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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[Doctor Futurity]

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.)

I'll have to look through the book again. I've run a lot of Cypher and can't ever recall getting the idea that you don't announce the difficulty level. It's sort of critical for the players to know the target number otherwise they can't properly determine what to spend from their pool.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

I kind of welcome this. I really liked Cypher 1st edition, but I was less excited at the organizational changes in the 2nd edition which made the book more mechanically versatile at the expense of the more interesting and flavorful options in 1st edition. Also, while I fully embraced the point pool system being an abstraction of overall competence and health, I can't say I disagree with them adding in a separated wound mechanic that decouples from the pool mechanic, if only because so many people seem to misunderstand it or find that a bit too much for them to understand (or relate to; an abstracted step too far, I suppose). I guess it will depend on how it is executed as to whether or not I end up liking what they do.

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

I'll have to look through the book again. I've run a lot of Cypher and can't ever recall getting the idea that you don't announce the difficulty level. It's sort of critical for the players to know the target number otherwise they can't properly determine what to spend from their pool.

Iirc the GM section leaves it up to the GM whether or not to announce the level, and suggests always announcing it when playing with new players.

 

[Thaumaturge]

Iirc the GM section leaves it up to the GM whether or not to announce the level, and suggests always announcing it when playing with new players.

In my games I usually make the difficulty known ahead of time. The only times I don’t are when the PCs are experiencing high levels of confusion or obfuscation and I want to communicate those feelings to the players.

Thaumaturge.

 

[ruemere]

The new wound system looks very interesting to me. It resembles Kult 1st ed, and it worked very well there.

 

[Skywalker]

The fact that one book is called Character Rulebook and the other the GM's Guide bothers me more than it should It feels like changing from past to present tense midsentence. I prefer Player and GM or Character and Setting.

 

[dbm]

The wound system is in Invisible Sun. Assuming it works the same, you track damage (injuries) and three points of damage convert into a wound level, you can take three wounds before you are taken out. There is more to it than that, of course.

 

[Von Ether]

I often describe the current damage system as representing an endurance mechanic. You get more tired throughout the day as compared to being at your peak until you are at 0 hp.

I speculate that most Cypher games are a GM who loves the improv friendly rules and a group of players who are more interested in their GM as compared to the system.

 

[Ghost2020]

I think... if I recall correctly ... They are missing a gumshoe, noir, normal people with no powers whatsoever = investigation game.

I would like to see Foci and Abilities that are utterly mundane, street level and play into James Bond style drama / intrigue / seduction.

There is an entire section on running modern games. Foci that are totally mundane - Infiltrates, Leads, Would Rather Be Reading, Works the System\Back Alleys, Works for a Living, Murders, Runs Away, Solves Mysteries, Looks for Trouble, etc.
Using subtle cyphers one can totally run a noir, Bond, etc type game. It's all in the main book.

This site has a wonderful breakdown of the SRD for Cypher.

https://callmepartario.github.io/og-csrd/#mundane-foci

 

[Von Ether]

I think... if I recall correctly ... They are missing a gumshoe, noir, normal people with no powers whatsoever = investigation game.

I would like to see Foci and Abilities that are utterly mundane, street level and play into James Bond style drama / intrigue / seduction.

There are a suite of swap out abilities called Flavors to let a GM customize Types. With the Knowledge and Skills, the Adept can become a computer hacker or an investigator type. This has been a feature since the first book.

I use announcing/not announcing difficulty as a lever. If it’s a more grim game, I don’t announce it but provide clues and let players guess.

If it’s a game of big heroes, I announce it so they can do the math.