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

[Nikosandros]

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]

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.

 

[Thomas Shey]

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.

 

[Thomas Shey]

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.

 

[Thomas Shey]

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).

 

[EzekielRaiden]

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.

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.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

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.

 

[Von Ether]

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.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

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.

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.

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.

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.

 

[Yora]

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.