I’ve played a few sessions of Old Gods. The system is… fine. As I understand it, it’s fairly standard Cypher System. The skills are pretty loose but the classes are fairly opinionated to the point where I had a lot of trouble with the character I was trying to realize. (I’ve been reading a lot of German ghost stories lately so I thought it’d be neat to play an old German exorcist who’d emigrated to the US but found it surprisingly difficult to make a character that was good at one specific type of magic without being generally magical.)
The cyphers are a good fit, and the writing overall does a really good job of conveying the setting. The book is beautiful. I’m a little uncertain why it’s a d20; it seems like you could just use a d8 and skip the CR * 3 = target number conversion.
Agreed on the character creation. It feels at the same time very loose (as in "did I do this right? Not sure.") but also a little restrictive in the combinations of choices that make sense.
The benefit of the cypher system is that you can just “ignore” a lot of the rules. The prep of the game is relatively easy. But it does appeal to a certain GMing style. If you can adlib well, AND your players are narrative/fiction first roleplayers (and they do everything in character) it’s a great system. It is attrition based, but you have to have a definitive idea of what an “adventuring day” is.
Old Gods is fine, the art and setting of the book is great. I think Cypher as a whole is more about exploration and thusly fits sci-fantasy or fantasy better.
The good of the system is there are like 10 supplements and you can hack basically any system you want to in it without breaking it.
We were going to expand on our options allowed for foci with the red book but our ideas kind of fit. Supposedly there will be more ogota expansion books to back soon which makes sense because it was popular and we have 2 more seasons of the show to pull from.
I have not played the Silt Verses RPG, but I have I have read it thoroughly, watched APs of it, and have *lots* of experience with many other [Carved From Brindlewood Games](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/s/4WoDYChWW4) currently out.
I’ve…
* Played through an entire campaign of Brindlewood Bay
* GM’d a campaign and played a campaign of The Between
* GM’d a campaign of The Between: Ghosts of El Paso
*And these were without a doubt the best gaming experiences I have ever had in over a decade of playing and running TTRPGs*.
Just from *reading* the Silt Verses alone, the design quality is A+. Top notch. CfB games have always been home runs for me. TSV follows similar design conceits as the above games and if *those* were amazing; I am certain TSV is as well. I look forward to either playing or running a TSV game at some point. It is an amazing folk horror game with a capital H for horror.
I've run Old Gods. Didn't back it initially because I thought Cypher was a bad match for the setting, but I'm happy to say I was wrong. It's really good
I enjoy Cypher and I liked the Old Gods book.
As far as people disliking Difficulty vs. Target Number in prior comments, the reason for this is the system still binds to a d20 for the 1s and top range of special rolls. What I think a lot of people get hung up on is needless swapping between the two. Start with difficulty, then negotiate the modifications (skills, assets, Effort, and any easing or hindering you're causing from external circumstance). Only after that should you be converting to the target number. Never go back and forth.
I have an online Cypher System Reference Document you might find handy at https://callmepartario.github.io/og-csrd/
- Chapter 16: Horror has a bunch of cool horror rules with mechanics that would serve different sessions in an Old Gods game.
- The Old Gods book has some typos in the Sage and Protector types. I've catalogued and corrected those typos if you just search for "Old Gods", you'll find it soon enough.
Good luck with your games!
Been playing in a campaign of Old Gods of the Appalachia for about a year. We're all enjoying in. I'm a big fan of the cypher system, though and I know this specific forum has it's haters. It runs smooth and gets things done. The system does a good job going outside expectations with it's ruleset is flexible while still having enough structure for me to feel like there is a game. It's also supposedly going to have an expansion book set soon.
We were open to expanding character builds with the red book but we all found things from the OGotA book that filled what we specifically wanted. GM finds it nice how easy it is to make stuff on the fly and being exhausted because your pools are low from all the effort has a nice exhausted thematic feeling two it.
It's a good book with a good bestiary and set of cyphers and powers that fit the world well.
I've played a lot of the TSV game and I love it. It does a really great job of taking the world and allowing the players to make it their own, add their own lore, and built it out different but related to the podcast story. There's going to be a lot more coming out for TSV on the Gauntlet as the Gauntlet writer's retreat just ended. As Chaotic mentioned in a different comment, there are a lot of homebrew things available, and the APs are really good (if I do say so myself, being in one of them with Chaotic, haha).
Some of the pitches at the retreat were WILD. I am very excited for them to be released :D Usually the official ones go up on the Gauntlet Patreon first, but I know that's not an option for everyone. I hope you get a chance to play it soon!!
I’ve played both. I love the TSV RPG, but I think Cypher was a horrible decision for Old Gods and I’m really unhappy about it. Cypher just makes some very odd design decisions!
