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Cypher System Rulebook
Multi genre pen and paper role playing game using the elegant Cypher System.
418 pages, ebook
First published August 5, 2015
8 people are currently reading
52 people want to read
About the author
Monte Cook
211 books124 followers
The game designer
Monte Cook started working professionally in the game industry in 1988. In the employ of Iron Crown Enterprises, he worked with the Rolemaster and Champions games as an editor, developer, and designer. In 1994, Monte came to TSR, Inc., as a game designer and wrote for the Planescape and core D&D lines. When that company was purchased by Wizards of the Coast, he moved to the Seattle area and eventually became a senior game designer. At Wizards, he wrote the 3rd Edition Dungeon Master's Guide and served as codesigner of the new edition of the Dungeons & Dragons game. In 2001, he left Wizards to start his own design studio, Malhavoc Press, with his wife Sue. Although in his career he has worked on over 100 game titles, some of his other credits include Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, The Book of Eldritch Might series, the d20 Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying Game, The Book of Vile Darkness, Monte Cook’s Arcana Evolved, Ptolus, Monte Cook's World of Darkness, and Dungeonaday.com. He was a longtime author of the Dungeoncraft column in Dungeon Magazine. In recent years, Monte has been recognized many times by game fans in the ENnies Awards, the Pen & Paper fan awards, the Nigel D. Findley Memorial Award, the Origins Awards, and more.
The author
A graduate of the 1999 Clarion West writer's workshop, Monte has published two novels, The Glass Prison and Of Aged Angels. Also, he has published the short stories "Born in Secrets" (in the magazine Amazing Stories), "The Rose Window" (in the anthology Realms of Mystery), and "A Narrowed Gaze" (in the anthology Realms of the Arcane). His stories have appeared in the Malhavoc Press anthologies Children of the Rune and The Dragons' Return, and his comic book writing can be found in the Ptolus: City by the Spire series from DBPro/Marvel. His fantasy fiction series, "Saga of the Blade," appeared in Game Trade Magazine from 2005–2006.
The geek
In his spare time, Monte runs games, plays with his dog, watches DVDs, builds vast dioramas out of LEGO building bricks, paints miniatures, and reads a lot of comics.
Monte Cook started working professionally in the game industry in 1988. In the employ of Iron Crown Enterprises, he worked with the Rolemaster and Champions games as an editor, developer, and designer. In 1994, Monte came to TSR, Inc., as a game designer and wrote for the Planescape and core D&D lines. When that company was purchased by Wizards of the Coast, he moved to the Seattle area and eventually became a senior game designer. At Wizards, he wrote the 3rd Edition Dungeon Master's Guide and served as codesigner of the new edition of the Dungeons & Dragons game. In 2001, he left Wizards to start his own design studio, Malhavoc Press, with his wife Sue. Although in his career he has worked on over 100 game titles, some of his other credits include Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, The Book of Eldritch Might series, the d20 Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying Game, The Book of Vile Darkness, Monte Cook’s Arcana Evolved, Ptolus, Monte Cook's World of Darkness, and Dungeonaday.com. He was a longtime author of the Dungeoncraft column in Dungeon Magazine. In recent years, Monte has been recognized many times by game fans in the ENnies Awards, the Pen & Paper fan awards, the Nigel D. Findley Memorial Award, the Origins Awards, and more.
The author
A graduate of the 1999 Clarion West writer's workshop, Monte has published two novels, The Glass Prison and Of Aged Angels. Also, he has published the short stories "Born in Secrets" (in the magazine Amazing Stories), "The Rose Window" (in the anthology Realms of Mystery), and "A Narrowed Gaze" (in the anthology Realms of the Arcane). His stories have appeared in the Malhavoc Press anthologies Children of the Rune and The Dragons' Return, and his comic book writing can be found in the Ptolus: City by the Spire series from DBPro/Marvel. His fantasy fiction series, "Saga of the Blade," appeared in Game Trade Magazine from 2005–2006.
The geek
In his spare time, Monte runs games, plays with his dog, watches DVDs, builds vast dioramas out of LEGO building bricks, paints miniatures, and reads a lot of comics.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
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January 2, 2022Cypher System is Monte Cook Games attempt at a generic game system. Basically, as I understand it, with Numenera and The Strange built on the same system, they pulled it out to sell on its own, along with a few specific settings:
* Predation: for some reason a big future corporation sent a lot of people back in time to the Cretaceous and then lost contact. You play as a lost colonist — or rather, a child of them, so you only know the dinosaurs, know that they will be wiped out, but cannot escape back to the far future. Very much a labor of love in the sense that it’s clear that author Shanna Germain loves dinosaurs and heroes with animal companions. Nifty, but then, I love those same things, and even I am not quite sure how to make this a campaign. (Includes the adventure Cawdor Complex and a conversion guide.)
