Cyphers, Oddities, Artifacts, and Discoveries
Since I keep calling Numenera a post-apocalyptic game, it’s probably worth talking about the effect that has on gameplay. Specifically, the fact that there are all these amazing technological remnants fill the world around the PCs. Now, obviously, it helps define the setting, but it also affects the mechanics.
From the point of view of the people of the Ninth World, technology and its remnants (lumped together with the term “numenera”) can be broadly classified in four categories: cyphers, oddities, artifacts, and discoveries.
Cyphers
In many ways, cyphers are the most important aspect of the numenera. So much so, that the working title of the game system itself is the Cypher System. Cyphers are one-use, cobbled together bits of technology that characters frequently discover and use. When the PCs come upon an old device, defeat some artificially enhanced or designed creature, or simply sift through the ruins of the past, they can scavenge a handful of new cyphers.
Because the technology of the past is unknowable, cyphers are often determined randomly. A GM, however, can place them intentionally as well. They’re one-use cool powers that can heal, make attacks, or produce effects like nullify gravity or make something invisible. The sky’s the limit. But they’re always consumed when used. And they cannot be hoarded. Collecting cyphers together in one place, or carrying many on your person can potentially have a detrimental effect–from the long term (illness) to the short (explosion!). So essentially, characters only carry a few at a time. However, they are found with such regularity that players can be pretty free with their use. There will always be more. And they’ll have different benefits.
This means that in gameplay, they’re less like magic items and more like character abilities that the players don’t choose. Which leads to really fun game situations where a player gets to say, “well, I’ve got an X that might help in this situation,” and X is always different. X might be a bomb, a short range teleporter, or a force field. It might be a powerful magnet or an injection that will cure disease. It could be anything. Cyphers keep the game fresh and interesting. Over time, characters can develop the know-how to be able to safely carry more and more of these, so they really do end up seeming more like character abilities and less like gear.
Oddities
Sometimes you find things that are interesting but have no real game value. By that, I mean, they don’t help in combat. They don’t give you amazing powers. They don’t protect you. Not everything the ancients created was a combat device. In Numenera these things are called oddities and they serve a number of purposes.
First, they’re just there for verisimilitude. Not everything is suited for an adventurer. Second, they’re there to be interesting. Weird little things that can be sold or used for barter or gifts. They’re the 100 gp gems of Numenera. Third, and perhaps most importantly, they add more mystery and feelings of the unknown to the game. Because oddities are really odd.
- A glass plate that shows an aerial view of a city that no one’s ever seen.
- A egg-shaped metallic bauble that occasionally spins and speaks in a language no one knows.
- An aerosol can that sprays sparkling paint that hangs in the air.
- A device that emits a projection of a human face that changes expression depending on what direction it is facing.
What did their creators make these things for? Were they once a part of alarger device with a more understandable function? No one knows, or likely ever will.
Artifacts
Artifacts are the tech devices that you probably expect in the game. These are devices of a more permanent nature (unless they run out of power) with more straightforward applications. Weapons, armor, utility items, and so on. Still, rarely are they straightforward. It’s far less likely to find a “gun” than it might be to find some item that can be used effectively as a ranged weapon, but might have originally been some kind of power conduit that has been modified and adapted as best as Ninth World understanding could manage. Some characters, given the right tools and parts, will be able to construct these on their own.
I suppose you could call artifacts the “magic items” of Numenera, but since they’re science based, anyone can use them.
Discoveries
Discoveries are a sort of catch-all of stuff that doesn’t fit into the other categories. In the playtest, the PCs recently came upon what they figured out was a sort of underground hovertrain. Getting it to function (sort of) was the subject of most of a session, and turned out to be interesting and even thrilling all by itself. This was a discovery. It’s not an artifact they’ll be able to claim as their own, and while it’s useful it doesn’t make their characters more powerful, necessarily, but it’s cool.
Last week I posted about experience points coming from discoveries and this is the kind of thing I was talking about. Not every bit of prior-world tech equates to an XP reward, but often they will, if they’re interesting.
I suppose technically, “creatures” might be a fifth type of technology, but they are really their own thing. I’ll talk about monsters/NPCs and the role of the GM in coming columns, and this will help show some of the ways that Numenera is meant to make life easier on the GM and overall be a quick and easy game with a strong narrative focus.
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Glad I backed this Kickstarter, as this game/setting is sounding more and more like something I will enjoy running, and playing.
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Its refreshing to see a game where it ultimately isn’t about the hack and slash. It seems to be as much about the journey as the destination.
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The more i read it, the more i like it!
And i’m so glad the number crunching will be minimum as well… thanks for sharing monte!
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I’m really fond of the feel and environment you’re creating with the Cyphers – not only the lack of a ‘need’ to hoard them, but realistic discouraging -of- hoarding. I’ve always loved potions, wands, and scrolls as rewards, but at least one character always feels the need to ‘Rainy Day’ them.
