A Happy New Year to all readers! I hope that the coming year brings everyone opportunities to grow and connect with new and old friends through playing RPGs and other games. It's always a great opportunity to reflect on the past and consider new approaches to our games and our lives going forward.
I have my own goals for the new year in my campaigns, writing, and storytelling, and hope you achieve yours! Stay safe and enjoy the holiday!
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| Cypher System Rulebook cover by Monte Cook Games |
Now for something a little different.
In my examinations of other RPG systems, I've heard about the Cypher system for a long time, but hadn't dug into it until I managed to carve out time on a plane flight. My main takeaways are that the Cypher system offers:
Cypher does not have as structured advancement as 5e systems, and places emphasis on the ability to reskin abilities, powers, and weapons, as they are generally more simplified and unified across the board than the specific feats of other systems. This creates less of an emphasis on both system mastery and character optimization through taking specific features through a class system.
This flexibility means too that many different genres can be modeled through the cypher system mechanics, from classic fantasy settings (without the setting defining ideas imposed by other systems, like Vancian magic), to post-apocalyptic, to superhero and comic book-style, and even historical and modern settings. The system's product lines reflect this, applying the system to the original Numenera (a medieval fantasy, setting in a fallen far-future setting), along with supplemts on how to adapt the system to the aforementioned genres. The system has even been applied to the folk horror genre in the Old Gods of Appalachia RPG, a game based on the popularpodcast of the same name.
Much of the narrative flexibility comes from the manner of constructing characters, and the nature of the skill system. That is that a character is created by picking from a number of characteristics describing who the character is, and what they are good at. The skill system, instead of providing a unique list of skills, instead provides some examples, but encourages a player to come up with their own skills, much as how one would describe themselves in real life. This enables both characters that are specialists, and ways to make characters generally useful. It also expands the ways in which various archtypes can be captured, contributing to the narrative flexibility of the system.
The various "types" of characters act similarly to classes, bounding the broad types of characters available in four large flavors: warriors, adepts (can be flavored as supernatural, magical, psychic, or other types of mystical abilities), explorers, and speakers (charismatic, probably bard like characters). However, because these don't represent all archetypes, there is an additional section of "flavor" providing lists of abilities that can be swapped in for those provided by the main types. These allow you to create rogue-like characters, or others with some unique skills. For instance, as I read the types section I found myself thinking of popular characters like Tony Stark (Ironman), and considering how I could build a particular character in multiple ways. The art is helpful on this count too, illustrating the myriad settings and genres the system can support. Descriptors and foci (or a character focus) add to the suctomization, but maintain the focus on describing a particular character fantasy.
Cypher is also unique in a focus on using flavor rather than mechanics to enable cinematic storytelling. I can certainly see how a lack of differentiation in damage and the simple mechanics might bore some players looking for a tactical and mechanically crunchy game. However, i think that certainly the Cypher framework is valuable like other universal systems for enabling narratives in settings that lack bespoke systems. I think it could even be useful in settings for other systems—for instance, in Eberron at times I feel that the D&D system mechanics get in the way of the swashbuckling and cinematic action that pervades the setting. Multiple times as I read through the Cypher system, I found myself thinking about how easily it could be ported to the Eberron setting without much fuss at all.
Now, I will note that I do think you lose something of specificity and mechanical rigor when building a game that can be applied across genres, and I'll have to see how I like not getting to roll any dice as the GM. Perhaps it will be as liberating as reported, allowing me to focus on all the improvisation that I'll have to be doing to offer meaningful GM intrusions to provide drama (and more importantly XP) for my players.
For that reason, I’m looking forward to trying it out. I want to also shout out the amazing tool suite that Monte Cook Games provides to facilitate character creation on its website. It's a great way to encourage play across a variety of platforms, and in particular I like the ability to export as both a pdf or a json file for use with Foundry VTT. Using this tool I've built out the characters from the long running tv series Supernatural, and also plan to build out the Guardians of the Galaxy to use in separate one-shots. I'll post more about my experiences when I have the opportunity to run them.
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| Image is by Kleoite, and used under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license |
I was thinking about the various campaign ideas I’ve had, and thought it might be a worthwhile exercise to write down all of the campaign ideas or short concepts I’ve thought of as sort of a wishlist. This will evolve over time, but it helps me to externalize some of these ideas so I have a reference to come back to later on.
