In Search of Rules of the Game

Rules of the Game

I want to fashion a set of rules that fits the following guidelines:

1. Easy to understand and use, especially for beginners

2. Intended for short campaigns of approximately 6-20 sessions

3. Uses the traditional RPG model of a GM-led game with players controlling single characters

After a long search, the game that comes closest to my needs and whose rules are basically open is Monte Cook’s Cypher.

Modding Cypher—An Overview

The best parts of Cypher:

1. A focus on using descriptions as part of character creation. This fits really well with an appeal to beginners. Describe your character and the rules follow. Really cool.

2. The idea of "cyphers" -- one use items, favors, powers, or other abilities or resources. Characters are supposed to acquire them easily and use them quickly. This works really well for a short campaign and it fits the pervasive influence of chaos in my setting. It's also fun, and even if the GM gives a PC an overly powerful Cypher, that's OK, it likely won't break the game.

3. The game part of Cypher -- You can reduce difficulties by stacking skills, help from others, cyphers, and so on in an easily understood way -- Use this to reduce the difficulty by 1, use that to reduce it by 1, and so on.

4. The stats serve as hit points as well as fuel for your abilities. I like that consolidation.

The parts of Cypher that I want to Mod:

1. Cypher has three stats: Might, Speed, and Intellect. Might combines Strength and Constitution, Speed combines Agility and Dexterity, and Intellect combines Intelligence and Charisma. Intellect tries to do too much. Charisma is an odd item to fit into Intellect, so I want to add a fourth stat, Presence (and why not call it Charisma? I prefer "Presence.")

2. Cypher has character classes (called “types”). That makes sense for differentiated heroes, but I see PCs in my game as people forced into "adventure," not heroes on a quest.

3. Cypher has levels. In a short campaign, there is no need for leveling, and rewards to PCs can be handled via cyphers.

4. Cypher often has descriptors with very similar (or the same) rules-effects. I think this is a result of attempting to cover multiple genres. Regardless, it's easily fixed.

5. You multiply the difficulty (of 1-10) by 3 to get the target number on a d20. It is indeed possible to have a target number of 21 or higher, meaning that a task is impossible unless you reduce the difficulty. That multiply by 3 business is clumsy, but it's central to the math of the game. I might not be able to mod it.

6. It sort of has skills and doesn't. It doesn't have a central skills list, but it does reference skills, which is weird and annoying, so I'll have to create a simple skills list that works for my setting.

7. A PC can heal and recover 3-4 times per day, not too different from D&D's short rests and long rest system. Basing healing and recovery on a "per day" basis means that PCs will often be at full strength for most encounters unless and until the campaign goes into a moment-by-moment mode. Maybe that's fine.

Next Steps

I’m going to outline and define the key terms in Cypher, copying and modding the text as necessary, so I can take what I want, change what I need, and have a base set of rules for Post-Human and its campaigns and scenarios. Then I will begin work on Amazing! Warehouse, about the mutated animals that live in a multi-dimensional warehouse, as well as begin the second edition of Godkillers, the scenario about young people in a small town who defied their preacher and paid the price.