Secondly, the oddities you describe are very fun – recently in a magic-dead world, the players discovered a small blue-colored sphere with rings hovering around it that, when you placed it into the air, it hovered as a whole, the rings rotated, and music played. With the setting of the world, this went over as a smashing reward to an intense dungeon crawl. I’m more than overjoyed to see this sort of encouragement here. -
You talk about oddities like D&D talks about cantrips… but the issue I’ve always had with cantrips is that D&D’s metaphysics literally prohibits them from being useful in combat, even if, by their flavour text and some creative actions, they should have some effect in combat.
Is this same type of arbitrary metaphysics going to be enforced in Numenara? If I get that Aerosol Oddity and spray it at/in someone’s face can I get a combat advantage on them? If not it seems to break the believability of the world.
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Of course you can. http://www.montecookgames.com/logic-in-rpgs/
In the playtests, people have come up with imaginative uses for oddities all the time (many make great distractions, for example).
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Thanks for the reply. I had read that article which is why I asked the question, it just seemed like it might be a possibility, but I didn’t think you would really do something like that.
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Throwing gems/jewelry at a creature could also be distracting depending on the creature. It’s on the DM to control how much benefit you would get from this kind of thing.
Few things in life (or fantasy) are free!
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Excellent news. The more I hear the more I love. One of the most interesting parts in our groups games was discovery of an item (Luckily by my tech-savvy character) that couldn’t be identified, apparently had no use and no obvious reason for being. Simple metal sphere, but introduced into the game in such a way that it could have been interesting or completely mundane.
It had me pondering it’s use for many, many sessions – never did find out what it was – and I suspect it would have likely been classed as a Cypher within Numenera.
I cannot wait for this game!
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“A device that emits a projection of a human face that changes expression depending on what direction it is facing”
Your creativity (or alternatively, you borrowing of someone else’s creative idea) never ceases to amaze me. As much as I like the wargaming hack-n-slash of D&D et al, it’s both the discovery and wonder, and the interaction of character and plot, that drives my home campaigns. I’m glad to see that these appear to be the raison d’etre of Numenera.
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@Michael Waters: I already want to know if the expression is the same every time it faces the same direction… could be a really awesome diving rod! Great stuff Monte!
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And I’m thinking whether it has the an expresion associated with the cardinal direction (north, east, etc., and what happens if you point it up at the ske or down at the ground), or relative direction (up, down, left, right), and if the expressions associated with each are constant. If they’re constant, it could be quite useful (like a D&D dwarf’s underground sense of depth/direction). If they’re random, that opens up a whole list of other questions; is there a pattern, does the pattern point the way to some deeper mystery, etc.
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What ability do the players have to earn that Discovery xp, though, if those items are GM-placed? Is it just the GM says “Okay, you found my cool thing, now I’m going to reward you for sitting here and listening to my description of it”? Do they have to get it working/solve the mystery/somehow make sense of it or conquer it or something to get the xp? Or is it more “You hear a legend of a strange device in the Forest of Stone Birds, three days travel to the northeast” and the xp is earned from overcoming the challenge of reaching the Discovery?
Or do the players have some say in creating Discoveries, and are rewarded for their creativity and imagination? Which opens up a whole new set of questions, of course.
This sounds really cool to me. I’m just trying to understand how it works as a reward mechanism.-
The idea is not so much that the PCs stumble upon something, but overcome challenges, and interact with the discovery to get some kind of understanding of it. Read the blog post entitled “Third Playtest Report.” The hovertrain the PCs found and finally activated is their first discovery.
Arguably, the “nursery” from the second session should have been one too, perhaps.
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I like oddities most of all because just the description got me thinking about doing a high magic sort of setting where in wizards make tings like lipstick that can shift your lips green, red, or starlight. Doesn’t help you do anything adventuring wise but damn, someone is sure to want it.
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Infinite chalk has been a big hit with my groups in the past; just a simple piece of colored chalk that never runs out! Gotta agree on the oddities there; and adding the twist of science-fantasy… the possibilities are swarming like nano-spiders >.>
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Does every character know what every cypher is going to do before they use it?
If this piece of strange, unknowable technology is only useable once, how do i know whether it’s a short-range teleporter or a digital whoopie cushion without using it? How do i know how to use it when the time comes?
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Cyphers are fairly easily identified. Artifacts are more difficult. (Or at least, more involved.)
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Those cyphers sound very cute, like encounter powers for randomness lovers:
Like encounter powers they give a variety of short term options, allowing resource choices and tactical options without encouraging “alpha strikes per day” etc. but unlike encounter powers, they are always changing! Meaning that even a relatively straightforward piece of mapmaking facing similar challenges or foes will naturally be livened up and developed. It’s a gift to inexperienced GMs and a challenge to older ones.
It also gives a different flavour to the post-apocalypse, where instead of living in a world where everything has run out, you stand on top of a pile of weirdness.
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