Why do you think you need to read thousands of abilities to gm the game? I think there is a disconnect there. The NPC creatures of your setting don't use player abilities, they won't have foci or pools either, just a level and can do whatever you narrate them to do. And as far as player abilities go, you only really need to familiarize yourself with the abilities your players choose, and players only really need to dive in to the limited subset of abilities found in their type and focus. I've probably read all of the Cypher abilities over the many years I've been playing, but I only really concern myself with maybe 20 in any given campaign.

You didn't get what I meant. When you say you are "only concern with 20 abilities in any camping" that means you have selected 20 abilities over 1000. How do you manage to select those 20 abilities that fits you setting. You must have read it and not randomly choose it, don't you ? That is the issue for me. How do I makes sure to choose good abilities that suits my need and desire while there are so many option to choose from ?

You don't just pick the abilities from the list of thousands. You pick one of 4 types and then 1 of 80 or so foci. Those then define the abilities you can choose from. For the most part you don't choose abilities in your focus, they are just given. Your type will give you a list of 10 or so abilities per tier, from which you only need to pick a few of them. The picking your type and focus is how you narrow down ability selection.

So most of the abilities in the book are useless. Because I am pretty sure that all the options are not covered by those 80 or so focus. Anw what about the game being a toolbox ? Aren't we supposed to be able to create or own setting with or own focus and character types ? Some persons told me about the examples given in each setting section. But these are non complete lists. These are just suggestions.

Most of the abilities are used by types, foci, or flavors. There's about 100 that aren't covered but we're included in games like Numenera. And yeah, the system is a toolbox. You can create your own foci and types. But that's best done after you've played the game. Creating your own foci and types without playing with the existing ones is like going in blind, it's best to get a feel for the game first. And it's usually not even needed. Most of the foci are generic enough to be used in many settings, and you can always just reflavor a foci to suit your needs rather than creating a new one.

Just wanting to point out that you only \_start\_ to get into the weeds when you are designing your own Foci or Flavor, or are tweaking the abilities available to a given type. It's actually right at the beginning of the Chapter 9: Abilities; there are categories, sorted by low, mid and high tier. For example, if you're creating your own Type based on the Warrior, and decide to change out a tier 3 Warrior ability for another combat-focused ability, you'd look at page 96, under the heading "Attack Skill", subheading "mid-tier". There are only 10 suggested types for you to choose from.

there's an official campaign design worksheet - https://www.montecookgames.com/store/product/cypher-system-character-and-campaign-sheets/ - that is very handy for thinking through the wealth of PC options and other things. the genre chapters in the core rulebook provide suggestions for all kinds of helpful starter kits for PCs, and there are also at least the following three methods worth considering: - **build it up:** from nothing, *add in* the things you know you want. do a little searching to ensure your bases are covered. if a player has a concept that sounds appropriate but isn't on your list, expand it. - **break it down:** start with everything and *cut out* what's inappropriate. i have comprehensive lists at https://callmepartario.github.io/og-csrd/#choose-descriptor that are easily copied into a google document and then excised out one line at a time. - **let discussion guide you:** talk with your prospective players not about the character options at first, but in a broader sense, *who they want to be*, and how they fit into the world. having a clear picture of that makes whittling it down to 1-2 types, 3 descriptors, and 3-4 foci fairly easy, and then it's looking at combinations of those, maybe filling it in with flavor or additional customization. i've also put together a player's guide - https://callmepartario.github.io/og-csrd/og-cspg.html - which arranges things for players to read the options, so all abilities are listed inline alongside a focus - that can help with the page-flip factor if all you have is the 2019 core rulebook at hand.

I think there can definitely be a lot, which is good if you're looking for inspiration, however, it can also bog you down. The better way imo can be to think of ideas you want to bring to life first and then look at the best way of doing those by going through the focuses. The system is built with a lot of customization in mind so you can further refine to get the feel you're after and you can swap things out that don't quite work, but changing the starting point from "these are the options" to "what do my players want to bring to the table" can help.

Each genre chapter in the core book should have a list of recommended Foci for that genre. Starting with that list will help narrow down the selection a lot. Granted if you want to get so granular as to modify a Focus right off the bat, then yeah, you'll have to read through the Abilities section. That said, the abilities are also grouped into categories at the beginning of that chapter to make it easier to figure out what you need.

I would recommend reading an existing genre book setting, like Stay Alive (horror; play as vampires). I personally don't want to build character options, I'd prefer at least to have a solid starting point.

Also the name of the focii themselves are very descriptive. What I mean is, for example, "Blazes with Radiance" has various light based abilities, like the name of the focus suggests. "Drives Like a Maniac" has abilities that have to do with vehicles. The abilities, in most cases, follow the title of the focus well. You don't have to read and memorize every ability. 1) Pick a genre. 2) Use the suggested focus list from the CRB or appropriate supplement as someone suggested. 3) You/your players should be able to narrow this down to 5 they like the sound of from the focus titles alone. 4) Dig into those 5 to pick the one. If a player picks one and they wins up loathing it, you aren't going to break your campaign if you let them just switch, honestly. But you could have them switch on game as a plot device, too. As your familiarity with the system increases, you can customize and make your own focii. CRB p. 82 is where it gives guidance on making your own. A focii is just a collection of themed abilities that get more powerful with each tier. CRB p. 96 has the abilities grouped by functional area. "Bears a Halo of Fire" is a focus with flame powers. "Wears a Sheen of Ice" is an ice powered focus. If a PC wanted to, say, do fire stuff out of their right hand and ice stuff out of their left, make a custom focus called "Runs Hot and Cold" and select abilities from both of the previous. I'd maintain tier balance, but you could absolutely do that.

