Let's Make This Cypher System Playmat!
over 3 years ago – Fri, Dec 04, 2020 at 11:05:32 AM

Several years ago, we introduced a playmat for the Cypher System. Because the Cypher System doesn’t have as many tables and charts as a lot of games, the GM doesn’t roll any dice, and the game’s narrative approach discourages having a wall—physical or metaphorical—between the players and the GM, a playmat seemed like a good alternative to the conventional GM screen.

Fans apparently agree with us, because they love that playmat. We use the heck out of ours, and they’re a favorite of con GMs and members of our Asset Team as well.

It's great—but we can make it better!

This new playmat will be roughly 24” x 32”—almost twice the size of the original Cypher System playmat. That’s large enough to make the most of its striking artwork and information, but not too big for modestly sized gaming tables.

As you can see, the playmat is stunning to look at, and it’ll be a beautiful centerpiece to your gaming table. But it’s also practical: along the edges there’s reference info of interest to the GM and the players—things like damage track and special roll result info, task difficulty and damage from hazards tables for the GM, distance definitions, armor and weapon damage info, and other things players and GMs sometimes have to look up during play. It’s all there in front of you so that you can focus on your story, not on flipping through the book. And the fabric surface, with a rubberized backing, makes a great die rolling surface.

This is not a stretch goal. This is something we want to make, and something we think you’ll really love to have. So we’re just going to do it! We’re going to make it, and you can get it as an add-on for just $30.

But Wait—It Gets Better!

We’re going to add the playmat to every backer level, from The Danger Room up. So if you’re backing at that level, Brand New Hero, Any Character, Any Campaign, or THOOOM!, your rewards just got awesomely better! (Not at those levels? An upgrade from Superteam to The Danger Room is just $30—the same cost as adding it on. Plus you get the other benefits of the higher reward level!)

Shout It to the World!

If you like what we’re making with this campaign, and would like to see your rewards get even better, the ONLY way to make this happen is to help us bring in new backers.

Please help spread the word. It’s easy—just tell people about it on social media or wherever you talk about games online.

• Share this post on Facebook 
• Retweet this tweet 
• Share or tweet the link to this recent EN World article (and comment in the thread!)
• Or write your own thoughts on why you’re excited about this campaign, and share those!

However you do it, please help spread the word. New backers are the only way we drive the campaign forward, and hit the stretch goals we all want to hit!

Exciting News As We Move toward the End Game!
over 3 years ago – Thu, Dec 03, 2020 at 06:12:52 PM

Hi, all! If you’re among our American backers, we hope you had a pleasant, relaxing, and safe Thanksgiving holiday. (For those of you in other countries, we certainly hope your weekend was all of those things, too!)

It’s normal, at least in the eighteen Kickstarter campaigns we’ve previously run (and the hundreds we’ve backed) for the launch and closing weeks to be very exciting, and the middle part to be somewhat slow. This campaign has followed that pattern, but the “doldrums” period is nearing its end. Things will start heating up as we head into the final stage!

Let’s light that fire a bit early!

We have a number of cool things we’re going to roll out over the next few days. Some of them are items we’d just like to make (like the dice we added to the campaign a couple of weeks ago)—things that will benefit the Cypher System and make your games better, more exciting, or easier to run. Some offer more insight into what we’re going to do. And others are benefits for backers that you’ve suggested in the Kickstarter comments and elsewhere. Let’s start with one of those.

More Backers Get Playtest Access

When we set up this Kickstarter, we figured existing Cypher System fans would be the backers most interested in playtesting. And that those fans wouldn’t take the higher-level reward tiers, because they contain loads of existing books they probably already own. But it turns out that a lot existing fans are attracted to the great deals offered at the Any Character, Any Campaign and THOOOM! levels—and they want playtest access.

So we’re giving it to you!

Early access and playtest participation is now included in all reward levels at The Danger Room and above.

Kickstarter doesn’t let us change the text of the backer levels once a campaign has started, so you won’t see this change there. But we’ve updated the main text of the Kickstarter page. If you'd like to be part of the playtest, or just have early access to the materials to roll the mechanics into your existing Cypher System campaign (or just to check them out early), you’ll now get that chance at all the higher tiers.

Monte Talks Heroes on EN World

EN World recently interviewed Monte about this campaign and our design team’s take on superheroes. It’s a great read, with some lively conversation as well. Check it out!

Help Us Take Off!

