Pre-order The CYPHER SYSTEM Core Rulebook

The Cypher System is the rules-lite system which powers Monte Cook Games' Numenera and The Strange. The core rulebook is designed to present the game engine separately as a generic system able to handle sci-fi, fantasy, supers, and more. It's pitched as a toolkit to build the game you want, along with tons of additional descriptors, foci, types, creatures, cyphers, and artifacts for existing Numenera or The Strange players. You can pre-order the 416-page hardcover which releases in August for $59.99. (thanks to Dahak for the scoop)

Preorder it here.

A Cypher System campaign of Victorian horror? High fantasy? Espionage? Galaxy-spanning space opera? With the Cypher System Rulebook, running any of those is as easy as running or playing The Strange or Numenera . Take the Cypher System to the limits of your imagination with this hefty rulebook that extends the system to fantasy, science-fiction, horror, modern-day, and superhero settings—or any setting you can imagine!

The Cypher System Rulebook adapts the Cypher System—the critically acclaimed, award-winning rules set that drives Numenera and The Strange—to an unlimited range of campaigns and genres, giving you the complete rules set (along with dozens of optional and genre-specific rules) and hundreds of character options, creatures, cyphers, and other resources. It’s everything you need to play virtually any game using the Cypher System rules.

If you’re already a fan of Numenera and/or The Strange, you’ll find new descriptors, foci, types, creatures, cyphers, and artifacts you can use in your campaign the minute you crack open the book. Many of the optional genre rules will benefit your campaign as well. There are pages and pages of content you can make use of in your existing game, even if you never take the Cypher System into another genre!

The Cypher System Rulebook gives you 416 pages of character options, equipment, game rules, special coverage of key genres, creatures, NPCs, and cyphers.

• Complete game rules
• Genre-specific rules and advice for fantasy games, modern games, science-fiction games, horror, and superheroes
• Systems for issues such as vehicle combat, crafting, and insight, among others
• Four new character types, each customizable to the needs of your setting
• Over 50 descriptors and 70 foci
• Loads of equipment and hundreds of cyphers and artifacts
• Nearly 70 creatures and NPCs
• Great GM advice on adapting the Cypher System to a variety of settings, and on running a fun, engaging, fast-paced, easy-to-GM game sessions

Start a new campaign set in a fantasy land of elves and fae creatures, a science fiction setting spanning the galaxy, or a modern slasher horror game—or add scads of new options to your Numenera or The Strange campaign. The Cypher System Rulebook gives you everything you need to run the game you want to play using the critically acclaimed, award-winning, and just plain fun to play Cypher System!
​

​

 

[Kramodlog]

Um. How do Monte's rules hold up after using them?

 

[Baumi]

What is the advantage of Pre-Ordering it?

 

[morgurth]

You get the pdf version included if you preorder it.

 

[Evenglare]

Easily my most look forward to thing this year. Love the Strange and Numenera.

 

[Von Ether]

The Cypher still hasn't solved a riddle for me. Only the players roll the dice. When a PC summons a monster to have a clap contest with another opponent, and thus two NPCs are fighting, who rolls the dice in the forest?

Or to be a bit more straightforward and not so silly, NPCs/antagonist are different stat constructs (basically a collection of skill difficulties) compared to PC (a set of point pools that can affect dice rolls and skill difficulties), so it's a annoying corner case.

YMMV, but I find the official answers to be a bit non-mechanical for my taste (Do what fits the story, no contest -once side automatically wins, etc) as compared to some suggested guidelines on how to make these NPCs into pseudo-PCs or a bonus point pool or flat bonus for summoning PC, etc.

I'm big into story and rules-lite stuff, but for some reason this particular conundrum bugs me. It's not rational, but until I get mechanical-based suggestion from MCG, I feel like they are avoiding the question.

 

[Evenglare]

Either you don't have numenera or you didn't read carefully enough. Here's an excerpt from the book under beast master (which covers your summon monster stuff as well). It took me about 10 seconds to find.

""You and the GM must work out the details of your creature, and you’ll probably make rolls for it in combat or when it takes actions. The beast companion acts on your turn. As a level 2 creature, it has a target number of 6 and a health of 6, and it inflicts 2 points of damage. ""

Again, the system doesn't change at all. The player rolls for the monster, and if it succeeds then it deals X amount of damage. If I'm attacking your monster as the GM, then you must make a defense roll of some kind. Literally nothing changes except you are controlling a monster instead of your character in this case.

 

[Dark Kain]

Yeah: if you need the battle between NPCs to be random you just have them rolling against their respective target numbers (lower the level of both a couple of points if they are high leveled to reduce the chance of both missing every round).
Add in a couple of their special intrusions to emulate the use of skills and you are done.

That said I like more the narrative approach.

 

[Dragonmarked DM]

Another option that works well for player controlled NPCs is that they act as advantages for your PC in combat and drop the difficulty of your attacks or defense due to tactical help instead of having them attack individually. The advantage could be 1 or 2 levels depending on number of controlled NPCs or their level (and 2 is the max advantages a character can gain, no matter the source). They can also be directed to help other PC's in your group and give them advantage in combat or perhaps even other task if it makes since.

 

[Grimjack99]

Mispost