giving you any detail right at the point where anything exploration-based _starts_. That's the one I actually ran, but once the investigation in the town was done with I had to supply about two thirds of the adventure myself.

I went in excited to try it, and I do have to say one positive thing which is that the SETTING was a hit with my players - though even that was largely due to bits of colour I kept adding that were at most hinted at in the books. But the nuts and bolts of the mechanics and adventures are not well thought out at all and if I ever run anything else in that setting again, it won't be under those rules.


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## Thomas Shey (Jun 18, 2021)

Like some of the settings a lot--I'm going to do a call-out for the Strange here--but for a game with power packages I think they're simultaneously too random and too specific.  I also think having the same pools that feed your abilities be the ones you take damage in is a fundamental design error, especially the one for fighting specialists.  And while I think the progression in the advancement system is kind of clever, the one-off bottom cases is about as bad an idea here is it is in every other design I've seen do that.


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## mrm1138 (Jun 18, 2021)

I've played and run it a few times, and I really like it. It's what I'd be running right now if I weren't in the middle of a long-running 5e campaign.

Unlike others, I actually really like the fact that attribute pools double as HP and XP can be used for rerolls and player intrusions. I think it adds a bit of strategy to the gameplay that makes the players have to think about what they value more in a given situation.

I also really like the fact that players make all die rolls. I feel like I'm freed up to concentrate on the story.

Last but not least, I love the simplicity of monsters and NPCs. Everything being essentially a difficulty level makes it so easy to run on the fly.


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## Dragonsbane (Jul 6, 2021)

I love this system. Everything about it. We made it more crunchy though for combat. I converted all the 5E spells and most 5E magical items, standardized skills, added some PF/3.5 AoO and movement, made some custom classes with some old 3.5 and 5E abilities, and man it BLOWS 5E away for my group and I. More narrative but plenty of stuff for combat. And wooooow does having players do all the rolls free up time for thinking and DMing!


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 6, 2021)

I haven’t run it, but I’ve long considered using its ChaGen system with running games in other systems, kind of like a modern version of TSR’s old Central Casting books.


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## Numidius (Jul 7, 2021)

Dragonsbane said:


> I love this system. Everything about it. We made it more crunchy though for combat. I converted all the 5E spells and most 5E magical items, standardized skills, added some PF/3.5 AoO and movement, made some custom classes with some old 3.5 and 5E abilities, and man it BLOWS 5E away for my group and I. More narrative but plenty of stuff for combat. And wooooow does having players do all the rolls free up time for thinking and DMing!



I am definitely intrigued and would love to read more about your conversion work


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## Dragonsbane (Jul 7, 2021)

Numidius said:


> I am definitely intrigued and would love to read more about your conversion work



PM sent


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## Gnosistika (Jul 7, 2021)

Numidius said:


> I am definitely intrigued and would love to read more about your conversion work



I am as well. I'm always interested to see how people hack the system to fit their needs.


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## Gnosistika (Jul 18, 2021)

Dragonsbane said:


> I love this system. Everything about it. We made it more crunchy though for combat. I converted all the 5E spells and most 5E magical items, standardized skills, added some PF/3.5 AoO and movement, made some custom classes with some old 3.5 and 5E abilities, and man it BLOWS 5E away for my group and I. More narrative but plenty of stuff for combat. And wooooow does having players do all the rolls free up time for thinking and DMing!



Any chance you have your notes up somewhere? Or do you have some guidelines? 
I told my gaming group about your hack and they were quite interested for a future Spelljammer or Planescape game.


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## Dragonsbane (Jul 18, 2021)

Sending PM


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jul 19, 2021)

Strider1973 said:


> Hi everybody! I'm thinking of investing my time and money on the Cypher System, by Monte Cook Games. I'm thinking of buying the Core Rulebook, Revised Edition, and the Expanded Worlds Supplement, but first I'd like to hear and read opinions and experiences of those who know the game and have played it.
> There are a lot of thinks that I love about this game, from what I can see, and some things that I'm quite uncertain about if I like them or not, or how could they result at the gaming table.
> In particular, I really like these things, about the Cypher System:
> 
> ...



I suspect we have VASTLY different criteria for evaluating RPGs. In terms of character-facing mechanics and chargen in general I don't have any real objections to what is there.

For me, the problem with this game is what is missing. Its written as if the last 20 years of RPG design basically didn't happen... There is no mention of how to make a story unfold and how the players and GM input into it, and no PROCESS for this is described at all.

That is, this game is basically from 1976 in terms of the role of the GM and the players. The GM makes up EVERYTHING that happens. Its her setting, her plot, etc. and the players are going to adventure in it. That was fine as a first cut at RPGing 40+ years ago, but Monte Cook should be able to do better. I feel like the game spends all its arrows on character mechanics and how the GM presents things, but nothing on the concept of play. Look at any PbtA game, there's a much more sophisticated design there, which is still equally simple.

So, I might take some ideas, possibly, in terms of some fun ideas for PC facing stuff for another game, but I wouldn't play this game as it is written. There are just better designs out there.


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## Retreater (Jul 19, 2021)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> That is, this game is basically from 1976 in terms of the role of the GM and the players. The GM makes up EVERYTHING that happens. Its her setting, her plot, etc. and the players are going to adventure in it. That was fine as a first cut at RPGing 40+ years ago, but Monte Cook should be able to do better. I feel like the game spends all its arrows on character mechanics and how the GM presents things, but nothing on the concept of play. Look at any PbtA game, there's a much more sophisticated design there, which is still equally simple.



That's basically how every RPG works, from D&D to Pathfinder, from Call of Cthulhu to Shadowrun, from Savage Worlds to Genesys, from Warhammer Fantasy to GURPS. Basically every RPG that isn't FATE or PbtA, and those are definitely outlier, indie games that aren't for everyone.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jul 20, 2021)

Retreater said:


> That's basically how every RPG works, from D&D to Pathfinder, from Call of Cthulhu to Shadowrun, from Savage Worlds to Genesys, from Warhammer Fantasy to GURPS. Basically every RPG that isn't FATE or PbtA, and those are definitely outlier, indie games that aren't for everyone.



LOL, no offense, but really classic response! Only some weird game that isn't really an RPG and doesn't fall under the aegis of "every RPG" would ever work that way. 

I got news for you the vast majority of RPGs that have come out in the last 10 years work more like FATE or PbtA than any of the ones you mention (which are all older games, though some obviously have had updates in the 2010s). I'd also question whether PF2 really falls into the 'trad' category. I think it probably is more apt to put it in the same bucket as 4e, which is "games which can be interpreted as trad, but provide ample means to play them as story games." 

My response is, all the games you listed are "definitely not for everyone." That pretty much is a given with all RPGs is it not? 

I mean, the odd thing with Cypher is, it feels like the author WANTS to write a Story Game, but doesn't quite dare to take the plunge, or can't quite figure out how to structure things that way. He gets close a few times, you can expend an XP to amend the fiction, but ONLY to remove a 'GM Excursion', which is basically a forced obstacle where the GM imposes a consequence, entirely at his discretion and outside player control. I think you can also force a reroll by paying an XP point, again simply allowing the player to UNDO something. When I first looked at the description of the game, I really thought it would inevitably do something modern, but in the end, sadly no. 

Honestly, OVERALL, it reminds me strongly of the generic d6 system (Old d6 Star Wars with the serial numbers filed off). Chargen and such are very similar, though obviously the details of mechanics are pretty different.


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## Retreater (Jul 20, 2021)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I got news for you the vast majority of RPGs that have come out in the last 10 years work more like FATE or PbtA than any of the ones you mention



I mean if you want to take all of those indie games that combined sell maybe 1% of any of the other games I mentioned, sure. But they have no perceivable market share or impact on the broader hobby.
Do your local game stores have organized play for FATE? Are there popular live plays for PbtA? Is DREAD featured on Stephen Colbert?


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## Ghost2020 (Jul 20, 2021)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I mean, the odd thing with Cypher is, it feels like the author WANTS to write a Story Game, but doesn't quite dare to take the plunge, or can't quite figure out how to structure things that way.



No, it actually doesn't. 
It's a medium crunch game, that shifts some GM actions around, and allows for the "I have a neat idea to add a complication". 
Monte is one of the authors of D&D 3rd edition, I would imagine after that process he wanted a lighter dungeon crawl game that relieved the GM of some book keeping.  

It seems to be that you're implying that Cypher is a bad story style game. Which it's not, that isn't one of its objectives.


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## Campbell (Jul 20, 2021)

I agree with much of your criticism @AbdulAlhazred , but I do not think Monte Cook wanted to create a game that was anything like Apocalypse World. When you look at the other games he has developed and the videos where he is running Numenera it's fairly obvious that Monte Cook is very much attached GM storytelling and world building as a central feature of play. I think Cypher is pretty much custom tailored to enable that sort of play in the most seamless way possible. It does it more smoothly than pretty much any game I have come across.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jul 20, 2021)

Retreater said:


> I mean if you want to take all of those indie games that combined sell maybe 1% of any of the other games I mentioned, sure. But they have no perceivable market share or impact on the broader hobby.
> Do your local game stores have organized play for FATE? Are there popular live plays for PbtA? Is DREAD featured on Stephen Colbert?



Well, I'm perfectly happy to look at those market share numbers you have.... I mean, this is the internet, I believe actual evidence of things, everything else is fantasy. In any case, the majority of games that are being published today are Story Games by my definition, not 'trad' RPGs. Yes, D&D has a large market share, as always, but we really don't know what the market overall looks like in any detail. Unless, again, you have some market research the rest of us don't. 

Otherwise, I'm going to simply restate what I said before. You can label anything that doesn't fit your opinion of what RPGs should be as 'not an RPG' and 'fringe' and whatever other terms you are about to use, but its utterly irrelevant to this discussion. My bet is PbtA and FitD based games outsell Cypher System stuff 10:1 at least, does that matter? 

The observation stands, as purely my opinion and analysis of the game, which is all the OP was asking for, what I thought of it. Which I'm sticking to. It is a decently well-written game, good production values overall, but the rules seem antiquated, especially considering the types of stories it is aiming at telling. Any game where I would consider using Cypher System I would 100x over build a PbtA based game, or run one of the dozens of high-quality ones that already exist, or maybe something based on FATE/SotC, Cortex, etc. There are a LOT of choices out there! A lot of very slick designs that work really well! It is basically irrelevant to me how much market share they have, I'm not a lemming! lol.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jul 20, 2021)

Campbell said:


> I agree with much of your criticism @AbdulAlhazred , but I do not think Monte Cook wanted to create a game that was anything like Apocalypse World. When you look at the other games he has developed and the videos where he is running Numenera it's fairly obvious that Monte Cook is very much attached GM storytelling and world building as a central feature of play. I think Cypher is pretty much custom tailored to enable that sort of play in the most seamless way possible. It does it more smoothly than pretty much any game I have come across.



I'm not saying he did. I'm just saying, from my perspective the game has little to offer. Honestly, for trad FRPGs 5e is perfectly good. I've played in some 5e campaigns. I ran some stuff a few years back with d6 variants, which did what Cypher is doing, maybe one is better than the other, I'm not really interested in even measuring that, because I wouldn't use d6 again either. It is not a BAD system, it is just old-fashioned.

I've bit the apple of Story Games and there is simply no going back. I can play some older games for the sake of old times or simply because I really know the other players really well, etc. but I won't run a trad game ever again. I don't even run 4e anymore, I've hacked it so much its a completely new game at this point.


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## Tantavalist (Jul 20, 2021)

My opinions on the Cypher System pretty much match the majority of replies here. It's got enough good ideas that I really, really want to like the game and see it work. But the unfortunate reality once you do more than casually peruse the rulebooks is that it just falls short.

What's even more frustrating for me is that a viable alternative exists. Invisible Sun, also by Monte Cook Games, is clearly inspired by the Cypher System. It includes all the elements that people have said that they like about CS while also solving every single issue with it that people have raised in this thread. It's a true 2e of Cypher, rather than what was released as the 2e of Numenera. It also has the single best XP system that I've ever seen, one that I often adapt to other games ever since I came across IS.

Unfortunately the company seems to be dead set on keeping the game system as a dirty secret that they hide from the gaming community as a whole. Invisible Sun is very, very steeply priced and that paywall stands between Joe Gamer and the single best product that Monte Cook Games has every produced. I will recommend IS to anyone who asks about it, but I also fully understand if anyone doesn't want to take the plunge and risk it.


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## Aldarc (Jul 20, 2021)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> He gets close a few times, you can expend an XP to amend the fiction, but ONLY to remove a 'GM Excursion', which is basically a forced obstacle where the GM imposes a consequence, entirely at his discretion and outside player control. I think you can also force a reroll by paying an XP point, again simply allowing the player to UNDO something. When I first looked at the description of the game, I really thought it would inevitably do something modern, but in the end, sadly no.



FWIW, _Player_ Intrusions are now a thing as of the latest iteration of Numenera and the Cypher System. 



Campbell said:


> I agree with much of your criticism @AbdulAlhazred , but I do not think Monte Cook wanted to create a game that was anything like Apocalypse World. When you look at the other games he has developed and the videos where he is running Numenera it's fairly obvious that* Monte Cook is very much attached GM storytelling and world building as a central feature of play.* I think Cypher is pretty much custom tailored to enable that sort of play in the most seamless way possible. It does it more smoothly than pretty much any game I have come across.



I generally think that this is how Monte Cook and a number of fans of the Cypher System understand the Cypher System as a story-focused game. 



Tantavalist said:


> My opinions on the Cypher System pretty much match the majority of replies here. It's got enough good ideas that I really, really want to like the game and see it work. But the unfortunate reality once you do more than casually peruse the rulebooks is that it just falls short.
> 
> What's even more frustrating for me is that a viable alternative exists. Invisible Sun, also by Monte Cook Games, is clearly inspired by the Cypher System. It includes all the elements that people have said that they like about CS while also solving every single issue with it that people have raised in this thread. It's a true 2e of Cypher, rather than what was released as the 2e of Numenera. It also has the single best XP system that I've ever seen, one that I often adapt to other games ever since I came across IS.
> 
> Unfortunately the company seems to be dead set on keeping the game system as a dirty secret that they hide from the gaming community as a whole. Invisible Sun is very, very steeply priced and that paywall stands between Joe Gamer and the single best product that Monte Cook Games has every produced. I will recommend IS to anyone who asks about it, but I also fully understand if anyone doesn't want to take the plunge and risk it.



I would like to see MCG play around with IS or even offer a more stripped down version without elaborate language and terminology. Unfortunately, MCG seems more interested in publishing materials for the Cypher System and some upcoming heist game for Kickstarter.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jul 20, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> FWIW, _Player_ Intrusions are now a thing as of the latest iteration of Numenera and the Cypher System.



Interesting. That would move it a bit beyond 1984's MSHRP at least! I suspect it would still benefit from some additional process around things like exactly what is meant by 'success' on a check. PERSONALLY I would like to see something a bit more 'FitD-like' in terms of something that would govern the structure of conflict a bit more. 

Even with Player Intrusions (and I'm assuming they are somewhat analogous to GM intrusions, maybe I'm wrong and there's more to it) there generally needs to be something which governs the valence of a check. In that sense Cypher System in its initial form is on a par with 5e. There's simply no way for a player to know or gauge what the impact of a check will be. Why spend tons of effort on gaining a success when you may be obligated by the GM to make 5 more tough checks to get to your goal? As with 5e and other 'trad' systems, combat is usually an obvious exception where the stakes and obstacles are clearly spelled out, so I'm sure THAT works fine.

But you need something like FitD clocks, 4e SCs, or else a very robust set of process/principles that spells out how things must 'move on now' such as PbtA games have. CS simply lacks that, even with the new rule (I think, correct me if I'm wrong).


Aldarc said:


> I generally think that this is how Monte Cook and a number of fans of the Cypher System understand the Cypher System as a story-focused game.



Right, in terms of plot and overall direction and such, you are attending GM theater, or perhaps at most making suggestions that will be politely heard. Anything else is outside the realm of the game proper.


Aldarc said:


> I would like to see MCG play around with IS or even offer a more stripped down version without elaborate language and terminology. Unfortunately, MCG seems more interested in publishing materials for the Cypher System and some upcoming heist game for Kickstarter.



So, what exactly is different in IS? Player Intrusions? I don't even really know the genre of the game (I haven't really followed MCG that closely).


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## Gradine (Jul 20, 2021)

It works perfectly for a beginner rpg like with No Thank You, Evil. 

Numenera is a pretty great setting, and the Cypher mechanics are the best mechanic I've ever seen for single-use "magic" items. 

Beyond that though, the PC mechanics are shockingly restricting for such an otherwise open ended system, so I couldn't recommend it


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## Ghost2020 (Jul 20, 2021)

What 4e are you referring to?

D&D 4e?
I'm not sure


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jul 20, 2021)

Ghost2020 said:


> What 4e are you referring to?
> 
> D&D 4e?
> I'm not sure



If you were responding to me, then probably so, yes.


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## Aldarc (Jul 20, 2021)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Right, in terms of plot and overall direction and such, you are attending GM theater, or perhaps at most making suggestions that will be politely heard. Anything else is outside the realm of the game proper.



Monte Cook is a product of his time as a game designer. He seems fairly rooted in '90s-'00s trad gaming but has an impressive '10s hype machine for his Kickstarter projects. 

When I look at the things that I like about Monte Cook as a designer, it tends to be more about the worlds he creates (e.g., Ptolus, Diamond Throne, Numenera, Invisible Sun, etc.) and less about his mechanics. 



AbdulAlhazred said:


> So, what exactly is different in IS? Player Intrusions? I don't even really know the genre of the game (I haven't really followed MCG that closely).



I don't know it that well, and I have not seen a tutorial that explained the game mechanics properly. From what I gather, it's now a d10 system. But instead of 1-10, it's read as 0-9. Anything with a difficulty of 10+ requires the addition of magic dice, which is hardly out of the ordinary in a game where everyone is a mage. But complications can occur when using the magic die. 

Also from what I recall, there is also a different XP and character advancement progression. There are a lot of other variables like the Sorte Deck, but these are the things that I sometimes have difficulty discerning through Cook's commitment to grandiose style over technical clarity in his writing of Invisible Sun. 



