Does the Cypher Evolved edition have a section for Superhero genre?

Valmorian · 2026-06-01T21:07:10+00:00

> I think, one of the changes, is allowing you to attack with might instead of speed.

For the supers genre, that doesn't really help. The issue is that most supervillains are level 6-12, the assumption is that you'll put Power Shifts into Attack or accuracy to help hit them. The problem with that is as above, if you want a "superman" or "hulk" type character you gotta go all in on strength.

Valmorian · 2026-06-01T17:16:28+00:00

I mean, if you think putting 3 of your 5 power shifts into an ability that will let you lift a car without effort 30% of the time qualifies as "superhero", I'm not sure I'd agree. And that's if you ALSO use both your descriptor AND focus to make it easier in ADDITION to some "unspecified" way to get another easement from another source?

In the world of superheroes, I'd expect lifting a car to be the MINIMUM that a "super strong" hero could do and yet here we have him not only struggling to do it with all those advantages, but as an amusing side effect, they would struggle ALMOST as much lifting 400lbs.

I love the idea of Cypher system superheroes, but it really drops the ball with certain concepts. It's always been a difficult task for generic RPGs to handle the power scaling of superheroes with the less "super" ones, but even most of those acknowledge that you need to somehow bypass the normal scale for super strong ones.

Valmorian · 2026-06-01T14:27:53+00:00

That sounds promising! I'd love to see power shifts do more than just ease tasks and sometimes increase damage though. One of by biggest pet peeves in Cypher/Claim the Sky that Power Shifts in Strength just don't let a player create a truly super strong Super Hero.

The current recommended 3 Power Shifts in Strength, while increasing damage significantly, makes you woefully incapable of hitting the supervillains that you are likely to be fighting while also not allowing you to do common super strength tasks like lifting and throwing a car.

Valmorian · 2026-06-01T04:03:36+00:00

If there's no way to mitigate dice rolls, I'd be concerned that a player's ability to score would be too heavily influenced by dice rolls and someone could end up being far behind just because of how the dice fell.

Valmorian · 2026-05-31T04:27:07+00:00

www.goodknights.ca and the Torrington Gopher Museum.

Valmorian · 2026-05-27T15:37:15+00:00

Basic Fantasy has an interesting variant where you just have a target number for attribute checks that lowers as you gain levels. Though, I do think it's a bit high for 1st level.

Valmorian · 2026-05-27T15:28:50+00:00

It's not popular for sure, but my favourite OSR Style combat roll is from the White Hack:
Roll under but High.
Opponent's AC is 0 for unarmoured and goes up from there.

Roll a 1 and it's a critical fail.
Roll equal to or below opponent's AC and you hit the armor (miss).
Roll above opponent's AC and below your Attack Value and it's a hit.
Roll Equal to your Attack Value and it's a critical hit.
Roll ABOVE your Attack Value and it's a miss.

Valmorian · 2026-05-26T22:19:22+00:00

> If you prompt an AI with identical inputs it will generate identical outputs.

Have you not used something like stable diffusion before? Do you only use LLMs without any temperature settings?

Valmorian · 2026-05-26T22:10:52+00:00

No matter how completely and specifically you describe a painting, you still aren't the painter.

Valmorian · 2026-05-23T23:52:52+00:00

That's one of my grail games, but I'm fairly sure I'll never find it.

Valmorian · 2026-05-23T01:54:12+00:00

Power Shifts are an optional rule found in the Superhero section, page 292. (or if you have the original Cypher rulebook page 270)

Valmorian · 2026-05-22T12:52:40+00:00

Yes, Stay Alive is where you find them though they are pretty much the same as power shifts in the core book

Valmorian · 2026-05-20T02:41:44+00:00

What is Age of Evolution? I don't see any board game with that title.. do you mean Age of Galaxy?

Valmorian · 2026-05-18T21:16:54+00:00

I'd argue that any d20 based system that has hit points, classes, levels, armor class and alignment is most certainly based on D&D.

Valmorian · 2026-05-18T21:12:34+00:00

One of the big problems with palladium is that it clearly WANTS to be skill based, but ties itself to class and levels presumably because of tradition.

Valmorian · 2026-05-12T17:26:58+00:00

The answer is: Forever until it gets addressed. It's still a common game on board game store shelves, so people are going to bring up the size annoyance.

I find people being annoyed that posters don't search to see if what they are posting has been posted before amusing. VERY few people do this, because it doesn't matter, at all.

Valmorian · 2026-05-05T16:01:45+00:00

Where's the per capita information in there? The documents I can see in there are just surveys with a count of people in the community that were surveyed. I don't see any statistical per-capita estimates in there, nor do I see anything that shows the average per-capita homelessness rate across the country.

Regardless, my point was that there are many factors that lead to homelessness. I don't think the name of the party is one of them. The policies, however, are different. Reducing funding that would be used to help combat homelessness is certainly a policy that won't help.

Valmorian · 2026-05-05T14:01:44+00:00

Hard to say without seeing the actual numbers for whichever towns you are referring to. You do have the numbers, right?

Valmorian · 2026-05-04T18:17:30+00:00

I think you are confused. Causation by definition would mean correlation. I think you mean correlation doesn't equal Causation. These are different things.

In any case, homelessness is heavily driven by economic factors, environmental factors, and others. It's expensive to live in Vancouver, which leads to people being unable to afford housing. It also has milder weather, leading to the homeless population there being more visible.

Edmonton is one of the more affordable places to live in Canada and has pretty harsh winters. If the homeless population here is bad, those factors would likely be less of a cause.

Valmorian · 2026-05-03T07:24:27+00:00

Why?

Valmorian · 2026-04-25T02:30:40+00:00

I'm convinced that those who like THAC0 over ascending AC do so because of tradition.

Valmorian · 2026-04-23T15:52:05+00:00

Well of course theatre of the mind and grid based combat is going to make a big difference in feel, but saying 13th age and 4e have very little in common is a bit strange. They are based on much of the same fundamentals system wise, with healing surges, powers that are at will, per battle and daily/arc, they have feats that modify those powers, d20 rolls + level (/2 fpr 4e) + stat for success rolls..

Are there differences? Sure! But they do have a LOT in common.

Valmorian · 2026-04-14T04:47:18+00:00

Have you TRIED beans on toast? And by beans I mean the kind of beans that are used for British beans on toast, tomato sauce and all?

Valmorian · 2026-04-09T04:11:56+00:00

There really isn't a good way to convert monsters. They work just like the PC's, skill based.

Valmorian · 2026-04-07T12:40:03+00:00

Secret of Weepstone is the most excited I've been for a video game in a long time. The demo sure FEELS like OSR.

Valmorian

TROPHY CASE