Cypher: Still the Awesome

I keep returning to Cypher when other games make huge promises and fail to deliver.

I am at the point where playing fantasy campaigns in Cypher is more interesting than D&D 5E or Pathfinder 2. The characters I create in this game are similar to their 5E counterparts, and I build them from little building blocks, pick the abilities I want, and power them up as they adventure.

The resource management in the Cypher System game is an A+ game of risk, reward, and tension. Even in non-combat missions, burning those ability pools down to achieve goals, complete tasks, and get the job done is tense - add the risk of combat to that, and we have a winning combination that makes many play themes engaging. Your resting is limited. Damage could kill you if you burn pools down too hard.

Using XP to change the narrative and have the narrative reward you with XP is fantastic. The reward system in this game is pure magic and makes solo play fun. Your stories give you XP. You can use XP to help shape the story and the world as players.

My old game was the incredible Road War, Mad-Max-inspired madness. My new game is a fantasy game in the classic Mystara setting. I could create the classic Aleena character and give her the "Kill Bargle" character arc, and an entire campaign would write itself. Every time she advanced her goal of getting to Bargle, taking down the evil soldiers of the Black Eagle Barony, crushing the evil wizard's evil allies, smashing his magical laboratories, and burning down his library towers of magic, she would get XP. She could invest in new character arcs along the way and start them, so her story would not end if she were to get her final revenge.

She is not some "off-tank heal bot."

She is a woman with righteous vengeance on her mind, and the game rewards her story arc progression.

Every action she takes will be justified and rewarded.

The powers she picks as she levels are tied into her story. I am not limited to the D&D standard character-build strategies. The Cypher books give me more options, and I am customizing characters like this was a "spend it on anything" GURPS game. With a different character arc, her character may come out in an entirely different way. Even in this one, she could go more "magic power" or "battle power" or more "leader of an army" - depending on how she wants to approach the problem of resolving this "Kill Bargle" character arc.

The story's needs and the player's direction will decide the build.

AI Art by @nightcafestudio

Many OSR, 5E, and even Pathfinder 2E character mentalities are built along a classic "passive" adventurer mindset. We will sit in this tavern until someone tells us where the adventure is happening. In Cypher, establishing one strong character arc can drag the entire party along for fun, leading to even more opportunities to light the fuse on other character arcs, driving the narrative like a 25-ton rolling stone ball. When you get great character arcs started, with a risk of actual loss and defeat involved, you do not want to stop playing this game.

I don't get that in 5E, One D&D, or Pathfinder 2. These systems feel like "last-generation" designs.

And the beauty about Cypher is I can play a complete adventuring day in about 30 minutes of play as I "check-in" on the party and see what they are up to today. I am not flipping through monster manuals, looking up spells, creating battle mats, managing complex combat rules, reading 300-page campaign books and adventures, reading 12 pages of class options and powers per class, or managing inventories by the pound. I do not need shelves full of books.

Yes, it is a rules-light game, but it has enough mechanics and power choices to make it feel equal to a 5E in character options, along with a compelling resource management game that gets more agonizing, deciding "how much longer do we go on?" I can run a four-character party in this, no problem. The math isn't as bad as 5E, with dozens of modifiers for skills and abilities to deal with.

Are things abstracted? Yes, weapon damage and armor are pretty abstract, but they make the game feel like the world is following "movie rules" where we are not worried that a Star Wars blaster is doing a d4, d6, or d8; it is just a blaster, and there are light, medium, and heavy ones. The character will make it more lethal. The movie does not care about fine detail, nor should the game. Magic is the same; you can flavor a power in the game to be "spell-like," and it is.

It is all flavor!

Could I play this with 5E? Yes, but I would fall into the "Where is the adventure?" rut. Cypher lets a character control the narrative, make the bad guys show up, tell the GM, "Bargle has a secret laboratory here," and spend XP to make that a truth. They could spend an XP for a player intrusion and have an informant slip them the location of an evil shaman summoning a terrible monster that Bargle wants to have delivered to his dungeon. She will be a pain in his side every step of the way.

A player with XPs will make things happen and shift the narrative to serve one of their character arcs. If the players have no XPs? Trip a GM intrusion on them, and they suddenly have XPs.

XP as narrative currency is a fantastic mechanic. Investing in your story and game world is as fruitful as saving XP to buy powers and "level up." Your spent XP create more opportunities to earn them. I am pretty generous on XP, and my players go crazy spending them on the story and world, which is fantastic. The world is mostly theirs after a while, and they are earning more XP than they would if they hoarded them for character improvement.

Cypher is primarily a player-driven game. The GM doesn't even roll dice, instead acting as a storyteller that interprets "what happens next" given the world and the character's actions. I avoid touching dice or having them near me when I referee this game. I don't even take them with me. If I need a d100 roll, I ask a player for one.