Gradine said:


> It works perfectly for a beginner rpg like with No Thank You, Evil.
> 
> Numenera is a pretty great setting, and the Cypher mechanics are the best mechanic I've ever seen for single-use "magic" items.
> 
> Beyond that though, the PC mechanics are shockingly restricting for such an otherwise open ended system, so I couldn't recommend it



I recall how underwhelmed one of my players was after he went from the character creation of Fate to Numenera.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jul 20, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> Monte Cook is a product of his time as a game designer. He seems fairly rooted in '90s-'00s trad gaming but has an impressive '10s hype machine for his Kickstarter projects.
> 
> When I look at the things that I like about Monte Cook as a designer, it tends to be more about the worlds he creates (e.g., Ptolus, Diamond Throne, Numenera, Invisible Sun, etc.) and less about his mechanics.



I have missed a lot of it. I recall playing in a game that was set in Ptolus once. It seemed VAST, but otherwise there wasn't so much different from things like City State of the Invincible Overlord, etc. 
Reading about Invisible Sun, it sounds like a really ambitious sort of Zelazny-esque kind of thing, or sort of a 'magical Matrix' kind of thing. I'd get kicked in the arse if I paid $100 for a game though, lol.


Aldarc said:


> I don't know it that well, and I have not seen a tutorial that explained the game mechanics properly. From what I gather, it's now a d10 system. But instead of 1-10, it's read as 0-9. Anything with a difficulty of 10+ requires the addition of magic dice, which is hardly out of the ordinary in a game where everyone is a mage. But complications can occur when using the magic die.
> 
> Also from what I recall, there is also a different XP and character advancement progression. There are a lot of other variables like the Sorte Deck, but these are the things that I sometimes have difficulty discerning through Cook's commitment to grandiose style over technical clarity in his writing of Invisible Sun.



It seems like an OK style for a setting. Not so sure it works for me in terms of a game. Cypher System seems mostly reasonably clear mechanically.


Aldarc said:


> I recall how underwhelmed one of my players was after he went from the character creation of Fate to Numenera.


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## Lord Mhoram (Jul 20, 2021)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> For me, the problem with this game is what is missing. Its written as if the last 20 years of RPG design basically didn't happen... There is no mention of how to make a story unfold and how the players and GM input into it, and no PROCESS for this is described at all.
> 
> That is, this game is basically from 1976 in terms of the role of the GM and the players. The GM makes up EVERYTHING that happens. Its her setting, her plot, etc. and the players are going to adventure in it. That was fine as a first cut at RPGing 40+ years ago, but Monte Cook should be able to do better.




I agree with the general description, but that is one of the reasons I love it. The mechanics are for things that the players cannot do - fighting, skill checks, etc. No rules to get in the way of interaction, immersion or story creation - which I and my players do as second nature. I have tried and don't like Fate, PbtA and some other games you mentioned. I much prefer a traditional GM is world and most of the stories, players are characters who impact the story by action as their characters.

In a sense, Cypher came off like a traditional game for people that like a traditional structure, to get close to some of what games like you mentioned offer, without the mechanics, that I, for one, find irritating.


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## Dragonsbane (Jul 24, 2021)

Since people are talking about Cypher in this thread.... someone above in the thread asked for some files I made for Cypher Fantasy, so here is the link:

Cypher System Fantasy Compendium - Monte Cook Games | Cypher System Creator Program | DriveThruRPG.com

Basically, it's all 5E OGL spells, most 5E OGL magical items, and some OGL monsters (and how to do all your own conversions, the formulas used in everything in the book.

If the link is not allowed mods please delete, I don't know if links are allowed as I posted this link one other place.


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## dougzero (Nov 16, 2021)

Having not played this system, but having read the source material for The Strange, my opinion matches most answers here - I love the setting, I like the idea of using stat pools as both health and effort resources, but find the combat, encounter and exploration rules really lacking.  The fact that any monster of the same threat level has the same AC, damage, and HP seems way too flat.  And given the wildly open description of the setting, I found the sample adventure clunky and lacking in sense or inspiration.

All that said, I like the setting so much that I'm seriously considering running it as a 5E game, and just reskinning D&D monsters to Strange critters, cyphers become single-use magic that the players collect on a regular basis, and making characters for different worlds feels like it would go faster if I just say, "D&D classes, these are the ones available, give me an expertise and we'll call it your sub-class".  All my players are very familiar with 5E, so character building this way makes sense to me.  I'd really like to use the stat pools, but haven't figured that out yet.

Anyone want to talk me out of this?  Does this sound workable?


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## Ruin Explorer (Nov 16, 2021)

dougzero said:


> I love the setting, I like the idea of using stat pools as both health and effort resources, but find the combat, encounter and exploration rules really lacking.



This sums up my feelings about Cypher very well. Liked all the ideas, liked most of the settings it's been applied to, hated the actual rules and how they actually worked. The concept is sound, with the stat pools as resources, but it just doesn't work in a fun or interesting way for us. And it's quite clunky/fiddly/limited in a strange way.


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## Ghost2020 (Nov 16, 2021)

dougzero said:


> Having not played this system, but having read the source material for The Strange, my opinion matches most answers here - I love the setting, I like the idea of using stat pools as both health and effort resources, but find the combat, encounter and exploration rules really lacking.  The fact that any monster of the same threat level has the same AC, damage, and HP seems way too flat.  And given the wildly open description of the setting, I found the sample adventure clunky and lacking in sense or inspiration.
> 
> All that said, I like the setting so much that I'm seriously considering running it as a 5E game, and just reskinning D&D monsters to Strange critters, cyphers become single-use magic that the players collect on a regular basis, and making characters for different worlds feels like it would go faster if I just say, "D&D classes, these are the ones available, give me an expertise and we'll call it your sub-class".  All my players are very familiar with 5E, so character building this way makes sense to me.  I'd really like to use the stat pools, but haven't figured that out yet.
> 
> Anyone want to talk me out of this?  Does this sound workable?



This has already been done.
MCG has done the Artifacts of the Ancients, Beneath the Monolith, and Where the Machines Wait. All 5e compatible.


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## Thomas Shey (Nov 16, 2021)

Well, over and above my not liking D&D5 (but then, I'm not a massive D&D fan in general and haven't been for nearly 40 years now), I don't think that's going to entirely do the job with covering the ground in some of the Strange worlds.  I'd want to be starting with a superhero game _at least_.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Nov 16, 2021)

dougzero said:


> Having not played this system, but having read the source material for The Strange, my opinion matches most answers here - I love the setting, I like the idea of using stat pools as both health and effort resources, but find the combat, encounter and exploration rules really lacking.  The fact that any monster of the same threat level has the same AC, damage, and HP seems way too flat.  And given the wildly open description of the setting, I found the sample adventure clunky and lacking in sense or inspiration.
> 
> All that said, I like the setting so much that I'm seriously considering running it as a 5E game, and just reskinning D&D monsters to Strange critters, cyphers become single-use magic that the players collect on a regular basis, and making characters for different worlds feels like it would go faster if I just say, "D&D classes, these are the ones available, give me an expertise and we'll call it your sub-class".  All my players are very familiar with 5E, so character building this way makes sense to me.  I'd really like to use the stat pools, but haven't figured that out yet.
> 
> Anyone want to talk me out of this?  Does this sound workable?



Eh, well, I mean I have the same basic objections to 5e as I do to Cypher, they are both very 'trad' systems. I don't know enough about actual play of Cypher System to say how it stacks up against 5e in terms of danger, character progression, and general feel TBH. The Strange sounds like a sort of 'mythos adjacent' kind of setup, but I honestly don't know if the feel is supposed to be "we're in over heads, this is bad stuff, we're not going to get out of this alive." or if it is more 'Stranger Things' where the badder the monsters are, the harder they fall; and while you may lose some things along the way, you'll come out OK in the end (at least until The Demogorgon comes back in whatever its latest form is). The former sort of game is hard to do with a D&D-like, as character progression is not really a thing that works well in "we're all doomed in the end." OTOH it seems like it would work pretty well for something akin to Stranger Things, the PCs keep winning and each win makes them stronger.


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## Faolyn (Nov 16, 2021)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Eh, well, I mean I have the same basic objections to 5e as I do to Cypher, they are both very 'trad' systems. I don't know enough about actual play of Cypher System to say how it stacks up against 5e in terms of danger, character progression, and general feel TBH. The Strange sounds like a sort of 'mythos adjacent' kind of setup, but I honestly don't know if the feel is supposed to be "we're in over heads, this is bad stuff, we're not going to get out of this alive." or if it is more 'Stranger Things' where the badder the monsters are, the harder they fall; and while you may lose some things along the way, you'll come out OK in the end (at least until The Demogorgon comes back in whatever its latest form is). The former sort of game is hard to do with a D&D-like, as character progression is not really a thing that works well in "we're all doomed in the end." OTOH it seems like it would work pretty well for something akin to Stranger Things, the PCs keep winning and each win makes them stronger.



The Strange is alternate reality/dimension hopping, with the Strange itself being the term (IIRC) for the weird semi-reality between dimensions. It has a dimension that is sorta medieval fantasy-but-weird, a dimension that are kinda evil biotech, a dimension of anthro crow mafia in a giant floating tree, dimensions based on various novels, etc. It's been a while since I've read the books, but I think any Mythos-type stuff is kind of just background stuff. There's not much of an overarching plot to the setting. Just... you can travel between dimensions and go forth to kill monsters and take their stuff explore.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Nov 16, 2021)

Faolyn said:


> The Strange is alternate reality/dimension hopping, with the Strange itself being the term (IIRC) for the weird semi-reality between dimensions. It has a dimension that is sorta medieval fantasy-but-weird, a dimension that are kinda evil biotech, a dimension of anthro crow mafia in a giant floating tree, dimensions based on various novels, etc. It's been a while since I've read the books, but I think any Mythos-type stuff is kind of just background stuff. There's not much of an overarching plot to the setting. Just... you can travel between dimensions and go forth to kill monsters and take their stuff explore.



RIFTS meets D&D, or perhaps another iteration of the M:tG multiverse, basically. So, yeah, maybe a D&D-like will work, though it sounds like there's always the assumption that if you mess with things a bit too much, you can run into 'Yog-Sothoth' and then you're hosed, no matter what. lol.


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## Ghost2020 (Nov 16, 2021)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> RIFTS meets D&D, or perhaps another iteration of the M:tG multiverse, basically. So, yeah, maybe a D&D-like will work, though it sounds like there's always the assumption that if you mess with things a bit too much, you can run into 'Yog-Sothoth' and then you're hosed, no matter what. lol.



One could always end up in a recursion based on Lovecraft's New England. That's the only way that would happen, as HPL is fiction.  Now a world eating creature could show up, that's an option.


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## Thomas Shey (Nov 16, 2021)

Yeah, one of the important elements of The Strange is that there's what's called "fictional leakage" where the core Earth's fictional conceits can create limited worlds all their own; sometimes they also admix in odd ways.


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## mrm1138 (Nov 17, 2021)

dougzero said:


> The fact that any monster of the same threat level has the same AC, damage, and HP seems way too flat.




That's not entirely accurate. If you want to run monsters as basically as possible, then yes, their stats are virtually identical, but in practice, that's not always the case. For example, let's compare two different monsters from The Ninth World Bestiary for Numenera. Both are level 3.

Erulian
Health: 9
Damage Inflicted: 3 points
Modifications: Defends as level 4

Glacier Slime
Health: 12
Damage Inflicted: 4 points
Armor: 2
Modifications: Speed defense as level 2

That's not even counting the descriptions of what they can do in combat that makes them different from other monsters of the same level. In short, the monsters are as simple or complicated as you want them to be.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Nov 17, 2021)

Ghost2020 said:


> One could always end up in a recursion based on Lovecraft's New England. That's the only way that would happen, as HPL is fiction.  Now a world eating creature could show up, that's an option.



Well, that was why I put it in scare-quotes. I don't mean 'you end up dealing with Mythos beings', just that there are 'big bads' that are similar in nature. The concept exists in the series 'The Magicians' too, just in the form of weird stuff you do NOT want to actually meet. In fact, I would say that show fits the paradigm described pretty closely.


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## teitan (Nov 17, 2021)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> RIFTS meets D&D, or perhaps another iteration of the M:tG multiverse, basically. So, yeah, maybe a D&D-like will work, though it sounds like there's always the assumption that if you mess with things a bit too much, you can run into 'Yog-Sothoth' and then you're hosed, no matter what. lol.



My reading of the Strange is that you've essentially just done a _Reductio ad Absurdam_, I mean sure, let's go with that but it's more like Grant Morrison than Siembieda's gonzo houseruled D&D system/mega-setting. Reading MCG product I get the feeling they read a lot of the same source materials that I would read, or Alan Moore, Grant Morrison and Neil Gaiman would read. Qabalah, Kenneth Grant, Theosophical texts, weird theoretical physics and some of the more absurd new age material like David Icke (he's new age, not conspiracy, they're married now) and David Wilcock. Especially for The Strange and Invisible Sun.


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## Aldarc (Nov 17, 2021)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> RIFTS meets D&D, or perhaps another iteration of the M:tG multiverse, basically. So, yeah, maybe a D&D-like will work, though it sounds like there's always the assumption that if you mess with things a bit too much, you can run into 'Yog-Sothoth' and then you're hosed, no matter what. lol.



The conceit of the setting is basically that your characters can go from the "real world" to various alternate dimensions, which range from fantasy, futurism, cyberpunk, or even fiction (e.g., Wonderland, King Arthur, Atlantis, Hawaii Five-O, etc.). But your character also "translates" to more dimension-appropriate form and abilities. Translation is somewhat similar to "reboot" in the '90s animated show Reboot.  It's essentially a setting about meta-settings and promoting a "you can play anything in this one game" sort of attitude. It's a pretty neat idea, though I don't think that it's really one for me, but it's also not the only game out there with similar ideas: e.g., Threefold for Green Ronin's Modern AGE.

That said, direct support for this game has basically dropped off the planet. It did pave the way for the generic Cypher System Rulebook, and one could pull from these books to support the Strange, but the last _The Strange_ product was in 2015.


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## Thomas Shey (Nov 17, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> The conceit of the setting is basically that your characters can go from the "real world" to various alternate dimensions, which range from fantasy, futurism, cyberpunk, or even fiction (e.g., Wonderland, King Arthur, Atlantis, Hawaii Five-O, etc.). But your character also "translates" to more dimension-appropriate form and abilities. Translation is somewhat similar to "reboot" in the '90s animated show Reboot.  It's essentially a setting about meta-settings and promoting a "you can play anything in this one game" sort of attitude. It's a pretty neat idea, though I don't think that it's really one for me, but it's also not the only game out there with similar ideas: e.g., Threefold for Green Ronin's Modern AGE.




I really like the setting idea, but really don't like the system its in, and have not found another choice that would handle it in a way that's not a chore.

As far as support dropping off the edge--well, you can argue it had largely reached its needed support level, and may not have had enough of a market to start chasing diminishing returns.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Nov 17, 2021)

teitan said:


> My reading of the Strange is that you've essentially just done a _Reductio ad Absurdam_, I mean sure, let's go with that but it's more like Grant Morrison than Siembieda's gonzo houseruled D&D system/mega-setting. Reading MCG product I get the feeling they read a lot of the same source materials that I would read, or Alan Moore, Grant Morrison and Neil Gaiman would read. Qabalah, Kenneth Grant, Theosophical texts, weird theoretical physics and some of the more absurd new age material like David Icke (he's new age, not conspiracy, they're married now) and David Wilcock. Especially for The Strange and Invisible Sun.



Not sure where you get 'reductio' out of anything I said, we might not mean the same thing by that phrase I'm guessing... Anyway, yes Siembieda's material is very 'gonzo', it just happens to embody the central concept of multiple realities based on fiction. Actually that concept is a lot older, but I'm having trouble coming up with the canonical example, though I'm pretty sure it has lurked in western literature for centuries. Anyway, there are lots of classic examples, Moorcock, Zelazny, some other more modern fantasy authors have put more of the 'conspiracy twist' on it, etc. It has roots in many places. I mean, in essence the GW of D&D is largely another imaging of basically the same idea, certainly the 'alternate primes' fall into that category, though the rest is a bit more religious in its ultimate derivation (which does get you to the Qabalah as well eventually). Its like that old show 'Connections' where the presenter describes how everything in science links to everything else in some roundabout way. Anyway, tone-wise it sounds more conspiracy-like, which does get us back towards 'Mythos Adjacent' since "stuff most people don't know" is pretty much stock-in-trade there, and I would say that Conspiracy Stuff has pretty much eaten the Mythos too... sigh.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Nov 17, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> As far as support dropping off the edge--well, you can argue it had largely reached its needed support level, and may not have had enough of a market to start chasing diminishing returns.



Yeah, reality is that game developers need markets, so most products reach a level of completeness where the core fans are not happy, but the rest of the world hasn't enough interest to support more supplements. I mean, that's the core dynamic even for D&D basically! 'Lofting' the core system into a generic is one of the various ways a game designer can go in terms of pushing a project on beyond that point, another being endless version rolls; and there may be other ways, though less trodden (converting to a new system is one). Most games simply get abandoned and perhaps after a decade or three of being fallow get a rewrite if they were interesting enough.  I mean, look at Everway, I think it has a somewhat similar tone and premise to The Strange. It managed to get a reboot not too long ago, but my guess is it will now slip back into obscurity.


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## Aldarc (Nov 17, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> I really like the setting idea, but really don't like the system its in, and have not found another choice that would handle it in a way that's not a chore.
> 
> As far as support dropping off the edge--well, *you can argue it had largely reached its needed support level, and may not have had enough of a market to start chasing diminishing returns.*



That latter bit does feel like the Cypher System in a nut shell. MCG produced a lot of quality content for it, but nothing as of late has really been about pushing the boundaries of the system or addressing some of the commonly cited/known faults of the system. So a lot of the products from MCG haven't really impressed me as of the past few years outside of retreading old hits for 5e (e.g., Ptolus, planes, outsourcing Arcana Evolved, etc.).


