Cypher System 2E RPG: Rulebook

If you are looking for a cross-genre game with a narrative style, this game is for you. PROS - One...It covers almost any type of setting you would want. Two...It combines the best elements of the first edition and the Expanded Worlds book (except the creatures). Three...All of the traits and descriptors are in one place making them easy to find. CONS - One...All of the traits and descriptors are in one place making character generation a little harder. Two...Creatures do not have their own stat pools (this would add a complication to the game but make for more interesting encounters). Three...The book needs more creatures including less generalized stats for normal animals.

This is a great system to provide gaming in almost any genre. If you have traditional fantasy blues give this game a shot.

The most felixble, streamlined system you will find. An RPG gold standard.

Awesome book. The ability to have any setting in one resource is fantastic

My son (age 12) has been asking to play D&D for a while, but 1) he doesn't have any experience with RPG systems and 2) I'm trying to steer clear of combat-heavy systems for now. I stumbled across Numenara a while back, and while I didn't care for the setting of that one, I liked the concept of the system. When I found out that there was a generic setting version of that system in Cypher, I jumped on it. The book is well laid out and is easy to read. I love that they provide cross-reference page numbers for all examples (so you can get to any specific rules easily). Character creation is much more straightforward than some other systems, but still provides plenty of opportunities to make a character your own. I'm looking forward to trying this system out with my son.

Cypher System is amazing. Truly amazing. Most other RPGs have deep roots in the world of tabletop wargaming. Systems and mechanics have been refined and tinkered with over the years, but there’s still a lot of wargaming DNA in most RPG game systems. The Cypher System basically redesigns all of that from the ground up, asking ‘what makes sense?’ at every step. In most RPGs the GM has to do a lot of prep work planning the adventure and statting NPCs; in the Cypher System, the GM only has to pick a number from one to ten to determine the relative difficulty of any task, including defeating an opponent in combat. Easy peasy. Game prep in Cypher mostly consists of having a few good story ideas and then rolling with them in-game. Even in-game, the GM is mostly freed from having to deal with game mechanics. Once a difficulty number has been assigned, players are easily able to calculate the roll that they need to make on a D20 to succeed— and have a number of tools at their disposal to adjust that number through a combination of skills, effort, and using appropriate tools. The player does those calculations and makes the roll, freeing the GM of every responsibility other than controlling the game narrative. The GM doesn’t even roll dice in the Cypher System— ever. They’re doing story stuff during play. If an NPC attacks a player character, the GM simply tells the player what the one-to-ten value of that attack is; the player does the math and makes the die roll to avoid taking the hit. Again, easy peasy. The genius of this approach is that when everything is abstracted to a one-to-ten value, there aren’t any special rules or unique subsystems which are needed to emulate a particular genre or setting. A level three orc in a fantasy setting isn’t harder to defeat than a level three zombie in a post-apocalyptic horror setting or a level three intelligent acidic slime in a science fiction setting. The Cypher System is a universal RPG— a truly universal RPG— universal in a way that Grandfather’s Unbelievably Redundant Pile of books never could be. The simplicity and flexibility of the Cypher System doesn’t mean that it lacks crunch, though. This isn’t a storytelling game where everything gets hand-waived away “because the GM says so.” There are mechanics and rules for everything that happens in the game. I’d describe Cypher System as ‘medium crunch,’ on a par with 5e or Pathfinder but much easier to run or play. One more thing about the Cypher System— you can literally create just about any character that you can imagine using these rules. Characters are built using a simple formula: my character is an [ADJECTIVE] [NOUN] who [VERBs]. Want a tough barbarian berserker shaman character for a fantasy game? The could be a resilient explorer who rages, or it might be an exiled warrior who speaks with the dead, depending upon your exact character concept. Every possible adjective, noun, and verb combination gives the character abilities or training and modifies their stats, allowing a wild degree of customization not found in other games. Honestly, the Cypher System is likely to spoil a lot of your favorite games for you. Once you’ve played this game, everything else feels clunky and arbitrary. Don’t say I didn’t warn you— but buy it anyway! You’ll only regret having spent so much money on other games before playing Cypher.