Greetings gamers, and welcome to the latest installment of Beyond the d20 System. In this week’s article, I’m going to take a look at the Cypher System; the third of four systems of game mechanics that may serve as an alternative to the d20 system. The Cypher System is a role-playing system created by veteran TTRPG designer, Monte Cook. The Cypher System originally served as the ruleset for acclaimed science fantasy TTRPGs, Numenera and The Strange, published by Monte Cook Games. Following the success of the two games, the ruleset was extrapolated, revised, and published as a generic role-playing system. The Cypher System is a rules-lite system that emphasizes fast-paced gameplay and creative storytelling. Toward this end, the Cypher System features a unique character creation system that accommodates a tremendous versatility of character design.

System Overview

Character creation in the Cypher System offers a wide variety of character options and combinations of options, yielding highly customized, unique characters. Despite the Cypher System’s versatility of character options, character design follows a simple pattern that follows the form of the descriptive sentence, “I am an [adjective] [noun] that [verbs].” Each of bracketed parts of the sentence represent a definitive aspect of the character. The adjective is the character’s ‘Descriptor.’ The noun is the character’s ‘Type.’ The verb is the character’s ‘Focus.’ These three aspects provide different powers and abilities which, in conjunction with stats, serve to define the character’s capabilities and (for PCs) what role they will play in the party. A character’s Type serves as the conceptual core of the character and is roughly analogous to character class in other TTRPGs. There are four types: Warriors, Adepts, Explorers, and Speakers. Warriors are martial-oriented characters, while Adepts are casters. Explorers and Speakers are rogues and social-oriented characters, respectively. A character’s Type provides a background for the character and offers a plethora of abilities to choose from at each character level (called a Tier in the Cypher System.) A Descriptor, such as ‘Intelligent’ or ‘Brash’, is the character’s defining quality and affords the character with positive and negative modifications to her stat pools as well as providing the character’s motivation and serves as a roleplaying guide. The Cypher System core book lists fifty Descriptors and rules for building your own tailor-made Descriptors to suit the needs of your game. The character’s Focus represents some characteristic ability a character has that makes her unique. For example, a character with the Focus ‘Bears a Halo of Fire’, gives the character the power to sheathe herself in flames for the purposes of attack and defense. Each character Tier attained adds another ability to the character’s Focus.  

While Descriptor, Type, and Focus provide a blueprint for character design, the three stats: Might, Speed, and Intellect, are the basis by which the character interacts with the game world. Every stat is comprised of two components: Pool and Edge. Pool is a measure of the magnitude of a stat, and its numerical value serves as a pool of points that may be spent to activate abilities or decrease the difficulty of a task. Edge represents a character’s proficiency at using a particular stat. In mechanical terms, any time a character spends points from a stat’s Pool, the cost is reduced by the numerical value of the stat’s Edge. For example, if a character activates an ability that requires her to spend two points of her Intellect Pool and she has an Intellect Edge of 1, then she spends only one point to activate the ability. Task resolution in the Cypher System is accomplished by rolling a d20 against a difficulty ranging from 1-10. Each level of difficulty raises the target number that must be rolled in order to accomplish the task by three. For example, if a character wants to accomplish a task with a difficulty of four, then she must roll a 12 or above on a d20. Circumstances, equipment, and training can reduce the difficulty of the task. Expending Effort (represented by spending stat Pool points) can also decrease the difficulty of the task. Combat is resolved in the same way as any other task. The difficulty of the task is contingent upon how powerful the opponent is. Like other tasks, NPCs have a difficulty rating from 1-10 which determines the target number a character needs to meet or exceed on a d20 roll. Importantly, PCs make all of the rolls in combat. A PC rolls to attack an opponent and also rolls to defend against an opponent’s attack. Damage done is a flat value which is determined by the attack used. The type of damage done depends on the nature of the attack and is represented by subtracting points from the appropriate stat Pool. For example, if a character takes damage from a physical weapon, she subtracts that damage as points from her Might Pool. If the damage is due to a psionic blast, the damage will be subtracted from her Intellect Pool. Damage takes place on a four-step track. A Hale character has at least 1 in all stat Pools. When a character incurs enough damage to one stat Pool, such that the Pool is reduced to 0, the character becomes Impaired and suffers penalties to expending Effort and dealing damage. When a character receives enough damage to reduce another stat pool to 0, she becomes Debilitated. Debilitated characters cannot do anything other than move at a crawl (unless their Speed Pool is 0). When a Debilitated character’s last stat Pool is reduced to 0, the character is dead. If a character receives damage to a stat Pool that is already reduced to 0, she takes damage to another stat Pool in the following order: Might (unless 0), Speed (unless 0), and Intellect. While there are a handful of additional rules that flesh out the ruleset, the above outline I’ve articulated serves as the core of the Cypher System.

Suggested Uses for the Cypher System

The Cypher System core book provides a plethora of character options with which to build a character to fit any kind of concept. Of course, not all character options will be appropriate for all settings or campaigns, and the GM will have to limit these options to suit the needs of the game. The character Types are broad and malleable enough to serve as a character basis in just about all game settings. The core rule book also contains nine chapters detailing different setting genres, from fantasy to historical fiction. Since the roots of the Cypher System were extrapolated from science fantasy games with very little revision, the ruleset is particularly suited for telling these types of stories. The Cypher System also lends itself to telling superhero stories, particularly with some of the more extravagant Foci listed in the core book. Given the rules-lite nature of the Cypher System would not be appropriate for certain genres that are defined by a high degree of realism and detail, such as hard sci fi. That being said, if your group is looking for a rules-lite TTRPG experience that focuses on character concept and narrative development, the Cypher System is definitely worth a look.

Stay tuned for next week’s article where we take a look at the Fate ruleset. Until then, happy gaming!