Elegant, Simple, and Expressive

As much as I love Savage Worlds, Cypher feels much easier to play and transfer ideas into. Where a Savage Worlds version of a setting feels like "the Savage Worlds version of a setting," Cypher feels different - almost like a stripped-down version of pool-based 5E or a d20 system with a flat 1-10 difficulty curve and plenty of room to interpret.

For me, it completely replaces 5E and does many things 5E does, but both more accessible and with greater customization and flexibility. With 5E, I am "buying books" to have more options. I have them all in Cypher and am free to make the ones I want. The 5E design is very consumerist and designed to limit options and sell new ones.

Any of my 5E books are instant Cypher sourcebooks.

Savage Worlds is sort of its own thing. It does anything, but the game requires a lot of "table toys," such as decks of cards, poker chips, standard dice, and lots of structure to make the system and toys work together. To play Savage Worlds, I need to "load" the "Savage Worlds" OS into my brain and think in that model to make the game run smoothly. I love the system and playing with all the toys, but sometimes I have to fit my ideas into the structure, and things feel lost in the translation.

In some games, like OSR d20 games, I can run without thinking and "loading the game's OS" in my head. Cypher fits into this category but also has that "box of Legos" feeling I like. The game also invited you to design your own pieces, unlike Savage Worlds, which warms against tweaking and house ruling (the GM's guide).

Case in point, I tried running a Car Wars game in Savage Worlds, and I had to make a lot of conversions and substitutions for the parts I wanted in the game. The game worked well, but it felt more like Savage Worlds - which is a good thing, in all honesty. The chase rules and vehicle combat relied on the systems and routines built into the game, and while they are designed for the most fun, I felt confined to that structure.

I didn't know how to fight combats with vehicles with Cypher, but the game had a simplified resolution system. For most cars, you could say "they are all sort of equal" based on a "maxed out" design for level one thru six cars. A level 1 vehicle is a light cycle, and a level 6 is a van. The vehicle combat system is very abstract and works for cinematic combat. If a van is weaker than the best-in-class design, lower its level.

Car Wars typically runs between "best in class" designs, and the weapon selection is mostly flavor. An abstract system uses a generic "handle a road combat" sense.

Is that the only way I can do it? No. I could make each car a "creature," give it a level and amount of hits and figure "damage as level" like creatures. 

I could eliminate "leveled damage" and give each vehicle weapons and large gear slots equal to the level, an armor value, and do it that way. Treating "vehicles as creatures" would work well and let me make custom "creatures" for different vehicle types and customize them with assets and inabilities. Weapons are like Cypher, a 1d6 MG is a light weapon, 2d6 weapons are medium, and anything heavier is a heavy weapon. Single-shot weapons get a bonus, like ignoring armor or bonus damage.

It works.

Is it the way the game says to do it? No. But it works.

I could stick with the game's "leveled cars" system, still do the "spaces" thing, and allow one modification or unique piece of gear per vehicle level, such as a targeting computer to ease attack difficulty. Some cars are "higher level" at attack than defense. A flamethrower would give a devastating attack up close but be worthless father away (or fired to the front while moving). Weapons? Assume they are on there, and what they are is flavor. Unarmed vehicles? Just say they are or increase their defenses or cargo if there is weight to spare.

I could develop "vehicular cyphers" to put in those slots and have something more interesting than stock Car Wars. The possibilities are endless.

All of it works.