Cypher System for Everything

I've got a real temptation to try using Cypher System for a while as my default go-to game. Even more so than I have, recently. This would mean, among other things....

--Seeing how it feels to run one of my existing worlds like Chirak or Lingusia using Cypher System. I suspect that it would actually be a more comfortable and entertaining experience than the default system for those worlds (D&D or Pathfinder)

--Prepping my Cyberpunk campaign idea for Cypher System

--Using my "Restoration" SF campaign which I am already designing for Cypher System

--Experimenting with Cypher for horror settings; here and only here I feel that Cypher may work well for other horror, but pure Lovecraftian Mythos must remain the domain of CoC 7E. However, a Cypher game focusing on something not intrinsically mythos might be worth experimenting with.

If I use it for a Realms of Chirak game I figure some rules are in order, including the need for a house rule that lets each PC pick a descriptor as well as a species (that would mean writing up a human race entry for species). It might mean making them into foci; I could see an animate PC working better as a focus*, for example. I'd need gnomes, dragonborn, and a few others not currently covered in the various Cypher books. Maybe. My current Cypher fantasy game (with heavy SF elements) pretty much lets players pick their race as part of their general nature and doesn't sweat stat details.

Beyond that, there's not a significant amount of prep involved. Almost all magic items in a D&Desque world are already handled by the cypher rules and artifact rules. Monsters are a piece of cake. The inherent archetypes of the descriptor/type/focus system let you build analogs for about all of the classes you might find in D&D, which means that thematic consistency should be self evident.

I have traditionally only run two flavors of Realms of Chirak: one set using the Runequest/Mythras mechanics, and one using D&D mechanics in whatever flavor it currently presents. The idea of running Chirak games in Cypher seems more natural, oddly, than back when I ran Chirak as a setting for D&D 4E, honestly.

Think I need to try this. Just have to get the current D&D campaign to wrap up soon!




*I mean, stuff like "Abides in Stone" is already doing the groundwork, I just need some extra tier options to cover the modifications Animates can make. Or, just tell the PC to make an animate with a suitable flavor, and write up those extra animate options as a "Animate" flavor. So many ways to do it in this system.....