Cephalon Dusp's Archives

 Forewarning      I would like to make it clear that I have enjoyed playing The Strange   and the group I play with have all enjoyed it as well. We originally started playing it as an alternative to our main 5E campaign since our normal DM was feeling a bit burnt out and we ended up turning it into our main campaign for several months. As we played it, everyone had a character and whoever had anything prepared would step up to run a one-to-few shot.      It was fun and we had a great campaign which we have decided to end for now, but the entirety of this post is going to consist of me basically tearing down this game because it comes so close to being great. As I have come to expect with Monte Cook / Cypher System games, it has poor organization, low-resolution maps, and issues writing rules in a way that makes using them easy. Someday I will write up something about that, but I won't be focusing on that for today's review. Now, lets get started. ...

     Very recently, I finished my first campaign as a DM. It was run in Monte Cook's Cypher System, using their Unmasked campaign/setting/splat-book. The campaign lasted 26 sessions, not counting our session 0, and told a fairly complete story. There is a lot to dive into, so lets get going. The Cypher System     For those unfamiliar with it. t he Cypher System is a story-telling system created by Monte Cook, which is the system behind their most well known game: Numenera.           As a quick summary, the game works with d20s. The DM tells the players what the "level" of any task they are attempting is, and they need to roll that number times three on a d20 to succeed (ex: Level 3 task = 9 target number). Through spending effort (which depletes pools doubling as your health) or using skills, tools, or abilities, players can reduce the level of a task. This becomes absolutely necessary when confronted with any task of level 7 or hig...