Cypher System: Making a World

@MarsieVellan question for you. What is the best way that you've found to build a world using the Cypher System. I have an idea for a campaign but I don't know where to start.

— Nerdly Asthmatic (@thtrnerd221) December 30, 2018

Thank you for the question!
Also, welcome to my first blog post on the Phantom Rollbooth's blog!
I think this also might be my first blog post ... ever? I decided that instead of doing a long thread on Twitter, this way would be cleaner and easier to process. Please enjoy:
While I have a B.S. in Geography(a nifty and absurdly expensive tool that I’ve only really used to pick apart and create fantasy maps), the best way I’ve found to build a world using the Cypher System involves a simultaneous top-down (large scale environment and country mapping) and bottom-up (small environmental features of the world, inventions, customs, and people and how they affect the culture around them) approach. Additionally, working with a number of people who do not share the same voice as I do to helps me build out the world and make it richer than I could alone. The richness of Gallyca would not exist if I had not listened to my players’ valuable input over the course of about 7 years.

I’ve been running this setting for about as long as I’ve been playing RPGs, and I’ve run it in four separate systems. By far, Cypher is the most well suited (by design) to handle setting changes-- it is a generic system, and delightfully surprising. I’m happy to report that for other systems I had to make large setting adjustments from my original intent, I can run Gallyca in Cypher System with nearly no change necessary.

Think Globally by Thinking Locally. Even a region is rather large, and I had scale to consider and flesh out. Would you believe you can fit at least 3 Gallyca regions in the United states? Demyr is only just a bit larger than Texas. In my own map, I have 6 countries in scale. You have the following to consider:

1. How long does it take people to travel from two major points in your setting?
2. How long does it take information to travel? Is there another means of messenger or parcel services that isn’t reliant on the speed of humans?
3. What are the most facilitated trade routes in your setting? What kind of trade does this open up to regions? How long will it be before they start getting more exotic hauls in?
4. What obstacles prevent trade, information, or people from traveling more quickly to new places or familiar ones?
5. What forces work to give weight to the import of imports and exports?
6. The above doesn’t even begin to start covering inner or outer state relationships. Starting small, and working in puzzle pieces from things that don’t quite fit yet will yield a larger world that feels large, and thorough. What are the relationships between your broader regions? How do they look on a smaller scale?
7. Time period is something to consider. I’d recommend taking a look at World Maps from various ancient civilizations to the present, if you have the time. It’s a broad and interesting look at how your world gets smaller and smaller the more you step beyond the Mediterranean Sea. What does your map look like? And what lies beyond it?

Cypher System is, by its namesake, full of Cyphers. I needed to consider how prevalent they would be in my setting, how much the landscape and culture would be affected by their presence--the answer became with my group: as often as the players looked for them. Consider the following:

1. By choosing the cyphers available to find, you’re also choosing the tone of the game.
2. Who makes the cyphers? Who makes the artifacts?
3. What was their original purpose? Who or what were they made for?
4. Putting in the time to design custom Cyphers and Artifacts and/or minimally the form they take will benefit immersion in your setting. What kinds of things will players find in your setting that they won't find anywhere else?
5. How often will the players run into Cyphers in your setting? Do they find them in abandoned keeps? Can they be bought off the street? 

Money Talks. Currency was one of the bigger obstacles for me in Cypher System. I eventually came out with a Celestial System for Gallyca, aside a bartering system. You might hear the word “Suns” a lot on our stream. A Sun, in the barest of meanings, is worth one expensive item in the text of Cypher System. A Moon is worth a moderately expensive item. A Star is worth one inexpensive item. A Half-Moon is a half-step between the Stars and Moon. These metal gold-like pieces are joined in this idea, and held together with by the mass and weight of a single piece to create the currency. Enough Stars make a Half-Moon, which enough makes a Moon, and enough of those make a Sun. After all, with a premise like chasing the greatest theft of 200,000 suns known to Therin kind in the Owl of Lysia, it would have been poor work on my part to not actually define how wealth worked.

1. In your setting is there a standard of wealth in return for goods and services? How much weight does coin hold?
2. Is your wealth bound in deed, honor, nobility, or the combination of all three?
3. Letters of credit date back centuries--are you using them, and if so, who accepts them as valid payment? Who gives them?
4. Are Artifacts and other rare items like Cyphers a form of payment? 

Framework is Key. I’ve attempted a lot of setting building with many different groups and voices, and I’ve learned that creating the structure of the world and a tone for people to play with and bounce ideas off of will work the best. Establish tone, traditions, culture, and relations--players will add what they are interested in. I typically start from a landscape, and ask myself the following:

1. How did people come here? 
2. How did they survive and which areas were the best for long-term survival? Which areas benefit nomadic people more?
3. What kind of animals would they see there? Are animals necessary for survival there? Are animals revered there? What kinds of relationships did they build?
4. What kinds of worship would they employ? Which gods would bend their ear, if any, to support the lifestyle?
5. What hardships do they face?
6. What do homes look like?
7. What does the wealth dynamic look like?
8. What do cities look like?
9. What governments grow, or have grown? What leadership exists now?
10. What is the relationship between the state and religion? Are they the same, or do they have conflicting dynamics?
11. Are there languages? What does a language barrier look like in your setting? 

A Skeleton Needs Flesh. Above is just the bare bones of what a setting in the Cypher System may need. Your players are here to build with you. Keep in mind the following, if you are planning on having them on this journey:

1. Don’t create the narrative on your own ideas alone. You have the bare structure of a setting, but your players are going to add depth and life to the world that you simply can’t do on your own. You may end up creating a box around a story no one was interested in to begin with.
2. Their ideas may be better than yours. Don’t be afraid to knock out a femur or two if the foundation of your player’s ideas is stronger. World building should not go hand-in-hand with your ego. Don’t be afraid to ask “what was this war about?” Don’t be afraid to let them know that all the answers aren’t there yet. If they were, there wouldn’t be a world building session. You’d already be in the sandbox.
3. Learn to let go of the reigns. If you do find them breaking down some walls to the point that it’s contradictory to the rest of the setting so far, don’t shoot them down right away. Ask them why they think this would happen. Sometimes they bring up something you didn’t consider--sometimes they may have not read everything in the primer, and you can direct them there.
4. Cypher is beautifully modular. If things don’t fit, remove them. Saying no is a powerful item for keeping tone. If adepts don’t work in your pre-renaissance era real life simulation game, don’t use them. If a focus doesn’t work, don’t use that either. Just make sure everyone is on the same page about why it doesn’t fit before you get to the table for play.
5. Cypher System is like Tofu. It can go in anything, but without seasoning or pressing it’s going to be really obvious when parts of the system stick out that you didn’t consider before going in. Luckily, as with most things, you can always go back and try the recipe again.

There are more questions to ask, and consider, but I don’t want to boggle down the locomotion of notions from the questions I’ve already posed above. With time and work, more questions and finer tuning will generate on their own. To you, hopefully this makes a good starting point for creation of a setting in Cypher System. Any more questions, please don't hesitate to drop me a line!

Happy building!

Marsie

Marsie Vellan is an Operator for the Phantom Rollbooth and the GM for The Owl of Lysia Cypher System Liveplay on Monte Cook Games' Twitch Channel. You can follow her on Twitter @MarsieVellan for news about all of her creative endeavors, including art, homebrew, and livestreaming updates. Her partner, the other Operator on The Phantom Rollbooth is here @ColinItLikeISee. You can also join the community on the Phantom Rollbooth's Discord for topical discussions on Roleplaying Games and Culture, and Creation. For Other Contact, you can e-mail us @ phantomrollbooth@gmail.com