* Gods of the Fall: After the gods were killed/corrupted, some heroes arise with that divine spark. The PCs are those heroes who now much self-consciously try to reenact the mythological labors that will unlock their divine spark. I like that idea, but I didn’t quite find the setting to be inspiring — maybe I would like it more if the gods were just recently disappeared so that it was a more traditional fantasy? Otherwise it feels just a little too strange to me. (Includes the adventure After the Nightfall and a conversion guide.)
This Bundle also included
* The core book
* Expanded Worlds (with a few other genres, though I have to say I don’t find a few pages sufficient for any of the genres either here or in the core book; there’s some rationale behind including fantasy as one genre and noting that you mostly mean Tolkien, but what exactly does “historical” mean when you have a paragraph on Egypt, Edo Japan, etc.?)
* Cults, Factions, and Syndicates
* Extreme Cyphers (high-level magic items)
* Assault on Singularity Base (a multi-team, multi-GM adventure to stop a doomsday weapon)
It’s funny that, though I liked so much of the Cypher system as presented in Numenera, when it’s pulled out like this and made into a universal/generic system, I don’t find myself thrilling to it. Like, I’m very happy with the character-as-sentence ethos (“My character is an who ”), but without a setting to scaffold the options there, it becomes less inspiring.
UPDATE: I just found a few more books — see, this is why I need to start keeping track of my RPGs.
* Stars are Fire —an sf toolbox and campaign setting (space exploration and tragedy)
* Unmasked — teen superheroes in the 80s
* Unmasked in the City (adventure) — the default setting is a town on Long Island, so the adventure is going into NYC. Very relatable!
* Infinity Shift (adventure) — physics experiment leads to high weirdness with Nazis, Bigfoots, raptor-folk, etc.
* Castaway (adventure) — amnesiac kidnappees on a space station
* Dread Expectations (adventure) — superhero robot fight
* Predation: for some reason a big future corporation sent a lot of people back in time to the Cretaceous and then lost contact. You play as a lost colonist — or rather, a child of them, so you only know the dinosaurs, know that they will be wiped out, but cannot escape back to the far future. Very much a labor of love in the sense that it’s clear that author Shanna Germain loves dinosaurs and heroes with animal companions. Nifty, but then, I love those same things, and even I am not quite sure how to make this a campaign. (Includes the adventure Cawdor Complex and a conversion guide.)
* Gods of the Fall: After the gods were killed/corrupted, some heroes arise with that divine spark. The PCs are those heroes who now much self-consciously try to reenact the mythological labors that will unlock their divine spark. I like that idea, but I didn’t quite find the setting to be inspiring — maybe I would like it more if the gods were just recently disappeared so that it was a more traditional fantasy? Otherwise it feels just a little too strange to me. (Includes the adventure After the Nightfall and a conversion guide.)
This Bundle also included
* The core book
* Expanded Worlds (with a few other genres, though I have to say I don’t find a few pages sufficient for any of the genres either here or in the core book; there’s some rationale behind including fantasy as one genre and noting that you mostly mean Tolkien, but what exactly does “historical” mean when you have a paragraph on Egypt, Edo Japan, etc.?)
* Cults, Factions, and Syndicates
* Extreme Cyphers (high-level magic items)
* Assault on Singularity Base (a multi-team, multi-GM adventure to stop a doomsday weapon)
It’s funny that, though I liked so much of the Cypher system as presented in Numenera, when it’s pulled out like this and made into a universal/generic system, I don’t find myself thrilling to it. Like, I’m very happy with the character-as-sentence ethos (“My character is an who ”), but without a setting to scaffold the options there, it becomes less inspiring.
UPDATE: I just found a few more books — see, this is why I need to start keeping track of my RPGs.
* Stars are Fire —an sf toolbox and campaign setting (space exploration and tragedy)
* Unmasked — teen superheroes in the 80s
* Unmasked in the City (adventure) — the default setting is a town on Long Island, so the adventure is going into NYC. Very relatable!
* Infinity Shift (adventure) — physics experiment leads to high weirdness with Nazis, Bigfoots, raptor-folk, etc.