The items we’re rolling out this week aren’t stretch goals—we’re just gonna do ‘em. But we’re still marching forward on stretch goals too, and we can meet them faster (and make your rewards better) only one way: Attracting new backers to this campaign.

Please help spread the word. It’s easy—just tell people about it on social media or wherever you talk about games online.

• Share this post on Facebook (you can also comment and like, but shares are what really reach new people!)
• Retweet this tweet 
• Share or tweet the link to the EN World article (and comment in the thread!)
• Or write your own thoughts on why you’re excited about this campaign, and share those!

However you do it, please help spread the word. New backers are the only way we drive the campaign forward and hit the stretch goals we all want to hit!

Inside The Origin
over 3 years ago – Mon, Nov 30, 2020 at 11:43:27 PM

The Origin is a companion sourcebook for Claim the Sky. Whereas Claim the Sky presents a world in which superheroes are a fact of life, The Origin looks at the other end of the genre’s spectrum. The setting is far more “normal”—at least at first glance. Powers exist, but only in the shadows. No spandex or capes here.

Instead, player characters in this setting must come to grips with the fact that they can do things normal humans cannot, and then decide what to do with these abilities. Meanwhile, clandestine departments from the government, terrorist organizations, and even more mysterious groups seek to find those with powers. Some may want to study them. Others to recruit. Still others to destroy. Who can the characters ally themselves with? Whose motives can they trust? And at the heart of it all, what is the event that gave birth to these superhuman abilities in the first place—what is the origin?

Making Crises Exciting in First Responders
over 3 years ago – Mon, Nov 23, 2020 at 10:44:46 PM

First Responders promises to make scenarios dealing with a major crisis or disaster as gripping as any other RPG scenario.

This section, taken from the rough draft of the current manuscript, suggests how that’s done.

Beyond this general introductory section, each type of crisis will be presented in detail, with its own goals and encounters as well as all the information needed to run it as a complete scenario (or multiple scenarios) and engage with it as a player character (PC).

Goals

Goals are kind of like “victory conditions.” In a fantasy RPG adventure, for example, the goal might be “slay the dragon” or “recover the magic ruby.” They’re pretty straightforward and they allow the players to know if they succeeded or failed.

In First Responders, the kinds of missions the PCs undertake can present goals that seem more nebulous (do something to help the victims of that earthquake) or far too large (contain that massive wildfire). Thus, we have to develop a new way of looking at goals for the PCs.

Every mission the PCs embark upon should have either an achievable goal or an amalgamated goal, or perhaps both.

Achievable Goal

You and your team can’t actually stop a hurricane or extinguish the entire wildfire that is currently engulfing thousands of acres. These are not achievable by a group of PCs (or in some cases by anyone in a realistic setting).

So what each mission does have is a specific, achievable goal. A few examples help shed light on what this means.

Hurricane: Save the seven families that remain trapped in a small coastal town.

Building Collapse: Locate the six individuals still missing before the structure collapses any further.

Epidemic: Locate the original source of the outbreak.

Lost in the Wild: Find the three lost hikers before the blizzard moves in, and get them off the mountain to safety.

The achievable goal is always specific and measurable, so the players know when the mission is over.

Amalgamated Goal

A mission can also have an amalgamated goal. This can be in addition to, or instead of, an achievable goal.

The amalgamated goal is to accomplish a certain number of small victories that add up to an overall victory. The PCs might not be able to stop the volcano from erupting, but they can build a number of trenches to control (or slow) the lava flow, evacuate a certain number of people, and save a research team trapped by an avalanche of rock and lava. Essentially, the scenario provides a number of points to each action that the PCs might take. The accumulated total represents the ongoing effort put forth. Lots of little “battles” can win the “war.”

In a scenario with both types of goals, the PCs track their total amalgamated score, but the actions dictated in the achievable goal must be a part of that total.

Encounters

Of course, not everything in a crisis is straightforward or easy. Nature (or whatever caused the disaster) throws a few curve balls at those who stand against it. As the PCs make and enact their plans to achieve their goals, encounters present situations that they must contend with. Some might be expected, and others might not.

Challenge Encounters

A challenge encounter typically involves a single task, although there may be many actions needed to complete the task. Sometimes, the challenge itself is hard, like lowering a stretcher from a helicopter in high winds. Sometimes, the challenge isn’t all that difficult, but it must be completed quickly, like organizing the locals to build a sandbag wall to keep back the rising floodwaters.

