Tell Me About the Cypher System

[Voadam]

To anyone else reading this, could you provide a Cypher system encounter example where using more effort to succeed is more beneficial than using minimum effort?

I am just joining a Cypher system game so I am new to the system but it sounds like any time the opponent hits really hard you want to either spend points on defense to avoid the bigger pool cost damage, spend points on offense to take them out quicker so you take less big hit damages in the combat, or both if you can, all over just doing the minimum of your unenhanced attacks with no pool spent on defense and taking damage.

Mathematically if the damage outweighs the cost of defense points it is advantageous to spend on the defense points.

 

[Umbran]

I am just joining a Cypher system game so I am new to the system but it sounds like any time the opponent hits really hard you want to either spend points on defense to avoid the bigger pool cost damage, spend points on offense to take them out quicker so you take less big hit damages in the combat, or both if you can, all over just doing the minimum of your unenhanced attacks with no pool spent on defense and taking damage.

Pretty much. This is not at all surprising - it is a feature of most systems, that you pull out the stops when you face tougher opponents.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

We have made our own hack of Cypher. It does a few key changes that we feel GREATLY improves the experience

See the game here = Final Fantasy 8 rpg (link)

here is a summary of changes =

• you can spend pool AFTER a roll
• XP is XP, you only spend it to level up.
• Pool is now spent like XP was to add to scene and declare a flashback truth.
• all Cyphers are known spells, and the draw is random, but you can draw as many as you dare, so you can reliably have Firaga
• damage on Player side is mostly D6's to let it feel a little random but bigger too.
• skills are explicit to the theme and setting so they are more clear when applicable.
• Healing is a spell (cure), but also can be done via visiting a medic. (no more rest, long rest, resty rest rest stuff, just heal or medpack and move on)
• added the whole Blades in the Dark heist mechanic to Missions = makes the game feel more structured for new players/GMs.

And to be honest, the whole Draw system makes, IMHO, the concepts behind cyphers and cypher sickness = make WAAY more sense contextually. and more reliable.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

I've been running a homebrew Cypher game set in "the real world + Weird" for a while, and that seems to be well within the game's wheelhouse. I know myself well enough at this point to know I'm not going to use Intrusions (because I'd detest them as a player) so I hacked the XP system to allow for that. And, I run some other things not entirely per-the-rules. My point is, there's some flexion available, if something seems bad or unworkable.

Intrusions are my favorite thing about Cypher System. Players also get them in the current Revised edition. The GM Intrusion is simply a story mechanism; my players love them. If you find there's a lot of player pushback, you might be doing them wrong.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

I think you can hardly compare a fight ran in a computer game to a fight ran at a table with a GM ... I have no idea if Torment uses the exact same system, but even if it does, it says relatively little about how it runs at a gaming table.
Anyway, I don't want to convince you to like it, and I see the problems with it - they just don't happen to be problems that bother me that much. I just take issue with the notion that me kind of liking it means that I'm taking some "corporate drone mentality" to RPGs.

This here. I didn't find the video game terribly inspiring but I love the tabletop game, and my group found it a refreshing change of pace once they got over equating the point pools of their characters with other RPG notions of health/action. Cypher really requires a sort of mental paradigm shift to adjust to, but once I did it became so much more engaging as a result.

 

[prabe]

Intrusions are my favorite thing about Cypher System. Players also get them in the current Revised edition. The GM Intrusion is simply a story mechanism; my players love them. If you find there's a lot of player pushback, you might be doing them wrong.

I was much happier hacking the XP rules, so the players got XP because I Did GM Things. The only times I used anything like Intrusion rules were when there were Nat 1s on the table (which I didn't allow the players to reroll). I mean, if you wanna call framing something in so the PCs have to deal with it an Intrusion ... sure, I guess, but I never called them that and the players couldn't spend XP to make me do something else.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

I was much happier hacking the XP rules, so the players got XP because I Did GM Things. The only times I used anything like Intrusion rules were when there were Nat 1s on the table (which I didn't allow the players to reroll). I mean, if you wanna call framing something in so the PCs have to deal with it an Intrusion ... sure, I guess, but I never called them that and the players couldn't spend XP to make me do something else.

I guess my players just enjoyed the choice of taking 2 XP and sharing one of them, and contemplating whether or not they wanted to pay the XP price instead to avoid whatever it was. Almost universally they went with accepting the intrusion because they trusted me to make it interesting and not an arbitrary setback. Intrusion mechanics are just story drivers with a slight gamble/reward mechanism attached to them.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

We noted down a list of things any character can do with a player Intrusion. And each Archetype gets their own Intrusions.
The GM gets an intrusion list from PBTA which seemed to work great since, it fit the need for adding drama more than damage.
We removed the intrusion range as it was just a damage mechanic and waste of our time.... that was just our take tough, not a dig at cypher

 

[Doctor Futurity]

I'll give you its not a design error (in the sense of not doing what was intended), but I still think its a design problem (in that what it does isn't desirable).

The problem with death spirals is I no longer feel they're either realistic nor produce good outcomes, so...

I used to worry about this too, and for a long time I didn't play Numenera or Cypher because of it. When I finally "saw the light" and embraced the design I found this was actually a non issue, and after several campaigns under my belt I would never mess with it; the dynamic of the point pool and letting players weigh and play the odds is critical to how the system works.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

We noted down a list of things any character can do with a player Intrusion. And each Archetype gets their own Intrusions.
The GM gets an intrusion list from PBTA which seemed to work great since, it fit the need for adding drama more than damage.
We removed the intrusion range as it was just a damage mechanic and waste of our time.... that was just our take tough, not a dig at cypher

Do you do a lot of flex/improv in the storytelling aspects of play? I found intrusions get the most used when it comes to narrative advancement and providing exciting details and advancements. I like to equate intrusions as "that thing that unexpectedly happens in the movie you are watching....that's an intrusion." Examples include: Indiana Jones plucks the golden idol and replaces it with a bag of sand; the GM plays an intrusion at that point to reveal the bag was not weighted enough; Princess Leia's player plays a player intrusion to reveal a nearby access grate actually opens up into an escape chute when she blasts it (and the GM plays an intrusion to reveal it goes to a garbage compactor), etc. etc.