Homebrew Rules 🔧

Deltas from stock Cypher System 2nd Edition. Everything not listed here runs by the book.

Persistence — nothing resets

The single most important house rule. See premise for why.

Recoveries work as written. Ten-minute, one-hour, and ten-hour recoveries do exactly what the book says, in fiction. What is removed is the metagame reset — a new session does not mean a fresh character. If the group wants someone healthy, they spend in-world time, and the world moves while they do.

A character nobody has played in a long stretch of in-world time is presumed rested. The state block records the in-world date so this is legible rather than argued.

Cyphers are cards

Cyphers are handled with the physical Cypher Deck at the table, not tracked on sheets.

• Dealt at the start of a session, up to the character's cypher limit
• Session-only. Unused cyphers are not carried forward and never appear on a character page
• This keeps the "found tech, use it or lose it" feel and avoids stale bookkeeping across a rotating roster

Artifacts are the opposite — they are durable, live on the sheet, and keep their depletion range. An artifact depleted by one player is depleted for everyone who plays that character afterward.

XP is banked, and played as cards

XP is durable state banked on the character — a veteran carries their bank, and whoever picks them up inherits it.

At the table it becomes physical:

• At session start, a character's banked XP is dealt out as cards
• Spending XP means handing a card back — a reroll, a reaction to a GM intrusion, or a player intrusion
• A GM intrusion hands the affected player 2 cards; they keep one and pass one to another player
• At session end, the cards each player holds are written back to the characters they were playing

The cards are the in-session representation of the bank, not a separate currency. They make spending tactile and keep each player's remaining agency visible at the table — you can see what you have left to spend without consulting a sheet.

XP is spent on yourself only. Stock Cypher lets you spend XP to reroll any roll in the game, including another player's. This campaign drops that: a card buys a reroll, a reaction, or a player intrusion for the character you are playing, never for someone else's roll.

The give-one-away rule on a GM intrusion is unchanged — that is how XP arrives at another player, and it is the one moment of cross-table generosity the system has. What you cannot do is reach across the table and spend your own cards on their behalf.

The printed sheet shows the banked total — that is the number you deal cards from at session start, so the sheet is self-sufficient for setup. Spending happens in cards; the sheet is not updated mid-session. The wiki page is the record between sessions.

Minor and major effects

In addition to the standard options, minor and major effects may reduce the time an action takes. Useful when the pressure in a scene is a clock rather than a threat — a negotiation before the vote, a breach before the patrol returns.

Starting a session

Characters begin a session as they were left, not refreshed:

1. Pools, wounds, XP, gear, and artifacts carry over from the state block
2. Cyphers are dealt fresh from the deck
3. Banked XP is dealt out as cards
4. Basic equipment appropriate to the character's situation may be assumed

Player intrusions and canon

Player intrusions are encouraged — they are how players co-author the world. The boundary:

• They may add local detail — a contact who owes a favor, a maintenance hatch, a second use from a cypher
• They may not contradict established canon
• The GM is the final arbiter; a refused intrusion costs no XP
• Bigger asks cost more. 1 XP buys the minor, local kind of intrusion listed above. If what you are asking for reaches further than that, the GM may set a higher price — 2 XP or more — before agreeing. Ask first; the price is quoted before you pay, and you can always withdraw the request

Related

• premise — the campaign contract these rules serve
• Sentience Scale — the homebrew framework for rating machine minds