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 Evolved Edition Announced

 

https://www.montecookgames.com/announcing-cyphers-new-evolved-edition/

In 2026, we are getting the next edition of Cypher! This is a nice announcement, as they are keeping backward compatibility while making tweaks to the core system. While I like the version we have today, they are making changes to clarify systems like wounding and other areas to make them easier to understand.

I bounced off this game a few times trying to understand it, so I get the frustration people have with learning the game. When I started, I just did not "get it," and the concepts of "why this is easier" felt alien to me. It seemed like a mess of pools, spending pool points to avoid taking damage to those pool points, and thus taking damage anyway, and a bunch of other unintuitive mechanics.

I want a better new player experience. The current books drop you into the whole system, and it's sink or swim. I sank four times trying to grasp this game.

I am looking forward to this. Cypher remains the best narrative game on the market, and I particularly enjoy the narrative economy and infinite possibilities within its system.