I am Not Feeling the Need

I know, I know, I know...

For a game I bounced off of so hard, that it was impossible for me to learn of several tries, now I am having reservations about a revision to Cypher System?

I love this system for its elegance. I don't want too many extra systems tacked on. Maybe adding a wounding system and a bunch of other "we need this to make a part of the game make sense" will begin to make Cypher like any other game, with armor hit points, wounding tracks, stress tracks, action economies, treed talent branches, and all sorts of other structure and scaffolding that take a game that can be anything and turn it into another 5E-like system.

The ability pools are an elegant resource. I don't need a "wound track" since the difference between losing 2 points from a light weapon attack and spending 2 points to use effort is a huge difference I can track in my head. With the attack, I know that character took damage, and that "assumed wounded condition" exists on that character and I can use GM Intrusions against it.

GM Intrusion, you are leading a blood trail that is easy to track. Here is your XP, and another to hand out.

Spent pool points and lost the same amount of points? The GM Intrusion makes no sense. The character never took damage. Maybe they missed something by being distracted, or are taking deep breaths.

Even losing all a character's pool points with damage means death, while if they spent them all on effort, got to all zeros, and dropped unconscious from exhaustion - I have the freedom to rule that without a wounding pool. I don't need wounds. I know this stuff.

I have more freedom to make rulings without all these extra unneeded pools.

We lose that with a wounding system that "tells players explicitly what wounding is" and the game feels dumbed-down. It creates more to track and manage. With pools, XP, rests, and everything else - we do not need another resource to track! The ones we have will mean less.

I also worry about the narrative economy, please don't add a hope and fear pool system like Daggerheart, what we have with XP is perfect. Don't make "doom points" for monsters to activate abilities, GM Intrusions are the way. I don't want another 5E clone.

I just have a lot of reservations about the direction we are going in.

I want this to be good. 

Cypher Changes

https://montecook.substack.com/p/its-right-there-in-the-name

Monte Cook posted a worthwhile article on Substack about the changes to the cyphers in the game. This is a good read. For my modern games, I had no trouble with manifest or subtle cyphers. I would invent drones, special hacking tools, and all sorts of other things to invent to hand out characters in a modern environment.

OG Cypher is easy enough if you apply yourself and use your imagination. I do fear trying to make the game easier for the 5E crowd, to simplify and dumb it down, to reduce the need for imagination and creativity, will make the game lose its elegance and expressiveness.

I have faith though they can do a good job.