By Christopher Robin Negelein
- Cypher PDFs! https://tinyurl.com/yxfj29by
AKA Christopher R. Negelein
By Christopher Robin Negelein
By Christopher Robin Negelein
First off, the Cypher SRD is Christmas in July with Thanksgiving and Halloween ladled on top. It is a very generous document compared to several other SRDs out there. Frankly, I don’t know if I could do what I wanted with my projects without all the goodies MCG give us.
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Cover Art: ProdigyDuck/Purple Duck Games |
By Christopher Robin Negelein
The playtest PDF, all 173 pages of it, is ready to deliver a zombie/monster post apocalypse to your door. Will you fight the Bloom with its own bizarre powers or will you blast it with your armed and armored sedan?
You can download the PDF from this page or at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bI9ENF_s2WEH-F_KEkoLNklFdy3dMdaV/view?usp=sharing
You can provide feedback or give us a heads up on typos at this form. https://forms.gle/owFGfBxXfp9HAyaG8
Your suggestions will inform future projects, such as the Mystery Flesh Pit National Park.
Regardless, whatever yo do, have fun!
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Art: Tan Ho Sim |
There’s a rising discussion of “Dungeons as a Toy,” to create an adventure environment where the terrain is more than just ground, floors and walls. It perhaps starts with a bit of irony.
In the vastly underused 5e DMG, there’s a great but
underdeveloped bit called Tricks (p 297.) In two paragraphs and two charts, it
offers the idea that things can be tugged, pulled and experimented to find
surprises or mystical effects; perhaps to remind players that their avatars are
in a magical land. But mostly the effects are random and there’s no guide on
how to clue players in on potential interactivity. (Though knowing players,
just having a DM mention a thing in a room is going to provoke curiosity.)
M.T. Black, 5e freelancer and Guild Adept extraordinaire,
delves into this a bit on Twitter and
comes up with the next level of D&D appropriate effects, such as those that
heal or summon critters to add high fantasy verisimilitude and theme.
It’s a level of verisimilitude and interactivity that Numenera
players already know pretty well. Monte Cook Game’s fantasy game hiding as a science
fantasy game often has strange non-puzzles to play with and offer a bit entertainment. As I brought that
along into my Solar Sails campaign, my players would call them “cool mind
f%^&s.” In both worlds, these Tricks reminded players that civilizations
have risen and fallen where they stood and some magics (or technologies) were
beyond their current understanding.
Which is a thing in many D&D settings, the often
overused and misunderstood golden age, a time when Elves/Giant/Dragons/All of
the Above ruled and used powers beyond human understanding until some hubris or
another brought them low and began an Age of Humanity. For many world builders,
this is simply the excuse for why dungeons abound. But these ruins from a
forgotten age are mostly thought in a historical context, as crumbling infrastructure
that houses not artifacts, but mostly
artifacts – like a +1 gladius.
But if a more extravagant and power civilizations perished
before the current times, it would make high fantasy more like a green post-apocalypse.
There would often be bits of things PCs would find that would stymie them and
daydream about the wonders of another age. In other words, perhaps the best RPG
to do this was Gamma World, which tried in essence to put a SF spin on the
D&D dungeon and constantly had players trying to figure out what the World
Before was really like without having an artifact blow off a limb.
As a fan of visual themes, I imagine that’s one way to put
that Gamma World post-apoc vibe into your high fantasy game. Populate your
world’s former golden age with the faux-Carthaginians clockwork engineers or pseudoByzantine
bio-tech masters. Then tie in your Tricks or oddities with themes of clockwork
or bio-tech to send a clear message to the players, that they are playing with
powers unknown and sailing in uncharted waters.
Soon enough, they’ll equate your visual theme with a big red
button right in the middle of the oddly shaped chamber. And then you can just
sit back and let them entertain you.
As a very cool side note, I'm now an unlocked Stretch Goal on the Diamond Throne Kickstarter!
Go, Ganza! Go!
That's right. If the Diamond Throne kickstarter hits $52k, I'll cram a ton of Cypher goodies into the exciting conclusion of the Width of the Circle adventure trilogy. Let's do this!
Go, Ganza! Go.
I'm open to bribes for more Cypher stuff! You can do a one-timer at https://ko-fi.com/ganzagaming , or regularly via this Patreon. Regardless, I'm still working on Solar Sails, a fantastical world of SPELLs that's JAMMERed with all sorts of the fantastical.
Check out my 5e stuff! https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?keywords=negelein&x=0&y=0&author=&artist=&pfrom=&pto=
Cypher PDFs! https://tinyurl.com/yxfj29by
Ganza Gaming Twitter @ChrisRNegelein
Patreon https://www.patreon.com/ganzagaming
I’ve been writing 5-star, award nominated, and Electrum selling gaming stuff for both Cypher and 5e SciFi. You'll see how it's all done behind the scenes and get free stuff after clicking that Patreon link!
I'm joining the There be Dragons team to help expand the world of the Diamond Throne! If you like Cypher and you like fantasy, this is going to be a kickstarter for you.
The 2003 d20 Diamond Throne setting (Malhavoc Press) and the Cypher System (Monte Cook Games) were both created by Monte Cook so there's already a spiritual link between the two.
There Be Dragons is a new international label for one of the leading Italian RPG publishers and they've already funded! In fact, bringing me on was sort of a stretch goal that became an update because of their crazy first week.
The final details are getting hammered out for exactly what I'm going to be working on, but I'll keep everyone posted!
Go, Ganza! Go.
I'm open to bribes for more Cypher stuff! You can do a one-timer at https://ko-fi.com/ganzagaming , or regularly via this Patreon. Regardless, I'm still working on Solar Sails, a fantastical world of SPELLs that's JAMMERed with all sorts of the fantastical.
Check out my 5e stuff! https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?keywords=negelein&x=0&y=0&author=&artist=&pfrom=&pto=
Cypher PDFs! https://tinyurl.com/yxfj29by
Ganza Gaming Twitter @ChrisRNegelein
Patreon https://www.patreon.com/ganzagaming
I’ve been writing 5-star, award nominated, and Electrum selling gaming stuff for both Cypher and 5e SciFi. You'll see how it's all done behind the scenes and get free stuff after clicking that Patreon link!