My 78-year-old dad is becoming a story gamer. What do I need to know about the Cypher system?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

As long-time forum regulars may remember, I've been running a three-generation game for several years now, including running games for my septuagenarian father, who originally bought me and my brother the AD&D and BD&D books and whom, I'm ashamed to say, it took me decades to realize clearly wanted to play himself.

I started him with Beyond the Wall and we've also been playing 5E for several years, both in person and over Discord.

But my dad, who has never met an NPC he didn't want to have an in-depth heart-to-heart conversation with, has had it with even the level of crunch in Grizzled Adventurers (the Beyond the Wall featuring experienced old coot adventurers), which is much lighter than 5E, and backed the Cypher starter set on Backerkit and would like me to run a game via Discord soon, using the quickstart rules.

I'm up for this, although I haven't had a chance to look through the PDF yet. I know of Cypher, mostly from reading about it during the Ptolus 5E/Cypher Kickstarter campaign, but not much more about it. In addition, while I know it can be used to run "anything," that doesn't give me much guidance on what it's best at and what sort of adventures would be a good trial run.

So, Cypher experts, give me your best advice on the system, learning it, and what you'd do for a first one-shot adventure (preferably free).

I appreciate any help you can offer.

(And yes, there are much more "story games" than Cypher. I will work my dad up to Fiasco and Lasers & Feelings.)

 

[aco175]

I'm in a similar situation, although my father has not been the DM in 30+ years. I recall his games always felt like Depression-era, gritty survival. We never got any magic or much gold until we were at least 5th level. My whole group of my father, brother, son, and myself went to a local convention last week and we were fighting to see who could sit next to the DM so we could hear him over the Viet-Nam, Gulf War, Afghanistan ringing in the ears. Cannot help with your question though.

 

[Faolyn]

I've only played a few games of Cypher, so I can't say much about that, but... have you considered Fate or FAE? It's less crunchy than Cypher but crunchier than L&F.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

have you considered Fate or FAE? It's less crunchy than Cypher but crunchier than L&F.

My dad is interested in Cypher because of their recent crowdfunding campaign. It may just be a stop on the way to finding his perfect system.