* Castaway (adventure) — amnesiac kidnappees on a space station
* Dread Expectations (adventure) — superhero robot fight
June 20, 2019
The Cypher system is quite easy to grok and quick to use easily. Numenera and the Strange are two major offshoots with small variations of the system specific to their setting. The Cypher book here is more like a GURPS mainbook allowing you to use the system in any setting compared to the other books. Very roleplaying focused with not so many crunchy bits this is a game you play after your burned out from Pathfinder, Champions/Hero, or Shadowrun. I think if someone were too make a diced Zelazny's Amber game than Cypher would probably be one of the best narrative options.
July 6, 2024
Es un sistema muy centrado en la historia y está muy abierto a casi todo. Parece divertido.
December 18, 2015
This is a pen and paper role playing game (pnp rpg) meant to be flexible enough to be played in multiple genres (sci-fi, horror, fantasy, modern, historic ect). Pnp rpgs exist on a continuum from very simple rule sets that rely more on the player's story telling capabilities (Fate, Fantasy flight's Star Wars games) to very complex games (Pathfinder and Shadow Run come to mind) where combat and tasks are completed with the use of a lot of stats and dice rolls. The Cypher System is more towards the simple end of the scale. My group got it and didn't need to reference the book much after the first session.
Every task in the game is assigned a difficulty that the dice has to roll on or above for success and the players can do things to bring the difficulty down. The rules system does break down at higher levels (or tears) a bit as things become much too easy for the players. Though it is worth noting that my players have less of a problem with that then I do. There are also some issues with PC allies in combat due to the simplified rules. Add to the fact that this game play is very much biased on combat (most character foci/types center around it) while the XP is gained for discovery and you have some problematic rules. Monte Cook Game’s response to rules issues have been mixed.
Since Numenera was released the company has addressed some of the rules problems in a series of editorials on their web site, and while these solutions seems not to have made it into “The Strange” rpg, refined versions of their ideas have made it into the Cypher System Rule Book. Less satisfactory is their ultimate response to a lot of problems which seems to boil down to: it’s a narrative game, have the Game Master narrate it and don’t worry about dice rolling. Which seems to transfer work from the game designer’s shoulders to the GM’s.
For all it’s flaws it makes for a fun game and is an honest effort. If you attempted to plug the holes in the rules you’d be looking at a complete redesign and a whole new game with a more complex rule set. You would have to trade imaginative effort for more time learning and referencing the rules. A trade off that I’m not sure I’d like to make.
Now onto some specifics about the book. The art is mostly top notch. People who have previous Monte Cook books will recognize quite a lot of recycled pieces. Though oddly enough in the last section, the GM advice, with the most recycled text (though some of the text is new) has some of the best new art.
The character creation section is really good and takes the place in other Monte Cook books of the imaginative story hooks. What would happen to a superstar and a layer in a zombie apocalypse? How would an Honorable Knight Who Slays Monsters get on with a Mad Wizard who Works Back Allies? Ideas sprung to mind as I was reading the character section with a frequency rivaled only by the setting section of the Numenera rule book.
The other section that I found had good plot hooks was the Character section, found right after the creature section (where Numenera and The Strange players would get a lot of deja vu). The superhero/scifi characters, also in other genres, are likely to be the center of many great campaigns.
The part that really makes, at least the $20 pdf, a great purchase is the genre section. The gear selections for the different genres will be a time saver for any GM as well as the suggestion for how to use those powerful one-time-use goodies the game is named for. Subtle Cyphers take the form of inspiration and fit in with more ‘mundane’ genres. There is a good list of ‘manifest’ cyphers as well that are flexible enough to fit in a lot of genres, but not all.
The genres themselves all have well thought out special rules, ranging from rules like those found in the horror section that fix some of the weakness inherent in the system to spaceship combat that provide for the best possible rules modifications that still work in the constraints of the stripped down rules set that is the Cypher System.
Every task in the game is assigned a difficulty that the dice has to roll on or above for success and the players can do things to bring the difficulty down. The rules system does break down at higher levels (or tears) a bit as things become much too easy for the players. Though it is worth noting that my players have less of a problem with that then I do. There are also some issues with PC allies in combat due to the simplified rules. Add to the fact that this game play is very much biased on combat (most character foci/types center around it) while the XP is gained for discovery and you have some problematic rules. Monte Cook Game’s response to rules issues have been mixed.
Since Numenera was released the company has addressed some of the rules problems in a series of editorials on their web site, and while these solutions seems not to have made it into “The Strange” rpg, refined versions of their ideas have made it into the Cypher System Rule Book. Less satisfactory is their ultimate response to a lot of problems which seems to boil down to: it’s a narrative game, have the Game Master narrate it and don’t worry about dice rolling. Which seems to transfer work from the game designer’s shoulders to the GM’s.
