Hello, backers—

Happy Thursday! The good news is you’re over halfway through the week. The bad is that we’re also over halfway through the Cypher—Advanced! campaign. Not to worry, though: we still have lots of cool Cypher news to share, and chances for you to help prioritize the content of Cypher Bestiary II and Cypher Decoded. Speaking of which. . . 

Yesterday we opened our second genre poll, detailing two possible new genres that Cypher Decoded could explore: Pulp Action and Weird Fantasy. The results are in! The second genre to be added to Cypher Decoded, following Espionage (which you voted for last week), is Pulp Action!

We were asked last year to contribute to a segment of the short-form documentary series All Access with Andy Garcia, which airs on PBS stations across the US. The production company took much of the footage from that segment and created this video about RPGs and MCG. We love the message of community and togetherness in the short film's story (it even won a couple of awards!). We hope you like it too!

(A side note: We posted a different version of this video to our YouTube channel yesterday, but it turned out that some of the stock footage used in that version included props generated by AI (such as a character sheet—or “Cliascic Charcism,” as it seemed to be labeled). Our position on generative AI is well-established; we were disappointed that the production company used this footage and deeply embarrassed that we didn't notice it ourselves. We took that version down and re-edited it to remove those shots. We stress that none of the actual content was ever AI-generated; it was limited to some of the props used in stock footage.)

When we announced the new edition of Cypher last year, we committed to full VTT support—in fact, we included VTT implementation as a reward for the Cypher: Faster. Easier. And Even Better! crowdfunding campaign. We've been working diligently on bringing that to you, and today we can announce a major step!

We've completed work on a fully functional character sheet for Roll20. It's been submitted, and will go live as soon as Roll20 approves it (possibly as soon as today!). Roll dice directly from the character sheet—applying Effort? It automatically adjusts your Pool points—and it calls out special roll results (extra damage or effects). You can easily share details of abilities, gear, and skills via chat. A fluid design gives you a thoughtful layout at any screen size. And you can import characters directly from the new Cypher Tools Character Builder!

Once live, the Cypher character sheet on Roll20 will be free to all users. In that regard, it's not technically part of the VTT crowdfunding reward—but bringing it live is a necessary step to enable the compendium and other elements of that package, which we continue to work on.

Build a Cypher character in minutes with the Cypher Character Builder, now in its public beta! This powerful tool takes you through the process quickly and efficiently. You can store and update your character throughout your campaign, and run your character directly from the Character Builder or by exporting to a PDF character sheet.

But that's not the only cool thing you'll find on Cypher Tools. Running the net in your cyberpunk game? Save time and keep those neurons fresh! Generate themes, glitches, and nodes complete with features and encounters with a single click. Cyberspace is infinite and moves at the speed of light—and so does the handy Hacker’s Matrix!

We make a lot of very handy decks, and the Datasphere Deck Tool makes them as useful and time-saving in virtual games as print decks are at the physical table. Draw or pick cards and “hand” them to your players through a DM, a VTT chat, your Discord channel, or however you run your game online.

And the best part? All three of these fantastic tools are completely free to use! 

So far, you’ve added two new creatures to the Cypher Bestiary II through polls: the Wyvern from Godforsaken and Inexorable from the Planar Bestiary. 

These flying monstrosities are sure to add some terror to your next campaign. For our next creature poll, we have a really interesting matchup: the Cambion versus the Sphinx!

Vote for your choice! This poll will close tomorrow morning.

We’ve been loving all the positive buzz online about Cypher, and ask you to keep it going just a bit longer!

We'd love to get this post on Bluesky to 10 reposts. If you have a minute and want to help this campaign be the best it can be, will you stop by and repost it?

Thanks so much for your continued support!
 —Team MCG