Some GMs seem to run the same published scenarios multiple times. Based on the number of ideas I have and games I would like to play, I personally don’t have that luxury. There are so many stories I’d love to try that I personally don’t feel a desire to revisit any previous ones right now—I might repurpose material or use a specific scenario from one, but life is too short to do things over again.
Dragonlance Shadow of the Dragon Queen
Lost Mines of Phandelver
Ghosts of Saltmarsh
Ptolus (various adventures)
Empire of the Ghouls
1. Broken Weave campaign—a sandbox exploration campaign over multiple generations of player characters using Cubicle7’s Broken Weave supplement.
3. Northlands of Midgard Campaign
4. Eberron Pulp Adventure: Exploring Xen’drik
5. Mharoti Empire Midgard Campaign: Not sure if I want to do an overthrow the Empire or a work for the Empire within the caste system game.
6. Southlands Campaign: I’d like to take advantage of the great material focusing on non-Western cultural experiences in the Southlands of Midgard.
7. Planegea Clan Based Stone Age Campaign
8. Valikan Clans-Saga of the Seasons: Game in the Grimhollow setting using the prewritten adventure.
9. Epic Underdark Campaign: Mash up of Out of the Abyss, Rise of the Drow, and potentially Night Below.
10. Birthright Campaign: Play a long campaign using the For Gold & Glory retroclone rules along with the original Birthright books.
11. Tyranny of Dragons in my own setting: Play out a modified version of the Tyranny of Dragons adventure path in my own setting, potentially with warfare rules to set up the final battle with the Dragon Cult. It might be cool to play with 13th Age as the system.
12. Light of Xaryxis: Short Campaign through the pre written Spelljammer adventure.
13. Rappan Athuk Dungeoncrawl/Sandbox Campaign
14. Slumbering Tsar Dungeoncrawl/Sandbox Campaign
15. Planehopping Campaign using Classic Planescape adventures, along with additions from Monte Cook’s Path of the Planebreaker.
16. Traveller Sandbox Campaign
17. Trail of Cthulhu Eternal Lies campaign
18. Warband-Domain Campaign in the Remnants of the Empire in my setting: Heavy focus on building an army and capturing domains and strongholds as characters work up from leading a small warband to contesting the imperial throne. Potentially using the Shadowdark system.
19. Band of Blades Campaign: Game using the same named book and system from Evil Hat Games.
20. Storm King’s Thunder Campaign-Slightly modified version of the campaign.
21. Descent to Avernus in my own setting: Transplant the adventure into my own world.
22. Acquisitions Incorporated Themed Campaign
23. Shadow of the Demon Lord Short Campaign: A short campaign with Shadow of the Demon Lord Rules, leveling up after each session. Each session is episodic, taking characters from level 1 to 10.
24. Court of the Shadowfey: Playthrough the Kobold Press adventure with slight modifications.
25. Curse of Strahd/Domains of Dread: Yes, one day, I would like to play through this 5e adventure, called the greatest of the edition by some. May restrict characters to options from the 2014 PHB, Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, and Von Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft.
26. Eberron Last War Campaign: Play a company of soldier or military leaders of the Five Nations during the Last War. Explore major battles, significant events like the creation of the Warforged, and the Mourning.
27. Superhero Campaign: Using the Cypher System, play through a classic comic superhero style campaign.
28. Scarlet Citadel Campaign
29. Grimhollow Campaign: Not sure where, but a campaign set in Ghostfire Game’s Grimhollow setting.
30. Waterdeep Dragonheist: Try out the Alexandrian Remix.
31. Short Playthrough Wild Beyond the Witchlight: I don’t think this adventure needs to take too long, especially with milestone leveling.
31. Planespanning adventure focusing on the Inner Planes and the City of Brass
32. Mythic Odysseys of Theros Campaign
33. Ancient Roman or Greek Campaign: Potential using Shadowdark with modified classes and no spells.
34. Dark Sun Campaign: Ever since I heard of Dark Sun, the distinctive setting has intrigued me.
35. An Adventures in Middle-Earth Campaign
36. Band of Blades (Based on Blades in the Dark) Campaign
37. Empire of the Petal Throne Campaign: This setting has come under some controversy due to its creator’s racism, which I want to be sensitive to. While being conscious of that fact, I think there is a great deal of good in this setting and attempting to use and understand it as a creative work still has value.