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## Thomas Shey (Nov 17, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> That latter bit does feel like the Cypher System in a nut shell. MCG produced a lot of quality content for it, but nothing as of late has really been about pushing the boundaries of the system or addressing some of the commonly cited/known faults of the system. So a lot of the products from MCG haven't really impressed me as of the past few years outside of retreading old hits for 5e (e.g., Ptolus, planes, outsourcing Arcana Evolved, etc.).




Its one of those things I have to try and explain to a lot of people who mourn the fact their favorite system isn't getting more support; every game has a natural support threshold beyond which producing more products for it makes less and less money.  That's one reason why game systems don't just support the same edition forever; doing a new edition requires work, but it also almost always gains more money than producing Yet Another Add On for the prior edition at some point.


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## Mark Craddock (Dec 16, 2021)

Dragonsbane said:


> I love this system. Everything about it. We made it more crunchy though for combat. I converted all the 5E spells and most 5E magical items, standardized skills, added some PF/3.5 AoO and movement, made some custom classes with some old 3.5 and 5E abilities, and man it BLOWS 5E away for my group and I. More narrative but plenty of stuff for combat. And wooooow does having players do all the rolls free up time for thinking and DMing!



Sorry to raise this thread, but I saw that you had Private Message your notes to a few people and I was hoping you'd willing to do that for me.  Thanks!


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## Buzzqw (Dec 16, 2021)

Mark Craddock said:


> Sorry to raise this thread, but I saw that you had Private Message your notes to a few people and I was hoping you'd willing to do that for me.  Thanks!



totally agree.. could you send me the pm?
thanks

BHH


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## Ghost2020 (Dec 16, 2021)

I'd like to jump in on this too!


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## aramis erak (Dec 18, 2021)

I've read a lot of good things about it. So I grabbed the humblebundle a couple weeks back.

I had no bleeding clue which book was the initial corebook. There's the "Discovery Corebook" and the "Destiny Corebook," and the "Numenera Players Guide." I started with Discovery, which seems to be the right one.

Actually skimming a bit in the discovery corebook...
1d20 for 3× Difficulty  number... a bit coarse. That abilities shift the Difficulty in steps is no big deal for me.
All rolls player facing. I'm good with that.
Layout? functional and pretty.
Fixed damage, bonuses to in on 17+? Not a dealbreaker, but... 
3 stats? Hmm... 
Effort spending from stat pools? It's a way of giving a bonus
Att Pool, att edge, and max  effort... it keeps the numbers in check. Spending pools to use abilities...

Initial classes... Glaive? Jack? Nano? Jack is a good label for what it is... but Glaive and Nano? If you have to have read the rulebook to understand what the class is about, it seems a bit pretentious.

Checking Destiny, the new types, again, are one clear (Wright), and one WTF? (Arkus) The third, Delve, is hinting at its competences. 

I see influences from Fate, from Dying Earth, from D&D... I can also see some influences from Baker's _Apocalypse World_, but they're small and in tone. «GM interruptions» is a term that is clearly is from the narrativist playbook. (pun intended.) And it works very much like Fate «compels.»  Those interruptions are the kind of thing that Baker was avoiding in AW; in AW, they are only for when the story stalls. In Fate, they're for enforcing the disad element of aspects.
Here, they're not clear on the why, only on the how. 

Advancement seems to be potentially really quick, too. 

I could see running it, but I wouldn't have been willing to pay the original price. It feels on first read like "Monte does Dying Earth better than Gary"...

It's definitely neither trad nor totally narrativist. Like Fate, it's a mechanicalized narrativism, with strong nods to Trad.

I've got other things to try first... And other things to return to before hand.


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## Mark Craddock (Dec 20, 2021)

aramis erak said:


> It's definitely neither trad nor totally narrativist. Like Fate, it's a mechanicalized narrativism, with strong nods to Trad.
> 
> I've got other things to try first... And other things to return to before hand.



Some of the choices are a bit odd but the rules really encourage exploration and interaction as much as conflict, IMO. Additionally, for me at least, it requires the right group. Back in 2016 the group I had was great but preferred combat, but these days the group I'm with has some great role-players and we've played together long enough that the interactions are top-notch. If you try it, I hope it works out for you.


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## Dragonsbane (Jan 3, 2022)

Mark Craddock said:


> Sorry to raise this thread, but I saw that you had Private Message your notes to a few people and I was hoping you'd willing to do that for me.  Thanks!





Buzzqw said:


> totally agree.. could you send me the pm?
> thanks
> 
> BHH





Ghost2020 said:


> I'd like to jump in on this too!



Sorry I didn't reply sooner, I don't read these forums much anymore.

Here ya go!








						Cypher System Fantasy Compendium - Monte Cook Games | Cypher System Creator Program | DriveThruRPG.com
					

Cypher System Fantasy Compendium - Cypher System Fantasy Compendium Spells! Magical Items! Monsters! Below I present resources to make your Cypher System f




					www.drivethrurpg.com
				












						Cypher System Fantasy Ancestries & Types - Monte Cook Games | Cypher System Creator Program | DriveThruRPG.com
					

Cypher System Fantasy Ancestries & Types - Cypher System Fantasy Ancestries & Types Below I present resources to make your Cypher System fantasy genre games mo




					www.drivethrurpg.com


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## daddystabz (Jan 26, 2022)

It is one of my favorite systems of all-time and I've played/GM'ed nearly everything you can imagine in my over 30 years of TTRPG experience.  Numenera is also one of my favorite settings ever.  I disagree with a lot of the criticisms in this thread.  I have a HUGE RPG collection and have read soooooo many games.  Cypher simply rocks for me.


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## Neonchameleon (Jan 26, 2022)

I've only played Numenera and it was thoroughly and unequivocally meh for me. There were some interesting ideas in the _setting_. But the basic mechanics simply gave almost nothing and indeed when the only effect being a strong character has is providing a _spendable_ dice pool then the playing habits it encourages are turtling and avoiding the rules because you have basic skill at very little, just little chits that add to d10 rolls and that you want to keep for when they are valuable.


daddystabz said:


> It is one of my favorite systems of all-time and I've played/GM'ed nearly everything you can imagine in my over 30 years of TTRPG experience.  Numenera is also one of my favorite settings ever.  I disagree with a lot of the criticisms in this thread.  I have a HUGE RPG collection and have read soooooo many games.  Cypher simply rocks for me.



Could you explain why? Becaue this isn't my experience at all.


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## Lord Mhoram (Feb 2, 2022)

Neonchameleon said:


> Could you explain why? Becaue this isn't my experience at all.




I also love Cypher, so I will respond as well, even though I'm not who the question was directed at.

I think Cypher fills a niche that is almost impossible to fill and it does a great job of it. It walks the line of trad system/narrative approach. And that is why everone says "I want to like it, but just can't". People who want a robust mechanics to help define progression and flavor find it lacking as it is somewhat mechanics light... but still a traditional system; for example -Task resolution instead of conflict resolution, what is on your character sheet is your skills (although anyone can try just about any skill with just an characteristics role), "hit points" and such. People looking at it as a loose system to have narrative options find it lacking even though it has some elements of narrative mechanics (GM intrustion, Player intrusion, abilities fairly freeform to be defined how the players want - with something being magic or tech, or mutation or just something else).

Why I think it fails to find purchase with many people are those that are solidly in one of those camps, and Cypher is sort of sitting in the muddy area between them. 

Enough theory though - lets talk why I like it. My preferences will be on major display here:
 For the last 30 or so years my primary system has been HERO. Powers are generic with the player defining the special effects - 10d6 ranged damage could be fire, ice, a telekinetic punch a batarang, a nonlethal bullet - and that was one of the absolute strengths of the system. Your character idea is not constrained by special effects that the designers came up with. However HERO is a very crunch system, and can take lots of time to prep, notably if you build all the npcs yourself. But it does give lots of imaginative freedom.
I do prefer a Trad game where the GM controls the world, and the players control the characters and a task resolution (as opposed to conflict resolution) in the way the game is handled.
But as I have gotten older, I find I have less time, and especially the wife has less time and enthusiasm for all the mechanics. So we have been looking for a universal game to fit our needs. The wife was really frustrated with D&D 3.X/Pathfinder, as she likes to structure stories out the game, even using literary tools (Rising falling action, foreshadowing ect) and felt constrained by that system; and while she would set up possible hooks, the players would respond, and she would change what was being told (sandbox rather than railroad). HERO worked better as she could just build whatever she wanted.  We tried Fantasy Age/Modern Age, Genesys and a couple others. 
Then we found Cypher. It has a robust enough ruleset in mechanics to ground the game reality in, but a very open flexible approach to how the world runs, the story and such to make telling stories fun again. And after 30 years of hero, with us defining effects of abilities based a slim mechanical base, we had no issues making Cypher come alive.

All in all it is best, in my opinion, for people who like the idea of narrative games, but hate the structure that tends to come along with them (fate aspects for example). So basically a part traditional game, part narrative. Which is exactly what I was needing in a game.


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## Mezuka (Feb 3, 2022)

GMed Numenera and loved it. The system is perfectly tailored to the setting. I just don't see myself playing any other setting with that system.


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## Aldarc (Feb 4, 2022)

Mezuka said:


> GMed Numenera and loved it. The system is perfectly tailored to the setting. I just don't see myself playing any other setting with that system.



Right now MCG are mostly releasing genre-oriented supplements - a sort of "Look! See! The Cypher System can do [Sci-Fi, Horror, Superheroes, etc.]!" - when what I wish they would do is sit down and try to create something that leans heavy into the strengths of the Cypher System elements, potentially expanding it forwards rather than laterally, as it feels they have been doing the past few years.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Feb 5, 2022)

Aldarc said:


> Right now MCG are mostly releasing genre-oriented supplements - a sort of "Look! See! The Cypher System can do [Sci-Fi, Horror, Superheroes, etc.]!" - when what I wish they would do is sit down and try to create something that leans heavy into the strengths of the Cypher System elements, potentially expanding it forwards rather than laterally, as it feels they have been doing the past few years.



What would 'forwards' be? I assume that each new genre adds at least a few unique elements to those available to characters, right? If this is 'lateral' expansion, then what would 'forwards' really consist of? New subsystems? Newer forms of rules? I mean, basically, as was discussed up thread, its a trad system. Assuming that isn't going to change, the only other direction of expansion is into different genre/milieu/tone, so somehow producing a variant/expansion that, for example, let you run super powerful characters, etc.


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## EzekielRaiden (Feb 5, 2022)

I have relatively minimal experience with the system itself...but even what experience I have has shown me how much I dislike several of its core mechanical concepts. In particular I strongly oppose the use if XP as the bennie currency. It doesn't feel tactical, it feels like every option is bad, either fail and suffer because you _didn't_ use it, or burn your future to save your present and thus setting yourself up to fail later on because you _did_. Neither of those feels good to play.

As others have noted, I find its particular "narrative but trad" approach falls flat. 13A is far and away my preference on that front.


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## Aldarc (Feb 5, 2022)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> What would 'forwards' be? I assume that each new genre adds at least a few unique elements to those available to characters, right? If this is 'lateral' expansion, then what would 'forwards' really consist of? New subsystems? Newer forms of rules? I mean, basically, as was discussed up thread, its a trad system. Assuming that isn't going to change, the only other direction of expansion is into different genre/milieu/tone, so somehow producing a variant/expansion that, for example, let you run super powerful characters, etc.



Cleaning, tightening, and potentially streamlining the rules they have. There are some significant sore spots such as, for example, XP as both a leveling currency and a bennie currency. It's pretty noteable, IMHO, that Invisible Sun separated these two things out.


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## mrm1138 (Feb 5, 2022)

Aldarc said:


> Cleaning, tightening, and potentially streamlining the rules they have. There are some significant sore spots such as, for example, XP as both a leveling currency and a bennie currency. It's pretty noteable, IMHO, that Invisible Sun separated these two things out.



I like the way XP is used for both, just as I like the way your stat pools are used for both health and as spendable resource. It becomes an interesting resource management system where you have to weigh whether the immediate benefit outweighs the long-term benefit.


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## Aldarc (Feb 5, 2022)

mrm1138 said:


> I like the way XP is used for both, just as I like the way your stat pools are used for both health and as spendable resource. It becomes an interesting resource management system where you have to weigh whether the immediate benefit outweighs the long-term benefit.



IME, there is nothing "interesting" about it, since players (again IME) invariably save them for tier advancement rather than spend them as bennies.


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## Thomas Shey (Feb 5, 2022)

EzekielRaiden said:


> I have relatively minimal experience with the system itself...but even what experience I have has shown me how much I dislike several of its core mechanical concepts. In particular I strongly oppose the use if XP as the bennie currency. It doesn't feel tactical, it feels like every option is bad, either fail and suffer because you _didn't_ use it, or burn your future to save your present and thus setting yourself up to fail later on because you _did_. Neither of those feels good to play.




Yeah, this is one of mine.  I get what they were trying to do with the five tiers of advancement, but making the bottom one (the pseudo-bennies) the way it is seems to me as bad an idea as it is every other time I've seen it.  That and the glaive Strength expenditure were the two things that just seriously put me off (though I'm not in love with exception based design in general, so I don't really like how the powers were done either, but I know that's one where I'm off the mainstream).


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## Thomas Shey (Feb 5, 2022)

Aldarc said:


> IME, there is nothing "interesting" about it, since players (again IME) invariably save them for tier advancement rather than spend them as bennies.




Past experience is that they don't; that's the problem; some people do that and some people don't, and that ends up creating problems down the line that just get worse and worse.  We saw this one all the way back with the original DC Heroes game, which did the same thing (it was kind of in vogue back then, as the Star Wars game and TORG also did it) and it was dramatic how much the rich got richer with it.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Feb 6, 2022)

Thomas Shey said:


> Past experience is that they don't; that's the problem; some people do that and some people don't, and that ends up creating problems down the line that just get worse and worse.  We saw this one all the way back with the original DC Heroes game, which did the same thing (it was kind of in vogue back then, as the Star Wars game and TORG also did it) and it was dramatic how much the rich got richer with it.



This seems like the big issue, ultimately. You get Joe who spends his and does splashy stuff, but pretty soon he's falling behind Jim, who just saves his up for advancements (and can then, relatively speaking, do the splashy stuff better WITHOUT the expenditure). Now, if saving your XP ultimately COSTS you more XP (because of how it is earned) that might bring things back into balance. It would, however, seem to still fall to the core of @Aldarc's objection, which IIUC is that you are discouraged from doing cool stuff. 

I don't really see the draw of forcing this sort of meta-game level resource dilemma on the players anyway. Wouldn't it be better to run the resource game at the fiction level?


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## Thomas Shey (Feb 6, 2022)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> This seems like the big issue, ultimately. You get Joe who spends his and does splashy stuff, but pretty soon he's falling behind Jim, who just saves his up for advancements (and can then, relatively speaking, do the splashy stuff better WITHOUT the expenditure). Now, if saving your XP ultimately COSTS you more XP (because of how it is earned) that might bring things back into balance. It would, however, seem to still fall to the core of @Aldarc's objection, which IIUC is that you are discouraged from doing cool stuff.
> 
> I don't really see the draw of forcing this sort of meta-game level resource dilemma on the players anyway. Wouldn't it be better to run the resource game at the fiction level?




That was _exactly_ how I saw it work out back in the DCH days before we split out hero points and experience. I know its an approach some people are really attached to, but I never saw anything good come from it. The best defense of it I've even seen is the people defending MSH karma on the idea that superheroes are pretty static anyway, so it was good to pressure them to stay that way (and where the cost of advancement was such that spending it tactically could seem a bit attractive) but I'm not sure I buy it.


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## EzekielRaiden (Feb 6, 2022)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> This seems like the big issue, ultimately. You get Joe who spends his and does splashy stuff, but pretty soon he's falling behind Jim, who just saves his up for advancements (and can then, relatively speaking, do the splashy stuff better WITHOUT the expenditure). Now, if saving your XP ultimately COSTS you more XP (because of how it is earned) that might bring things back into balance. It would, however, seem to still fall to the core of @Aldarc's objection, which IIUC is that you are discouraged from doing cool stuff.
> 
> I don't really see the draw of forcing this sort of meta-game level resource dilemma on the players anyway. Wouldn't it be better to run the resource game at the fiction level?



Yeah that's pretty much the horns of the dilemma. If the cost of saving XP is too low, the incentive is to hold onto them until you no longer desire to advance. If the cost of saving them is too high, then spending them doesn't feel like doing cool stuff, it feels like a mandatory payment to be permitted to succeed. Yet the only reason not to hoard (within the rules, that js) is if hoarding entails losing...which means being punished unless you spend.

Given the difficulty of evading the Scylla of "I'm losing out on permanent rewards by spending XP to boost success" and the Charybdis of "welp, time to pay the XP toll so I'm allowed to potentially succeed," I can see why a lot of games just don't go there.

It also doesn't help that natural player psychology gets in the way. RPGs as a whole are notorious for inducing hoarding behavior in players. The fact that (for example) T:TON had to punish players for hoarding (of cyphers) was pretty much proof that they knew this was a problem and couldn't find a way to make not-hoarding enjoyable on its own merits. (I don't know if that rule exists in the actual Cypher system.) Trying to design systems that defy general trends of player psychology is a fool's errand IMO.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Feb 6, 2022)

Thomas Shey said:


> That was _exactly_ how I saw it work out back in the DCH days before we split out hero points and experience. I know its an approach some people are really attached to, but I never saw anything good come from it. The best defense of it I've even seen is the people defending MSH karma on the idea that superheroes are pretty static anyway, so it was good to pressure them to stay that way (and where the cost of advancement was such that spending it tactically could seem a bit attractive) but I'm not sure I buy it.



