Cypher System
The Cypher System, from Monte Cook Games, has become my favorite general purpose system, and perhaps one of my favorite systems overall. It is a lightweight “rulings over rules” system with only a couple core mechanics and a lot of player options, easily adaptable to any setting.
Homebrew and House Rules
Custom content (descriptors, etc.) I’ve created for games in the Cypher system can be found at this page of homebrew. Additionally, I use the following house rules:
- Cypher Volatility: The PC’s GM intrusion rate is raised by 1 for each cypher over their limit, and they risk losing the cypher as well.
- Optional spellcasting uses pool points, not recovery rolls
- Recovery rolls can be applied in any order
- Weapon properties
General Advice
Not quite homebrew or house rules (unless I’m misremembering a rule, anyway) but here is some uncategorized collected advice I have for players:
- Skills are quietly very good in this system, because they’re like a free level of effort. Get skills that are good for you, and don’t forget that you can be skilled in your abilities (see: Character Advancement).
- Since characters can potentially succeed at anything with enough luck and/or effort, approach problems in terms of “if I were to solve this, how would I use my character’s skills to increase my chances of success as much as possible?” rather than waiting for a clear Jumping Problem to arise. A good jump might get you a better tactical position, or reach some gizmo that affects the battlefield, or leads you to a solution where you safely move the bomb to a different building before it blows.
Campaigns
On Hold
Resources
- Old Gus’ Cypher System Reference Document — freely available rules text for the Cypher System and other openly available sources
- Form-fillable character sheet
Characters
Characters made for other games:
Making characters is fun, so I’ve made some scratch characters for the hell of it.