There's A New Edition Of The Cypher System Coming

Next year, 2026, Monte Cook Games will be releasing a new edition of its in-house Cypher System rules system.

Originally launched over a decade ago, the Cypher System powers games like Numenera, The Strange, and The Magnus Archives. It's a d20-based multi-genre game system known for its character generation method which has the player filling out the sentence "I am a [adjective] [noun] who [verb]" -- such as "I am a jovial Explorer who howls at the moon". The titular cyphers are one-time use abilities or items. Task resolution involves rolling a d20 against a 1-10 difficulty scale.

This new edition includes a bunch of changes, including genre-specific character creation, character damage and armour, and a greater emphasis on subtle cyphers.

Two new core rulebooks will be published. The Cypher Character Rulebook will delve into creating characters for a variety of different genres, while the Cypher GM's Guide will contain rules, GM advice and resources for creating and running games.

They'll be hitting a crowdfunding platform near you very soon, in late summer, with the books coming out mid-2026.

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

Curious to see what those two changes will be, since they are often things some people have issues with.

They've revealed these.

Damage is dealt as "wounds" of various levels of severity, rather than draining pool points. Wound capacity and healing rate can vary based on genre to make the game more or less gritty.

When defending, players can choose to use speed to dodge or might to parry. I imagine armor will provide assets to that task or reduce the severity of wounds.

 

[Scarlet.Knight]

Cyphers are interesting, but as a GM playing almost exclusively on vtt, it is a bit tedious to implement... Hoping for a fully vtt integrated cyphers system. Subtle cyphers being more prominent is definitely a step in the right direction imho. Makes them more universal.

 

[Jeffzilla]

This new edition includes a bunch of changes, including genre-specific character creation, character damage and armour, and a greater emphasis on subtle cyphers.​

As much as I love Cypher System-- it's a truly fantastic game-- the lack of material on 'realistic' subtle cyphers has always made it more of a challenge to run modern, historical, or near-future hard science fiction settings using this system.

I'm super-happy to see that the new edition is going to put more of a focus on subtle cyphers. It'll make the system a lot easier to use with some of the genres which interest me.

For those who haven’t, one of the big changes will be a wound system instead of damage coming from ability pools. That ought to address one of the most common issues I see people talk about with the system.

...And THIS change will make it a lot easier to find players when I run those settings using Cypher.

Looking forward to the new edition, all the way around.

 

[Aldarc]

While I may get this new edition, I only really use the Cypher System for running Numenera. So it may be better if I read the changes in this new edition and then wait for the inevitable update to Numenera, but there's only so many times that I can buy this same book in 11 years.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

We made our own version of Cypher system here = Final Fantasy 8 rpg (link)

I am curious what changes Monte made.... because we strongly think we vastly improved the Cypher system core and rules.

I back all of Monte kickstarter games, and am happy with his "totally not Deadlands" rpg. So I am hopeful.

 

[Umbran]

I would want to see some more about how much the new rules still fit with older material.

 

[Theory of Games]

I've been sniffing around Cypher for a bout a month reading reviews. I'm not crazy about the player-facing rolls, but overall it seems interesting. Kind of like a "FATE 2.0" IMO, but I don't know enough about (playing/running) it to be sure.

Any one have some insights/opinions to share about the current system? Likes & dislikes?

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

While I may get this new edition, I only really use the Cypher System for running Numenera. So it may be better if I read the changes in this new edition and then wait for the inevitable update to Numenera, but there's only so many times that I can buy this same book in 11 years.

There have announced that there is currently no plans to update the Numenera system.

 

[Aldarc]

There have announced that there is currently no plans to update the Numenera system.

There you go then. Then I will likely tentatively pass on the updated Cypher System.

 

[prabe]

I've been sniffing around Cypher for a bout a month reading reviews. I'm not crazy about the player-facing rolls, but overall it seems interesting. Kind of like a "FATE 2.0" IMO, but I don't know enough about (playing/running) it to be sure.

Any one have some insights/opinions to share about the current system? Likes & dislikes?

The primary thing I disliked about it turned out to be the primary thing I disliked about Fate--at least, it felt close to me. When I ran Fate I was garbage at using Compels, so the Fate Point Economy never worked the way it was supposed to. I looked at Cypher, realized I wasn't going to Intrude much, and hacked the XP system to give the PCs XP based on (as I think about it) my "doing GM stuff" without my needing to override the dice or otherwise declare an Intrusion.

Other thoughts: The book strongly implies that the GM shouldn't be telling the players the Difficulty of stuff much, if at all; my experience is that if the players don't know how difficult a thing is, they'll blithely try it without doing anything to mitigate the Difficulty, so there'll be a lot of flailing in place; also, your players will have to be willing to engage with some pretty serious crunch when it comes time to advance their characters. (I had at least one who kinda disengaged from that, eventually.)