Well, if the choice is between some highly tactical and situational buff, and a more general but less useful one, or some minor situational enhancement, it does have a bit different character. I still agree there's no real point in pushing this on the players. I'd MUCH rather see a more organic, or more particular, implementation of the 'horns of the dilemma' sort of situation. "Do I save my brother or my girlfriend?" has a lot more resonance than "do I finish this guy off, or do I add a build option", which IMHO just don't really relate at all. I mean the later COULD be cast in the same terms as the former, but that's a whole additional jump and it won't often come off IME.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Feb 6, 2022)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Yeah that's pretty much the horns of the dilemma. If the cost of saving XP is too low, the incentive is to hold onto them until you no longer desire to advance. If the cost of saving them is too high, then spending them doesn't feel like doing cool stuff, it feels like a mandatory payment to be permitted to succeed. Yet the only reason not to hoard (within the rules, that js) is if hoarding entails losing...which means being punished unless you spend.
> 
> Given the difficulty of evading the Scylla of "I'm losing out on permanent rewards by spending XP to boost success" and the Charybdis of "welp, time to pay the XP toll so I'm allowed to potentially succeed," I can see why a lot of games just don't go there.
> 
> It also doesn't help that natural player psychology gets in the way. RPGs as a whole are notorious for inducing hoarding behavior in players. The fact that (for example) T:TON had to punish players for hoarding (of cyphers) was pretty much proof that they knew this was a problem and couldn't find a way to make not-hoarding enjoyable on its own merits. (I don't know if that rule exists in the actual Cypher system.) Trying to design systems that defy general trends of player psychology is a fool's errand IMO.



Yeah, I would have thought the lesson of 4e Consumables and Rituals was stark enough. Getting players to spend even 1 gold piece on that stuff was like pulling teeth. What did they want that gold for? Who knows? It was valueless by itself, but sure enough the players were always determined to pile it up (I mean, you could build a weak magic item once in a while if you wanted, or you could have potions and rituals in practically every encounter, and many of them KICKED ASS). Anyway, its the same basic choice, and it is a design that is always doomed not to go in a fun direction.


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## Nikosandros (Feb 6, 2022)

In the Cypher rulesbook there's a suggestion that a group might decide that XPs awarded during gameplay must be spent on short and medium term benefits and those received between sessions are spent on character advancement. I find it reasonable.


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## Lord Mhoram (Feb 6, 2022)

Nikosandros said:


> In the Cypher rulesbook there's a suggestion that a group might decide that XPs awarded during gameplay must be spent on short and medium term benefits and those received between sessions are spent on character advancement. I find it reasonable.



I think the most common houserule I've seen is to just split XP in 2, half to 4 pt advancement half to short term benefits.


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## Thomas Shey (Feb 6, 2022)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, if the choice is between some highly tactical and situational buff, and a more general but less useful one, or some minor situational enhancement, it does have a bit different character. I still agree there's no real point in pushing this on the players. I'd MUCH rather see a more organic, or more particular, implementation of the 'horns of the dilemma' sort of situation. "Do I save my brother or my girlfriend?" has a lot more resonance than "do I finish this guy off, or do I add a build option", which IMHO just don't really relate at all. I mean the later COULD be cast in the same terms as the former, but that's a whole additional jump and it won't often come off IME.




I suspect--though I shouldn't speak for them--that the decision they find value in is the game level one, not an in-character one.


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## Thomas Shey (Feb 6, 2022)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yeah, I would have thought the lesson of 4e Consumables and Rituals was stark enough. Getting players to spend even 1 gold piece on that stuff was like pulling teeth. What did they want that gold for? Who knows? It was valueless by itself, but sure enough the players were always determined to pile it up (I mean, you could build a weak magic item once in a while if you wanted, or you could have potions and rituals in practically every encounter, and many of them KICKED ASS). Anyway, its the same basic choice, and it is a design that is always doomed not to go in a fun direction.




Well, the great truth is that there's a passive resistance to using non-renewable resources in a lot of people; my wife and I both have it, and not just in FTF gaming (we note that, barring healing potions, when playing computer games we'll often end up with nearly every potion we ever found still in our inventory at the end of the day).  Its not a particularly reason-based thing.


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## Thomas Shey (Feb 6, 2022)

Lord Mhoram said:


> I think the most common houserule I've seen is to just split XP in 2, half to 4 pt advancement half to short term benefits.




That's more or less what we did back in our DCH days (though you might want to do the ratio different depending on what effect you're trying for).


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## EzekielRaiden (Feb 7, 2022)

Nikosandros said:


> In the Cypher rulesbook there's a suggestion that a group might decide that XPs awarded during gameplay must be spent on short and medium term benefits and those received between sessions are spent on character advancement. I find it reasonable.






Lord Mhoram said:


> I think the most common houserule I've seen is to just split XP in 2, half to 4 pt advancement half to short term benefits.



Okay but like...why keep calling them the same thing if you're gonna do that? At heart that's tacitly admitting "okay, yeah, having one resource for both temporary and permanent effects is bad," but with a thin veneer of pretending they're still one thing. You'd have to track them separately regardless, and that switches the whole mechanic from "XP is also bennies" to "XP, and separate bennies."

Both the XP thing and the cypher limit seem to be examples of "you must punish your players for not innately going along with the intent of the rules," which is just really awkward and questionable game design. Not saying that no amount of "stick" design is necessary, of course. These just read like bad structures pursuing reasonable ends.


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## Lord Mhoram (Feb 7, 2022)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Okay but like...why keep calling them the same thing if you're gonna do that?



Ease of use. We have two XP decks from Monte Cook (A Numenera one and a cypher one) they look different. One is for bennies and one is for xp, using the card design to separate function. It's not like I'm trying to change the thing around aside from personal use, so nomenclature is irrelevant in that situation.

It's such a minor thing is a sytem that sings to me in just about every circumstance, it's a non issue to me, but was engaging in the discussion with things I had seen.


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## Von Ether (Jun 18, 2022)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Okay but like...why keep calling them the same thing if you're gonna do that? At heart that's tacitly admitting "okay, yeah, having one resource for both temporary and permanent effects is bad," but with a thin veneer of pretending they're still one thing. You'd have to track them separately regardless, and that switches the whole mechanic from "XP is also bennies" to "XP, and separate bennies."
> 
> Both the XP thing and the cypher limit seem to be examples of "you must punish your players for not innately going along with the intent of the rules," which is just really awkward and questionable game design. Not saying that no amount of "stick" design is necessary, of course. These just read like bad structures pursuing reasonable ends.




Keeping split XP seemed like no biggie to me since Cypher's advancement system is clearly based on Savage Worlds, hence the in-game XP is merely bennies to me. 

As for Cypher limits, in play it's hard enough to get players to use them as compared to feeling starved for them. Also cyphers are more part of "potential solutions at hand" instead of being character powers, so it seems the limit helps reduce analysis paralysis.

There only so much you can get by reading and you have to jump in a play. 

A perfect example of that is fear of a death spiral in Cypher combat for Warriors since default damage is Might. But since Edge makes things free, you can do some of your special tricks all day even if your Might Pool is empty. When should your big combat tricks? That's where strategy and timing come into play as the game is based on resource management as compared to collecting bonuses.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jun 18, 2022)

Von Ether said:


> Keeping split XP seemed like no biggie to me since Cypher's advancement system is clearly based on Savage Worlds, hence the in-game XP is merely bennies to me.



Bit surprised to see any action on this post four and a half months later, but hey, that's the internet for you. More importantly: again, _why call them XP?_ At that point you are just straight-up admitting that "bennie" points and "advancement" points are just two totally distinct things, they just happen to go by the same name. It just seems silly to do that when...you could call a spade a spade.



Von Ether said:


> As for Cypher limits, in play it's hard enough to get players to use them as compared to feeling starved for them. Also cyphers are more part of "potential solutions at hand" instead of being character powers, so it seems the limit helps reduce analysis paralysis.



...yes. That first sentence is exactly my point. You have to punish players for not playing the "intended" way, rather than actually making it so playing the intended way makes sense all on its own. That is exactly my issue.



Von Ether said:


> There only so much you can get by reading and you have to jump in a play.



I don't really need to, I've played some via TTON. Admittedly live play is better than CRPG play and I recognize that that is a limitation. But I've seen it in action and I really don't like it. Like at all. It drives me crazy.



Von Ether said:


> A perfect example of that is fear of a death spiral in Cypher combat for Warriors since default damage is Might. But since Edge makes things free, you can do some of your special tricks all day even if your Might Pool is empty. When should your big combat tricks? That's where strategy and timing come into play as the game is based on resource management as compared to collecting bonuses.



....your words are not even remotely encouraging here and do not actually give me any reason to want to play. "You can fix this problem you dislike by investing into this OTHER problem you dislike, or by taking advantage of a third design choice you dislike!" That's _anti_-persuasive.


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## Yora (Jun 18, 2022)

I tried getting into Numenera three times since it came out, and each time I felt lost about what a GM is supposed to do with the game. Walk the giant world and encounter random weird stuff?
But I guess that's more an issue with the Numenera setting than the Cypher system mechanics.


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## aramis erak (Jun 26, 2022)

I look at Numenera, and don't feel I got shorted, despite a gut feeling that I wouldn't enjoy it as written.

The setting bits are interesting.

Someone, back on page 2, asked why all rolls player facing might be a benefit...

Given that I love a few others that do that (BTVS/Angel, Army of Darkness, DragonLance Fifth Age, Talisman Adventures)...

In BTVS/Angel/Army of Darkness, it allows me to reduce my players down time...
Peter, the Fyarl is biting you, 17.
Kenarik, the other fyarl is throwing a beaker at you , looks like a 14
Steve, The angry summoner is drawing and letting loose with his .45, dodge a 14... wait -2, so 12...
Peter, result? 
three degrees. 
OK, missed you! Kenarik?
Made it by 0. plot point?
Yep. The minimum +1 means you make it...
Steve?
I chose to shoot back, instead. 20.
Ok, you both hit each other... No roll means you took a 6, and your dodge is 3, fail by 3 levels... OUCH.
You also hit by 7. 

I'm pushing off the math portion and rolling times, so I can have all those rolls done near-simultaneously, and then give the desriptions in pass two.. I'm also offloading a lot of the math. Further, it's keeping them engaged with the mechanics.

DL5A isn't quite as forgiving on that score; several overlapping players and it never got to the ability to move on, since access to the deck was an issue.
In Talisman, the GM does roll damages... but unless the NPCs outnumber PCs, never actually gets a turn of their own. Attacking an NPC forces them to take their turn. THe GM also rolls the random encounters.

So, for me, it isn't a good nor bad thing, but the implementation can be.

Also, with entirely player facing rolls, the mindset for solo play is easier. Still not easy for me.


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## PencilBoy99 (Jun 26, 2022)

Dragonsbane said:


> PM sent



Also curious


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## Henry L. (Oct 18, 2022)

Dragonsbane said:


> I love this system. Everything about it. We made it more crunchy though for combat. I converted all the 5E spells and most 5E magical items, standardized skills, added some PF/3.5 AoO and movement, made some custom classes with some old 3.5 and 5E abilities, and man it BLOWS 5E away for my group and I. More narrative but plenty of stuff for combat. And wooooow does having players do all the rolls free up time for thinking and DMing!



Hi Dragonbane. 
Thank you for the links to your files in DriveThruRPG. By any chance, are you looking to update the documents soon?
Tks


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## Buzzqw (Oct 18, 2022)

Henry L. said:


> Hi Dragonbane. I know it's more than a year since you posted this comment, but I found it very interesting what you did. Since I'm looking to start using Cypher as well, would you mind sharing what you have created?
> Tks



should be this Cypher System Fantasy Compendium - Monte Cook Games | Cypher System Creator Program | DriveThruRPG.com  (few post before..)

BHH


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## Doctor Futurity (Oct 18, 2022)

I've been hooked on Cypher System for about 5 years now, after I finally took the time to really try and figure it out. For the longest time I had the game in my collection but found its core conceits just too weird and different for me. When I finally "got it," and started trying the game, I rapidly realized it was a really new and interesting way to approach RPGs that was just close enough to what I likes in terms of style for me to slid in to without getting too overwhelmed....but I also had to learn not to run it like every other RPG I was used to, especially D&D.

Things I learned in running Cypher System that I found really important to grasp its unique style:

*It's Not Like Traditional RPGs in pace: *It's important to not run it like D&D. By this I mean, a lot of stuff which D&D is good at such as tactical combat and procedural "go here, encounter monster, fight, loot, move to next event, etc." just defeats the whole point of Cypher System. I would equate it to this: a movie which I think reflects a really interesting Cypher game is Star Trek: The Motion Picture. That movie has a plot and theme which would be utterly pointless in a D&D game, but Cypher would handle a plot like encountering and solving the mystery of V'Ger exceedingly well.

*Player's Need to Adapt to the Idea of the Risk Pool:* Player characters do not have the same sort of stats that other RPGs have. Having a large Might pool might suggest you are more endurable, but its really having training in strength-based tasks that suggest your stronger than average, and Edges are really what you should pay attention to when determining whether or not your PC looks strong or not. 

Even more important, you have to think of the risk pool differently than you do with the more passive stat modifiers of other RPGs. For example: if you can determine that an attack of X level, if you spend from your pool costs more to reduce difficulty than the damage of the attack or effect, then it may not be worth spending any points to reduce the difficulty level.

The Risk Pool is also not your hit points. Even though it is reduced by damage, and frankly works a lot like Traveller, it's part of the balancing act of Cypher that the same pool you can use to modify difficulty through expenditures is also your health pool, because taking injury effectively also reduces your ability to spend from the pool. This is on purpose....and players who complain that health needs to be separate from the might/speed/intellect pool are not realizing this is by design. In fact, they may not realize it, but by changing that component you dramatically improve the character's "spend" ability, which is effectively a significant power increase. My experience with Cypher on the GM's side is that this can have serious consequences in terms of adapting to player capability over the course of a session. The recovery option is also impacted if health were to be separated from the ability pools. Bottom line: stop thinking of health like its a D&D static ability, in Cypher its all linked together.

*Descriptor/Type/Focus is not like alignment/race/class: *Your descriptors are just a way of setting up your character's thematic intent, but are not hard restrictions. You may get what is called an inability (increased cost) in certain actions to reflect that your character's proclivities are of a certain personality by default, but it doesn't mean you don't have a wide range of personality. In Cypher your Descriptor is sort of like your alignment and race in D&D, but also not really....it's the initial framework for your vision of who and what your character is. 

Your Type is your class, that is pretty well a given, but you can modify your Type through Flavors and reskinning to your heart's content. Your Focus is the thing which defines your subclass, maybe, but it better thought of as "the stuff which make you stand out from every other equivalent type." Within the scope of design you can make a bewilderingly weird array of PCs. In D&D this tends to be the subclass (eldritch knight or assassin, for example). In Cypher System your descriptor layers on to what your type sets up. It's actually one of the more familiar concepts in Cypher that it shares with other RPGs in design.

Combat is Best Thought of as a Puzzle or Event: In D&D combat is a thing you do periodically to move the story forward, gain XP, or just have fun because a lot of D&D abilities are aimed at doing stuff to make someone else's hit points reach zero. In Cypher System combat is exactly the same in framework as any other puzzle, conundrum, or issue with only a couple extra rules to adjudicate what it means for positioning, initiative and damage. I had some unhappy games of Cypher early on when I tried running combat in the game like D&D. You can do it, sure, but its really not the point of Cypher....monsters have very basic stats, and you then modify with different perks and limiters to giv ethe monster some distinct flavor. Those modification are exactly equivalent to evaluating a trap, social situation, exploration event, discovery event or detective event.....they are just target numbers and special circumstances to make the story more interesting. Once I realized this, I rapidly shifted my focus to using Cypher System specifically and exclusively for campaign and scenario concepts in which combat was not the end goal, or even a side goal, but merely a form of encounter that required the same level of thought as, say, a puzzle or plot piece. 

For example, in my current Cypher campaign, which is a far-future SF exploration game with Star Trek like elements, the group has had exactly three combat encounters, one per session so far: the first involved a derelict crashed starship and an alien beast hunting the PCs. They had to use the ship's debris to gain a competitive advantage on the beast, and then work to determine its weakness. The second involved an immense alien hydra-like monster threatening a city, and the group was in their shuttle working to target the creature's weaknesses (its many necks) without shooting off a head to risk it being revealed as an actual hydra. In the course of this scenario GM intrusions led to the ship almost scuttling when knocked into the bay, the gunnery mount being bitten off and the PC having to escape the maw of one of the creature's heads, and the group discovering that the thing was weak to sonic attacks.  The third combat involved three aliens pretending to be gods and using a host of slaved drones....take out the drone operator and the drones are also taken out. Each of the foes had very effective shields, but the shields could be defeated by applying slow pressure (think the shields from Dune). Defeat the right person and the other two may surrender, as they were enslaved mentally to the Big Bad. 

The point being.....if you are going to have combat in Cypher, do not do it just because your RPG instincts suggest combat is now needed to fill the gap. Figure out why, in the story, you would want a combat, and what about this combat will be a real challenge to the PCs. Better one memorable fight every couple of sessions than six to eight unmemorable fights. 

GM and Player Intrusions Are Crucial: As some has said elsewhere, Cypher is a system with some give and take. You do indeed have plot tokens, so to speak, and players can evoke one for 1 XP, and GM's can offer XP to introduce one. This seems like a counter-intuitive concept to gamers used to prepublished scenarios in which all variables are laid out, but old school GMs should be familiar with the concept of innovating on simple things (hexcrawl gaming, for example, provides a skeleton on which you drape all sorts of unknown variables). Likewise, GMs who like improv are well aware of the appeal of being able to throw interesting things into the mix on the fly.

The point of a GM Intrusion is to make life more interesting for the players. The way I describe it to the players is like this: if I offer you a GM intrusion it may, indeed, pose a risk for your PC, but the odds are also much greater you'll encounter a reward. Likewise, if the PC wants to engage in a player intrusion it can justify their pulling off something which would otherwise not be supported by their range of stats. Two example of a player intrusion that worked great in the combat encounters included the guy with no flying skill spending an XP to gain control of the shuttle when the pilot was incapacited and keep it level (did not crash); the second is when one of the PCs, sniping at the monster from a harness, watched their less careful fellow PC fall out of the open shuttle door they spent an XP to suggest the poor soul instead got tangled in the sniper's harness and did not, in fact, plunge into the bay's waters below. Meanwhile, a GM intrusion I played (as a result of them rolling a crit fail on a 1 for a free GM intrusion) was for the monster to rip the entire gunnery compartment off the underside of the shuttle and swallow it, with the PC, whole....this gave the PC a change to deal with a harrowing escape from the gullet of the beast, and in the process he dropped a bandolier of grenades down its throat, which meant the adversity of the intrusion allowed for a greater story moment and compelling combat opportunity.

