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

[Thomas Shey]

During character creation, you can get an extra skill for each cypher slot you give up. The game plays fine without cyphers, but if you can include them in your worldbuilding it does spice up the setting (or helps further erase the serial numbers off the setting you lifted out of your favorite media.)

Good to know. I've had other cypher fans indicate the contrary in the past.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

As I stated earlier, even outside of Cypher, I haven't run into many of those antagonistic GMs in a very long time. I also hazard mild cases probably don't cause a gut reaction for people to habitually assume X sort of rules are going to be weaponized.

Mediocre GMs are probably where game designers aim at. I think the thread, however, is in disagreement on what constitutes the behaviors of said mediocre GM. Which in turn has people disagreeing on what is seen as what is a stick/punishment/weaponizing vs. just a rule.

Perhaps.

I believe most GMs are well-meaning. The problem is, "well-meaning" and $5 will get you a cup of coffee.

You can mean well, but have...really really mistaken ideas about what constitutes good/wise GMing. IMO, this is the camp of many "adversarial" GMs. They do what they do because they genuinely believe it makes the game better, up to and including a variation on that Oprah Winfrey meme, "you get a ban and you get a ban and EVERYONE gets a ban" (meaning, repeatedly banning anything "new" that the players like but the GM finds gauche/annoying/weird/etc.) Or the tragically common failure to understand iterative probability, most typically demonstrated by the "keep rolling stealth every round/action for as long as you are hiding" error. Many, many DMs, even very experienced ones who want to run good games, commit this error.

The problem with the "you cannot use rules to fix malicious behavior" retort is that it assumes that the one and only cause of bad results is malice. This is incorrect. In fact, I would argue that malice actually represents only a very small portion of the "GM did something that negatively affected the game" space. Conversely, simple ignorance, bullheaded insistence, erroneous beliefs, misplaced confidence, and out-of-context expectations are all both quite easy to have or demonstrate purely by accident, and can each occur with no malice whatsoever, indeed, with a genuine belief that one is doing only good/needful things with only the best of intentions.

It is under that context that I consider it to be unwise to include things like the cypher limit, the (apparently excised in the Revised edition) admonition to change the setting any time the players think they've learned anything about the past, and the "XP is for both permanent and temporary benefits" rules. I don't expect a conniving jerk. I expect people to do things harmful to the game despite a genuine and earnest desire to pursue what they believe to be the best possible experience.

The problem is, for a variety of reasons, it is very difficult to develop good intuitions about the effects one's choices will have on the resulting quality of the game experience, and even more difficult to overcome personal biases and received wisdom. I would know. I've been there. Not as a GM, thankfully, but as a player. I had some real deep-seated misconceptions about what made games good, what constituted effective design, and what was best practice. It took a shocking revelation and some pretty significant soul-searching to realize just how far off the mark I was.

Take, for example, the widespread insistence that PCs and NPCs should use identical rules. This is not some bizarro-world belief that has no justification or reason to it. On the surface, it is not merely reasonable, but seems eminently practical and even unequivocally positive. But in practice, it is extremely unwise game design, because NPCs (especially monsters) and PCs are fundamentally designed to do extremely different things and to have very, very different impact on the play experience. Many, many folks complain about how hard it is to run high-level 3e or PF...and one of the biggest contributors to that is the fact that NPCs are effectively "PCs but possibly more complicated."

 

[Von Ether]

... admonition to change the setting any time the players think they've learned anything about the past,... ... things like the cypher limit, the (apparently excised in the Revised edition) ...

Just for clarification. That bit is from Numenera and that setting. It's not any general advice.

If by changing the limit you are referring to switching out Cypher slots for skills, that was in the original Cypher System book. Not sure if that was in the original Numenera or not.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Just for clarification. That bit is from Numenera and that setting. It's not any general advice.

If by changing the limit you are referring to switching out Cypher slots for skills, that was in the original Cypher System book. Not sure if that was in the original Numenera or not.

I think some wires might have gotten crossed there. As I understand it, the cypher limit is one rule, and the (as you say) Numenera setting thing is a separate...well, it's structured as a rule IMO, but whatever you choose to call it, it's distinct from the cypher limit.

