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Roll20

Players typically roll a twenty-sided die, or D20 for most tasks in a Cypher. For healing and determining cypher levels a player will roll a six sided die, or D6. Rarely, a player or GM may find themselves rolling a D100, or two ten-sided dice to determine random events or outcomes.

What Dice do you need for a Cypher System game?

Just like many tabletop roleplaying games, a Cypher System game can cover a vast range of topics and themes, including violence, horror, romance, illness, and more. Any game worth playing will have safety tools and content warnings where players can let their group and/or GM know what topics might they be uncomfortable with. Monte Cook Games, the creator of the Cypher System has a robust "Consent in Gaming" worksheet groups can use to establish appropriate topics and themes for their games.

What if I am not comfortable with certain themes or content in a Cypher System game?

There are a variety of setting guides and player resources available to players, so much it may seem overwhelming! It has never been easier for a player to get into a Cypher System game as nearly all content is available for players via a robust Cypher System Open License (CSOL). The Basic rules which cover nearly everything a player will need is available for free. You may want to pick up the Cypher System Core Rulebook (commonly referred to as the "red book") or one of the many setting books for further reading.

What books or materials do I need to play the Cypher System?

In most tabletop games, characters have abilities that rarely change and can be counted on. In a Cypher System game, Cyphers give players variety and ever-changing abilities that result in dynamic gameplay. A Cypher is a single use ability or item a character can discover during the course of play. In some games they could look like magic potions or spell scrolls, others may look like goggles or even a supernatural blessing.

Most games tend to take 2-3 hours long and will be played over the course of weeks or months, referred to as a Campaign. Some groups choose to play single session games called one-shots or cypher-shorts and can be played in one sitting typically between 3-4 hours long.

How long does it take to play a Cypher System game?

Instead of classes, subclasses, species and backgrounds a Cypher System character is made using a 3 part sentence that consists of a Descriptor, Type and Focus. Each choice will determine character abilities and statistics. Type is chosen first from four options; the Warrior, Adept, Explorer, and Speaker. Damage dealers and fighters will choose Warrior. Spellcasters or those with supernatural abilities will choose Adept. Players who want to be charmers or bards will go for a Speaker. For those who want a little bit of everything, the Explorer offers a jack of all trades experience. The Descriptor is the overall adjective that describes your character. Finally, the Focus is where a player makes a character of their own with abilities that no other player at the table will have access to since no two Foci can be played at the same table. Final touches such as equipment and abilities are determined after creating your character sentence.

How do you make a character for Cypher System?

Players can increase the chances of success by determining what skills, tools, or help they can get to bring the difficulty rating down for any given task. A player who has rope and is trained in mountain climbing will reduce the challenge rating by easing the task roll. Additionally, players can spend effort from their stat pools to bring the challenge rating down. There are also times a player character may be hindered, increasing the difficulty of a given task.

What does it mean to Ease or Hinder a task in Cypher System?

When a twenty-sided dice, or D20 lands on a 17,18,19,or 20 players are considered to have rolled a critical success. a 17 or 18 does a touch more damage and a 19 or 20 earns players minor and major effects they can contribute to narratively in the game.

What is a critical success in a Cypher System?

When a 1 is rolled, or at other critical moments in the game the GM may play a GM Intrusion. It is something that occurs that complicates the scene, but offers the player an opportunity to earn XP, or Experience Points. A player can refuse a GM intrusion by spending 1 XP.

What is a GM Intrusion in a Cypher System game?

Players can spend an XP, or Experience Point to contribute narratively in the game or help their chances in a challenging combat. The player asks to play an intrusion and spends an XP to remember a fact important to the case, know where a secret door is, or other minor effect. This requires approval from the GM, but most minor effects or interesting story developments will be embraced.

What is a Player Intrusion in a Cypher System game?

The core mechanic in Cypher System is rolling a 20-sided die, and comparing the results to a Task Difficulty table. Every task, action, creature and object in the game is assigned a level and players roll to meet or beat the difficulty assigned to what they are trying to do. There are critical successes rolling a 17 or higher  and thrilling GM "intrusions" for rolling a 1. Players can improve their odds with skills, abilities, tools, and help from their friends. Characters can even tap into their XP pool to influence the course of the game with player intrusions! Players create a character by picking from a variety of options to form a 3 part sentence that includes a type, descriptor and focus. Each choice in a character sentence helps define the fantastic abilities and potential hindrances in the course of adventure.

How to Play Cypher

Great for those wanting less crunch than D&D, but more mechanics than FATE.

I learned it because I wanted to know a system that is generic enough to help me run occasional oneshots with my crazy ideas. It kinda of does that, but the Cyphers (one use powers) feel a bit out of place for a generic system. They were clearly designed to support its main CYPHER setting Numenera, where the world is littered with unstable one use magic items.