38. Northern Winter, Rime of the Frostmaiden influenced campaign: I don’t care to run Rime of the Frostmaiden as written, but a campaign set in a harsh Northern environ without just a Viking theme (see the Northlands idea above) could be an interesting survival sandbox with some interesting plot ideas. I’d probably scrape Rime for parts for it.
39. Western Wastes Midgard Campaign: The idea of the post-apocalyptic wastes with rampant magic as opposed to the whole world settings of Arora: Age of Desolation or Broken Weave is interesting. Plus there’s the Wastes of Chaos sourcebook and interesting history of humans in Midgard to delve into. And lots of weird and wacky monsters that can pop in through rifts, portals, or be the result of terrible accidents of ancient war.
40. Grand Duchy of Dornig Domains Campaign: There are some domain type rules available in Tome of Heroes, which I think are optimal for use with the Grand Duchy and its internal politics. It’s also part of the Midgard Worldbook which I haven’t read yet, so holds some interesting mystique.
41. Regent of Bedegar Short Campaign: Short campaign employing the adventures from MCDM’s Strongholds & Followers and Kingdoms & Warfare.
42. Warhammer Space Marine Campaign: Using Wrath & Glory rules.
43. Imperium Maladictum Campaign
44. Esper Genesis Sci-fi Campaign
That’s probably way too many ideas to ever get through, but there you go.
Empire of the Ghouls players of mine, please check out another article...
Secret cave lair of the Night Cauldron of Chernobog. Lady Illmalad’s dhampir son, Fane, is a leader of the cult in this region and often is here with the other cultists. Spawn of Chernobog, Dark Folk, and other monsters.
This article builds out the brief description in the hex crawl key into a dungeon summary. I'm using the linked map from Dyson Logos, however I won't be reproducing it as it isn't one of his licensed maps.
Primary: Find and capture or kill Fane, Lady Illmalad’s dhampir son.
Secondary: Degrade the Night Cauldron of Chernobog’s ability to conduct operations in the region. Destroy as many of its members and infrastructure as possible.
Patrols of a cult fanatic and two cultists check the exterior of the cave every hour, leaving one of the cave entrances unguarded for the short time.
A ceremony of Chernobog is ongoing in the large chamber—the cultists call it the “Cauldron.”
A pool of black, brackish water sits in the lowest portion of the Cauldron. Sometimes offerings are tossed in the pool, which hides an otyugh.
The upper galleries of the cavern act as meeting areas and sleeping quarters for cultist leaders. The carved out rooms are storage areas for food and drink.
Gharsh: Darakhul Ghoul priest of Vardesain. Possesses notes from a Darakhul High Priest of Vardesain named Radomir Marrowblight, noted as the high priest of the Bone Cathedral of Vandekhul. These letters urge Gharsh to heed the guidance of “the Father of the High Feast” and to “keep in mind the interests of the Creed of All Flesh” as he negotiates with the Night Cauldron and Red Sisters to forge an alliance. They also contain references to “the rise of the Hunger Cults” which will “free the Darakhul from the shackles of the Feeding Laws.”
Sister Agonia: Red Sister of Marena. Meeting with the Night Cauldron to help negotiate an alliance between their cults along with the Creed of All Flesh. Sent by Blood Mother Flayedva, the high priestess of Gybick.
Fane: Dhampir commander, son of Lady Illmalad. Possesses the Book of Endless Dark, a gift from Nargoth.
Nargoth: Dark Voice, priest of Chernobog. Fane’s mentor in his studies of the mysteries of Chernobog. He possesses a letter from Kenas Sipkiln noting that “the work on the excavation of the Midnight Temple in the ruins of Nordheim goes well,” and that the restoration work is “on track for completion by the date of the Blood Wedding early next year.” The letters go on to praise the “Lord of the Night for his inspiration and infinite wisdom is allying with the ghouls of the Father of the High Feast and the Red Mother.” Finally he notes that their combined might will “sweep the feeble peoples and gods of Midgard away as Lord Chernobog should have done in the Vanir War of old.”
The Order of Battle for Lady Illmalad’s forces includes 20 light infantry men-at-arms working directly for her and her advisors. The Band of the Twice Damned possesses a company sized force composed of heavy and light infantry, archers, and a contingent of cavalry. A further company sized force guards Gybick under Lady Selena Bonecrusher, but will not necessarily aid Lady Illmalad.
The Twice Damned’s hideout is nearby, but their main force is encamped near Jatow.