Unexpected challenge encounters often come in the form of GM intrusions. A fallen tree blocks the only road out of a remote, heavily forested area. An aftershock further threatens the collapse of a building the PCs are in while looking for earthquake survivors. An angry mob gathers around the health care workers during a viral outbreak. The levy breaks.

The Cypher System, with GM intrusions and PC use of effort, is uniquely suited to creating a tense, action-packed, and thrilling narrative in such encounters.

Contested Encounters

In a contested encounter, the challenge is a direct threat and the PCs face it head on. In a typical RPG adventure, a contested encounter would be a fight. The PCs run afoul of a hideous beast or a nasty enemy and combat ensues. In First Responders, we take that same general idea but we apply it far more broadly.

Sometimes, a contested encounter might indeed be an actual physical fight. Rescue workers contending with a hurricane in southern Florida might have to deal with alligators, for example. Even then, however, the fight probably isn’t like those you’d have in other RPG situations, because the workers aren’t likely interested in killing the gators, and they probably don’t have straightforward weapons anyway.

But perhaps most interesting are the contested encounters that basically treat a part of the crisis as a “creature.” The most straightforward example would be in a large building fire. A small portion of the fire will be given stats more or less like a Cypher System creature—a level, health, damage inflicted, and so on. Round by round, the characters fight the fire, using fire extinguishing equipment or tactics, while the fire moves, burns, flares, chokes and does all the dangerous things a fire can do. In a whole scenario, the PCs might have to battle many different such fires, and they’re not all the same based on intensity and the surrounding environment (a fire near a pile of dirty rags is more dangerous than one just burning up the wall, but the one near the propane tank is worse still).

Some contested encounters within certain crises will become very abstract. In a flood, the floodwaters might be given a level, and it’s in fact the banks of the river that take the damage it inflicts. A sandbag wall might provide armor. In an epidemic, the virus is an abstracted “creature” spreading, and the only way to damage it is to keep people from spreading it while at the same time administering a vaccine. In these more abstracted contested encounters, the time frame becomes very different from a standard Cypher System battle, and a “round” might last hours, days, or even weeks. The thing to remember, though, is that all the same principles apply. The PCs act, and then their opponent acts. Attacks are made, effort is used, damage is inflicted, armor is taken into account, effects take hold, and so on. Each type of crisis will offer its own unique take on these kinds of encounters.

And obviously, just like in any encounter, GM intrusions (and of course, player intrusions) can significantly alter the flow of the story, making things more exciting and more challenging.

Poster Map Unlocked—the Next One Is Really Cool!
over 3 years ago – Thu, Nov 19, 2020 at 02:55:31 PM

We’ve done it! Thanks to all the backers who helped spread the word about this campaign, we’ve reached $120,000 and Claim the Sky is now getting a huge, beautiful, double-sided poster map!

So what’s next? How about this:

GM intrusions are one of the design elements that help make the Cypher System such a fluid, fast-paced, and narrative-focused game system—as well as a real pleasure to GM! A good GM intrusion introduces an unexpected factor that spices up a scene, creates a turning point in an adventure, or throws a little wrench into the PCs’ best-laid plans. Sometimes GMs prepare them in advance, but often they occur spontaneously, where the GM sees a cool opportunity, or a 1 comes up on a d20 roll.

Unfortunately, just like a snappy comeback, sometimes you think of the most awesome GM intrusion about five minutes after you needed it. At the table, or in prep, it helps to have a little inspiration!

The GM Intrusion Deck will give you 100 cards with ideas for GM intrusions. They’re broken into three categories: combat intrusions, social intrusions, and miscellaneous intrusions. (It will be based on an existing deck for Numenera, but will have loads of new ideas.) Need an intrusion on the fly, or some inspiration when planning your game? Just draw a card. Or draw two or three, and pick the one you like. Or just use them to inspire some other great idea.

The GM Intrusion Deck helps you make the most of this key feature of the game. And it’ll be added in print, to the rewards of every level from Superteam and up (and in PDF to PDF Mega Event and up), if we make it to $150,000.

And remember, we also have our eye on the Cypher System Bestiary, which will unlock if we make it to $250,000. Every new pledge that gets us toward the GM Intrusion Deck also helps reach the Cypher System Bestiary. New backers are what get us there, so please take a moment to help spread the word about this campaign!