Let's Cypher!

Today I turned half a century old, that’s 18, 262.5 days (but who’s counting, right?) And as a birthday present from a very generous friend, I was gifted a gift card over at DTRPG (DriveThru RPG), so I started looking at role playing systems. Yes, I have a problem. It’s okay. But, which system should I look at? There’s like a thousand different game systems to choose from. Well, let’s think about this.

What in the hell am I looking for?

I really want to play a game that allows for the style of combat that you’d see in a typical Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha anime. I’m talking lots of spell slinging, quick recharges and massive damage! So what does that mean? Let’s translate these requirements step by step. Personally, as I am getting older, I’m realizing that this is often a crucial step that usually gets skipped. Most people seem to have the game system they know like the back of their hand and shoehorn the rules to fit the campaign concept. Or, more sane Game Masters don’t bother with the ridiculous challenge of cramming something from another form of media into a role playing game. But I’m crazy, so we’re going to do this!

I want to emulate the intense spell casting combat that’s depicted in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. Anime by definition is exaggeration. That means I’m going to need a system that is not rooted in realism. Which by extension also means I’m not going to want a really crunchy game system with lots of mathematics involved. The game needs to be agile and flexible, to reflect the intense exchange of combat.

And because I need a game that can easily adapt to the chaos found in my favorite anime titles, I need a game that’s more on the narrative side of the spectrum. But here’s where I have a problem. I don’t do so well creating characters in systems like Fate Core or Freeform Universal because it’s too open— it’s like as a writer, just staring at that blank Word Document with the blinking little cursor… just taunting you, daring you to write something. Yeah, I need options, otherwise known as guardrails.

Knowing these critical bits of information, I started searching the Internet. I’m sorry to say, but trying to Google this could take months, only because I really don’t know what’s all available. But I do have a tool at my disposal. AI. I personally use DeepSeek because it’s free and pretty verbose with its output. I typed in exactly what I was looking for and it suggested a number of games— most of them I already own. That defeats the purpose of wanting to splurge and buy myself a birthday present. And I know from working with the game systems that have already been listed, that I can’t seem to capture the feel I’m looking for. (You’d think with access to over 165 role playing games, I’d find something that I could make fit, but alas, no dice, as they say.)

One of the final suggestions listed was Cypher System. I’d heard of this system before, and often get it conflated with another system I already own, Cortex Prime— totally different mechanics here. Based on what DeepSeek told me about Cypher, I was convinced that this might be the system I’ve been looking for— however, I was still a bit skeptical, so I asked DeepSeek to run through a mock combat fight between Nanoha and Fate— prior to the Epilogue in Season 2 of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha (A’s).

How is Cypher System different?

Okay, first of all, bear (or is it bare?) with me here— I’m still learning this system!

There’s no Hit Point resource, nor any Mana resource. Everything you do is powered by your three Core Stats of Might (strength), Speed (agility), and Intellect (uh, that’d be smarts). Everything you do costs so many Stat Points. This is a simple mechanic that keeps characters from becoming too overly powered. Another thing about this mechanic is that your Health is directly tied to Might. Most damage is applied to Might first (although there are some exceptions). When any Stat is reduced to zero, you move downward on your Damage Tracker from Hine to Impaired, and this causes global modifications to your character’s actions. That’s less crap that I have to remember every time I roll. The consequences are listed right on the character sheet.

And it’s this mechanic, the Stat Pools that attracts me to this system. Because there aren’t any Spell Slots and all my Actions consume Points from my Stat Pool I can recreate the intense spell-slinging combat that appears within the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha anime. Furthermore, because of Cyphers and other mechanics, I’ll be able to have my characters recharge their Stat Pools so that the battles can continue without breaking the system. At least, that’s my hope.

Let’s talk about the options. There’s a lot of them— guardrails. And these can be customized and modified as needed by the Game Master. You can literally build any kind of character with all these options. And because the game is setting-agnostic, but has Flavors (genre information), it’s easy to build what you want to play, where you want to play it. So I shouldn’t have any problems building the Earth (and Midchilda) found in MGLN. (That’s Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, in case I lost you.)

Now for the hard part. To actually read the book (without falling asleep— because I’m old) and learn the game well enough to build some characters, create the world and go play with myself! I’ll keep ya posted.