Cypher System fails

[Whatever]

I played this game using a virtual tabletop, so I never once had to do any of the completely unnecessary math steps. As a result, it became very easy to see the game's core mechanic.

If you're not familiar with the Cypher System, it works like this: any time your character interacts with something, you roll a die. Some unnecessary math happens, and then you get either a good result or a bad result. Standard so far.

Except, here's how you decide which result you get: every enemy has a target number. If you meet or exceed that TN (again, and I cannot stress this enough, after doing completely unnecessary math), then you succeed. Roll too low, and you fail.

That means that every single action you take has the same chance of success (on a given enemy). Here are some sample actions that people used in our game, which never went past level 2:

1) stab someone for 4 damage
2) put someone in invulnerable stasis for 1 minute (they can neither attack nor be attacked)
3) a visual and auditory illusion
4) erase 5 minutes of memory

In theory, there's a small resource pool cost for the latter three, but you actually ignore that because of something that might be called Edge, or Effort, or possibly Ease. So the only cost to each ability is "your action" and the chance of success is literally identical (except some monsters have armor and take reduced damage).

There's simply no tradeoffs to justify ever doing anything but completely shutting down the opposition. Magic attacks that functionally kill enemies or win encounters are available at the earliest levels, cost nothing to use, and have the same chance of working as a standard melee attack.

But don't worry, there's a lot of unnecessary math involved. You probably won't notice for a while.

[shinimasu]

Can you explain a little more about the unnecessary math? I'm not familiar with the Cypher system but I was under the impression that instead of "roll 1d20+mods" it was "roll 1d20 subtract mods from TN" which is functionally the same math just more THACO-y. But fans get upset if you call it that.

[Whatever]

Certain effects reduce the TN, but actual modifiers add to your roll. And you divide your roll by 3 for no reason before comparing it to the TN.

Here's an example. Let's say I'm using a magic ability that I've specialized in (tasks are 1 step easier), and I've put in Ease or Effort or Edge (another 1 step easier). I also have a +1 bonus to my roll for whatever reason. The TN is 7 and I roll a 13.

So first I reduce that 7 to a 5, which is my true TN. Then I add 1 to my 13, for 14, and divide by 3. 14/3 is 4, so I have not succeeded.

[Antariuk]

The chances of success are modified in your character's favor through skills, equipment and advantageous situations, if any. In addition, you can decide to apply Effort, which is like pushing yourself, which costs points from the related Pool (Might, Speed or Intellect), all of which combined also represent your "hit points" so you won't be able to burn all of them at will. Edge is a cost reduction characters have for certain Pools, lowering any amount of points they voluntarily spend. So Whatever's claim that every single action you take having the same chance of success is simply bullshit.

Now as to the math being unnecessary... it certainly feels clunky to apply existing modifiers to the TN, thereby decreasing or increasing it, then to multiply whatever's left by 3 and then trying to beat that with your d20 roll. It's THAC0 reborn and it's also easy to imagine alternative ways to do that, like with 3d6 or whatever. On the other hand, it's also the only mechanic there is - there are no convoluted subsystems. Sometimes you roll a d6 or a d% to determine a cypher's level or check if an artifact is depleting, but that's it. It's very bare bones. I didn't like it at first, but I've come to appreciate Numenera as an easy-to-run D&D alternative since the game delivers on pretty much the same themes but is a lot easier to run. I wouldn't want to use the Cypher engine as my everyday go-to game, though.

[Username17]

When 5th edition D&D was being written, they got Monte Cook to come in to talk up his cool ideas for the new edition. In that article, he talked about having expertise levels that moved your target number up or down and difficulty tiers that moved your target number down or up and then also having a base target number and a base bonus. And of course, the immediate response was that there was no purpose behind the expertise and difficulty levels because they were functionally identical to simply having higher bonuses and higher target numbers.

That is, if your skill level was "basic" and the task level was "expert" the TN went up by four (or whatever the scalar was), and if your skill level was "expert" and the task level was "basic" the target number went down by the same amount. But in that case, the change from "basic" to "expert" is just a +4 bonus to your roll and there's no reason to calculate it differently.

Anyway, when Monte Cook left the 5e project, he released his notes as Numenera and sold it for real money, and that's the Cypher system. And the functional lack of reason to bother with the task level comparison check when you could jolly fucking well just include the numbers in task bonuses and target numbers in the first place is a totally valid critique that was made in full before the Cypher System even had a name.

The larger question you might have is why WotC seems to be so chillaxed about former company employees selling ideas for real money that were obviously made while they were on the clock working for Wizards of the Coast. It's not just Monte Cook, several of their former employees have done this.

-Username17

[Antariuk]

The larger question you might have is why WotC seems to be so chillaxed about former company employees selling ideas for real money that were obviously made while they were on the clock working for Wizards of the Coast. It's not just Monte Cook, several of their former employees have done this.

-Username17

You're probably referring to 13th Age, but is there anything else? I'd be interested to hear more about this.

