Author: Richard Tavadon
About The System
Cypher is a roleplaying system built with flexibility and ease of access in mind. It simplifies many game systems in order to allow for them to work in any environment. The flexibility of Cypher allows for a large variety of campaign settings; horror, investigative, space, roleplay focused games for example. Rules such as ranges being close/far etc. instead of 10 ft/200 ft means that certain abilities may be 5ft in some games, and 50 feet in another. This is just one example of how the rules allow for flexibility of function through flexibility of rules. Another example of how the rules allow for flexibility is character creation, which utilizes broad archetypes such as “adept”and “warrior” rather than Bard and Fighter for traditional RPG’s or say Technomancer and generic army guy for a more sci-fi setting. This additionally allows for blurred settings that mix magic and technology, as the systems are the same for magic and technology. Cypher is a roleplaying game designed around flavor coming from the minds of the players (DMs included) and not from rules and flavor text.
It is possible to learn the basics of Cypher and create a character very quickly as your character is described as an <adjective> <noun> who <verbs>. Due to this simplicity of design, all one needs is a vague idea of who they would like to play and then they can quickly fill in the details with in-game modifiers.
Complexity (★☆☆☆☆)
System Strengths
Supporting flexibility in all things flavor wise through the rules. The system was created in order to synthesize magic, technology and general grit into one system of character creation. There are still classes, but they are more broad and can cover a wide variety of characters throughout time, space and levels of magic. The flexibility allows for DMs to create games that are of wildly different natures within the same system. Things such as spacefaring, dungeon crawling, and being magical detectives can all be created with ease.
System Flaws
Cypher is a very freeform system and does not offer as many scaffolds for roleplaying as something like Dungeons and Dragons 5E. Because of this, it is more difficult for players newer to roleplaying to grapple with the system and their characters.
Links
Video Games using this system: Torment: Tides of Numenera uses a similar system to Cypher.
As many scaffolds for roleplaying? I thought one of the many things that was wrong with 5e was the lack of roleplaying rules?
And yet it offers more than Cypher. Backgrounds, TBIFs/Inspiration (if your DM ever bothers to use them), the way the class, spell, race, and item descriptions create and guide expections for what kinds of characters exist and how they tend to behave… It’s not much, especially not compared to systems like FATE and HeroQuest/QuestWorlds and Burning Wheel where the roleplay scaffolding is at the forefront of the design, but it’s a lot more scaffolding than “come up with a noun, adjective, and verb, and improv from that”. Even systems like GURPS or HERO System offer more scaffolding despite the genericized system due to the depth of the skills, perks, powers, advantages, and disadvantages.
Now, if you’re familiar with roleplaying and are halfway comfortable with the improv that comes with it (ie, if you’ve played more than a session or three), the Cypher System offers more than enough scaffolding, and it’s actually really nice that the system works to get out of the way of your roleplay. But if you don’t meet those basic prerequisites, even the minimal scaffolding of 5e or GURPS can feel like a godsend.
Could you make one Alternative TTRPG about Mage: the ascension or Mage: the Awakening? or both! they are aslo freeform with very parculiar set of rules that seem might interest you.