Cypher System

How shit is this, really? I've been looking at the Gods of the Fall and Predation settings, mostly the latter lately, and I really sorta want to run it, but the actual rules seem like shit and everyone says it's shit.

How shit?

And in case anyone has much experience, if I do run it, I was thinking of offering two Foci instead of one. Would that be broken? You still have a limited pool of points to spend, so I was thinking that may be more balanced. I just want characters to have more options instead of feeling like one-trick ponies that only really get one thing that truly define them per level/tier.

Also, Cypher General, I guess?

Also, even though I expected maximum SocJus from Shanna Germain, the Predation setting book actually sounds pretty cool, and has some fun stuff in it, and so far nothing has stood out as making me want to tear my eyes out.

Who doesn't want to be a corporate raptor-arbites?

Wrong image, sorry.

>How shit is this, really?
Not...completely? It's not a clusterfuck of complicated rules at least, but the rolling system is a little backwards (having more training in a skill makes the DC go *down* instead of actually adding a bonus to the original roll) and the individual abilities are very samey. The concept from an idea standpoint is neat, you're always an "[Adjective] [Noun] who [Verbs]" which makes it seem like a very customizable system, except some [Adjective]s and [Verb]s are objectively better than others. Some will take away your HP-equivalent stat in return for "bonus on all rolls involving making requests of someone you're already friendly with" while others make you more susceptible to illusions and lying in return for "always roll two dice and take the highest for every single check because you're lucky."

Individual special abilities are either boring (+1 damage or give enemy -1 penalty to hit) or rely on the player rolling a natural 20 to kick off. Hitting enemies is easy, taking enemies down is a slog. The "stats are resources" system makes it so melee fighters paradoxically have to spend their own HP to fuel their abilities, while speedy or magic characters draw from a different, non-lethal resource pool.

It's definitely a game susceptible to minmaxing, and it doesn't take a lot of digging to find the juicy stuff. Not the worst system in existence, it has some promise for a game that's intended to be narrative-focused, but its flaws can really break a campaign even if you don't focus on combat.

>others make you more susceptible to illusions and lying in return for "always roll two dice and take the highest for every single check because you're lucky."
This can't be real.

You better believe it, user. Only ability in the game that uses "roll twice take the highest" mechanics. For comparison, being the most well-trained acrobat in the entire game gives you the equivalent of a +6 on your d20 roll.

He doesn't exist. It's a myth.

Not nearly enough missile armed pterodactyls. Personally I think that's a tragedy.

It is monte fucking cook, user. Of course there are OP options and trap options.

I know it is the generic version of the system used in numenera, with a few balance updates (lmao)
Even Cook couldn't ignore how ridiculously overpowered the Jack class was to the other classes, so they literally chopped it into two different classes and went from there.
Hopefully they also fixed the XP problem, but if they didn't, there is an easy fix. Normally the XP works as a combination of fate points and traditional xp, which quickly runs into the problem of characters who get unlucky quickly get outleveled by the rest of the party. The quick fix is just splitting XP into short term and long term XP, short term xp obtained via gm intrusion events and spent as fate points, and long term xp obtained as quest rewards or whatever, and used to level up.

Isn't that pretty much EXACTLY what Predation is about, give or take?

It's funny, though, because he said Ivory TpwerGame Design was a mistake, and that "traps" were never intended, and that he regrets that.

And then he made this.

What about the idea of picking two foci? Would that make the issues worse or better due to averages? Keeping in mind that the GM is expressly meant to curate options anyway, so I was going to ban all the shit that just adds to your pools, because otherwise it's the go-to min/max option of taking powerful focus+huge pool boosts.

But you also have to live with being foolish.. as a GM, I'd make them pay, just to emphasize that this was a foolish decision.

On the other hand, an average +10 to all rolls.. who design.. oh, right, Monty Cuck.

cypher system has guidelines about what kind of actions are what level of difficulty, but the max it can possibly be is "impossible" level (which is possible) which encompasses all actions more difficult than the previously expressed level of difficulty.

I made a character who could literally punch down mountains at second tier with trivial ease, this is why you don't put a hard boundary on rolls.

Blessed checked underrated post.

LOTW has 'Impossible' as a difficulty but on the other hand it's dice system actually makes it live up to the name. It's 100 on a system that is 'Roll 7 10 sided dice, find sets (So 3 4s is 34, a full 7 9s would be 79) and then add skill (Max of +10 until you rank up.).

So pulling off impossible difficulties requires a lot of situational bonuses, an exceptionally skilled character and even then a lot of luck.

Fair enough, in the cypher system it is effectively rolling a 30 on a 20 sided die, with the provision that there are effects that raise your die roll by 3, essentially. Get enough bonuses to a given task, you can complete "impossible" tasks with relative ease. By second tier, I could have 5 effects lower strength based actions down a level, which meant I had an effective +15 to my roll, meaning I only had to roll a 15 or higher to accomplish tasks that were worthy of legend.

>Isn't that pretty much EXACTLY what Predation is about, give or take?
Not until I see a nice statblock for a missile launcher that can be put on a pterodactyl.

>tfw want to run Unmasked
>tfw your group knee jerks angrily at the mere mention of monte cook

Yeah, that's goofy. For comparison, I saw the first 100 ever in a game I run a couple of days ago when they were doing an engineering project.