For all it’s flaws it makes for a fun game and is an honest effort. If you attempted to plug the holes in the rules you’d be looking at a complete redesign and a whole new game with a more complex rule set. You would have to trade imaginative effort for more time learning and referencing the rules. A trade off that I’m not sure I’d like to make.
Now onto some specifics about the book. The art is mostly top notch. People who have previous Monte Cook books will recognize quite a lot of recycled pieces. Though oddly enough in the last section, the GM advice, with the most recycled text (though some of the text is new) has some of the best new art.
The character creation section is really good and takes the place in other Monte Cook books of the imaginative story hooks. What would happen to a superstar and a layer in a zombie apocalypse? How would an Honorable Knight Who Slays Monsters get on with a Mad Wizard who Works Back Allies? Ideas sprung to mind as I was reading the character section with a frequency rivaled only by the setting section of the Numenera rule book.
The other section that I found had good plot hooks was the Character section, found right after the creature section (where Numenera and The Strange players would get a lot of deja vu). The superhero/scifi characters, also in other genres, are likely to be the center of many great campaigns.
The part that really makes, at least the $20 pdf, a great purchase is the genre section. The gear selections for the different genres will be a time saver for any GM as well as the suggestion for how to use those powerful one-time-use goodies the game is named for. Subtle Cyphers take the form of inspiration and fit in with more ‘mundane’ genres. There is a good list of ‘manifest’ cyphers as well that are flexible enough to fit in a lot of genres, but not all.
The genres themselves all have well thought out special rules, ranging from rules like those found in the horror section that fix some of the weakness inherent in the system to spaceship combat that provide for the best possible rules modifications that still work in the constraints of the stripped down rules set that is the Cypher System.
September 18, 2016
From the second that I picked up Monte Cooks Numenera book I was in love. The setting was perfect and the ruleset that it gave us was beautiful in its simplicity. It is, hands down, one of my absolute favorite worlds to explore.
This book...the Cypher System Rulebook...takes all the rules we were given from Numenera and gives us a clear and concise way of incorporating those rules into any kind of setting we can imagine. No longer are we tied to the 9th World ecosphere.
Superheroes your thing? No problem. Modern day horror? Easy peasy. Wanna play some sword and sorcery stuffs? Consider it done. Hell - you wanna take a mid-evil knight and throw him into a steampunk world battling werewolves with laser pistols? Cypher system rulebook makes it happen.
It's wonderful, really. The cypher system is such an easy and fun way to roleplay and this book unleashes the chains allowing you to explore any kind world your imagination can come up with.
That's a win in my books.
This book...the Cypher System Rulebook...takes all the rules we were given from Numenera and gives us a clear and concise way of incorporating those rules into any kind of setting we can imagine. No longer are we tied to the 9th World ecosphere.
Superheroes your thing? No problem. Modern day horror? Easy peasy. Wanna play some sword and sorcery stuffs? Consider it done. Hell - you wanna take a mid-evil knight and throw him into a steampunk world battling werewolves with laser pistols? Cypher system rulebook makes it happen.
It's wonderful, really. The cypher system is such an easy and fun way to roleplay and this book unleashes the chains allowing you to explore any kind world your imagination can come up with.
That's a win in my books.
July 12, 2023
I haven't gotten to run this game system yet, but it looks like what I want. More freedom, easier to GM, everything I need in one place. I read the PDF available through the game's OGL, and that convinced me to pony up the money for the 2nd edition. Once I wrap up my current D&D 5e game, I'm going to take the system for spin and see how I like it.
February 26, 2016
Great system, very flexible - look forward to playing it one day
August 22, 2016
The Cypher System proves itself by handling every genre with grace and ease. It is my personal favourite supers system.
April 17, 2017
I need to spend some more time with this ruleset to inderstand what it really brings new to the RPG table.
It talks about divorcing advancement from fighting, and honors the idea of making discoveries. Still a big proportion of the skills and abilities listed for each character type are combat-related.
The key is probably in the title. I need to dig deeper into cyphers, fugure out what makes them important enough to name the system after them rather than just being powerful disposable equipment.
It talks about divorcing advancement from fighting, and honors the idea of making discoveries. Still a big proportion of the skills and abilities listed for each character type are combat-related.
The key is probably in the title. I need to dig deeper into cyphers, fugure out what makes them important enough to name the system after them rather than just being powerful disposable equipment.
December 18, 2017
Great system LOTS of material to use Cypher system in all kinds of homebrews and genres. Supers, normals, horror, fantasy and additional material usable in Numenera. You name it, it can be done without days of work and adaptation. It's more about what NOT to use and you can start playing a story focused adventure with enough crunch to make it fun.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews