[UPDATED] MCG Has A New Kickstarter Coming

That's Monte Cook Games, not McG the movie director. It looks like they're planning to expand in support for their core Cypher System rule set beyond the directly Numenera and The Strange product lines. What that entails exactly is yet to be seen, but the image below likely gives away a few clues. Monte Cook Games runs a blockbuster Kickstarter every year, and is pretty much near the top of the game when it comes to crowdfunding.

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UPDATE! MCG has sent this email out. The Kickstarter begins on Monday, Feb 29th, and involves three new campaign settings:

We’ve been hinting at it all week, and there’s been a fair bit of speculation about it in social media and gaming sites such as ENworld. If you’re among those people who postulated we’re launching a new Kickstarter campaign, you’re right. Tomorrow we’re announcing the Worlds of the Cypher System campaign, which will launch on Monday, February 29.

Through this campaign we hope to fund a series of titles supporting the Cypher System Rulebook. And not just fund them—make them really awesome. Grow them and add stretch goals and new titles—the sort of things we’ve been fortunate enough to fund in previous Kickstarter campaigns.

Here’s an advance peek at the three campaign settings that make up the initial offering:

Gods of the Fall: Awaken your divine spark, claim a dominion, and become a god in a fantasy world in which the heavens smashed upon the Earth like a vengeful star.

Predation: First figure out how to survive t​he dark and dangerous world of the ​Cretaceous Period using the technology of the future—high-tech weapons, advanced science, and bioengineered dinosaurs—and then worry about the asteroid that history says wipes out all life on earth.

Masks: They say you're insane. Dangerous. That you suffer from Dissociative Mask Disorder. Your parents and the doctors and the press and the military. They can’t believe what’s happening. They can’t believe what you can do.

(There’s more too it, of course, but those three titles are the headliners.)

We at MCG have been playing and running Cypher System games ourselves for a year now, and we’ve come to realize how much cool support the Cypher System Rulebook deserves. That’s why we’re so excited about launching this campaign. We hope you’re excited too, and that you’ll help us spread the word over the week to come—and into the campaign itself.

 

[Desh-Rae-Halra]

I'm really on a wait-and-see basis for how they structure this campaign.
Hopefully it will be something along the lines of Into the Night, where they produced 3 setting books (1 with initial funding, and the others as significant stretch goals). However, it will be important to lead with whatever seems the strongest.
Also, I hope they make it clear how many NEW Foci, Descriptors, etc they have.

On a scale of 1-10, 1 being low/none and 10 being super-enthused/cant wait to give them my money:

Gods of the Fall: 4 (will it be like WW's Scion, Demigod, God without the awful Initiative system?)
Dino-Riders: 1
Masks: 5 (will depend a lot on the premise, if this Dissociative Mask Disorder makes characters like Jekyll/Hide but Supers instead of monsters I'm abandoning ship)

If I think about it on a 30 point scale (1-10 for each setting), I need about 19+ to pledge money towards it.

 

[Dahak]

Relevant information from last night's Cypher System Live chat --

New MCG Managing Editor Dennis Detwiller (of Delta Green and Godlike fame) came up with the dark supers idea that became Masks.

This will be three separate setting books. 192 pages each, probably.

Gods of the fall is pretty far along in development cycle, predation after that, masks last.

You can pick up just one or all in Kickstarter.

When asked if there would be new rules, Shanna said "Goal is to showcase how easy the rules are to adapt to the setting." An example given was "God rules which help strengthen and deepen your character."

When asked if a CSR character sheet pack would be a part of the Kickstarter? "Never know."

Will stretch goals mean more settings? Charles Ryan says, "We're looking at more books" "[there is] more that [they] could do for the CS itself, as its not just about these three settings". More they'd like to do for The Strange. Fiction, perhaps.

The Asset Deck will be an initial offering as part of the kickstarter - cards granting temporary skills, random benefits that can be used as in game assets. Can be handed out like XP or arbitrarily, but this hasn't completely been determined how they'll work. Probably one asset per card as opposed to several options like the cypher deck.

Some sort of character builder "not out of the question", but Charles seemed uncomfortable when answering that.

This KS isn't really the focus of next GenCon. Doing something different for Cypher System at GenCon.