But....that's how Cypher rolls. You have to look at it as an engine for creating verisimilitude in stories, and not procedurals for a more conventional style of game play. If I want to play conventional D&D I will just play D&D; but if I run something with Cypher its going to require strange worlds and exotic situations from which PCs must consider many other approaches than "kill it and take it's stuff."


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## Doctor Futurity (Oct 18, 2022)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Bit surprised to see any action on this post four and a half months later, but hey, that's the internet for you. More importantly: again, _why call them XP?_ At that point you are just straight-up admitting that "bennie" points and "advancement" points are just two totally distinct things, they just happen to go by the same name. It just seems silly to do that when...you could call a spade a spade.
> 
> 
> ...yes. That first sentence is exactly my point. You have to punish players for not playing the "intended" way, rather than actually making it so playing the intended way makes sense all on its own. That is exactly my issue.
> ...



I felt exactly as you did, once. But these days its the only system I tend to really enjoy anymore, so things did change. YMMV of course!


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## Doctor Futurity (Oct 18, 2022)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Okay but like...why keep calling them the same thing if you're gonna do that? At heart that's tacitly admitting "okay, yeah, having one resource for both temporary and permanent effects is bad," but with a thin veneer of pretending they're still one thing. You'd have to track them separately regardless, and that switches the whole mechanic from "XP is also bennies" to "XP, and separate bennies."
> 
> Both the XP thing and the cypher limit seem to be examples of "you must punish your players for not innately going along with the intent of the rules," which is just really awkward and questionable game design. Not saying that no amount of "stick" design is necessary, of course. These just read like bad structures pursuing reasonable ends.



The game inherently supports both approaches (its codified within the Revised rulebook, in fact). The main reason to split XP into two resources is primarily to disabuse players of the notion that the only purpose of XP is to exclusively level up. Once players get into the idea that there are a range of rewards that have both temporary and long term effects they can spend on, and the idea sets in, then it becomes less necessary (ime, ymmv) to try and enforce that.

All that said, it's a different approach to RPGs. It's not something you have to like, but I am an advocate for it now that I got over the learning hump and have found that my average level of enjoyment goes up dramatically when I use Cypher over something more conventional these days. My goal here is not to convince you that it's something you will like; that is up to you. It is to convince you that I, and other people, do like and enjoy the Cypher approach and that's okay. It's a divisive system, but I became a convert a while ago and now it's hard to look back on the bad old days of limiting my thought to just one approach to gaming. When I run D&D 5E or Traveller these days after running Cypher I tend to immediately start missing Cypher's many unique elements in play simply because they provide an inherently codified structure to encouraging more interesting and often unexpected gameplay that still meshes well narratively.


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## EzekielRaiden (Oct 18, 2022)

Doctor Futurity said:


> I felt exactly as you did, once. But these days its the only system I tend to really enjoy anymore, so things did change. YMMV of course!



Okay. I'd like to dig into that, if you don't mind. Because this sounds at least vaguely like what happened to me with 4e, except there I was able to "get it" from reading and that didn't happen with Cypher.

Note, I know nothing of the specific differences between "original" and Revised, other than that some exist, because the original was such a turn-off I never saw a reason to look into it any further (and only semi-recently learned that Revised even exists.) So if I say something that sounds blatantly incorrect, if possible contrast it against the un-Revised version as well.



Doctor Futurity said:


> The main reason to split XP into two resources is primarily to disabuse players of the notion that the only purpose of XP is to exclusively level up. Once players get into the idea that there are a range of rewards that have both temporary and long term effects they can spend on, and the idea sets in, then it becomes less necessary (ime, ymmv) to try and enforce that.



Officially supporting it is of course wise, but I don't see how the incentive doesn't immediately swoop right back in the moment you return to one currency that has both temporary and permanent options. A player who invests 100% of their XP into permanent advancement is getting _more_ out of their XP than one who doesn't. Period. Yes, temporary benefits are fun and cool, and I support games encouraging players to embrace stuff like that. Making a single resource that can be frittered away on stuff that _won't matter_ next week also be the resource that gives you your versatile, universal, week-after-week problem-solving tools is not a good choice for rationally encouraging players to embrace the weird and temporary and context-limited. Cutting rewards in half so that players are _forced_ to do the thing you want, rather than creating a system where the _rational choice_ is to spend about half your resources on temporary effects, is IMO inferior design. Whenever possible, the game should reward players for choosing to play the game as intended; punishments for, and restrictions against, playing it in unintended ways should be used sparingly, only where it is impractical or impossible to use positive reinforcement.

Or, in brief, the rules themselves should make the player excited to play the game as intended, not annoyed that they _have_ to play the game as intended Or Else.



Doctor Futurity said:


> It is to convince you that I, and other people, do like and enjoy the Cypher approach and that's okay. It's a divisive system, but I became a convert a while ago and now it's hard to look back on the bad old days of limiting my thought to just one approach to gaming. When I run D&D 5E or Traveller these days after running Cypher I tend to immediately start missing Cypher's many unique elements in play simply because they provide an inherently codified structure to encouraging more interesting and often unexpected gameplay that still meshes well narratively.



Well, I cannot deny its divisiveness! But I can empathize with the "I miss X" stuff. Are those things like the stuff mentioned? The "casting from HP," the (IMO draconian) Cypher limit, the "XP can be invested in permanent gains or spent on tasty candy"? I fully expect DM Intrusions to be one of those things, but please correct me if that's not the case. Likewise I assume your list of liked/loved items does _not_ include the controversial pre-Revised comment that the GM should change the world to ensure the players never truly solve any mysteries of the setting's past.

I ask this because I assume there is _more_ to Cypher than just the controversial bits.



Doctor Futurity said:


> *It's Not Like Traditional RPGs in pace: *It's important to not run it like D&D. By this I mean, a lot of stuff which D&D is good at such as tactical combat and procedural "go here, encounter monster, fight, loot, move to next event, etc." just defeats the whole point of Cypher System. I would equate it to this: a movie which I think reflects a really interesting Cypher game is Star Trek: The Motion Picture. That movie has a plot and theme which would be utterly pointless in a D&D game, but Cypher would handle a plot like encountering and solving the mystery of V'Ger exceedingly well.



I find this interesting, as it leans toward things I also like. What makes this difference? Why is it a "mysteries" system?



Doctor Futurity said:


> *Player's Need to Adapt to the Idea of the Risk Pool:*



Gonna be honest, I genuinely don't grok what you're saying here.



Doctor Futurity said:


> Even more important, you have to think of the risk pool differently than you do with the more passive stat modifiers of other RPGs.



This one is slightly more transparent because of my experience with TTON, but not a lot. Does this mean (essentially) that it's a cost-risk-benefit analysis on whether to burn risk pool in order to succeed?



Doctor Futurity said:


> The Risk Pool is also not your hit points. Even though it is reduced by damage, and frankly works a lot like Traveller, it's part of the balancing act of Cypher that the same pool you can use to modify difficulty through expenditures is also your health pool, because taking injury effectively also reduces your ability to spend from the pool. This is on purpose....and players who complain that health needs to be separate from the might/speed/intellect pool are not realizing this is by design.



I'm very confused here. First you say, in no uncertain terms, "the Risk Pool is also not your hit points." Yet then you say "the same pool you can use to modify difficulty through expenditures is also your health pool...." So...is the pool totally not hit points or is it truly actually hit points? This also doesn't seem to address any of the concerns regarding death spirals, as others have noted.



Doctor Futurity said:


> *Descriptor/Type/Focus is not like alignment/race/class:*



Frankly, this is the one part of the design I find almost entirely unproblematic (on a conceptual level, at least.) Before Revised, I was given to understand that there were some poor showings in actually supporting the different Types (that is, Nanos were at very least overtuned, Glaives were pigeonholed, and Jacks were weird and had no personal niche), but at least the _concept_ of the thing made sense. I am also given to understand that much effort was put into addressing the weaknesses of the Type part of this equation.



Doctor Futurity said:


> Combat is Best Thought of as a Puzzle or Event:



Perhaps this is my 4e flag showing, but I've always _wanted_ combat to be this way. That's why 4e specialized in set-piece combats. Trash fights aren't interesting enough on their own; model logistical problems at the level of skills, SCs, and narrative, not as _combats_.



Doctor Futurity said:


> GM and Player Intrusions Are Crucial: <snip> Likewise, GMs who like improv are well aware of the appeal of being able to throw interesting things into the mix on the fly.



Would you be willing to elaborate here? What things I have read do not present this in a light that was favorable to my tastes, so to speak. Even from people trying to praise it.



Doctor Futurity said:


> The point of a GM Intrusion is to make life more interesting for the players.



Perhaps I am just jaded. They come across to me as like the not-actually-Chinese curse, "may you live in interesting times." That is, it is (or seems to be) a rules-sanctioned "screw over the player" mechanic, with an added guilt trip of "if you reject it, you're spending permanent XP for a temporary benefit AND not letting another player gain XP as well."

The analysis and descriptions of Intrusions in general just...don't give me that "this is an opportunity to take a risk and be MORE AWESOME" feeling. Instead it feels like a great way for a DM to yank my chain. If it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck...



Doctor Futurity said:


> But....that's how Cypher rolls. You have to look at it as an engine for creating verisimilitude in stories, and not procedurals for a more conventional style of game play.



I'm not sure I follow that, given the Intrusion mechanic by definition is anti-verisimilitudinous. Could you say more on this?


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## Aldarc (Oct 19, 2022)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Officially supporting it is of course wise, but I don't see how the incentive doesn't immediately swoop right back in the moment you return to one currency that has both temporary and permanent options. A player who invests 100% of their XP into permanent advancement is getting _more_ out of their XP than one who doesn't. Period. Yes, temporary benefits are fun and cool, and I support games encouraging players to embrace stuff like that. Making a single resource that can be frittered away on stuff that _won't matter_ next week also be the resource that gives you your versatile, universal, week-after-week problem-solving tools is not a good choice for rationally encouraging players to embrace the weird and temporary and context-limited. Cutting rewards in half so that players are _forced_ to do the thing you want, rather than creating a system where the _rational choice_ is to spend about half your resources on temporary effects, is IMO inferior design. Whenever possible, the game should reward players for choosing to play the game as intended; punishments for, and restrictions against, playing it in unintended ways should be used sparingly, only where it is impractical or impossible to use positive reinforcement.
> 
> Or, in brief, the rules themselves should make the player excited to play the game as intended, not annoyed that they _have_ to play the game as intended Or Else.



I feel like most who people who defend XP in the Cypher System seem to invariably commit the Oberoni Fallacy. They claim that it's not broken and/or there is nothing wrong with it, BUT it's almost always houseruled. Or dig a bit and you find that people suggest splitting XP up into two separate pools. I was there when Numenera came out in 2013. The conversations about how to fix XP now are the same ones that people had then. 



EzekielRaiden said:


> Perhaps I am just jaded. They come across to me as like the not-actually-Chinese curse, "may you live in interesting times." That is, it is (or seems to be) a rules-sanctioned "screw over the player" mechanic, with an added guilt trip of "if you reject it, you're spending permanent XP for a temporary benefit AND not letting another player gain XP as well."
> 
> The analysis and descriptions of Intrusions in general just...don't give me that "this is an opportunity to take a risk and be MORE AWESOME" feeling. Instead it feels like a great way for a DM to yank my chain. If it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck...
> 
> I'm not sure I follow that, given the Intrusion mechanic by definition is anti-verisimilitudinous. Could you say more on this?



I'm not sure if I would say in good faith that the GM Intrusion is designed to "screw over the player," as I believe that Cook does see this mechanic as a genuine way to add a dramatic twist or complication that makes play interesting for the players. "Screw over the player," IMO, implies more malice than I think is present. IMHO, however, GM Intrusions fill a void left by the fact that the GM doesn't roll: i.e., _fudging_. GM Intrusions does amount to GM Force, with the check on that Force being XP. But I would mainly apply this critique to the GM Intrusions that do not happen on a player roll of a Natural 1. 

I would add here that I think that GM Intrusions is also trying to be vaguely Fate-like in terms of gaining Fate points via character complications, but I think that Monte Cook may have skipped a beat here. In Fate, these complications are invoked against a character's Trouble (or other relevant Aspects). These Aspects are character-facing, serving as player-selected lightning rods for character complications. Troubles highlight the sort of complications that the player wants their character to experience in gameplay. This component is absent in the Cypher System, though sometimes Descriptors, Types, and Foci provide suggested GM Intrusions, but this is not the same as player-selected Troubles. Moreover, Fate points are not doing double-duty as a character progression meta-currency.


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## Thomas Shey (Oct 19, 2022)

Aldarc said:


> I feel like most who people who defend XP in the Cypher System seem to invariably commit the Oberoni Fallacy. They claim that it's not broken and/or there is nothing wrong with it, BUT it's almost always houseruled. Or dig a bit and you find that people suggest splitting XP up into two separate pools. I was there when Numenera came out in 2013. The conversations about how to fix XP now are the same ones that people had then.




Well, its not like this was a new problem  when Numenera came out.  The D6 System, Masterbook/TORG, the original DC Heroes game and others I'm probably forgetting took the approach of admixing experience and metacurrency, and the problems with it showed up in all of them.  Cypher just does a more nuanced version of this, but that doesn't make the problems any less true for many people.



Aldarc said:


> I'm not sure if I would say in good faith that the GM Intrusion is designed to "screw over the player," as I believe that Cook does see this mechanic as a genuine way to add a dramatic twist or complication that makes play interesting for the players. "Screw over the player," IMO, implies more malice than I think is present. IMHO, however, GM Intrusions fill a void left by the fact that the GM doesn't roll: i.e., _fudging_. GM Intrusions does amount to GM Force, with the check on that Force being XP. But I would mainly apply this critique to the GM Intrusions that do not happen on a player roll of a Natural 1.




I suspect Ezekial is observing that there's a pretty obvious failure state there, and one that many _GMs_ falling into it will not think is them making a malign decision, but where many _players_ will see it very much that way.  Some potentially useful tools are simply fraught.



Aldarc said:


> I would add here that I think that GM Intrusions is also trying to be vaguely Fate-like in terms of gaining Fate points via character complications, but I think that Monte Cook may have skipped a beat here. In Fate, these complications are invoked against a character's Trouble (or other relevant Aspects). These Aspects are character-facing, serving as player-selected lightning rods for character complications. Troubles highlight the sort of complications that the player wants their character to experience in gameplay. This component is absent in the Cypher System, though sometimes Descriptors, Types, and Foci provide suggested GM Intrusions, but this is not the same as player-selected Troubles. Moreover, Fate points are not doing double-duty as a character progression meta-currency.




Yeah, there's a psychologically important difference between things like negative Aspects (and these exist well outside the Fate sphere) chosen by the player, and ones that the GM simply imposes, even if the latter may sometimes (possibly even usually) done with benign reasons.


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## Aldarc (Oct 19, 2022)

Thomas Shey said:


> but that doesn't make the problems any less true for many people.



I'm neither denying nor defending this. 



Thomas Shey said:


> I suspect Ezekial is observing that there's a pretty obvious failure state there, and one that many _GMs_ falling into it will not think is them making a malign decision, but where many _players_ will see it very much that way.  Some potentially useful tools are simply fraught.



I agree. I don't think that Cook intended this as a "screw over the player" mechanic; however, how Cook intended the mechanic is not the same as how it is received by groups.


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## Thomas Shey (Oct 19, 2022)

Aldarc said:


> I'm neither denying nor defending this.




Didn't think you were; I was just springboarding off your post.



Aldarc said:


> I agree. I don't think that Cook intended this as a "screw over the player" mechanic; however, how Cook intended the mechanic is not the same as how it is received by groups.




Yup.  Frankly, many of the games I mentioned with with the combined experience/metacurrency structure in my post are otherwise well designed games, and still well thought of, so I'm assuming the designers just didn't see some of the issues that could arise with them (I'll charitably assume they didn't consider it unlikely to be a problem for anyone who wasn't a bad group, since ignorance is always a more charitable assumption than malice).


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## EzekielRaiden (Oct 20, 2022)

Aldarc said:


> I agree. I don't think that Cook intended this as a "screw over the player" mechanic; however, how Cook intended the mechanic is not the same as how it is received by groups.



A gap between "this is how the designer _wanted_ this mechanic to be used" and "this is what the mechanic's design actually _encourages_ players to do" is one of the hallmarks of flawed game design. For all the bold assertions of pragmatism that come from amateur-designer DMs, there is a rather strange trend in TTRPG design to emphasize that designer intent should always be what matters most. That users who don't follow that--regardless of why they do so--are the ones at fault, not the design or designer. It's very frustrating.

In this case, the ideal is certainly that the DM should only be using Intrusions because they make the game better, and never do so when they _wouldn't_ make the game better. Unfortunately, I find that a lot of DMs don't actually know how to do that, and indeed have a lot of mistaken but entrenched beliefs about what leads to better gaming. As was said earlier, the gap between "this is something the player explicitly opted into in advance" and "this is something the DM forces, and extracts a price if refused" is pretty big, and there's quite a bit of room for resentment or frustration _even if the DM genuinely believes what they're doing is good_.


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## Aldarc (Oct 20, 2022)

IMHO, there is a great traditional-style game within the Cypher System, but it needs more than the polish-up that came with the "Revised" Cypher System. I have been hoping for more advancements of the Cypher System. Something that either evolves the system further* or leans heavily into the existing system, but the MCG feels like it is mostly treading water with the system. 

* A stripped down basic version of Invisible Sun could've been that evolution, but that game is basically a dead end now.