[Whatever]

Yeah, the math is both stupid and unnecessary. But the artificial complexity apparently does achieve its purpose of making people think there's genuine complexity:

The chances of success are modified in your character's favor through skills, equipment and advantageous situations, if any. In addition, you can decide to apply Effort, which is like pushing yourself, which costs points from the related Pool (Might, Speed or Intellect), all of which combined also represent your "hit points" so you won't be able to burn all of them at will. Edge is a cost reduction characters have for certain Pools, lowering any amount of points they voluntarily spend. So Whatever's claim that every single action you take having the same chance of success is simply bullshit.

Let's break this down real quick. There are essentially two ways to modify your roll:

1) using character resources (such as picking a particular skill at character creation, or spending from a particular Pool)
2) DM pity

#1 is just as readily available for game-winning spells as it is for irrelevant melee attacks. You can choose to specialize in either, from level 1.

#2 is an admission of complete rules failure.

Cypher system posits that "Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit" are not just two characters in the same party, but two characters of the same level, who have been allowed to spend the same amount of character resources on their respective abilities.

The rulebook spends literally hundreds of pages presenting character options and powers that are meant to let you realize specific character concepts. In play, however, those players will find that their "character concept" is now "irrelevant bystander". For a roleplaying game, that is unacceptable.

[deaddmwalking]

So just to confirm my understanding:

I could choose to make a build that uses Might and I could choose an ability that either does piddly damage OR incapacitates the foe. Since they both use the same pool, I could apply the same modifiers to them; the difference is entirely in the efficacy of the action (using the incapacitate is always better).

[Whatever]

So just to confirm my understanding:

I could choose to make a build that uses Might and I could choose an ability that either does piddly damage OR incapacitates the foe. Since they both use the same pool, I could apply the same modifiers to them; the difference is entirely in the efficacy of the action (using the incapacitate is always better).

Correct, except no such abilities exist for Might and Speed based characters. Hitting the opponent hard enough to daze them drops their TN by one step for a round (15% success penalty) but they still act normally. And that's the best you get. All your other abilities are stuff like "hit slightly harder" or "wear armor but with smaller penalties now"

At their very highest level, Warriors can gain an ability that lets them roll again to instantly kill an opponent that they just hit. At that same level, Adepts can gain weather control, summon earthquakes, move mountains (literally the ability is "move mountains") etc.

The social and magical characters can win the game, the martial characters cannot.

[Username17]

The larger question you might have is why WotC seems to be so chillaxed about former company employees selling ideas for real money that were obviously made while they were on the clock working for Wizards of the Coast. It's not just Monte Cook, several of their former employees have done this.

-Username17

You're probably referring to 13th Age, but is there anything else? I'd be interested to hear more about this.

Well, Robert Schwalb also jumped ship to make Shadow of the Demon Lord. Bruce Cordell jumped ship to make Gods of the Fall. Both of those people were working at Wizards of the Coast and got singled out by Monte Cook in his resignation letter as good people to work with, for what that's worth. Rodney Thompson has gone off to make D&D compatible materials for Green Ronin. With a list this long, there's almost certainly more.

And then there's weird shit like Kobold Press making the official 5th edition campaign Tyranny of Dragons. Hoard of the Dragon Queen was written by Wolfgang Baur and Steve Winter, who were former WotC employees, but doing licensed work for WotC through Kobold Press. It's all very strange.

My impression is that WotC's D&D division is not just turning a blind eye to their former workers selling material they were actively working on while employed with WotC, but in many cases allowing that work to be sold back to WotC. Which is kind of mind blowing.

In most cases, I see non-competition clauses as a form of corruption and rent seeking. But in this case it seems like the lack of such provisions is pretty obviously corrupt as well. These are people cutting business deals directly with their old work friends and people taking company property and selling it out the back door for personal profit. It's weird that WotC corporate doesn't seem to notice or care that this is going on.

-Username17

[Dogbert]

Cypher isn't necessarily unplayable, but I was largely unimpressed with Monte's "totally not dnd" game about zero-to-hero and linear-fighters-quadratic-wizards, especially with how Monte lied to my face about the game not being z2h, LFQW, or a dnd heartbreaker.

The fact that he passed on all of his grudges (like his transparent "because I don't want PCs accumulating treasure" thing) and made his product look like yet another "Like dnd but BETTER!" giving me Deja Vu of the 90s and Palladium books impressed me even less.

The fact that the system enters BSOD when asked "what happens when 2 NPCs fight so I can actually know how the force field spell works?" was merely the icing on the Swipe Left Cake.

[jt]

I have friends at WotC, in non-game-design roles, who are paranoid of doing any sort of game related work outside of the company because of their non-compete agreements.

How does that square with people leaving the company and selling material they were working on at the company? I have no fucking clue. It is a deeply nonsensical company.

[erik]

They probably aren't friends with the guy scamming the company from the top. Make friends with Mearls then they can do whatever they want.