Discussion of the Cypher System

[Lwaxy]

We have d20 sessions where the die is never touched, and they have enough tension.

What I don't get is the whole starting with the roll or starting with the talk stuff. In the example on the site, there could have still been failure in the Numenera game, albeit with a slow chance. So players would still be concerned.

And I have seen enough players who don't roll first, but first count all bonuses and THEN roll. Actually, I do it that way most of the time. It makes absolutely no difference in what order you do it. You can still fail.

 

[SteamCraft]

Is there any good summaries of the game mechanics posted online?

 

[Celebrim]

The point of that section is that in Numenera, a roll of a 3 can oftentimes be a success, where in d20 it would seldom be a success.

I don't know where you get that. I've got a skill monkey PC in my current campaign. For most things involving dexterity/movement, not only is a 3 often a success but often a 1 is a success.

The chance of success doesn't depend on the dice, but on the modifier and DC of the task. If the DC of the task is static, as it often is, then as the PC grows more potent they get higher and higher chances of success. If the DC of something is 15, once you have a +14 bonus on the check (for a skill, this is not that hard by level 7) you either succeed 100% of the time or 95% of the time (depending on whether 1 is an automatic failure for that sort of check).

Numenera is faster in combat than d20 partly because there is less die-rolling overall (the GM doesn't even roll) and because you're not constantly adding up modifiers.

Modifiers are definitely the bane of speedy play in D20. The other thing I find that slows things down are followers, retainers, steeds, familiars, and summoned creatures. You just end up with a large number of participants in events when you get to 6 players, 3 retainers, 5 men-at-arms, a couple of steeds, a familiar, an animal companion, and 3 conjured monsters versus two dozen NPC's, a witch doctor, and his conjured monsters.

 

[LexStarwalker]

Sorry, I was talking about a beginning character. A level 1 character isn't likely to have a +14 modifier on a roll, and will usually fail with a roll of 3. A beginning tier 1 character in Numenera, however, will often be able to succeed with a roll of 3.

 

[Aldarc]

Is there any good summaries of the game mechanics posted online?

Late, but Monte Cook Games posted a tutorial video on their YouTube page.

 

[Stacie GmrGrl]

Numenera is a great setting... The Cypher system is not a good system for the setting that it's been designed for. For a game of exploration and discovery and figuring things out this system does nothing to support anything regarding that. The Cypher system will be a great system for a generic game, and I do think it fits slightly better for The Strange and there are parts of the system that are neat. But for Numenera and the themes of Numenera the Cypher system is not a good match at all.

 

[GMMichael]

Have you played it, [MENTION=86279]Stacie GmrGrl[/MENTION]? I haven't (yet), but I would think that the "make things easy on the GM" focus would be great for exploration and discovery. But let's be clear: more storytelling power to the GM can be deleterious for GMs who lean on rules to make the game go. (GURPS, anyone?)

Nitpick (and corresponding self-pick): I get a deer-in-the-headlights feeling when I think about assigning a difficulty rating of 1-10 on anything that could occur in the game. Since I would expect that to slow me down if I were running Numenera, I'd probably try to resolve that by assigning only every other point: difficulties would be only 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10.

The same problem cropped up in my game (see sig), but worse: 20 different difficulty ratings (points)! And I did basically the same thing there: every 4 points, the difficulty gets a new name and is a landmark for assigning difficulty. That leaves 6 difficulty choices (or 5 if you're not asking your players to perform divine feats)!

I mean, "Creatures, NPCs, and entire encounters are incredibly easy to make up on the fly—and even easier to run." How could that be bad for exploration?

 

[Desh-Rae-Halra]

[MENTION=6685730]DMMike[/MENTION],
The problem with assigning 2, 4, 6, 8, or 10 is that generally you are placing thins in Easy, Moderate or Hard.
As someone still playing Numenera, that means the die roll( number needed for success on a d20) would be
6 (easy) 12 (harder than average) 18 (very hard) 24 (really unlikely!) and 30 (You would need to be Tier 6 (the highest, essentially Level 20), spend 6 points of effort, and still only have a less than average chance of success, not considering training, specializaitions, or assets.
I think an average difficulty is 3, and you expect that players who have Skill training or Specialization will reduce the difficulty to actually make it easy.
Of course this all depends on context: the variables are your skills, assets, and amount of effort you are willing to expend.
So a highly skilled party might find a Difficulty 3 swimming task actually daunting, because without skill or effort ( or assets), that makes your chance just better than a coin toss to succeed.

 

[LexStarwalker]

The guidelines for the difficulties given in the book are pretty easy to grasp, in my opinion.

0 - routine - anyone can do this basically every time
1 - simple - most people can do this most of the time
2 - standard - typical task requiring focus, but most people can usually do this
3 - demanding - requires full attention; most people have a 50/50 chance of success
4 - difficult - trained people have a 50/50 chance of success
5 - challenging - even trained people often fail

Most tasks will be difficulty 3 or 4 at the highest. Until higher tier you will rarely need difficulty higher than 5, and by then you'll have it down.

When looking at a task, I ask myself: How hard would this be for an average person to do? How hard would this be for a trained person to do? It's pretty easy to then assign a difficulty using the above chart.

I have a printout of the full chart (1-10) and that's pretty much the only GM aid I use when running the game.

 

[LexStarwalker]

I agree that the system doesn't focus enough on exploration. The game claims to be about exploration, but the majority of character abilities are combat related. I talked about this in detail (along with some numbers) in an episode of my GM Intrusions podcast I called Discovery Through Combat.