EzekielRaiden said:


> I'm very confused here. First you say, in no uncertain terms, "the Risk Pool is also not your hit points." Yet then you say "the same pool you can use to modify difficulty through expenditures is also your health pool...." So...is the pool totally not hit points or is it truly actually hit points? *This also doesn't seem to address any of the concerns regarding death spirals, as others have noted.*



I would like to add one additional comment to your earlier post. I understand where the concern regarding death spirals is coming from, but I don't think it's the case_ per praxis_. Yes, your Might/Speed/Intellect pools are effectively your HP, and yes, you expend points from those pools to power your abilities. There are a fair number of mitigators in the game for helping players manage those pools better: e.g., armor, edge, skill training/specialization, etc. I have run Numenera a fair amount, but I can scarcely recall a PC go into a death spiral in my games. It's possible, however, that if I ran another Cypher System game - e.g., Claim the Sky (superheroes), Predation, Stay Alive, Godforsaken, etc. - that this death spiral would be a greater risk or more pertinent part of play. However, in the the case of Numenera, I am genuinely struggling to think of a time a character went into a death spiral. I've probably seen way more downed players in 5e than in Numenera. If the game has a death spiral, it's not a particularly rapid death spiral.



Yora said:


> I tried getting into Numenera three times since it came out, and each time I felt lost about what a GM is supposed to do with the game. Walk the giant world and encounter random weird stuff?
> But I guess that's more an issue with the Numenera setting than the Cypher system mechanics.



Numenera is effectively a science-fantasy D&D setting that handwaves all the science that is supposedly behind the magic and history of the setting. Why PCs would adventure in the Ninth World is much the same reason why you would adventure in Greyhawk or Eberron. 

That said, there is a better sense of the "whyfor" after the release of Numenera: Destiny & Discovery (aka Numenera 2). One of the major criticisms of "Numenera 1" was that it talked a lot about making a better future, but there was little to no support for that. Numenera 2 introduced new types focused on salvaging numenera, crafting/building with numenera, and leading communities, along with more robust crafting and community building rules. 

So the obvious thing to do with Numenera's Ninth World nowadays is to put the characters in a settlement, present the settlement with some potential problems, and have the PCs explore, build, and interact with that Ninth World so that they can improve life in that settlement. But you can still run the game as mercenaries who are dungeon-delving ruins for "shins," artifacts, and other loot.


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## DeviousQuail (Oct 20, 2022)

Aldarc said:


> I would like to add one additional comment to your earlier post. I understand where the concern regarding death spirals is coming from, but I don't think it's the case_ per praxis_. Yes, your Might/Speed/Intellect pools are effectively your HP, and yes, you expend points from those pools to power your abilities. There are a fair number of mitigators in the game for helping players manage those pools better: e.g., armor, edge, skill training/specialization, etc. I have run Numenera a fair amount, but I can scarcely recall a PC go into a death spiral in my games. It's possible, however, that if I ran another Cypher System game - e.g., Claim the Sky (superheroes), Predation, Stay Alive, Godforsaken, etc. - that this death spiral would be a greater risk or more pertinent part of play. However, in the the case of Numenera, I am genuinely struggling to think of a time a character went into a death spiral. I've probably seen way more downed players in 5e than in Numenera. If the game has a death spiral, it's not a particularly rapid death spiral.



I was worried about death spirals as well when I first read through the game but in practice I never saw it happen either. I thought it would be especially brutal for Might based characters but in reality they worked fine. A point or two in their Might Edge and they could use many abilities for free. They could also spend speed and intellect points more freely for defensive purposes and save their Might for offensive actions.


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## Aldarc (Oct 20, 2022)

DeviousQuail said:


> I was worried about death spirals as well when I first read through the game but in practice I never saw it happen either. I thought it would be especially brutal for Might based characters but in reality they worked fine. A point or two in their Might Edge and they could use many abilities for free. They could also spend speed and intellect points more freely for defensive purposes and save their Might for offensive actions.



Plus, Might-based Glaives will likely also be wearing damage-reducing Armor, further insulating their Might pools.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Oct 21, 2022)

Thomas Shey said:


> Well, its not like this was a new problem  when Numenera came out.  The D6 System, Masterbook/TORG, the original DC Heroes game and others I'm probably forgetting took the approach of admixing experience and metacurrency, and the problems with it showed up in all of them.  Cypher just does a more nuanced version of this, but that doesn't make the problems any less true for many people.



It goes all the way back to FASERIP, and the same issues apply there, except not so much because advancement wasn't really that much of a thing, particularly in the earliest version of Marvel where basically you just played as preexisting published heroes.


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## Thomas Shey (Oct 21, 2022)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> It goes all the way back to FASERIP, and the same issues apply there, except not so much because advancement wasn't really that much of a thing, particularly in the earliest version of Marvel where basically you just played as preexisting published heroes.




I've seen an argument, which I find at least slightly plausible, that this was a roundabout way to ensure the relatively static nature of most comic books supers without hardcore forcing it.  I'm still not sold it didn't have the same failure state, but if so it might have at least had more of a defensible purpose if so.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Oct 21, 2022)

Thomas Shey said:


> I've seen an argument, which I find at least slightly plausible, that this was a roundabout way to ensure the relatively static nature of most comic books supers without hardcore forcing it.  I'm still not sold it didn't have the same failure state, but if so it might have at least had more of a defensible purpose if so.



Honestly, at the time, IIRC, it was thought of as an innovative and interesting part of the system. I don't know that it has ever been really heavily panned on that score. So, I think that proves that the idea isn't NECESSARILY flawed. I mean, Traveller also has an attribute-based damage system, though no meta-currency. There has never been an issue of death spirals there, but that's mostly due to the fact that gunshots generally kill/disable pretty quickly, and nobody bothers much with swords and such. Its all pretty context-dependent, a design pattern can be great in one game and suck in another.


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## Thomas Shey (Oct 21, 2022)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Honestly, at the time, IIRC, it was thought of as an innovative and interesting part of the system. I don't know that it has ever been really heavily panned on that score. So, I think that proves that the idea isn't NECESSARILY flawed. I mean, Traveller also has an attribute-based damage system, though no meta-currency. There has never been an issue of death spirals there, but that's mostly due to the fact that gunshots generally kill/disable pretty quickly, and nobody bothers much with swords and such. Its all pretty context-dependent, a design pattern can be great in one game and suck in another.




Well, I'd argue part of that is the people most likely to find that element of MSH may well already have had other issues with it.  Though its got some big fans, it wasn't like it was the only place that had failure states, and some were much more pointed given the genre it was representing.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Oct 22, 2022)

Thomas Shey said:


> Well, I'd argue part of that is the people most likely to find that element of MSH may well already have had other issues with it.  Though its got some big fans, it wasn't like it was the only place that had failure states, and some were much more pointed given the genre it was representing.



Mostly it was a game which was rather different and somewhat innovative in its time. I probably wouldn't compare it that favorably to some current game designs, no. But IMHO that's also sort of the issue with Cypher. It really doesn't seem all that modern, mechanically and in terms of its process of play.


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## Aldarc (Oct 22, 2022)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Mostly it was a game which was rather different and somewhat innovative in its time. I probably wouldn't compare it that favorably to some current game designs, no. But IMHO that's also sort of the issue with Cypher. It really doesn't seem all that modern, mechanically and in terms of its process of play.



Monte Cook, IMHO, is a product of the '90s and '00s era of design philosophy.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Oct 22, 2022)

Aldarc said:


> Monte Cook, IMHO, is a product of the '90s and '00s era of design philosophy.



Yeah, I don't think I will rehash stuff I am pretty sure I said way back on page 1 of this thread, and its certainly not a thought original to me. I think Monte is good at the 'color' kind of stuff, his offerings have a pretty refined tone and color, and there are mechanical elements to tie into that, but I find the various spins on PbtA, FitD, or BW, etc. to offer a lot more in terms of what HAPPENS during play.


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## Dragonsbane (Oct 23, 2022)

Henry L. said:


> Hi Dragonbane.
> Thank you for the links to your files in DriveThruRPG. By any chance, are you looking to update the documents soon?
> Tks



Not at the moment. I am running two tables, have a ton of piano students right now, just sold my house and am moving, have Long COVID for 2+ years, and some other life-issues preventing me from updating anything. Is there something you wanted in particular?


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## Von Ether (Oct 28, 2022)

EzekielRaiden said:


> A gap between "this is how the designer _wanted_ this mechanic to be used" and "this is what the mechanic's design actually _encourages_ players to do" is one of the hallmarks of flawed game design. For all the bold assertions of pragmatism that come from amateur-designer DMs, there is a rather strange trend in TTRPG design to emphasize that designer intent should always be what matters most. That users who don't follow that--regardless of why they do so--are the ones at fault, not the design or designer. It's very frustrating.
> 
> In this case, the ideal is certainly that the DM should only be using Intrusions because they make the game better, and never do so when they _wouldn't_ make the game better. Unfortunately, I find that a lot of DMs don't actually know how to do that, and indeed have a lot of mistaken but entrenched beliefs about what leads to better gaming. As was said earlier, the gap between "this is something the player explicitly opted into in advance" and "this is something the DM forces, and extracts a price if refused" is pretty big, and there's quite a bit of room for resentment or frustration _even if the DM genuinely believes what they're doing is good_.




Honestly a bad GM, intentional or unintentional, can ruin any rules set regardless of perceived quality. 

Oddly enough, in the years of running Cypher and seeing it run,  I haven't seen GM Intrusions, cyphers, or their limits used as a way to screw over players and I haven't seen it discussed this way in the Cypher Unlimited discord which has been around for years and has over 4 thousand members.

And we'll have to agree to disagree as to the average level of a GM's ability to read their table - that's subjective at the start since we'd have to start by splitting up the one-shot tables vs the long-time tables. We're now seeing two camps in the thread: "Benefit of the doubt" vs. "Assume the worst" of these mechanics.

But I've also run D&D games with firearms for years without a problem and other GM's froth at the mouth at the very mention of guns and say it can't be done. That frothing eventually is followed up by a horror story of how guns somehow ruined a game.

Often a bad early experience can color a gamer's expectations and I've been blessed to not meet a "us vs them" GM, even if unintentional, for a long time.


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## EzekielRaiden (Oct 28, 2022)

Von Ether said:


> Honestly a bad GM, intentional or unintentional, can ruin any rules set regardless of perceived quality.



Sure. The problem is the unintentional ones though; the ones who think they're doing the right thing when they aren't. It can be _extremely_ difficult, sometimes impossible, to convince them that they are wrong, even in the face of the evidence of actual play (because there's always something else that _could_ be the problem instead.)



Von Ether said:


> Oddly enough, in the years of running Cypher and seeing it run,  I haven't seen GM Intrusions, cyphers, or their limits used as a way to screw over players and I haven't seen it discussed this way in the Cypher Unlimited discord which has been around for years and has over 4 thousand members.



I...genuinely 100% don't understand how the cypher limit doesn't, because using it _as intended_ is screwing players over. "Oh, you decided not to consume valuable and essentially irreplaceable consumables on one-off benefits? _Sucks to be you, suffer with penalties or forgo getting any more consumables._" The rule _by design_ screws players who are reluctant to consume resources.



Von Ether said:


> And we'll have to agree to disagree as to the average level of a GM's ability to read their table - that's subjective at the start since we'd have to start by splitting up the one-shot tables vs the long-time tables. We're now seeing two camps in the thread: "Benefit of the doubt" vs. "Assume the worst" of these mechanics.



It's not a matter of "assume the worst." It's a matter of "most things will be only average." A mechanic which is predicated on being above-average is a mechanic that is going to run into issues.



Von Ether said:


> But I've also run D&D games with firearms for years without a problem and other GM's froth at the mouth at the very mention of guns and say it can't be done. That frothing eventually is followed up by a horror story of how guns somehow ruined a game.
> 
> Often a bad early experience can color a gamer's expectations and I've been blessed to not meet a "us vs them" GM, even if unintentional, for a long time.



Whereas I have spoken with many, many, MANY such GMs over the years. Ones who openly take _glee_ in banning things their players might want. It's a real issue, and not just among D&D players.


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## Von Ether (Oct 28, 2022)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Whereas I have spoken with many, many, MANY such GMs over the years. Ones who openly take _glee_ in banning things their players might want. It's a real issue, and not just among D&D players.



Yep. And those experiences very likely impact you probably view of how GM's use game mechanics. If I had the same life experience in gaming , I'd probably be much more suspicious of game mechanics as well. 

I respect that Cypher is not your thing.

It just that some of the speculation on the whys of it doesn't match my actual experience of running the game for years or the many in-depth discussions with fellow Cypher GMs, so I'll agree to disagree on those points and bow out.


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## Aldarc (Oct 28, 2022)

EzekielRaiden said:


> I...genuinely 100% don't understand how the cypher limit doesn't, because using it _as intended_ is screwing players over. "Oh, you decided not to consume valuable and essentially irreplaceable consumables on one-off benefits? _Sucks to be you, suffer with penalties or forgo getting any more consumables._" The rule _by design_ screws players who are reluctant to consume resources.



I don't know why you read everything that places limits on PCs as trying to "screw over the player." Oh no! Magic item attunement in 5e is designed to "screw over the player" by limiting how many magic items they can carry at once! I'm sorry, but I find the idea that cypher limits are mechanics to "screw over the player" to be laughably absurd.


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## EzekielRaiden (Oct 28, 2022)

Aldarc said:


> I don't know why you read everything that places limits on PCs as trying to "screw over the player." Oh no! Magic item attunement in 5e is designed to "screw over the player" by limiting how many magic items they can carry at once! I'm sorry, but I find the idea that cypher limits are mechanics to "screw over the player" to be laughably absurd.



Having too many cyphers literally starts applying debuffs to the character. Simply _possessing_ them--literally just having them on your person _at all_--is enough to cause a problem.

It's _not at all_ like attunement.


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## Aldarc (Oct 28, 2022)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Having too many cyphers literally starts applying debuffs to the character. Simply _possessing_ them--literally just having them on your person _at all_--is enough to cause a problem.
> 
> It's _not at all_ like attunement.



Yes and? Cypher are to be used and not hoarded.


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## Staffan (Oct 28, 2022)

EzekielRaiden said:


> I...genuinely 100% don't understand how the cypher limit doesn't, because using it _as intended_ is screwing players over. "Oh, you decided not to consume valuable and essentially irreplaceable consumables on one-off benefits? _Sucks to be you, suffer with penalties or forgo getting any more consumables._" The rule _by design_ screws players who are reluctant to consume resources.



One person's "screws players who are reluctant to consume resources" is another person's "encourage players to actually use consumables instead of hoarding them."

I mean, I can't be the only one who looks over D&D character sheets and still see potions and scrolls that have been there for five or more levels and by now have essentially outlived their usefulness since healing 2d4 hit points at level 8 isn't going to help anything.


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## Aldarc (Oct 28, 2022)

Staffan said:


> One person's "screws players who are reluctant to consume resources" is another person's "encourage players to actually use consumables instead of hoarding them."
> 
> I mean, I can't be the only one who looks over D&D character sheets and still see potions and scrolls that have been there for five or more levels and by now have essentially outlived their usefulness since healing 2d4 hit points at level 8 isn't going to help anything.



It doesn't even screw players who are reluctant to consume resources. If you are reluctant to consume resources, then you are not screwed by not consuming the cyphers you have. It only becomes an issue if the PC hoards cyphers above that cap.


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## EzekielRaiden (Oct 28, 2022)

Staffan said:


> One person's "screws players who are reluctant to consume resources" is another person's "encourage players to actually use consumables instead of hoarding them."
> 
> I mean, I can't be the only one who looks over D&D character sheets and still see potions and scrolls that have been there for five or more levels and by now have essentially outlived their usefulness since healing 2d4 hit points at level 8 isn't going to help anything.



It is entirely possible to create systems that reward non-hoarding rather than punishing hoarding.

If there is _any_ way to avoid the stick, you should. It is much, much more effective to give players a reason to _want_ to play the game as intended, of their own free will, rather than punishing them for failing to play it as intended until they wise up.


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## Thomas Shey (Oct 28, 2022)

Von Ether said:


> It just that some of the speculation on the whys of it doesn't match my actual experience of running the game for years or the many in-depth discussions with fellow Cypher GMs, so I'll agree to disagree on those points and bow out.




I do just have to note that people who have a serious problem with a core mechanic of a system are unlikely to stay with the system long (with the possible exception of D&D because of its networking force).  So if you're hanging around with heavily Cypher oriented GMs, you've probably already preselected out the majority of people who have had serious problems with the system.


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## Thomas Shey (Oct 28, 2022)

Staffan said:


> One person's "screws players who are reluctant to consume resources" is another person's "encourage players to actually use consumables instead of hoarding them."
> 
> I mean, I can't be the only one who looks over D&D character sheets and still see potions and scrolls that have been there for five or more levels and by now have essentially outlived their usefulness since healing 2d4 hit points at level 8 isn't going to help anything.




I think the phrase used when reading things like this is "I feel attacked by this relatable content".  

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure punishing me for this behavior would not have the desired consequence unless you were very consistently giving me things I was going to find reliably useful, but simply make me discard them a lot.


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## Aldarc (Oct 28, 2022)

Thomas Shey said:


> I think the phrase used when reading things like this is "I feel attacked by this relatable content".
> 
> On the other hand, I'm pretty sure punishing me for this behavior would not have the desired consequence *unless you were very consistently giving me things I was going to find reliably useful, but simply make me discard them a lot.*



That is the intended play structure of cyphers in the Cypher System. There should be no need to hoard them because you should be getting them as a regular part of play.


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## Von Ether (Oct 28, 2022)

Thomas Shey said:


> I do just have to note that people who have a serious problem with a core mechanic of a system are unlikely to stay with the system long (with the possible exception of D&D because of its networking force).  So if you're hanging around with heavily Cypher oriented GMs, you've probably already preselected out the majority of people who have had serious problems with the system.



Agreed. But no system is perfect and people discuss different aspects of the game along with  newbies come into the Discord with questions all the time. Of all those questions and discussion, the _particular _assumption those mechanics are weaponized/punishment by a GM hasn't bubbled up from either newbies or old timers.

But knowing Murphy's Law, I have probably jinxed myself. 

At this point, I feel bad for gamers whose hobby life has lead them to the point they instinctually feel the need to protect themselves from abusive DMs by scouring though game mechanics. It definitely impacts what these players would consider "good" game design. 

