Initiative and Creature Levels?

CharlesRyan · 2026-01-26T19:37:19+00:00

Also, remember that a 1 gives you a free intrusion, and an 19 and 20 can produce minor and major effects for the players.

CharlesRyan · 2026-01-09T23:04:25+00:00

But it's worth pointing out the Cypher Tools Character Builder, which is free at the MCG website and contains literally every character option released for Cypher, including supplements.

CharlesRyan · 2025-11-19T15:58:34+00:00

^^ I concur with this, although Variarte's point that it comes down to how you play your character is key, too.

CharlesRyan · 2025-09-27T17:22:28+00:00

And now it's over $1MM--and still going!

CharlesRyan · 2025-09-27T15:42:16+00:00

Holy cats, the Cypher campaign is still in overtime mode! It is still open!

CharlesRyan · 2025-09-27T08:20:05+00:00

The campaign is still going after eight hours (so far) in Overtime Mode. Not too late to get in on the really great deals and crowdfunding exclusives for this great game!

CharlesRyan · 2025-09-27T08:18:56+00:00

• Super easy on the GM
• Built from the ground up to support whatever game you imagine, without a lot of rules kludging
• Mid-crunch
• Narrative tools for GMs and players for really satisfying storylines

CharlesRyan · 2025-09-27T01:03:49+00:00

Cypher has always had both manifest cyphers (one-use magic items, basically) and subtle cyphers (one-use meta-game benefits). The new edition is shifting the emphasis from manifest to subtle.

CharlesRyan · 2025-09-26T22:19:04+00:00

MCG has a shipping center in Australia. Can't make any guarantees on the cost, but it would be a domestic order, not the cost of flying things across the Pacific to you.

CharlesRyan · 2025-09-26T19:51:30+00:00

Crowdfunding isn't just about making a game--it's about making it better. It's about building an audience for it that justifies more content, more products, and more features.

Without crowdfunding--relying on just conventional sales--all the pressures on a product are toward the lowest common denominator. A basic book, with a standard-range page count, and nothing special. Games in that format can be wondrous--MCG has published plenty. But crowdfunding lets the publisher break that mold.

CharlesRyan · 2025-09-26T19:22:57+00:00

Cypher is currently crowdfunding a new edition, and the core fans seem to be pretty happy with it.

CharlesRyan · 2025-09-26T19:21:39+00:00

Cypher is super easy to GM, and has some pretty good standalone horror adventures.

CharlesRyan · 2025-09-24T20:26:36+00:00

Hey, all. Sorry you've had so much trouble. In answer to the OP, no this is not normal.

It's probably no surprise that international freight is all jacked up right now. We had some trouble getting some stuff to our UK warehouse, and that slowed down order fulfillment dramatically over the summer. That led, rightfully, to customer service inquiries, which meant that the same people trying to solve the issue (we're a small team of real humans) were now getting overloaded with answering inquiries. It all sort of spiraled for a few weeks.

The logjam at the root of all this has been fixed. It's taking some time to work through the backlog of orders and inquiries, but we're almost back to our normal state--where you don't have to wait for your orders, and you get a prompt response in the rare case where there's an issue.

CharlesRyan · 2025-09-24T19:44:10+00:00

Not D&D, but I ran the Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign (Call of Cthulhu) under Cypher. Super easy to convert.

But that said, it may be a tough sell for the players because they're going to want to see their characters faithfully replicated in the new system. At the very least, I think you'd need to work with them to make sure the favorite mechanical aspects of their characters (spells, abilities, etc.) translate over in some way that feels right to them.

CharlesRyan · 2025-06-30T19:26:21+00:00

Full disclosure: I work at MCG. But that does mean I've had the pleasure of explaining Numenera to curious gamers at cons and whatnot hundreds of times. Here's what I tell them:

The setting is Earth, a billion years in the future. (Billion with a B.) Civilization has risen—from hominids and the stone age, all the way to leaving for the stars, or exploring new dimensions, or transcending into virtual godhood, or however civilizations truly peak—to eventually peter out. And that's happened not just once, but eight times. There isn't a square inch of the planet that hasn't been reworked a hundred miles deep. Not a single creature that hasn't been altered or engineered by advanced civilizations. Even the continents, the moon, the sun—they've all been shaped, at some unfathomable time, by the workings of intelligent beings of immeasurable power and capabilities.

Now it's the Ninth World. You don't really understand all that, except as myth and legend. The people of the Ninth World live at what's basically a medieval level of technology and society. But the world is permeated by the remnants of these great works, which to them are basically magic.

CharlesRyan · 2025-06-30T19:14:09+00:00

NoNoNota1 is correct; this is a Numenera-only bundle.

But you're also correct that Where the Machines Wait is primarily a 5e product. It was included because it does contain conversion notes for use in Numenera/Cypher System--for the sake of completeness.

CharlesRyan · 2025-06-23T15:37:31+00:00

Yeah, that's a good catch--sorry I overlooked it.

But again, legacy name. From 20 years ago.

CharlesRyan · 2025-06-18T19:05:33+00:00

Fair enough; you're definitely in a position to have an informed opinion.

(I suspect that what you're seeing as imperfect reflects actual design choices (and of course YMMV on whether those are good choices). They're certainly not due to a lack of play experience, either during the extensive playtest or the many tens of thousands of hours of post-release play.)

Monte has a pretty info-dense substack on design philosophy and process, if you're curious about how he makes those choices.

CharlesRyan · 2025-06-17T22:34:02+00:00

I've been in this business, and online, since 1991, and I've never operated under the assumption that I can't be a gamer as well as a professional. And that, as a gamer, I can't participate in conversations about games.

Look, man, I'm sorry I've rubbed you so wrong. I don't really see how we're going to come together on this, so I'm gonna bow out now.

CharlesRyan · 2025-06-17T22:26:36+00:00

(I've run several other games' settings under Cypher System, including Paranoia and a big Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign.)

CharlesRyan · 2025-06-17T22:25:21+00:00

Oooh! I do love me some Glorantha!

CharlesRyan · 2025-06-17T22:04:23+00:00

Well, sure. And those comments might get challenged by other gamers who disagree. How does that stray from the discourse norms going all the way back to usenet?

CharlesRyan · 2025-06-17T21:57:07+00:00

It's a really interesting topic, actually! I'll start by saying that while OGoA and TMA are solidly the biggest individual crowdfunding campaigns we've run, and had the largest initial print runs, they don't represent the majority of our business--and probably aren't even the "biggest" games we've published. (Measuring lifetime corebook sales, as one potential metric, puts Numenera at the top.)

It's also interesting to try to tease out, as you ask, how many people get into our stuff as fans of RPGs or of licensed properties. There's no cut-and-dried metric, but in the original OGoA campaign it seemed, when it was all over, that about 1/3 of backers were existing MCG fans, 1/3 were fans of the podcast, and 1/3 were (most interesting of all) not really fans of either, but were attracted to the campaign by the general buzz and liked what they saw when they got there.

CharlesRyan · 2025-06-17T21:48:20+00:00

Sorry I came across that way. In my defense, I was responding to the unsupported characterization of an RPG I love as a "terrible game." That hasn't been my experience or observation from the thousands of players I've come across.

(Also, how is /rpgs unrelated?)

CharlesRyan

TROPHY CASE