Charles Ryan

CREATOR

7 months ago

Project Update: GM’s Guide Expanded!

Hello, backers—

What an exciting launch period we’ve been having—you’ve unlocked yet another stretch goal! The Cypher GM’s Guide is getting bigger, with more creatures, cyphers, equipment, and artifacts included in the many genres it covers. This matches the expansion you’ve already funded for the Cypher Player’s Guide. And both books, plus the Cypher Bestiary, have already had production upgrades including foil covers, giving your copies an exclusive premium finish that won’t be part of the standard edition available in the future.

A mockup of the Cypher GM's Guide, flanked by the Cypher Character Rulebook and Cypher Bestiary, all showing off their lustrous foil covers.

And as a bonus, as we do with every stretch goal unlocked, we’re adding a vinyl sticker to your rewards—free! It’s just an extra little thank you for supporting the campaign and helping unlock these stretch goals.

A mockup of a laptop with the four unlocked stickers on it.

You chose that sticker design via our recent poll. We’re starting up another poll for the next one—see below.

Let’s Talk Divination Deck

A (so far!) undersung offering in this campaign is the Divination Deck. The 50 cards of this Tarot-sized deck each feature a divinatory image that inspires all sorts of ideas on the fly. Any time you’re at a turning point in the game, or would like some inspiration for a plot wrinkle, a GM intrusion, a cypher choice, an NPC’s attitude, or even the weather, just draw a card.

A mockup of the Divination Deck, showing the tarot-sized cards with a beautiful ornate card back design, the face of a card labeled Knife, and the box the deck comes in.

Say you draw the Knife. It implies conflict or a wound. Change, a violent or at least drastic reaction, or the splitting of bonds. This alone can inspire the direction you take an NPC, a scene, or your narrative overall. But in addition, the accompanying book suggests intrusions, NPCs and their traits, cyphers, assets, creatures, and more.

You aren’t expected to use all of this each time you draw. Maybe in one scene, you simply want an adversary for a random encounter. Draw a card for a creature suggestion. Maybe later you’d like an intrusion idea. Draw three cards, and choose the one with the vibe that best matches the current scene, using the intrusion it suggests. And if you’re stuck for a plot twist later that session, draw another card for its divinatory recommendation. The Diviniation Deck is a limitless font of GM inspiration and time-savings in a beautiful format.

So let’s make it even more beautiful. With this stretch goal, we’ll upgrade the Divination Deck with premium features such as foil stamping on the card backs, upgraded paper and finish, and a deluxe box. We think the Diviniation Deck will be a central feature on the game table of any GM who loves a bit of inspiration on the fly, and we want to do it justice. We’ll unlock this upgrade to the Divination Deck when we reach 2900 backers.

And after that? We have so many great ideas for making the most of your Cypher experience, and weeks left to unlock more wondrous stretch goals!

But We Need Your Help!

We’re unlocking stretch goals by reaching new backers. There are thousands of gamers out there who haven’t heard about this campaign yet—and try as we might, we can’t reach even a fraction of them without the help of backers. Sharing an image or a bit of information is a great way for you to help spread the word. It only takes a second.

REASON 1 CYPHER WILL BE YOUR NEXT FAVORITE TTRPG. START PLAYING WHENEVER, WHEREVER You'll be able to jump into play even more quickly with Cypher, both in terms of making characters and building campaigns. Playing right from the box is getting even easier!

REASON 2 CYPHER WILL BE YOUR NEXT FAVORITE TTRPG. START GMING TODAY The Cypher System is amazingly easy to GM-but it's getting even easier. If you can decide how hard something is on a scale of 1 to 10, you can resolve anything in Cypher. The GM sets a difficulty, the PCs' skills, tactics, and choices might reduce that difficulty, and then the player makes a simple die roll. (And it's always the player-the GM never rolls!) It's fast, effortless, and focused on narrative and choices rather than numbers and math!

REASON 3 CYPHER WILL BE YOUR NEXT FAVORITE TTRPG. PREP TIME? WE DON'T KNOW HER It's Friday and the players will be here in 15 minutes? If you have a cool idea and a number between 1 and 10, you've got an encounter. You can build sophisticated stat blocks in less than five minutes. You can run completely on the fly! The GM's imagination is freed up to make your game cool, interesting, and fun-you'll spend almost no time on the mechanics!

REASON 1 CYPHER WILL BE YOUR NEXT FAVORITE TTRPG. BUILT-IN TOOLS HELP GMS AND PLAYERS FORGE THE STORY THEY WANT TO EXPERIENCE Want to add a fun twist or unexpected curveball to a scene or storyline? Punch up an encounter or an entire adventure? Throw in a GM intrusion—a mechanic that lets you turn the tables on the PCs a bit, but in a way that's fair and fun for them. They have their own tools, including player intrusions and Effort (to increase their odds in a clutch situation). XP is a currency that players can expend for story benefits as well as character advancement.

Here are four great reasons gamers you know might love Cypher. (We'll post more in the future.) Right-click an image to download it. Then give it a share, with the link mymcg.info/cypher

Everyone you reach takes us one step closer to unlocking this stretch goal—and, hopefully, many more to come!

Sticker Time!

If we unlock this upgrade to the Divination Deck, we’ll also add a free bonus sticker to your rewards. Which one should we make?

The poll is at the bottom of this post—vote!

Thanks for your support!
—Team MCG

Every time we unlock a stretch goal, we add a sticker to the rewards of EVERY backer. Which sticker design should we unlock next? See update 6 for a closer look at the two designs!

321 votes • Final results

19

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