To clarify, that's not saying you can't design a good game with that goal, but that's an extra load most game designers are not considering.


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## Von Ether (Oct 28, 2022)

double post


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## Faolyn (Oct 28, 2022)

Aldarc said:


> Yes and? Cypher are to be used and not hoarded.



Part of the problem I have with them is that they're apparently supposed to be random, which means that you run the risk of having cyphers that do absolutely nothing useful, either for the character or the situation. Unless my GM is doing it wrong.


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## Von Ether (Oct 28, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Part of the problem I have with them is that they're apparently supposed to be random, which means that you run the risk of having cyphers that do absolutely nothing useful, either for the character or the situation. Unless my GM is doing it wrong.



They _can _be but they don't have to be. And the GM is encouraged to curate the lists. (They are encouraged to curate everything to tweak the game towards their worldbuilding needs.) PCs can also trade cyphers among themselves as well. 

OTH, finding a use for a "nothing useful" cypher that solves the current puzzle is peak Cypher.


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## Faolyn (Oct 28, 2022)

Von Ether said:


> They _can _be but they don't have to be. And the GM is encouraged to curate the lists. (They are encouraged to curate everything to tweak the game towards their worldbuilding needs.) PCs can also trade cyphers among themselves as well.
> 
> OTH, finding a use for a "nothing useful" cypher that solves the current puzzle is peak Cypher.



The game is mostly just something we play occasionally when the other games fall through, not a steady campaign, so maybe the GM isn't putting in that much effort.


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## Von Ether (Oct 28, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> The game is mostly just something we play occasionally when the other games fall through, not a steady campaign, so maybe the GM isn't putting in that much effort.



That sounds likely. He might also look into Cypher Shorts, which really parse the game down and it doesn't even deal with Cyphers.








						Cypher Shorts - Monte Cook Games | Cypher System | Free Products | DriveThruRPG.com
					

Cypher Shorts - You could be playing ten minutes from now! Experiment with a new genre. Try something weird or different. Or just enjoy




					www.drivethrurpg.com
				




OTH, Cypher has been agile enough that we've simply jumped to another genre as a one-shot when someone no shows for regular game. "Your magic is psionics and your crossbows are blasters."


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## Thomas Shey (Oct 28, 2022)

Aldarc said:


> That is the intended play structure of cyphers in the Cypher System. There should be no need to hoard them because you should be getting them as a regular part of play.




The point is that I wouldn't necessarily _use_ them more; I'd just throw more away.  It might very mildly increase my use, but honestly, consumeables are not only things I hoard because I might want them later, but often just because I forget about them.


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## Thomas Shey (Oct 28, 2022)

Von Ether said:


> Agreed. But no system is perfect and people discuss different aspects of the game along with  newbies come into the Discord with questions all the time. Of all those questions and discussion, the _particular _assumption those mechanics are weaponized/punishment by a GM hasn't bubbled up from either newbies or old timers.
> 
> But knowing Murphy's Law, I have probably jinxed myself.




You only get to see what you get to see.  I'm just suggesting that its entirely possible there are a fair number of people who run into problems with that, walk away from the game, and you never see at all.  I've seen that with other games with problems just because I happen to encounter a few in other contexts.



Von Ether said:


> At this point, I feel bad for gamers whose hobby life has lead them to the point they instinctually feel the need to protect themselves from abusive DMs by scouring though game mechanics. It definitely impacts what these players would consider "good" game design.




Over and above deliberately abusive GMs--but to make it clear, the more mild cases of that are _not rare_--Ezekiel's not wrong that there are a fair number of people who respond much more negatively to sticks than carrots.



Von Ether said:


> To clarify, that's not saying you can't design a good game with that goal, but that's an extra load most game designers are not considering.




I'd suggest that most _good_ ones are at least designing around the common mediocre GM to a fair degree, however.  To not do so is to just shrug as a designer and figure that their bad experiences are their own fault, and I can't have much respect for that.


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## Aldarc (Oct 28, 2022)

Thomas Shey said:


> The point is that I wouldn't necessarily _use_ them more; I'd just throw more away.  It might very mildly increase my use, but honestly, consumeables are not only things I hoard because I might want them later, but often just because I forget about them.



Throw them out or consume them. It's no big deal either way as long as you don't hoard them.


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## Thomas Shey (Oct 29, 2022)

Aldarc said:


> Throw them out or consume them. It's no big deal either way as long as you don't hoard them.




Why?  If I never consume them, what's the difference whether I happen to have them written on my sheet?  The gameplay effect is exactly the same.


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## Von Ether (Oct 29, 2022)

Thomas Shey said:


> You only get to see what you get to see.  I'm just suggesting that its entirely possible there are a fair number of people who run into problems with that, walk away from the game, and you never see at all.  I've seen that with other games with problems just because I happen to encounter a few in other contexts.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




As I stated earlier, even outside of Cypher, I haven't run into many of those antagonistic GMs in a very long time. I also hazard mild cases probably don't cause a gut reaction for people to habitually assume X sort of rules are going to be weaponized. 

Mediocre GMs are probably where game designers aim at. I think the thread, however, is in disagreement on what constitutes the behaviors of said mediocre GM.  Which in turn has people disagreeing on what is seen as what is a stick/punishment/weaponizing vs. just a rule.


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## Aldarc (Oct 29, 2022)

Thomas Shey said:


> Why?  If I never consume them, what's the difference whether I happen to have them written on my sheet?  The gameplay effect is exactly the same.



Then play the game without cyphers and never pick any cyphers up because the gameplay effect is also the same.


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## Von Ether (Oct 29, 2022)

Aldarc said:


> Then play the game without cyphers and never pick any cyphers up because the gameplay effect is also the same.



During character creation, you can get an extra skill for each cypher slot you give up. The game plays fine without cyphers, but if you can include them in your worldbuilding it does spice up the setting (or helps further erase the serial numbers off the setting you lifted out of your favorite media.)




Faolyn said:


> The game is mostly just something we play occasionally when the other games fall through, not a steady campaign, so maybe the GM isn't putting in that much effort.



There are also optional rules for subtle cyphers where spending an XP can help a player request a type of cypher or even a specific one if they want to chance rolling for it. 

And thinking about it, random cyphers are no different than random potions and random scrolls. Though long standing D&D wisdom has been that if a player has a random Feather Fall, there DM is going to provide a cliff that needs jumping down from soon. LOL!


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## Thomas Shey (Oct 29, 2022)

Aldarc said:


> Then play the game without cyphers and never pick any cyphers up because the gameplay effect is also the same.




While I'm not a fan of how cyphers are present outside of the original game and think the system would be better outside that dependency, the fact_ I_ feel that way does not mean everyone else at the table will.  Honestly, letting other people just take them for the most part is what I would do with occasional exceptions.  If the game doesn't work doing that, that's not going to exactly be an advertisement for it from my POV.


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## Thomas Shey (Oct 29, 2022)

Von Ether said:


> During character creation, you can get an extra skill for each cypher slot you give up. The game plays fine without cyphers, but if you can include them in your worldbuilding it does spice up the setting (or helps further erase the serial numbers off the setting you lifted out of your favorite media.)




Good to know.  I've had other cypher fans indicate the contrary in the past.


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## EzekielRaiden (Oct 30, 2022)

Von Ether said:


> As I stated earlier, even outside of Cypher, I haven't run into many of those antagonistic GMs in a very long time. I also hazard mild cases probably don't cause a gut reaction for people to habitually assume X sort of rules are going to be weaponized.
> 
> Mediocre GMs are probably where game designers aim at. I think the thread, however, is in disagreement on what constitutes the behaviors of said mediocre GM.  Which in turn has people disagreeing on what is seen as what is a stick/punishment/weaponizing vs. just a rule.



Perhaps.

I believe most GMs are well-meaning. The problem is, "well-meaning" and $5 will get you a cup of coffee.

You can mean well, but have...really really mistaken ideas about what constitutes good/wise GMing. IMO, this is the camp of many "adversarial" GMs. They do what they do because they genuinely believe it makes the game better, up to and including a variation on that Oprah Winfrey meme, "_you_ get a ban and _you_ get a ban and EVERYONE gets a ban" (meaning, repeatedly banning anything "new" that the players like but the GM finds gauche/annoying/weird/etc.) Or the tragically common failure to understand iterative probability, most typically demonstrated by the "keep rolling stealth every round/action for as long as you are hiding" error. Many, many DMs, even very experienced ones _who want to run good games_, commit this error.

The problem with the "you cannot use rules to fix malicious behavior" retort is that it assumes that the _one and only_ cause of bad results is malice. This is incorrect. In fact, I would argue that malice actually represents only a very small portion of the "GM did something that negatively affected the game" space. Conversely, simple ignorance, bullheaded insistence, erroneous beliefs, misplaced confidence, and out-of-context expectations are all both quite easy to have or demonstrate purely by accident, and can each occur with no malice whatsoever, indeed, with a genuine belief that one is doing only good/needful things with only the best of intentions.

It is under that context that I consider it to be unwise to include things like the cypher limit, the (apparently excised in the Revised edition) admonition to change the setting any time the players think they've learned anything about the past, and the "XP is for both permanent and temporary benefits" rules. I don't expect a conniving jerk. I expect people to do things harmful to the game despite a genuine and earnest desire to pursue _what they believe to be_ the best possible experience.

The problem is, for a variety of reasons, it is very difficult to develop good intuitions about the effects one's choices will have on the resulting quality of the game experience, and even more difficult to overcome personal biases and received wisdom. I would know. _I've been there._ Not as a GM, thankfully, but as a _player._ I had some real deep-seated misconceptions about what made games good, what constituted effective design, and what was best practice. It took a shocking revelation and some pretty significant soul-searching to realize just how far off the mark I was.

Take, for example, the widespread insistence that PCs and NPCs should use identical rules. This is not some bizarro-world belief that has no justification or reason to it. On the surface, it is not merely reasonable, but seems eminently practical and even unequivocally positive. But in practice, it is extremely unwise game design, because NPCs (especially monsters) and PCs are fundamentally designed to do _extremely_ different things and to have very, very different impact on the play experience. Many, many folks complain about how hard it is to run high-level 3e or PF...and one of the biggest contributors to that is the fact that NPCs are effectively "PCs but possibly more complicated."


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## Von Ether (Oct 30, 2022)

EzekielRaiden said:


> ... admonition to change the setting any time the players think they've learned anything about the past,... ... things like the cypher limit, the (apparently excised in the Revised edition) ...




Just for clarification. That bit is from Numenera and that setting. It's not any general advice. 

If by changing the limit you are referring to switching out Cypher slots for skills, that was in the original Cypher System book. Not sure if that was in the original Numenera  or not.


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## EzekielRaiden (Oct 30, 2022)

Von Ether said:


> Just for clarification. That bit is from Numenera and that setting. It's not any general advice.
> 
> If by changing the limit you are referring to switching out Cypher slots for skills, that was in the original Cypher System book. Not sure if that was in the original Numenera  or not.



I think some wires might have gotten crossed there. As I understand it, the cypher limit is one rule, and the (as you say) Numenera setting thing is a separate...well, it's structured as a rule IMO, but whatever you choose to call it, it's distinct from the cypher limit.

I was simply using those as three examples (cypher limit, "change the history" advice, and XP is both temporary and permanent currency) of design decisions I find questionable in the context of well-meaning error and detrimental GM beliefs.


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## Aldarc (Oct 30, 2022)

Thomas Shey said:


> While I'm not a fan of how cyphers are present outside of the original game and think the system would be better outside that dependency, the fact_ I_ feel that way does not mean everyone else at the table will.  *Honestly, letting other people just take them for the most part is what I would do with occasional exceptions.*  If the game doesn't work doing that, that's not going to exactly be an advertisement for it from my POV.



Honestly, I'm skeptical if I would I do the same. If the players are not playing with their toys, then there is little point giving them more until they play with the ones they got. I guess that makes me the sort of bad GM/designer who exists to "screw over the player."


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## EzekielRaiden (Oct 30, 2022)

Aldarc said:


> Honestly, I'm skeptical if I would I do the same. If the players are not playing with their toys, then there is little point giving them more until they play with the ones they got. I guess that makes me the sort of bad GM/designer who exists to "screw over the player."



I mean, do you apply _punishments_ (penalties, difficulties, denied benefits, etc.) for a failure to use up consumables, or do you simply stop providing them if your players fail to make use of them? The latter is perfectly acceptable (if disappointing), while the former is...yeah, it's doing something punitive to the players because they aren't willingly playing the game the way you want them to.


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## Thomas Shey (Oct 30, 2022)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Take, for example, the widespread insistence that PCs and NPCs should use identical rules. This is not some bizarro-world belief that has no justification or reason to it. On the surface, it is not merely reasonable, but seems eminently practical and even unequivocally positive. But in practice, it is extremely unwise game design, because NPCs (especially monsters) and PCs are fundamentally designed to do _extremely_ different things and to have very, very different impact on the play experience. Many, many folks complain about how hard it is to run high-level 3e or PF...and one of the biggest contributors to that is the fact that NPCs are effectively "PCs but possibly more complicated."




While I agreed with the rest of your post, I should note that this is only a problem with games who's structure mandates massive special casing.  I ran RuneQuest and the Hero System for years, and in both of those PCs and NPCs are essentially constructed the same way, and it did not create the problems that occurred in 3e, because everything was done to a fundamentally common metric with few parts that once you were familiar with the system required extra cognitive load you weren't already handling dealing with the system at all; virtually none in Hero (which, for all of its detail has all the parts fundamentally designed as a set) and very little in Runequest (where you did have some spell-related functions that varied widely, but where even an experienced character whether PC or NPC would only have a very limited number of.)


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## Thomas Shey (Oct 30, 2022)

Aldarc said:


> Honestly, I'm skeptical if I would I do the same. If the players are not playing with their toys, then there is little point giving them more until they play with the ones they got. I guess that makes me the sort of bad GM/designer who exists to "screw over the player."




As Ezekiel says above, there's a difference between simply not giving people things they won't use, and applying penalties to those who've already accumulated more than you like.  The latter is punitive; the former isn't.


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## pointofyou (Oct 30, 2022)

EzekielRaiden said:


> I mean, do you apply _punishments_ (penalties, difficulties, denied benefits, etc.) for a failure to use up consumables, or do you simply stop providing them if your players fail to make use of them? The latter is perfectly acceptable (if disappointing), while the former is...yeah, it's doing something punitive to the players because they aren't willingly playing the game the way you want them to.



As I understand the Cypher System if a player at their Cypher limit doesn't use a given Cypher the appearance of a new Cypher presents that player with the choice of either giving up the Cypher they haven't used or giving up the ability to pick up the new one. Whether you see that as a punishment might vary.


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## Aldarc (Oct 30, 2022)

EzekielRaiden said:


> I mean, do you apply _punishments_ (penalties, difficulties, denied benefits, etc.) for a failure to use up consumables, or do you simply stop providing them if your players fail to make use of them? The latter is perfectly acceptable (if disappointing), while the former is...yeah, it's doing something punitive to the players because they aren't willingly playing the game the way you want them to.



The penalties are if the players hoard more than they are permitted per the rules, much like is the case with encumberance systems. There are penalties for being encumbered with stuff in many games. If players are not using the cyphers they have or managing them, but are not "encumbered" with them, then I will stop rewarding them after awhile as there is no incentive on my part if the players aren't engaging with them. However, this is rare in my case and I find that it's easier to remind players that they have cyphers by having their opponents also using cyphers. 



Thomas Shey said:


> As Ezekiel says above, there's a difference between simply not giving people things they won't use, and *applying penalties to those who've already accumulated more than you like. * The latter is punitive; the former isn't.



The penalties applied are those in accordance with the game rules rather than "more than _ like."_


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## Thomas Shey (Oct 30, 2022)

Aldarc said:


> The penalties applied are those in accordance with the game rules rather than "more than _ like."_




Fill in "the designers" for "you" if you like; it doesn't change my opinion.


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## Aldarc (Oct 30, 2022)

Thomas Shey said:


> Fill in "the designers" for "you" if you like; it doesn't change my opinion.



Are there any games you play with player encumbrance penalties? If yes, why are those cases acceptable but cypher encumbrance unacceptable?


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## Thomas Shey (Oct 30, 2022)

Aldarc said:


> Are there any games you play with player encumbrance penalties? If yes, why are those cases acceptable but cypher encumbrance unacceptable?




Not many, and they usually based on actual physical encumbrance.  The ones that do abstract encumbrance, do it absolutely; they don't try to play games with a stick.


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## EzekielRaiden (Oct 31, 2022)

Thomas Shey said:


> While I agreed with the rest of your post, I should note that this is only a problem with games who's structure mandates massive special casing.  I ran RuneQuest and the Hero System for years, and in both of those PCs and NPCs are essentially constructed the same way, and it did not create the problems that occurred in 3e, because everything was done to a fundamentally common metric with few parts that once you were familiar with the system required extra cognitive load you weren't already handling dealing with the system at all; virtually none in Hero (which, for all of its detail has all the parts fundamentally designed as a set) and very little in Runequest (where you did have some spell-related functions that varied widely, but where even an experienced character whether PC or NPC would only have a very limited number of.)



Overall I still stand by my point, but I can recognize that a system designed to be simple/lightweight enough--or a system if you abstract far enough--can work this way. The latter, to be clear, would be something like "well all monsters in 4e have powers, and powers are what PCs use." IMO, that is abstraction to the point of no longer preserving the relevant distinctions. This, to me, is like saying, "well all things are made of atoms so everything really is the same." It abstracts away the very meaningful differences of _chemistry,_ because which specific atom something is made of, and the specific way they are arranged, is _hugely important_ for how it will behave.

(As an aside, Fate would be an example of the former. Nearly everything _really is_ Aspects, by intent, but "Aspect" is so open and flexible, it can mean almost anything from an inanimate object to a skill to a character flaw to a belief etc.)

Unfortunately, having never played RQ or the Hero system I cannot truly say if either of these things applies to them. Still, as said, I think any game which rises beyond a certain minimum complexity necessarily benefits from divergent PC vs NPC design, though I don't precisely know where that minimum falls. This occurs because as I said in the previous post, the design _utility_ of NPCs is very different from that of PCs. They (almost always) only see brief flashes of existence and make one or two punchy actions before being removed forever. To make that actually work out enjoyably is incredibly tricky when you _have_ to build everything exactly like a player character.


