Cypher: A Near Miss

A lot of my close friends are really into The Cypher System, and for good reason. Monte Cook is a professional designer who has thought long and hard about what the "best" system is. But so have I, and while it's clear we've walked a lot of the same thought paths, our final destinations are just offset enough to be distinct.

No, I don't claim to be a professional, but I can tell you for a fact that different tastes in RPGs are largely due to personal preference, more than actual good/bad/better mechanics. So the following arguments, I understand, are of my own clearly bias opinion. I won't bother stating the tons and tons of wonderful things Cypher does, and of those tons the tons of things I've stolen for use in my own designs. This blog is to focus on those places where I am diverging.

The first and largest issue I have with Cypher is it's philosophy of XP. Honestly, I'm not sure what Mr. Cook was thinking, as I think this is the most ignored rule in RPG history. While GM intrusions and the shared XP from them are great, the whole idea of game balance falls on it's face when character advancement is uneven between the players.

Next, I dislike the entire stat system. Stat-as-HP is interesting, but the way it's implemented in Cypher makes it so that each character doesn't actually feel "stronger" or "smarter" than another. Instead, you simply have a larger HP pool in one stat. Sure, you can apply effort, but the only thing that actually makes you feel "better" at it is the implementation of edge. But we're now teetering on an edge of our own - and that's too many keywords to keep in mind for making my character actually feel "strong". I'd rather just have a +4 strength.

Division/Multiplication. No, it's not hard. Yes, it's actually very simple when it comes down to monster stats as one number. But no, it's not actually better than having a single DC for any given monster in any other d20 system. Just because it's simple doesn't mean its fun. The main dice mechanic is annoying at best, frustrating at worst, and the single monster stat system makes each monster feel even more similar to each other than in D&D. And that's impressive.

Finally, the items, inventory, and cypher limits make me mad. Technically, it's a wonderfully simple system that hand-waves specifics in favor of general rules. But the rules aren't ingrained into the game; they feel more hacked on. Monte himself has even said that cypher limits are a simple meta-game type rule to force the players to act a certain way. But that's just the problem: it feels forced. It doesn't feel like there's a reason for my limited item/advantage use (I think it's 3?), and with no other supporting rules, I always feel wishy-washy about finding new items or treasure. No, it's not an item-focused game, but for a simple system, it feels awfully limited, rather than encouraging creativity.

We often joke that the more I change Hostargo, the closer I get to just creating The Cypher System. But there are glaring issues with Monte Cook's masterpiece that I just can't ignore. I'm making Hostargo the perfect game for "me", and hopefully that will include many others who feel the same.