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Cypher System by Monte Cook Games: what do you think about it?
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<blockquote data-quote="GrahamWills" data-source="post: 8816337" data-attributes="member: 75787"><p>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:</p><p></p><p><strong>XP into two pools, for game-use and advancement</strong></p><p>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 <em>by far </em>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. </p><p></p><p><strong>Limited Cyphers</strong></p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p></p><p><strong>Spending your Health</strong></p><p>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 <em>death spirals</em> 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!</p><p></p><p>--------------------</p><p></p><p>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<em> 13th Age,</em> 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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="GrahamWills, post: 8816337, member: 75787"] 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: [B]XP into two pools, for game-use and advancement[/B] 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 [I]by far [/I]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. [B]Limited Cyphers[/B] 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. [B]Spending your Health[/B] 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 [I]death spirals[/I] 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[I] 13th Age,[/I] 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. [/QUOTE]
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