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## Thomas Shey (Oct 31, 2022)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Overall I still stand by my point, but I can recognize that a system designed to be simple/lightweight enough--or a system if you abstract far enough--can work this way.




I've never heard either Hero or RQ described as "lightweight"; some consider both of them "simpler" than D&D specifically because of the reduced number of special cases, but they'd not be considered "simple" by most people who use that term for an RPG.



EzekielRaiden said:


> The latter, to be clear, would be something like "well all monsters in 4e have powers, and powers are what PCs use." IMO, that is abstraction to the point of no longer preserving the relevant distinctions. This, to me, is like saying, "well all things are made of atoms so everything really is the same." It abstracts away the very meaningful differences of _chemistry,_ because which specific atom something is made of, and the specific way they are arranged, is _hugely important_ for how it will behave.




Hero, however, provides that as an end-user construction choice combined with skinning; there's nothing intrinsic in the core mechanic for, say, a Hand to Hand Killing Attack that tells you anything beyond the fact it uses the Killing Attack mechanic, and is hand to hand.  If you want more you have to apply other modifiers in construction (and sometimes there's little need; a big claw will work fine just as a base HKA).




EzekielRaiden said:


> (As an aside, Fate would be an example of the former. Nearly everything _really is_ Aspects, by intent, but "Aspect" is so open and flexible, it can mean almost anything from an inanimate object to a skill to a character flaw to a belief etc.)
> 
> Unfortunately, having never played RQ or the Hero system I cannot truly say if either of these things applies to them. Still, as said, I think any game which rises beyond a certain minimum complexity necessarily benefits from divergent PC vs NPC design, though I don't precisely know where that minimum falls.




I'd argue this is only true when _PC complexity_ normally rises above a certain level.  Certain specific kinds of PCs in both games I reference can be that way, but not all by any means (and not even all of a type--you can have Hero System mages (given the broadness of the term) who are relatively simple and Hero System fighters who chose options to make them complex.  But its not intrinsic to either).  Similarly, very few RQ characters who are not heavily into magic are complex in any way I'd see as deserving the term.



EzekielRaiden said:


> This occurs because as I said in the previous post, the design _utility_ of NPCs is very different from that of PCs. They (almost always) only see brief flashes of existence and make one or two punchy actions before being removed forever. To make that actually work out enjoyably is incredibly tricky when you _have_ to build everything exactly like a player character.




But again, I think you're making an assumption about an intrinsic complexity of PCs that isn't valid.  For example, I can say the number of PCs in either game that is as meaningfully complex as, say, a 15th level D&D 4e character is very small.


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## EzekielRaiden (Oct 31, 2022)

Thomas Shey said:


> But again, I think you're making an assumption about an intrinsic complexity of PCs that isn't valid.  For example, I can say the number of PCs in either game that is as meaningfully complex as, say, a 15th level D&D 4e character is very small.



Okay. If the game is really simple, you can use the same things for both. If it's not really simple, you can't. I feel like you are nitpicking over a really obvious implied aspect of what I've said.

Maybe it would be more useful to actually show an example of what this stuff looks like? Your "Hand to Hand Kill Attack" description really wasn't very helpful to me--that sounds like the equivalent of an iterative attack in 3e, Melee Basic in 4e, or Extra Attack in 5e.

Alternatively, it might simply be a topic for a different thread, since it's neither here nor there for the Cypher System.

So, since I apparently need to spell out every tiny implication and cover literally all possible conditions of things:

"It is an error to expect that _in all possible games no matter what_, non-player characters should be built _perfectly exactly always_ the same as player characters, when the function these two things serve is _very different_. Some systems are compatible with this approach. Some are not. To _enforce_ it on absolutely all systems is a major error, one very commonly encountered. Exactly _why_ it is so commonly encountered is beyond the scope of this discussion."

Is that adequate now? Or have I included more invalid assumptions to nitpick?


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## Aldarc (Oct 31, 2022)

Thomas Shey said:


> Not many, and they usually based on actual physical encumbrance.  The ones that do abstract encumbrance, do it absolutely; they don't try to play games with a stick.



I'm not sure if I follow your meaning here, particularly the last sentence. What do you mean by "do it absolutely" and how do they not "play games with a stick"? And if they do have encumbrance rules, why is that not playing with a stick and yet you believe that cypher encumbrance is playing with a stick?


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## Thomas Shey (Oct 31, 2022)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Okay. If the game is really simple, you can use the same things for both. If it's not really simple, you can't. I feel like you are nitpicking over a really obvious implied aspect of what I've said.




The problem is I think you're using an idiosyncratic definition of "simple" here.  I suspect strongly that few people would consider RQ or (especially) Hero as "simple".  They're just not very special-case intensive, which is not the same thing.



EzekielRaiden said:


> Maybe it would be more useful to actually show an example of what this stuff looks like? Your "Hand to Hand Kill Attack" description really wasn't very helpful to me--that sounds like the equivalent of an iterative attack in 3e, Melee Basic in 4e, or Extra Attack in 5e.




A Hand to Hand Killing Attack is a power definition in Hero.  It tells you a cost per increment (a D6 of it costs 15 points in the character build budget) and mechanical behavior (Killing Attacks are rolled as-is and then multiplied by either the hit location hit in games that use that, or by a multiplier die in others, in contrast with Normal damage which is rolled as a set; the system also distinguishes between Body Damage (which is the damage that injures or kills you) and Stun damage (which can stun and knock you out).  Killing attacks are more efficient at doing Body and less efficient at doing Stun).

Natively, with no other modifiers applied, all buying a HKA tells you is that you have some non-ranged Killing Attack that is modified by your Strength value (to a cap of twice the basic damage).  Without other modifiers, it best represents something like a big claw.  To represent other things (a sword, a set of smaller claws, a stinger) you'd apply Advantages and Limitations to get a more mechanically correct result.  And of course it doesn't, per se, tell you anything about the in-world definition of what you have.  There's also nothing in the system that would force you to apply addition modifiers to get that closer approximation; minor benefits and deficits are usually assumed to be rolled into that in-world definition (referred to as "special effects" within the system) but they're supposed to be pretty minor, so how much you go down the rabbit-hole of that definition is up the person purchasing it, the genre, and the group conventions.

But in use, you'll often see something like the following "War Pick: 1D6+1 HKA, AP, OAF".  What that tells someone familiar with the system is that its a Hand to Hand Killing Attack, is Armor Piercing (which cuts the defenses it goes against in half), and is an Obvious, Accessible Focus (which means the source of the ability to do it is obvious, and the source can both be disarmed and potentially damaged/destroyed).

Few people would consider that "simple".  But to anyone familiar with the system, having that summary I just listed in the quotation marks tells them everything they need to know about how the pick works without having to have anything more extended, or ever look up anything further.  A similar thing would apply to this: "War Hammer: +1 OCV, 1D6 HKA, +1 Stun Multiple, OAF".  The difference between the two weapons is that the Warhammer is more accurate (+1 OCV (Offensive Combat Value), does not have the armor piercing function, does a little less damage, but also does more Stun (+1 Stun Multiple).

This means any variations on this are largely baked into what you see on the summary; there may be a few cases of Advantages or Disadvantages you don't know what they do (largely because they're things that are rarely seen) but everything is baked into the basic construction whether its weapons, spells, other kinds of powers or basic abilities.  There's no examples of "this one off thing that is used for this purpose and works in this specific way that you need to keep track of".



EzekielRaiden said:


> Alternatively, it might simply be a topic for a different thread, since it's neither here nor there for the Cypher System.




Well, I already typed it now.   If you want to suggest any further discussion we spin off into another thread after this, I'm amenable.



EzekielRaiden said:


> So, since I apparently need to spell out every tiny implication and cover literally all possible conditions of things:
> 
> "It is an error to expect that _in all possible games no matter what_, non-player characters should be built _perfectly exactly always_ the same as player characters, when the function these two things serve is _very different_. Some systems are compatible with this approach. Some are not. To _enforce_ it on absolutely all systems is a major error, one very commonly encountered. Exactly _why_ it is so commonly encountered is beyond the scope of this discussion."
> 
> Is that adequate now? Or have I included more invalid assumptions to nitpick?




I'm more satisfied with the result, but I'll flat out tell you that if you think being called on overgeneralizing as being "nitpicking" you and I are going to have a bunch of bad interactions.


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## Thomas Shey (Oct 31, 2022)

Aldarc said:


> I'm not sure if I follow your meaning here, particularly the last sentence. What do you mean by "do it absolutely" and how do they not "play games with a stick"? And if they do have encumbrance rules, why is that not playing with a stick and yet you believe that cypher encumbrance is playing with a stick?




What I mean is that they simply say "X number but no further".  Period.  There's no penalty for doing it further, you just don't get to because its already become an abstraction.  I consider the latter far more honest.


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## Aldarc (Nov 1, 2022)

Thomas Shey said:


> What I mean is that they simply say "X number but no further".  Period.  There's no penalty for doing it further, you just don't get to because its already become an abstraction.  I consider the latter far more honest.



I'm not sure if I agree, but I appreciate the clarification of your earlier post.


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## Thomas Shey (Nov 1, 2022)

Aldarc said:


> I'm not sure if I agree, but I appreciate the clarification of your earlier post.




As noted, in a non-abstract system, I feel differently.


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## Aldarc (Nov 1, 2022)

Thomas Shey said:


> As noted, in a non-abstract system, I feel differently.



I trust that the distinction is meaningful for you and your tastes, but I'm not really sure that it is for me and mine.


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## Thomas Shey (Nov 1, 2022)

Aldarc said:


> I trust that the distinction is meaningful for you and your tastes, but I'm not really sure that it is for me and mine.




Legitimate.  I could try to explain why the difference matters, but I'm not sure there's a real point in doing so.


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## CharlesRyan (Nov 1, 2022)

Hey, all. This is an interesting thread, full of insightful thoughts and opinions. I want to challenge a couple of assumptions, though, that seem to have been taken as given in this conversation.

1. That people house-rule XP into two pools, for game-use and advancement.
2. That XP is commonly used by malicious GMs to screw the players.

Do these things happen? Sure. But reading this thread you'd think they were common; even pervasive. They are not—in my experience they're really rare. (In the second case, I'll point out that players can spend an XP to counter a GM intrusion; in ten years of playing hundreds of sessions, I've only ever seen it happen twice. Not the rate I'd expect if receiving intrusions was commonly seen as being screwed by the GM.)

Also a word on the cypher limit. Cyphers are really a meta element, treated as an in-game item in _some_ settings (like Numenera) but as purely a metagame mechanic that enhances player agency in many others. (They're termed "subtle cyphers" when used that way.) You get an arbitrary boost you can use at your discretion, but you can only have a couple of them available to you at any given time. The fact that this boost is skinned as an object in a game like Numenera is just color. Maybe that makes it easier to accept the concept?

(That said, I have to wonder if those who dislike cypher limits are actual Cypher System players with substantial experience of the system, or people who haven't played much and just dislike the limit in principle. Because I haven't really seen it be an obstacle in play.)

A caveat: I work at MCG, and I've played many, many games alongside Monte and the other designers. But I'm also active in the 4500+ member Cypher Unlimited discord, and play frequently at cons and public events (at Gamehole Con last weekend, for example, I was in five different games with over two-dozen new-to-me Cypher System players), so hopefully I'm pretty looped into how the game is played outside our virtual walls as well as inside.


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## Thomas Shey (Nov 2, 2022)

CharlesRyan said:


> Hey, all. This is an interesting thread, full of insightful thoughts and opinions. I want to challenge a couple of assumptions, though, that seem to have been taken as given in this conversation.
> 
> 1. That people house-rule XP into two pools, for game-use and advancement.
> 2. That XP is commonly used by malicious GMs to screw the players.
> ...




I'd suggest the only reason for the first to be rare is that people prone to doing it will just walk away from the game instead.



CharlesRyan said:


> Also a word on the cypher limit. Cyphers are really a meta element, treated as an in-game item in _some_ settings (like Numenera) but as purely a metagame mechanic that enhances player agency in many others. (They're termed "subtle cyphers" when used that way.) You get an arbitrary boost you can use at your discretion, but you can only have a couple of them available to you at any given time. The fact that this boost is skinned as an object in a game like Numenera is just color. Maybe that makes it easier to accept the concept?




I don't particular find "the GM decides what flavor of specialized metacurrancy you get" all that much more appealing.



CharlesRyan said:


> (That said, I have to wonder if those who dislike cypher limits are actual Cypher System players with substantial experience of the system, or people who haven't played much and just dislike the limit in principle. Because I haven't really seen it be an obstacle in play.)




Similar to my first point, if you _do_ object to the whole idea, why would playing the game seem appealing (and in my case, its hardly the only thing I dislike about the system).


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## Aldarc (Nov 2, 2022)

CharlesRyan said:


> Hey, all. This is an interesting thread, full of insightful thoughts and opinions. I want to challenge a couple of assumptions, though, that seem to have been taken as given in this conversation.
> 
> 1. That people house-rule XP into two pools, for game-use and advancement.



In the first case, it's pretty common IME to see this as a suggested house rule. Obviously you have greater experience with the fan community and engagement, but I'm not going to pretend like this hasn't been a common houserule discussed in the community since Numenera. A simple search on Cypher Unlimited's Discord channel (to which I am also a member) for "XP advancment" or "XP split" reveals a fair number of people splitting XP between two tracks: PC advancement and beannies/plot/etc.



Thomas Shey said:


> I'd suggest the only reason for the first to be rare is that people prone to doing it will just walk away from the game instead.



This feels less like a grounded hypothesis and more like your own negative opinions likely leading you to this conclusion.


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## GrahamWills (Nov 2, 2022)

I have run a couple of Numenera campaigns, and pretty recently finished playing in a Ptolus campaign using the Cypher system. It's not my favorite system or my go-to for any particular genre, but I've had generally good experiences with it, so I'll chip in on some topics:

*XP into two pools, for game-use and advancement*
Having played in multiple old-school Deadlands campaign where this is an even worse issue, I really dislike systems which expect you to spend XP for in-game use. The in-game use is typically fun and interesting, so dis-incentivizing it is just a terrible game design decision. It is _by far _my least liked aspect of the Cypher system. I didn't use any house rules to overcome it, I just made sure my players knew that if they spent on fun things, I'd "intrude lightly" and ensure they had a good chance to get the XP back. 

*Limited Cyphers*
Players reluctant to use consumables has been a problem for all time. It's not even unique to TTRPGS -- it's a rare video RPG where I don't end with a metric ton of healing and buff potions I never used "just in case". Limited Cyphers are one way to help with this -- knowing there is a limit means players are incentivized to find fun uses; so, when it works, this is a good feature. If you are near the cypher limit, then you are looking for a way to negate gravity or use your fun cypher. However, this all falls down if the GM is stingy with cyphers -- as a GM you have to keep the flow going so when a ne cypher is found, players view it as an opportunity.
My last GM (for Ptolus) had a nice idea -- you had a grace period of a day before cypher overload effects were felt, and a solid market for cyphers in the city. So when we found new cyphers it was always good -- we'd be excited by cyphers better than the old ones, and any that we'd otherwise lose became cash.

*Spending your Health*
This is something that traditional D&D-style players get very concerned about as it is a very different way of playing. It's not that common in modern games either, but it seems to worry the old-school gamers more than people who play Fate, PbtA or similar. One of our Ptolus gamers hated spending. He would prefer to miss with his attack and defend checks and take damage rather than spend to avoid damage, very consistently. And this does make the game less fun as your cool stuff doesn't happen. However the healing system in Numenera is very good at mitigating this. Like every RPG, it's a resource management system. You spend your pools to power up effects, and then spend the limited healing resources to recover. I like the risk-reward trade-off ("I've used up my quick heals -- if I spend for powers now I'll be down until we get a solid hour's rest") and find it a more fun management system than the traditional Vancian style (you get X uses and DONE) or the AEDU system, but I can see why people prefer to keep two different resource management pools, one for health and one for powers. As an aside, I agree with previous posters that _death spirals_ are simply not a concern. My biggest concern is actually that characters that can grant a lot of healing are extremely powerful; at high levels I had a character who could keep people able to spend 5+ on pretty much every roll under normal circumstances. That made me do a lot of re-scaling fights!

--------------------

Overall, I like the Cypher system for Numenera. I think that genre is well-served by the Cypher ruleset -- the way you get XP for discovery and exploration, and not for killings things; the way that cyphers can be devastatingly effective; the highly differentiated characters -- they work very well for this genre. For Ptolus I was actually surprised it worked as well as it did. It was a much more narrative and free-wheeling campaign than it would have been if we'd played in 5E, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. However, I think if I'd played it in_ 13th Age,_ it would have been equally as good an experience, so it's not supplanting 13A for general fantasy for me. I've played some one-shots of The Strange and maybe one other setting, and for me the system wasn't as strong -- Fate, Everway or Night's Black Agents seemed like it would have been better. But it's hard to judge without at least a mini-campaign.


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## Thomas Shey (Nov 2, 2022)

Aldarc said:


> This feels less like a grounded hypothesis and more like your own negative opinions likely leading you to this conclusion.




I'm basing it on the way I've seen people react to other games with similar mechanics (as noted, conflating metacurrency and advancement currency is not new) where its very often been a dealbreaker, and that when people talk about that one its usually not the only issue they have with Cypher.  I can't prove it, of course, but it doesn't seem unfounded from parallelism with what I've seen in other game systems and the tendency for it not to be a standalone objection.


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## Thomas Shey (Nov 2, 2022)

Just to make a side comment--though I'm not a fan of the resource for getting things done and the resource for you staying functional being the same one, you can make an argument that almost all metacurrencies do this to some degree, and I don't intrinsically object to those.  I think there's some important matters of degree though; it should be noted that games that seriously need metacurrencies to just get things done on a regular basis and/or where buffering damage with metacurrencies is regularly needed (as compared to an occasional emergency use) I often _do_ have the same issues with.


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