Revisiting the Cypher System in preparation for running a game at the school gaming club in a couple of weeks coincided with the arrival of the Cypher System Bestiary. On top of that, I’ve been playing around with the Cypher System Character Builder, which is an amazing tool. All in all, it’s been a good day for me as a GM.

The first thing was trying out the Character Builder to pull together the characters that the newbie school players had made back when we sat down to create a game together. It was great to basically sit down and in about 5 minutes per character knock out a working full character sheet. Print off the .PDFs and off you go!

From there, I got inspired to mess around more with the game system more fully. I’ve made myself a Cypher version of “Peter the Lost”, plus versions of my Wildwood characters. The ease with which you can knock out a character using those tools is awesome! Cypher characters are more capable than my usual taste but that is offset by ease of play.

I took a peek inside the Bestiary and found myself impressed. The book features creatures across multiple genres and offers layers of information. There’s a quick stat block for the embattled GM on the go but lots of additional details for enhancing your game. The Troll, for example, offers 10 appearance features, troll names, and things found in a troll’s sack.

One neat feature of the Cypher System, and the thing I often forget, is the compatibility of game elements across all genres. This is a great strength of any “generic” rules system, of course, but it’s made easier still in Cypher because everything is so simply rated. The Bestiary is a strong reminder that any creature can turn up in any genre (if you want).

Overall, I’ve realised how much I want to get this game to the table and I’m very much looking forward to running something with the school students. I’m also looking forward to seeing how the forthcoming Cypher Starter Set turns out, plus can’t resist backing the current Knights of Dust and Neon backerkit campaign!

Game on!