Cypher Character Creation

I got through character creation. While it appeared very obscure and complex to follow at first, the procedure on page 17 with the PDF hyperlinks is the way to go. Go through exactly as they tell you, and do not even think about backtracking! Here's a tip:

Copy and paste every power, choice, and selection you make into the form-fillable character sheet.

The official Cypher form-fillable sheets have the room to do this, as long as you put enablers on the second page and "point costing" abilities on the first page. Use the page-2 background box for your arc, player intrusions, GM intrusions, and other notes.

So, what do I think?

This system makes a lot of "narrative system games" obsolete for me, such as FATE, Index Card RPG, Genesys, and a few others. I still love these games, but this does all of them so much better. This also makes 5E obsolete for me since it does so much more under the same sort of framework.

In 5E, your characters are limited to what Wizards gives you. You need to open your wallet to get more options.

In Cypher, you DIY build the character of your choice out of a menu of powers organized into grouped and themed selections, and some of these sections "level up" with you. One book does it all.

It is like a version of 5E where you break component classes down into building blocks, like a druid's natural powers, a fighter's battle abilities, and a thief's sneakiness - and you allow players to mix and match those blocks any way they like to build characters. You can ever do X for Y swaps if you really want something.

I need to do some play sessions, but once you have characters built, the system melts away into the background. The GM presents the story and sets pass-fail challenge difficulty for every critical moment. This part of the game feels indistinguishable from D&D's flow, except the referee never rolls dice.

And the Cypher system is setting-neutral; it can do anything from cavepeople to end-of-time sci-fi.

The characters are interesting. Even ones without "tons of combat skills" feel robust but slightly more prone to failure (and need to exert more effort to do the same thing as a skilled character). I have a party of characters without "trained combat skills," and I still feel good about them. Will I buy weapons and combat skills? The game only allows that when it is explicitly said by abilities, like the second-tier warrior "Skill with Attacks" or "Skill with Defense" abilities. So you can't just increase combat power with generic skill picks.

In short, the base combat effectiveness of all characters feels good. Warriors are better, but everyone can have fun fighting and feel capable.

I can see why some call this their perfect "desert island game." I could replace four boxes of 5E books and three shelves of Pathfinder books with just this one book. Would I play those games exactly? No. Would I be doing the same things? Yes, with a better framework for how the game is run and flows and infinite options for creating characters in any genre.

When I was done, the characters felt like 5E characters, but this was for a modern setting, and everything worked smoothly. My options "per character" felt like great 5E classes, and any concept I came up with worked well with the design system and gave me the opportunities I expected.

Do I lose low-level rules granularity? Yes, but I have GURPS if I want to play games where goblins get shot in their right hand by an arrow and know what exactly happens. This game does that "narrative streaming" sort of play you see on steaming "let's play" shows like the game was made for online play. If the referee never needs to roll dice, there is no need to show that; the referee can act as the storyteller in a more decisive and assertive role. If the difficulties are known by all, there are no "secret dice rolls," and the play is much more followable.

Overall, this is an impressive system once you get past character creation. Well worth your time and investment since it replaces the need for many games and opens up your creativity across a wide range of genres.