Cypher Play: Road War, part 2

AI Art by @nightcafestudio

Cypher remains an interesting narrative system for solo play, and it holds its own with my second session. A lot gets done in these games, large narrative sweeps of action and story, and in an hour, I can finish a day-long story arc of missions and activities.

My day two started with returning to the delivery garage and getting a mission to haul solar panels to a remote power facility. The truck was loaded with ammunition for the front and rear MGs, and one crew spotted the broken RPG turret on the roof, which was also fixed and loaded with HEAT shells (-2 armor, medium weapon). The solar panels were loaded up, and my driver and the crew headed out of the fortress town for the delivery.

Things got interesting along the way, and I wondered if a "road encounter" was a GM intrusion. In my ruling, I had pre-planned two encounters I wanted to happen in my head, so those were not GM intrusions on this trip. Just because you roll a random encounter or do something pre-planned does not equal a GM intrusion; this is only for stuff "outside" the planned adventure. What would happen on the way there was planned in my head, so I knew what would be written in my adventure module.

In the first encounter, a motorist with a flipped car waved for help. One of the crew spotted an ambush, so my driver pre-pointed the roof RPG at the rocks the sniper was hiding behind, spent a level of effort pre-planned lining the shot up, and told the crew to fire if things got sticky. It was an ambush; my driver rolled a 1 on looking at the flipped car to see if someone was there, and the car exploded on a GM intrusion, and the ambush was on! The rocket blew away the sniper's MG position, and the one on the road ran to a hidden motorcycle and tried to escape. A vehicle chase later, the bike was rammed and forced off the road, and the cyclist did not survive.

AI Art by @nightcafestudio

The second encounter was a vehicle-on-vehicle fight, and my driver felt the effects of burning pool points. This was a close one, the delivery van got half its health shot up by minigun fire, and the HEAT shells and accurate return fire (with more pool spends) blew up the pursuit. The "creature on creature" vehicle combat worked well, and it mirrors character combat in the weapons and armor scales are the same, only the damage is going to car health. One thing my driver did is roll a 20 on initiative and used that to make a driving roll to go offroad and stir up so much dust the chase car was hindered in driving and shooting tasks. That was a smart move that saved the fight and a trick worthy of using again as a player intrusion.

AI Art by @nightcafestudio

We got to the solar station, installed the panels, got a few repairs to the van done, and rested a little - but my driver was still tired. We got a side quest to take the mechanics out to a cell tower to fix that, and the van got stuck in a rutted road and ambushed by another sniper. That was taken care of quickly, the cell tower was fixed, and one crew spotted an ambush on the way home - another minigun car.

The van returned to the solar farm, and deciding to go home was tough. My driver was spent, the can was damaged, and we could not risk another 50-50 fight. The solar farm gave us a vehicular cypher, a 1-use drone, mounted on the van.

We plowed home, and fought the last car to a victory, taking more damage to the van in the process. The fight was short and brutal, and my driver had to spend an XP to reroll a 1; it was getting late, and I wanted this session done. Vehicle combat with the "monster vs. monster with weapons" abstract system is excellent.

We limped home, and a GM intrusion was flipped - another broken-down vehicle by the side of the road. This wasn't an ambush; it was a badly-damaged minibus full of migrant workers trying to get to town. My driver told them all to pile in, and the half-wrecked and shot-up van crawled back to town, where the workers were thankful for the ride, and the fruit workers' union sent along some crates of fresh fruit later as a thank you.

A good deed is done, and valuable contact with the union is earned.

AI Art by @nightcafestudio

My driver had three rests and ended the adventure with 10 down on SPD and 6 down on INT. The next day off will be needed to rest, and a new character will be started. The burndown led to a really dire moment at the end of the day. Should we spend the night at the solar station and let the road get blocked or reinforced? Or do we press home with a tired driver and a damaged van? We decided to press home, a risky decision that paid off since my driver burned XP on rerolls.

I love using XP as a resource. They are not as precious as other games, and you are not "losing progress" when you burn points. Considering spending them was the difference between my driver being left a burning wreck on the road versus making it home and saving a bunch of innocents.

I did the first two sessions in a day, one or two hours each, and I am amazed at how fast the game plays and how much narrative I can play through. I needed to eliminate my D&D "roll for random encounters" mindset, pre-plan a few encounters, and mix in GM intrusions to make the game unpredictable. You do need to "prescript" a few encounters in your head for travel and go by "what would be best for the narrative" instead of "I play this game with charts."

And again, my driver was spent. Sixteen points down with only one long rest left. An end that had me wondering if I would live through the fight. This is good, dramatic stuff, and I would not get that in a 5E or GURPS. Not that easily.

AI Art by @nightcafestudio

I am moving away from chart games, especially ones that drive the entire experience with random rolls. For this, I had a classic scenario, an ambush and vehicle combat; those were the two "movie moments" I wanted in the game. Everything else was winging it and having fun with the moment. I will use charts if it makes sense, but my imagination is good enough to surprise me. I also tire of games that deliver simple rules and a few hundred pages of charts. Charts don't make a game; gameplay does.

There are times I feel charts are used in some games as filler.

Plus, I sometimes roll on a chart and "freeze up." Yes, charts can provide incredible "I did not expect that" types of experiences, but too many charts can give you this "nothing matters" feeling where the game is random chart interpretation. Sometimes, a chart result does not fit, and I do not play the game I expected or wanted. For this game, I said my "basic 32-page module experience" involves the following:

• A wrecked car ambush.
• A vehicle battle.
• Getting stuck on a rutted road.
• GM Intrusion added an ambush here.
• The solar station.
• GM Intrusion added a side quest here.
• A vehicle battle on the way home.
• GM Intrusion added the broken bus side quest after this happened.

An adventure consists of 3-5 small goals or combats, which GM Intrusions expand upon. Random charts can be used to fill in blanks, but I did not need them for two sessions, and to feel free of them for my solo gaming was nice. But I do not need charts to craft a 3-5 beat adventure structure; I will just say what will happen and play through.

AI Art by @nightcafestudio

Cypher System is holding its own, and it is a challenging game for solo play. You focus on story and resource management, and you find yourself in some tough decisions. The play is also much more "loose" than a game like GURPS; you move quickly between narrative moments and handle what is essential to the story.

It reminds me of those "choose your own adventure" books in the 1990s that had some resource management, like ammo, torches, or health pools. Cypher is close in spirit to those, and the broad-brush narrative systems make refereeing this game solo easy and fun. If my driver is so tired he needs an extra day off, that is a great game experience.

The game also refuses to get bogged down in math, skill lists, and builds, which is excellent for solo play since if I did this in GURPS, my character would never have 90% of the skills he needed. He can do most tasks at a basic level and is good at driving and fixing things. That covers most of it, and the encounter level covers the rest. In 5E? Forget it, base rules plus a hacked-together road warrior style expansion, a lot of money spent, and hours to do anything simple. I would have never gotten this far in a 5E game, and I no longer need that system.

Cypher went from a game I couldn't figure out to a game I couldn't live without quickly.