Why Cypher System?
Frankly because I think it is an amazing system. I’ve run it for several years, mostly using the setting Ptolus but also for Numenera and No Thank You, Evil. I think it’s an eligant system and I have a few other concepts cooking for it. But this particular one came from a jokey converstion in a Discord group that after a few notes just exploded. So I had to see it through.
I also wanted to see if I could address one of my few criticisms of the game. Which is that horror and mystery are not really that supported mechanically. Yes, these themes can be handled very well through the fiction of the setting, through the narrative between GM and player told at the table, but when it comes to the mechanics they bump against one another.
This is most obvious in the character options. One of the lines often used to sell Cypher System is that it is a game about exploration and not necessarily combat. Yet the majority of Types and Foci are combat oriented. So this tells players that the majority of interactions should be sovled with violence.
So as I mentioned in the Goals section I want to see if we can make the mechanics more diegetic to the narrative. Let’s see if I succeed.