Nuts & Bolts #157 - Hacking the Cypher System - Role Play Informed Modifications

I've mentioned before my current Cypher campaign in the Nightbane setting (a Palladium RPG that's proving way more fun in Cypher System). The players are really getting into things and exceeding my expectations for role playing in a horror setting. Horror games can be tough if the players aren't on board for playing horror, but so far this hasn't been the case for this tale of people turned monsters. In the course of the campaign thus far fear and paranoia on the part of the characters has been playing strongly into the actions of the players. Even better the dice seem to be in on the fun and have been supporting things.

Picture the scene ... one of the characters has found that by traveling through mirrors he can access a parallel shadowy earth; a twisted realm known as the Nightlands. He convinces a second character to help him take the bodies of two doppelgangers they killed to the Nightlands for "disposal." This second PC has been pretty freaked out by everything and is reluctant to go to this scary sounding Nightlands place, but he mans up and tries ... and fails. He spends a moment to put some effort into it and tries again ... and fails, again. He spends and XP, and still fails (mind you a lvl 4 task with effort he only needs a 9+). He takes a recovery to get some points back and collect himself and tries, and fails, again.

I mention this not because these moments are amusing and memorable but because I've been taking these role playing moments, and using them in conjunction with a little use portion of the optional rules: XP Advances.

You'll find the text for XP advances in the Cypher System Rulebook on page 230-231. The basic gist is that the player can trade negative character traits for XP. For example a character who is wanted by the law might get ~4-6 bonus XP. Normally such traits and their trade off bonuses are the domain of character creation, but I've started to use the rule in the situations above to give role-play informed modifications to characters in exchange for Advancements.

So in the example above I offered the player a permanent Inability in tasks related to traveling through mirrors (a pretty big deal since the Nightlands are the only place to get Cyphers for this character in this game) and in exchange an advancement for extra edge in a pool of his choice. I did similar for another player whose character continually refused to transform back into their human guise. These are optional for the players and I only offer them when it feels right for the character and the story, but so far it has been well received and has made for interesting character development and roleplay.

If a GM wasn't willing to give out entire advancements they could hand out XP, or other short, medium, or long term benefits. These types of character impacting modifications should obviously be taken carefully and not abused. Let the game guide you and only offer them when it feels earned by the direction of the role-play and the game.

Nuts & Bolts #154 - Hacking the Cypher System - Nightbane & Cyphers

This is a follow up to this post about using the Cypher System, and especially the design aspects laid out by Unmasked, to resurrect one of my favorite game settings: Nightbane.

So after kicking things off successfully with the characters finding their true nature as shape-shifting monsters of shadow and darkness (though really they are more dual nature, and they aren't evil per-se, so monsters may be a bit racist) the third session finally found myself as GM with an opportunity to expand the setting for the characters. While washing the blood off himself one of the PCs found himself drawn into the bathroom mirror and into the shadow-Earth known as the Nightlands.

With his arrival into this place I also had the first opportunity to provide one of the PCs with a cypher. I'm using this game to try out something a little different for cyphers. Firstly, cyphers are going to be PC abilities and not physical objects, kind of like a subtle cypher, but without the need for the effects to be subtle. Secondly the source of cyphers will depend on the character's supernatural nature. A nightspawn (because Todd McFarland can't sue me for using the game's original title!) gain cyphers from the nightlands, the shadowy alternate earth which may also be their home dimension. They essentially get to charge up strange and powerful one off abilities when visiting that realm; abilities that will stick with them until used.

The half-vampire dhampirs gain cyphers by consuming blood, providing them with a very real hero vs. monster struggle for players to (hopefully) have fun with. Human psychics will need to spend time in the astral realm, the dream realm, or during intense meditation (depending on their particular psychic leaning). Ordinary humans will almost certainly be associated with the covert remnants of the legitimate US government (a.k.a. the Spook Squad) and have access to prototypes and special devices that with act as more traditional cyphers.

I'm hoping that this will work to make cyphers feel integral to the setting in the way that they do for Numenera. Likewise, I hope that this will give the players something to sink their teeth into for role-play purposes. Time and more sessions will determine how well this works.

Nuts & Bolts #153 - Hacking the Cypher System - Nightbane

Nightbane is not a game that a lot of folks know. I've mentioned it in the past. It's an older game from Palladium Books that I first picked up in college back in 1996 (a fact that I know because I found the receipt in the back of the book last night). I've long since given up on Palladium's house system because I just find it to be too much, and as a result a lot of the games I played when I started gaming have sat on bookshelves and waited for their turn to come back around again. Always I would see them and want to play but every time I tried the rules stopped me cold.

When the Cypher System Rulebook came out a couple of years back I really started to look at Cypher as a way to bring back Nightbane for myself and my friends. The focus changing aspects of The Strange had shown me that there a way forward, but I still couldn't quite break the problem of the core characters, the titular nightbane. Nightbane are supernatural shapeshifters. The have a human facade and a monstrous morphus. The facade form is just human, no powers, no abilities beyond that of a normal non-heroic person, but the morphus is a powerhouse.

Thankfully Unmasked came along and gave me the final piece of the puzzle. A duality for form can exist no just by replacing a part of the character's sentence as in The Strange, but by omitting it entirely. The teens in Unmasked are given only a few pool points and a descriptor. Their masked alter egos gain not only a full character sentence but shifts as well. My eyes were opened and I knew, at last, how to make the nightbane work.

I started my players with a descriptor and an occupation, a Hideous Gravedigger, a Perceptive Electrician, and a Creative Tech Consultant. These were the human guises of the players, the as yet unaware of their true nature nightbane player characters. Each character started with 5 points in each pool, modified by their descriptor as appropriate, and that was it. This is less than the teens in Unmasked, and may seem harsh, but Nightbane is, in part, a horror game and the mortal facade form needs to feel weak and vulnerable.

Their morphus forms however gained not just a type and descriptor, becoming a Hideous Warrior who Rages, a Perceptive Explorer who is Sworn to the Seal*, and a Creative Adept who Needs no Weapons, but they also gained shifts, assigned by me, based on the appearance of their twisted and monstrous nightbane morphuses. These we determined the old fashioned way, using the tables in the original RPG's book.

*Sworn to the Seal is a rename of Sworn to the Crown, but this character is loyal to the US Government instead.

Getting back to my gaming past proved a wonderful experience and CYpher proved more than equal to the task of taking an old Palladium Books game and breathing new life into it for my friends and I, much in the same way that it had for Palladium's After the Bomb at Gen Con 2017 when I ran Furry Road.