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.

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[prabe]

As I said, superficially similar. Quoting materials that I know intimately well does little to dissuade me of that.

They seemed more than "superficially similar" to me, but it's probable that judgment is a matter of perception that might legitimately vary person-to-person. I'm more than willing to accept that you found them to be exactly as you describe them.

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

5E and fate both include skills, where you roll dice and add a modifier to get a result. Does that mean that fate and 5e are similar games, or do they just look kind of the same superficially?

Blades in the dark and Fate both have Stress, a resource which fills up instead of taking actual damage. Does that mean blades and fate are similar games, or do they just look kind of the same superficially?

Fate and Pathfinder 2e both have four degrees of success on all rolls, determined by how high or low a character rolls relative to a target number. does tha

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

exactly this.

What content are you looking for that isn't in their current product offerings?

 

[Willie the Duck]

They just did a "second pass" on IS - no functional changes to the text, just in the physical presentation and production cost. I think they're happy with where IS's system is at.

Oh, I know. I'm just voicing my personal position.

 

[Li Kao]

As admittedly a GM noob, I never could stand the Cyphers, be it material or subtle. One-use capacities get me out of the game world immediately.
I love MC worlds, but I probably won’t ever run the system.

 

[Umbran]

Compels seem to be similar to GM intrusions.

Superficially, I suppose.

Cypher intrusions are arbitrary complications introduced by the GM.

Fate Compels are not arbitrary - they are specifically keyed to a character's aspects - they have a complication of a type narratively relevant to who/what they are.

And how Character Creation starts is similar: FATE uses a "High Concept" which is a lot like Cypher's "I am a __ who does __"!

Oh, no, those aren't the same at all.

The Fate "High Concept" Aspect is literally any character concept available in the genre of play, and the Aspect can be invoked or compelled for anything the character does that is narratively connected to that Aspect, but denotes no specific abilities.

The Cypher "I am a <descriptor><type> who does <focus>" is an analog to D&D's background, class, and subclass choices. Pick those three, and you know what various abilities the character gets in generation and advancement.

 

[Gradine]

My biggest issue with Cypher, at least from what I've been able to find, is how little guidance there is on developing character creation elements. Focii in particular are the most specific and character-defining aspect of creation, but they're the hardest to just make up so out of the box you're given very few options to pick from, and I'd love if that system, in particular, was more open-ended and modular than it is now, so players themselves could create their own focus based on a sampling of abilities.

Edit: Otherwise I enjoy the system quite a bit, I'm a huge fan of the Numenara setting, and I also really, really love No Thank You, Evil! as a child-oriented RPG.

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

so players themselves could create their own focus based on a sampling of abilities.

there is an entire section (14 pages) in the revised rulebook which breaks down every single ability into tiers and gives guidance on how to build your own custom foci. There are also rules for making custom descriptors or types.

There are also 134 published foci available just on the cypher open license (not counting exclusives from Numenera or other standalone games) - I wouldn't call that "very few options".

 

[Theory of Games]

Ok so, I've read that the system is primarily combat-focused, lacks rules depth and barely has any rules for making setting exploration interesting.

Thoughts?

 

[Umbran]

I've already seen at least one other person - the first to respond to my questions - compare Cypher to FATE soooooooooo

Yes, I am sure.

My wife got invited into a Cypher game, and the GM gave her that pitch - "it is a lot like Fate!". She came back, and reported, "This plays nothing like Fate!"

Since then, I've run some Old Gods of Appalachia, which is Cypher. And, while some folks may draw analogs between intrusions and the character description sentence, it plays and runs nothing like Fate. The play experiences are not similar.

Cypher is, at its heart, a traditional RPG. The occasional GM intrusion doesn't make it particularly "narrative focused". Adventures have traditional structure and clear definition before the session of play begins. The system rewards the player turning to the well-defined picklist of abilities and effects defined on the sheet.

Fate is, as its heart, much more freewheeling. The GM can step into a session with very little definition, and lean on compels and success at minor/serious cost to build much of the session content for them. The system rewards players interacting with the situation in genre style over consulting numbers on a character sheet.

Don't get me wrong, I like Cypher, at least for genres in which the minor magic items of "cyphers" make sense. I like Old Gods of Appalachia, especially. But it does not play like Fate.