Fantasy Gaming 2023

AI Art by @nightcafestudio

Fantasy gaming has felt tough this year. I get this feeling of, "Why bother?" The entire genre feels like it has moved on from sacrifice for the greater good to this selfish notion of personal affirmation.

It is never us; it is me.

If they wrote the Lord of the Rings these days, it would be about "what's in it for me?" Characters and choices seem less altruistic and help the world and more like personal fantasy fulfillment for players. Therefore, the stories do not interest me, and the entire genre feels stuck in a rut. As a result, my interest in fantasy gaming is at an all-time low this year.

Wizards of the Coast does not help, but I am not retreading that ground. D&D is a nightmare that is hard to wake up from, but I must. Every dumb thing they did or said  - or will in the future - makes me feel bad. D&D is dead; some mobile gaming profit portfolio for Wall Street and best left forgotten.

I tried Pathfinder 2, but the game is too many rules and options for me. They stopped production of their pawns for many things (I think only monster books will be supported, and not adventure paths), and having collected those, I am moving on from those as well. It is still the best D&D alternative, but it is just overkill for solo players like myself. The game seems best when a group can come together, learn it all, and have players be experts in their class.

Castles & Crusades fits me well and can be played from a 3x5 index card. This is OSR-like and modern, eliminating many pointless reference charts, attack tables, saving throw charts, thief skill charts, and special rules. This is my fantasy game of choice but with a tiny problem...

I like the narrative rules in the Cypher System better, especially for solo play. I don't need a solo-play system like Mythic, and the game runs well with a simple oracle dice roll for yes-no questions. There is no reference in this game either, you just pick a difficulty (and a few special modifications if you like), and you are set to run anything. I have run a full adventuring day in a 30-minute session, so the speed can be breakneck or slow down for a more involved experience.

Enough is going on; adding a solo play system would seem redundant. Do I use one during play? Not as much as I do in a traditional game, no. If I have a question, maybe, but I can d100 the answer, go "really bad" to "really good" and leave it there.

The narrative systems in Cypher System make the game for me. Spending XP, as a player, to modify the narrative helps me world-build and "push back" against the oracle in an incredible way. An oracle would not easily create an NPC contact or significant resource since there is a built-in "GM bias" in most oracle systems I have seen. In Cypher, if the characters want to pay XP for a base, change the narrative for a player intrusion, or change the world in a way that helps them - they can.

Player intrusions tell the oracle, "Something else will happen!" This is great for me as a solo player since I twist the story in a way the character likes. Temporary benefits can be purchased with XP. Long-term benefits, NPC contacts, bases of operation, and other tools are all at the player's disposal.

And the players can even start new story arcs with XP and have those payout XP as steps in them are completed. Where in Pathfinder or C&C can I do this? As a result, my maps and stories become very alive with all sorts of exciting things quickly, and I find a Cypher Game hard to leave go for long.

I need to see what happens next, what they find, who they encounter, or what they discover.

Oh, and Discovery XP is a thing too.

The pool "burn down" also makes the game interesting. A great adventure burns the characters' pools hard, and that tension starts to ramp up by the session's end. In a D&D game, "pool burn" is terrible (hit points, spells, resources); you are spending resources. In Cypher System, pool burn is the game, it is fun, and you are managing resources and rests all the way to the end of the adventuring day. As a solo player, that pool burn is the game, and you are pushing your characters as hard as they can go and trying your best to see if they should take a break - if they can.

Using my monster pawns? Pick one, throw on special abilities, choose a level, and fight! I am not looking them up in a book, balancing encounters, or referring to pages of monster stats. Make a mistake, and the creature is too strong? Burn an XP for a player intrusion and escape to fight another day. If you have one.

Cypher System is becoming my game of choice because of the flexibility, lack of reference, risk-reward ratio, and power you get with narrative.