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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Doctor Futurity" data-source="post: 8803124" data-attributes="member: 10738">I've been hooked on Cypher System for about 5 years now, after I finally took the time to really try and figure it out. For the longest time I had the game in my collection but found its core conceits just too weird and different for me. When I finally "got it," and started trying the game, I rapidly realized it was a really new and interesting way to approach RPGs that was just close enough to what I likes in terms of style for me to slid in to without getting too overwhelmed....but I also had to learn not to run it like every other RPG I was used to, especially D&D.Things I learned in running Cypher System that I found really important to grasp its unique style:It's Not Like Traditional RPGs in pace: It's important to not run it like D&D. By this I mean, a lot of stuff which D&D is good at such as tactical combat and procedural "go here, encounter monster, fight, loot, move to next event, etc." just defeats the whole point of Cypher System. I would equate it to this: a movie which I think reflects a really interesting Cypher game is Star Trek: The Motion Picture. That movie has a plot and theme which would be utterly pointless in a D&D game, but Cypher would handle a plot like encountering and solving the mystery of V'Ger exceedingly well.Player's Need to Adapt to the Idea of the Risk Pool: Player characters do not have the same sort of stats that other RPGs have. Having a large Might pool might suggest you are more endurable, but its really having training in strength-based tasks that suggest your stronger than average, and Edges are really what you should pay attention to when determining whether or not your PC looks strong or not. Even more important, you have to think of the risk pool differently than you do with the more passive stat modifiers of other RPGs. For example: if you can determine that an attack of X level, if you spend from your pool costs more to reduce difficulty than the damage of the attack or effect, then it may not be worth spending any points to reduce the difficulty level.The Risk Pool is also not your hit points. Even though it is reduced by damage, and frankly works a lot like Traveller, it's part of the balancing act of Cypher that the same pool you can use to modify difficulty through expenditures is also your health pool, because taking injury effectively also reduces your ability to spend from the pool. This is on purpose....and players who complain that health needs to be separate from the might/speed/intellect pool are not realizing this is by design. In fact, they may not realize it, but by changing that component you dramatically improve the character's "spend" ability, which is effectively a significant power increase. My experience with Cypher on the GM's side is that this can have serious consequences in terms of adapting to player capability over the course of a session. The recovery option is also impacted if health were to be separated from the ability pools. Bottom line: stop thinking of health like its a D&D static ability, in Cypher its all linked together.Descriptor/Type/Focus is not like alignment/race/class: Your descriptors are just a way of setting up your character's thematic intent, but are not hard restrictions. You may get what is called an inability (increased cost) in certain actions to reflect that your character's proclivities are of a certain personality by default, but it doesn't mean you don't have a wide range of personality. In Cypher your Descriptor is sort of like your alignment and race in D&D, but also not really....it's the initial framework for your vision of who and what your character is. Your Type is your class, that is pretty well a given, but you can modify your Type through Flavors and reskinning to your heart's content. Your Focus is the thing which defines your subclass, maybe, but it better thought of as "the stuff which make you stand out from every other equivalent type." Within the scope of design you can make a bewilderingly weird array of PCs. In D&D this tends to be the subclass (eldritch knight or assassin, for example). In Cypher System your descriptor layers on to what your type sets up. It's actually one of the more familiar concepts in Cypher that it shares with other RPGs in design.Combat is Best Thought of as a Puzzle or Event: In D&D combat is a thing you do periodically to move the story forward, gain XP, or just have fun because a lot of D&D abilities are aimed at doing stuff to make someone else's hit points reach zero. In Cypher System combat is exactly the same in framework as any other puzzle, conundrum, or issue with only a couple extra rules to adjudicate what it means for positioning, initiative and damage. I had some unhappy games of Cypher early on when I tried running combat in the game like D&D. You can do it, sure, but its really not the point of Cypher....monsters have very basic stats, and you then modify with different perks and limiters to giv ethe monster some distinct flavor. Those modification are exactly equivalent to evaluating a trap, social situation, exploration event, discovery event or detective event.....they are just target numbers and special circumstances to make the story more interesting. Once I realized this, I rapidly shifted my focus to using Cypher System specifically and exclusively for campaign and scenario concepts in which combat was not the end goal, or even a side goal, but merely a form of encounter that required the same level of thought as, say, a puzzle or plot piece. For example, in my current Cypher campaign, which is a far-future SF exploration game with Star Trek like elements, the group has had exactly three combat encounters, one per session so far: the first involved a derelict crashed starship and an alien beast hunting the PCs. They had to use the ship's debris to gain a competitive advantage on the beast, and then work to determine its weakness. The second involved an immense alien hydra-like monster threatening a city, and the group was in their shuttle working to target the creature's weaknesses (its many necks) without shooting off a head to risk it being revealed as an actual hydra. In the course of this scenario GM intrusions led to the ship almost scuttling when knocked into the bay, the gunnery mount being bitten off and the PC having to escape the maw of one of the creature's heads, and the group discovering that the thing was weak to sonic attacks.  The third combat involved three aliens pretending to be gods and using a host of slaved drones....take out the drone operator and the drones are also taken out. Each of the foes had very effective shields, but the shields could be defeated by applying slow pressure (think the shields from Dune). Defeat the right person and the other two may surrender, as they were enslaved mentally to the Big Bad. The point being.....if you are going to have combat in Cypher, do not do it just because your RPG instincts suggest combat is now needed to fill the gap. Figure out why, in the story, you would want a combat, and what about this combat will be a real challenge to the PCs. Better one memorable fight every couple of sessions than six to eight unmemorable fights. GM and Player Intrusions Are Crucial: As some has said elsewhere, Cypher is a system with some give and take. You do indeed have plot tokens, so to speak, and players can evoke one for 1 XP, and GM's can offer XP to introduce one. This seems like a counter-intuitive concept to gamers used to prepublished scenarios in which all variables are laid out, but old school GMs should be familiar with the concept of innovating on simple things (hexcrawl gaming, for example, provides a skeleton on which you drape all sorts of unknown variables). Likewise, GMs who like improv are well aware of the appeal of being able to throw interesting things into the mix on the fly.The point of a GM Intrusion is to make life more interesting for the players. The way I describe it to the players is like this: if I offer you a GM intrusion it may, indeed, pose a risk for your PC, but the odds are also much greater you'll encounter a reward. Likewise, if the PC wants to engage in a player intrusion it can justify their pulling off something which would otherwise not be supported by their range of stats. Two example of a player intrusion that worked great in the combat encounters included the guy with no flying skill spending an XP to gain control of the shuttle when the pilot was incapacited and keep it level (did not crash); the second is when one of the PCs, sniping at the monster from a harness, watched their less careful fellow PC fall out of the open shuttle door they spent an XP to suggest the poor soul instead got tangled in the sniper's harness and did not, in fact, plunge into the bay's waters below. Meanwhile, a GM intrusion I played (as a result of them rolling a crit fail on a 1 for a free GM intrusion) was for the monster to rip the entire gunnery compartment off the underside of the shuttle and swallow it, with the PC, whole....this gave the PC a change to deal with a harrowing escape from the gullet of the beast, and in the process he dropped a bandolier of grenades down its throat, which meant the adversity of the intrusion allowed for a greater story moment and compelling combat opportunity.But....that's how Cypher rolls. You have to look at it as an engine for creating verisimilitude in stories, and not procedurals for a more conventional style of game play. If I want to play conventional D&D I will just play D&D; but if I run something with Cypher its going to require strange worlds and exotic situations from which PCs must consider many other approaches than "kill it and take it's stuff."</blockquote>

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