Lady Illmalad’s ability to influence the region is hampered by the flowing water of the Yoshtula, which she cannot cross, so she uses her proxies by necessity.
This lore book was written for my Ptolus campaign. It was found in the lair of a cultist who murdered a colleague of his who also worked at the Imperial University as a lecturer.
This small notebook contains scribbles and doodles of the symbol of the Ebon Hand and the Tolling Bell. It contains entries by date. Some discuss Shurnas’ visits to the Temple of the Ebon Hand, including a garbled description of a “maze of confusion” where he found the way guided by “faith in the Ebon Hand, until he obtained its blessing.” It is unclear what this references.
It speaks further of hearing the true word from someone called "Wuntad," and the word sounding like "the call of the Tolling Bell, signaling the passing away of this realm and the rise of the Galchutt."
Other entries complain about work and colleagues, with particular ire for someone named Uvalius. The entire grow darker in their imaginings off various modes of Uvalius' death. The most recent entry simply states "The job is finally finished," with a large stylized bell.
I’m not the first person to have this idea, but I think it would be super cool to someday run the 5e campaign Tomb of Annihilation in Eberron. Playing to the swashbuckling adventure themes of the setting along with inspiration from treasure hunting and exploration like Indiana Jones, I think Eberron is the perfect place to explore to find lost cities and dungeons in a primordial continent.
So much like my Northland Campaign idea, I’ll be posting a few articles that should help remix the adventure for Eberron and guide a GM in running character creation for their players.
I have been thinking a lot about how to best introduce the warfare system from MCDM’s Kingdoms & Warfare to new groups of characters. It's not something that gets much treatment in the book, nor did the company give the product much support in Arcadia magazine. While I get the impression that they remain very proud of the product, I wonder if the issues with getting the book shipped to fulfill it's Kickstarter commitments largely distracted from any follow-on efforts to market or provide support for either the warfare system or the intrigue system. Flee Mortals! was also in production, and the OGL crisis also seemed to drive the acceleration of MCDM’s development on its own RPG.
My personal speculations and thoughts aside, these are some great systems, but they can be difficult to introduce to your players. As add-ons that really work largely regardless of your system, they definitely deserve more attention. I say this because you can certainly modify or ignore martial advantages, domain roles, and domain features depending upon the system you're playing in. The core abstractions of the intrigue and warfare systems can be applied to any setting or genre that you want.
I find it helpful to present a framing scenario that introduces some interesting lore. So I came up with the idea of setting your warfare tutorials on the plane of eternal conflict in the Great Wheel cosmology: Acheron. In the DMG and in Sigil and the Outlands, this plane is described as one of conflict with the spirits of slain warriors battling the followers of various war deities. This framing device means that narratively you can use any units you would like for different battles. You can work from small skirmishes all the way up to massive battles.
Battles in Acheron. A series of battles of increasing complexity to allow players and GMs to grasp the basics of MCDM's warfare rules.
Use units from Kingdoms & Warfare with new trait:
Endless in Valor. This unit will always reconstitute itself after a battle, as it’s immortal warriors marshal to win greater glory.
I was struck by the logistical ease of much of the play. Rolling dice and doing simple math (we used Shadowdark as our system) was quick and made sense to the players. It was easier to help them understand how the game mechanics worked in practice while sitting face-to-face. I did discover that pacing and standing was easier to GM and help them quickly than parking myself behind my screen (my screen is pretty tall). The screen then truly became my curtain to hide the notes and levers I pulled to run the game in Wizards of Oz fashion. Matt Dietrich’s Guide to Shadowdark Monster Statistics gave me a one page table that removed any necessity to consult the core book for monster stats. I just improvised the monster based on the level I felt appropriate in the chart (this is something I intend to leverage more in 5e going forward with the same type of chart from the Lazy GM’s 5e Monster Builder Resource Document from Sly Flourish.
Overall, I felt better able to respond and adapt in play while communicating with players face-to-face. It was significantly easier to teach two completely new players how to approach a roleplaying game than any of the previous eight players I’ve worked with virtually. It was also nice to simply hand them a copy of the book when they went to buy gear in the nearby village to solve a trap carefully.
So while I’m certainly not going to stop playing games via VTT anytime soon, this experience definitely showed me that at least I can achieve unique successes, particularly with newer players, while playing in person. For me, it may be the easiest way to teach a new RPG system, and particularly to introduce one using pen and paper sheets.