Charles Ryan name-checks Torg, and liked the way cards worked in the game.

More details on Masks? Charles answers: "Psychological horror with like a superhero element to it." Dennis Detwiller's past with Pagan Publishing and Delta Green mentioned. "cool creative, doesnt hold back." Shanna adds: "an evil superhero, which you know is an oxymoron, but it really is very very dark."

All books will have PDF and hardcopy options.

Fractals are now Glimmers, all PDF only products are now Glimmers regardless of brand.

In Gods of the Fall, Divine tasks (or labors, like Hercules' labors) are part of character tier advancement in addition to the four boxes.

 

[Aldarc]

Why would I want to play an evil superhero?

 

[Dahak]

"Evil" might also mean self-interested, sociopathic, psychopathic, or forced heroism or villainy. q.v., Suicide Squad, Deadpool, PEG's Necessary Evil, Captain Cold and Heatwave, Stormshadow. If that style of play doesn't appeal to you, there's nothing *I* can do to sell it to you. Perhaps the Kickstarter will hook you with more details.

 

[Aldarc]

"Evil" might also mean self-interested, sociopathic, psychopathic, or forced heroism or villainy. q.v., Suicide Squad, Deadpool, PEG's Necessary Evil, Captain Cold and Heatwave, Stormshadow. If that style of play doesn't appeal to you, there's nothing *I* can do to sell it to you. Perhaps the Kickstarter will hook you with more details.

Maybe. It's just disappointing so far, especially as something of a long-time MCG groupie.

I was an enormous fan of Arcana Unearthed/Evolved back in the days of Malhavoc Press. I found both Numenera and the Strange to be incredibly inspiring campaign settings, with Numenera being in my Top 3 campaign settings ever produced. Numenera offers a science fantasy world where the sky's the limit. It's exploration and discovery within the scope of Arthur C. Clarke's "magical" advanced science. The Strange provides an X-files/Sliders/Stargate/Reboot (or even Rick & Morty-esque) sort of setting that allows players to change their abilities as they explore other worlds, settings, and genres set in quasi-dimensions.

While I appreciate that Worlds of the Cypher System attempting to show what settings are possible with the Cypher System, the little bit we know about these three settings seem almost too niche and narrow: Dino-Riders, Suicide Squad, and Mormon Exalted. They may turn out to be interesting settings in their own right, but right now, MCG is failing on selling me what feels increasingly like a quick cash-grab.

 

[Desh-Rae-Halra]

Mormon Exalted made me laugh! Your character has to go knock on 500 doors and hand out a bunch of pamphlets as part of their requirement to go up a Tier

So now I'm down to 1 setting. Not that the Gods of the Fall is a bad idea, but our GM gives out XP so infrequently, that having to also fulfill a quest before hitting the next tier kills it. We have been playing Numenera since it came out and I think the party is just at Tier 2. We have discovered that 90% of the NPCs and monsters are level 5s

The Evil Superhero...I guess Necessary Evil and Nightbane needed some competition? Masks is still the best hope for me of the three as it is, but like I said before, they probably need to tweak the CSR rules some more around supers.

 

[Dahak]

Maybe. It's just disappointing so far, especially as something of a long-time MCG groupie.

I get where you're coming from, though I'd caution waiting to see where this is actually going before making up your mind based on just the few blurbs and tidbits gathered so far. The 29th should be more illuminating.

I suspect this campaign will produce Cordell's The Strange novel and Detwiller's involvement in Masks has me interested. But, as always, you gotta do you! I spent long times with systems of which I thought some element would get better, and it never did. If that's where you are, you may need to step back and reassess things. It might save you tons of money and heartbreak.

 

[Dahak]

Mormon Exalted made me laugh! Your character has to go knock on 500 doors and hand out a bunch of pamphlets as part of their requirement to go up a Tier

Me, too. But in respect of some of my LDS friends, I feel reaaaallly bad about laughing.

 

[Von Ether]

I am ready for the pure Velveeta that will be Dino-Riders!

 

[Aldarc]

Gods of the Fall looks more interesting to me now. I have played a number of clerics, so I like the idea of designing a character around domains or spheres of influence. Picking your sphere of influence as a mortal ascending to godhood sounds fun. I suspect that this will be your focus in this setting.