At its core it has a love-or-hate mechanic of spending your it points as the resources for your cool abilities. I love it, but lots of people will get confused and hate it

Other than that it works really well as a generic system for oneshots and short campaigns, with the shallow mechanics not holding the interest of players for longer campaigns

Cypher System is Monte Cook's dream system. When he created Monte Cook Games, he designed the system he always wanted to play.

The result is a not quite rules-light or crunchy system that finds a good middle ground.

Where the game truly shines is in the settings though. Before marketing it as a generic system with "genre slices", the settings for Numenera and The Strange were the vehicles to play the system.  They are the true gems of the Cypher System.

The x3 mechanic for difficulty can feel a little tacked on, as it seems it would just be easier to assign a flat number rather than 1-10 and then x3 to get the difficulty, but it works well enough in practice.

Cyphers, the namesake of the system, are really cool. They take the idea of consumables found in most other games and give them a greater purpose.

Perhaps my favorite products that support this system are the "Instant Adventures". They are a format of adventures that take almost no prep time. Others have replicated the format for other systems to varying degrees, but these are truly wonderful for the "just add dice" and play situations.

The only detraction in my opinion is not of the system, but the retirement of The Strange. It was an innovative world-hopping game that was the best multi-genre game I've ever played. (Think Sliders if you remember that show.) Due mostly to the simplicity of the Cypher system, it worked well and was lots of fun to play.

Very easy system to GM.  Works pretty well across genres.  Home to some of my favorite settings, like Numenera.  The Cypher System is one of my faves.

Great for those that want a little bit more crunch, let's say medium, then a pure story game, but don't want to have to worry about giant stat blocks and constantly looking up rules.

Really love the ease of running Cypher system. And with an ever growing catalogue of settings, this is a great fit for almost any type of game you want to play. Sword & sorcery, supers, dark mystery, it has it all.

It's a great system for both the GM and the player. Easy to learn to run, simple enough mechanics to make rulings when needed, and easy to make your own NPCs and items if you wanted. As a player the variety in foci and descriptors help you customize your character despite the limit in character types available per setting book. You could have a table full of one type, but due to the mechanic restriction on the focus and the variety on descriptors, plus the ability to choose skills and abilities, allows for all players to feel their character is unique. 

Monte Cook's books take a little getting used to as far as navigation, but once you understand that it's something you don't think about much and can apply to other game systems under their umbrella (like Invisible Sun, etc).

Cypher System is a great RPG that's very simple to learn, with a solid amount of crunch, but is incredibly fast and narrative during play.

It's somewhere between D&D/PF and the rules light systems as far as the amount of rules goes, but the vast majority of the rule books are dedicated to vibes of the various genres you can use it for, and character creation.  As far as I'm concerned, it has one, if not the, best character creation system, with incredibly flexibility to build the character you have in mind.

It has basically no math, and that math can be completely taken over by the GM to speed up play, especially since the GM isn't rolling any dice.  A good VTT can also help automate this to make it even more seamless.

To my mind, Cypher is the ultimate genre-less TTRPG system.  I currently run near future sci-fi and low fantasy bronze age campaigns, and the system feels great for both.  I've also run space opera, and hope to run more, and I have plans for weird west, cyberpunk, cosmic horror, post apocalyptic, and even less niche campaigns that will take advantage of the flexibility of this system.

And that's without touching any of the "official" settings, which are well written and really fun.

For anyone looking for a highly flexible "rules-medium" system with narrative punch and deep character creation, Cypher sits at the top of my list of TTRPGs.

Cypher System

Cypher System is a groundbreaking tabletop game engine that allows for incredible flexibility to play any type of campaign, in any genre. One can play in the system’s flagship setting “Numenera” or in the worlds of popular podcasts such as “The Magnus Archives” and “Old Gods of Appalachia”. Additional settings can include Post-apocalyptic, sci fi, fantasy, cyberpunk, horror– if  you can name it the Cypher System has it! Regardless of the genre, Cypher System games feature a narrative forward play experience that emphasizes discovery, problem solving, character growth, and meaningful roleplay over defeating monsters and getting XP. Character creation is simple yet elegant, as players make a three-part sentence describing who they are going to play. The rules are simple enough for beginners to learn quickly, and sophisticated and deep enough for veterans to unleash their creativity in surprising new ways. 

Originally created by Monte Cook, Bruce R. Cordell, Sean K. Reynolds

Play Cypher System Explore one-shots, campaigns, and homebrew adventures run by expert GMs across Roll20, Foundry VTT, Discord & more. Find your perfect game on StartPlayingGames!

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