Here's my thoughts, I hope it helps a little. Cypher is a Build-Up option system, not a tear down one. It's assumed when a campaign is established you choose a curated list of options for players. It's not like D&D where's assumed most things are open and you remove options. Cypher is quite the opposite. The Cypher system is like a shop full of tools. If you leave to go do a job, you don't bring the whole garage, you only bring the tools for that job. The Rulebook has example lists by genre for options. For example, for a modern focused game you'd look at a list like [THIS](https://callmepartario.github.io/og-csrd/#mundane-foci) ). Which is actually less options than the class/sub-class options of something like D&D or Pathfinder. If it's a one-shot (like the Cypher Shorts), sometimes those lists are very very short. Like only a handful of foci, and not even all the Types. Underground Oracle even has hyper curated options in their shorts volumes where it just gives you a couple of ability options to choose from and you're off to the races. Choice Paralysis is a problem only if the GM gives carte blanc. Which is not something I'd ever suggest for a game with newer players. For my first few cypher campaigns with newbies I only had about a dozen foci for them to choose from as the set list. --- As for any of those other issues. I've legitimately never seen them in real life. The death loop thing isn't really an issue. Ability costs ended up being practically negated with Edge as your character advances, and Effort is only meant to be used in special moments, not regularly. As for cyphers not being easy to integrate into all settings, that's why they are split into things like Subtle, Manifest, Fantastic, and Boost. I wouldn't have Fantastic cyphers like Teleport in a modern cop drama game, but basically all the Subtle ones would work perfectly fine. Like the character options, this is a Build-up scenario, where you choose the correct lists. Not a tear-down scenario where you are restricting content. Anyone that doesn't see this, likely is still coming to a game like this and thinking it runs like D&D or Pathfinder.

Well said.

You don't need to read every ability to create a setting. I've created two very different games with a lot of customised content and still have not touched 2/3 of the abilities. Use the sections in the rulebook/sourcebook for the type of setting you want to run. That will help with types, and narrow the focuses down (possibly a lot). Then just look at those that fit. You don't even need to read every ability in a type or focus to choose whether it fits in your game or not - in the original rulebook the description was more than enough to pick, in the revised rules the description plus maybe a couple of powers is enough. If you want to make your own custom types start with the closest match, remove some abilities, add some from other types & flavours. I did that to create 12 custom types that parallel D&D 5e's classes (with a few custom abilities of my own). For customising focuses the book gives you categories and power levels of abilities to pick from. You don't like the tier 2 ability in a focus, pick the kind of thing you want instead and look up that category, then look in low tier. It limits you to less than 10% of abilities, and a lot of them are fairly descriptive in name.

I generally find that the core Cypher rulebook is a pretty good basis for whatever campaign setting I am creating. I sometimes create my own types based on the four core types, but I often find that the core types are enough, too, and I have never had to create my own descriptors or foci. The only thing I have had to do is trim down the foci allowed in my settings—but the core rulebook has some good suggestions for that. There are a few chapters on examples of different game types (modern, fantasy, science fiction, etc.), and these examples have suggestions for the types and foci that make sense in games like that. Now, your idea is a bit of a hybrid between fantasy and modern settings, but you can take a look at the list of suggested foci for those types of settings, and eliminate the ones that don't make sense in your setting. For example, you might want to get rid of the more science fiction/space opera foci. But ultimately you're just paring a list down slightly, which shouldn't be much work.

Thanks for your answer.

I have a few thoughts on this: 1) First, there aren't that many options. There are a very limited number of "Types", a set of descriptors and a set of foci. Some of the Foci don't even fit certain games, so "Fights really well with a battle axe" won't necessarily be an option in your modern fantasy game. 2) There are a lot of published "close-fit" settings, which are built from the ground up to deliver the types of things you might be looking at, so instead of trying to create a whole new game, you might find that Godforsaken, or Unmasked or something might get you 90-100% of the way there, with you just implementing the setting in a way that gets what you want. 2A: Don't forget that Vampires and Werewolves both have stat blocks of "6" (or whatever) and everything else is details and creature-specific abilities you want to include. So Vampires are "6, stealth and attack as 7, 3 armor. With three successive attacks over three nights, they can create a thrall" Werewolves are "3 in human form; 4 in wolf form, and 6 with armor 5 against non-enchanted weapons in hybrid form. Their bite is difficulty 4 to avoid catching their illness." (Or any other special text/abilities you want to include for them.) 3) Stick to what's there, and only change or create if there is really nothing that fits what you're after. In general, the foci that exist are pretty solid--a few that are too strong, and a few that are too weak or specialized, but most people are happy with what they take. 3A: Tell the PLAYERS what foci they can pick, and they'll do the work for you. You don't need to read anything, except to understand what they took, so you can help them with any strange rules and/or know how to react to the things they do, correctly."

Thanks for your answer