>10 Craft
>+5 Applicable Spec
>+10 chi condition (Divine inspiration in this case)
>+5 Superior tools (Superior tools are really god damn superior in LOTW, they cost exp to own as they are borderline artifact quality stuff themselves)
>+5 Laughs
>+10 from having 2 Xia (PC-tier guys, each of which is the hero of their own story) helping her with excellent rolls.
>+10 from having masterwork plans that were basicly a full engineering task on their own.
>+2 Dice Joss (A limited use resource you gain by doing great deeds or having bad luck cause you to falter, representing fate shining on you later)

And even then, they needed a minimum of 4 5s to pull it off (They got 5 of a kind on 9 dice), after leveraging massive amounts of limited use resources, a workshop fit for a god, brilliant inspiration, the heavens themselves giving them some luck and getting other heroes to help her with this project. LOTW makes you fucking work for that 100.

Cypher...does not sound that way.

Cypher System has levels beyond that, but they're intended for superhuman feats, like superhero settings or Gods of the Fall.

"Impossible" does not mean you get to smash a mountain unless your GM is completely retarded. If the players reach such levels without Power Shifts, just increase difficulty as per the guidelines that exists, because you are no beyond "impossible".

You won't, because Cypher soesn't work like that. You just talk to the GM, and attach a fucking missile launcher to a pterodactyl.

I wish there was a pregenned entry for it, though. Instead we got stuff like a Teslasaurus.

...

>Teslasaurus
Just look at this cute little fucker.

Herp, forgot picture.

Picking two foci has the same effect in Cypher that gestalt classes has in D&D: in concept it's a neat idea, and with the right players it helps to bring out concepts that wouldn't otherwise be halfway viable. In practice, the people who would want to break the system over their knee in the first place now have double the room to do so with. The only real cure for this is knowing the system much better than your players so you can review and veto character concepts that are capable of unbalancing the party composition, but since you're likely not a Cypher guru I would highly recommend against it unless you REALLY trust your players.

"Having to live with being foolish" amounts to a -3 on checks against illusions, traps, deceptions, and mental resistance checks, while simultaneously giving them a much higher average roll in the first place. You could freely emphasize their character's foolishness, but statistically they have the potential to be better than the world's greatest scholar at remembering trivia. The only thing they're objectively worse at is the fact that their Intellect pool is lower than average, which means mental attacks are more effective against them.

Weeeell, I dunno, Gestalt in D&D wouldn't be so much of a powergaming problem as it seems if it wasn't for the fact that you get the highest of everything from each class, such as saves, etc., which in practice means that you screw yourself fucking hard if you go for combinations that have the same saving throws or BABs, and shit like that.

But in the Cypher system, there's nothing like that. Foci just give you more options and abilities, really, and if that's all Gestalt did in D&D - give you class abilities instead of the most powerful of whatever forever - it would also be a lot less of a problem, I think, at least if we consider maybe Pathfinder instead, which has a much more even distribution of abilities with extremely few "dead" levels.

But in Cypher, most of the baseline stuff that gets upgraded via Gestalt play is more analogous to Type and Descriptor. In most cases, Focus just gives a single extra ability per tier, and there's only 10 tiers.

I was toying with the idea of giving them two foci, but have one of the foci be "earned" or "evolve" while in-play, as in the player decides what we'll go for for their secondary focus, but we'll have them gain it only at Tier 2, through gameplay, and from that point forward it'll be one tier behind or something (so at Tier 1, they have a Tier 1 Focus ability, and at Tier 2, they'd have 2 Tier 1 Focus Abilities (primary + secondary focus) and 1 Tier 2 Focus ability (primary focus), etc.

>"Having to live with being foolish" amounts to a -3 on checks against illusions, traps, deceptions, and mental resistance checks
Mechanically, sure, but it's a narrative system. You pick foolish, you damn well better be foolish.

Not much you can do if the player plays his 'foolish' character as an average joe that happens to be better at everything. What are you gonna do, kick him out because he's not playing his character how you want him to?

>The only thing they're objectively worse at is the fact that their Intellect pool is lower than average, which means mental attacks are more effective against them.
They also basically can't take the Wizard class, or any [Verbs] that cast spells. So, sure, you can make a pretty good martial character, but then you're playing a martial character in a game designed by Mr. Ivory Tower Game Design himself.

No, but I'll set him up for being a min/max faggot that isn't playing the character he purported to make.

Then I'll have him pick another Descriptor, since the previous Descriptor obviously does not describe the character.

If a player comes to the table just to be a shitter and pick options he does not intend to play, the GM is fully without his rights to tell him to GTFO, or tell him to pick something more appropriate for his character. Hell, the game even makes it a point that the GM is meant to curate options, so if this would even become a problem, the GM can just say that "Foolish" is a bad Descriptor and thus not available for the game, whether on narrative or mechanical grounds.

Maybe we should just agree not to play Cypher.

Binding something to a description is an incredibly weak drawback. It's why any drawback the likes of "Jolly Wanker (+4P): Just RP it lol" is practically free xp.

I fucking love playing hot blooded shonen protagonist characters. 90% of my characters are some variation of that and considering how many ways there are to flavor this, I can't see myself getting bored of it any time soon. Basically every one of those characters would be fully justified to call himself "foolish" and boy, he'd actually turn into the protagonist by virtue of getting more XP than everyone else thanks to free rerolls on EVERYTHING