I was simply using those as three examples (cypher limit, "change the history" advice, and XP is both temporary and permanent currency) of design decisions I find questionable in the context of well-meaning error and detrimental GM beliefs.

 

[Aldarc]

While I'm not a fan of how cyphers are present outside of the original game and think the system would be better outside that dependency, the fact I feel that way does not mean everyone else at the table will. Honestly, letting other people just take them for the most part is what I would do with occasional exceptions. If the game doesn't work doing that, that's not going to exactly be an advertisement for it from my POV.

Honestly, I'm skeptical if I would I do the same. If the players are not playing with their toys, then there is little point giving them more until they play with the ones they got. I guess that makes me the sort of bad GM/designer who exists to "screw over the player."

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Honestly, I'm skeptical if I would I do the same. If the players are not playing with their toys, then there is little point giving them more until they play with the ones they got. I guess that makes me the sort of bad GM/designer who exists to "screw over the player."

I mean, do you apply punishments (penalties, difficulties, denied benefits, etc.) for a failure to use up consumables, or do you simply stop providing them if your players fail to make use of them? The latter is perfectly acceptable (if disappointing), while the former is...yeah, it's doing something punitive to the players because they aren't willingly playing the game the way you want them to.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Take, for example, the widespread insistence that PCs and NPCs should use identical rules. This is not some bizarro-world belief that has no justification or reason to it. On the surface, it is not merely reasonable, but seems eminently practical and even unequivocally positive. But in practice, it is extremely unwise game design, because NPCs (especially monsters) and PCs are fundamentally designed to do extremely different things and to have very, very different impact on the play experience. Many, many folks complain about how hard it is to run high-level 3e or PF...and one of the biggest contributors to that is the fact that NPCs are effectively "PCs but possibly more complicated."

While I agreed with the rest of your post, I should note that this is only a problem with games who's structure mandates massive special casing. I ran RuneQuest and the Hero System for years, and in both of those PCs and NPCs are essentially constructed the same way, and it did not create the problems that occurred in 3e, because everything was done to a fundamentally common metric with few parts that once you were familiar with the system required extra cognitive load you weren't already handling dealing with the system at all; virtually none in Hero (which, for all of its detail has all the parts fundamentally designed as a set) and very little in Runequest (where you did have some spell-related functions that varied widely, but where even an experienced character whether PC or NPC would only have a very limited number of.)

 

[Thomas Shey]

Honestly, I'm skeptical if I would I do the same. If the players are not playing with their toys, then there is little point giving them more until they play with the ones they got. I guess that makes me the sort of bad GM/designer who exists to "screw over the player."

As Ezekiel says above, there's a difference between simply not giving people things they won't use, and applying penalties to those who've already accumulated more than you like. The latter is punitive; the former isn't.

 

[pointofyou]

I mean, do you apply punishments (penalties, difficulties, denied benefits, etc.) for a failure to use up consumables, or do you simply stop providing them if your players fail to make use of them? The latter is perfectly acceptable (if disappointing), while the former is...yeah, it's doing something punitive to the players because they aren't willingly playing the game the way you want them to.

As I understand the Cypher System if a player at their Cypher limit doesn't use a given Cypher the appearance of a new Cypher presents that player with the choice of either giving up the Cypher they haven't used or giving up the ability to pick up the new one. Whether you see that as a punishment might vary.

 

[Aldarc]

I mean, do you apply punishments (penalties, difficulties, denied benefits, etc.) for a failure to use up consumables, or do you simply stop providing them if your players fail to make use of them? The latter is perfectly acceptable (if disappointing), while the former is...yeah, it's doing something punitive to the players because they aren't willingly playing the game the way you want them to.

The penalties are if the players hoard more than they are permitted per the rules, much like is the case with encumberance systems. There are penalties for being encumbered with stuff in many games. If players are not using the cyphers they have or managing them, but are not "encumbered" with them, then I will stop rewarding them after awhile as there is no incentive on my part if the players aren't engaging with them. However, this is rare in my case and I find that it's easier to remind players that they have cyphers by having their opponents also using cyphers.

As Ezekiel says above, there's a difference between simply not giving people things they won't use, and applying penalties to those who've already accumulated more than you like. The latter is punitive; the former isn't.

The penalties applied are those in accordance with the game rules rather than "more than like."