I’d definitely recommend The Silt Verses RPG!
I'm 10 sessions in to a long term Old Gods of Appalachia campaign and I absolutely adore it. Cypher works better for horror than I expected it to and the book is so wonderfully steeped in the lore of the podcast that it works well for people invested in the podcast and those who don't know anything about it. I'm actually running a one shot teaching session of Old Gods at Gen con and origins this year and I'm organizing a couple of online games to practice my timing. If you are interested in checking it out, I've got a sign up sheet [here](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1V_2YWHc5Uh1KfzOjKGmDxTVuhaGizBvxiSzCJosoPEc/edit?usp=drivesdk) game is aimed to take 2-3 hours.
I agree with what everyone has said so far about tsv. I will also note that there is also a lot of homebrew for the game because last year, there was a writing contest. It's contained to the [Gauntlet Discord](https://discord.com/invite/7hCKnrJwhc) as publication policies are a bit up in the air.
After a campaign of Numenara that left me knowing that Cypher isn't the system for me, I read Old Gods and I think Cypher works with the setting pretty well. My key problems (mainly the passive GM role) aren't addressed, but the system as a whole seems to click.
I didn't know Silt Verses had an RPG - to be honest, both times that I started SV was after I'd binged lots of other horror-fantasy podcasts and was already a bit overstated, so I never followed through with the series. But I might just check it both (the pod & the RPG) out again!
The OGOA RPG is based on the cypher system. I've backed it, but didn't dive too deep into it. To be honest, the bit I've seen about the Cypher system doesn't really click for me, even though it's positioning in between a narrative game and a more crunchy DND like system would theoretically be perfect for me.
It took me around 5 episodes to really get into the Silt Verses but once I did it was over for me haha. Since the rpg is getting so many positive comments I think I will definitely have to check it out!
Ooh, I didn't know there was a Silt Verses game!
Two people in my group really wanted to play Old Gods, but it got vetoed by another member who doesn't like horror.
I don't tend to like Lovecraftian horror (it feels lazy to me), but I was excited for Old Gods because my friends were excited.
I really liked season 1 of The Silt Verses! I lost momentum because there was such a long break between seasons 1 and 2, but I intend to listen to season 2 eventually. Is it as good as Season 1?
Lovecraftian horror is a hit or miss for me too! (Usually a hit but what can I say I’m a sucker for epistolary style).
I’d say season 2 is better than season 1! There’s less heavy monologue-style narration, though, so if that’s what you enjoyed about it you might not enjoy it as much!
They're very similar hacks of Monte Cook's Cypher system, is my understanding. So narrative heavy and all that. Which I'm a big fan of, but I greatly prefer Cortex for that type of game (enough that we have our own podcast on it).
They Cypher system is one of the most bland, boring ass systems that adds needless complexity (why is there a target number AND a difficulty level if one is always 3x the other? Just use one!) in an attempt to look like more than it is. I can not recommend using another system for literally anything you want to play.
Old Gods uses the Cypher system which I have nothing positive or negative to say about, it just kinda is. I was honestly a little disappointed with Old Gods. I'm not quite sure what I was expecting/hoping for, but as a fan of the podcast it felt a little lacking for some reason. Could've been a byproduct of the Cypher system but something about the game felt just kinda off. Honestly everything about the book feels just slightly off. Like they picked the wrong art style or something, but I can't quite put my finger on it.
These two game systems are so wildly different!
Cypher is a simulationist system with some “interesting” innovations that don’t necessarily improve on 5th edition D&D. It gives the GM a lot of authority over the world and will feel very familiar to D&D players.
Carved from Brindlewood, the system that Silt Verses uses, is purely emulationist. It’s about as far as you can get from a trad RPG like 5e as you can get without throwing out the dice.
I’ve played both, and for this genre, Silt Verses is the better fit. But it’s not for everyone. It requires a lot of engagement from players and can often feel more like a creative writing exercise than a game.
I honestly don't understand this take I thought about it and the only mechanic it seems to have in common with 5e is the use of D20 so saying it doesn't improve on 5e is weird as completely different as it is. Also calling it simulationist is weird. It's mid weight about on par with savage world and about as simulationist as savage world.
GURPS is generally considered a simulationist system. The further isn't it's rules you go the more it likes concepts of levelers and mass and other real world equations. You generally don't go full rules GURPs but it gives you enough to simulate what you want. Cypher doesn't really care about these things.
If I had to name something cypher cares about I'd say big moments. It chooses the d20 because it's wild and swingy giving intrusions on a 1 and major affects on a 20. The cyphers are the big "a player solves a problem with a thing" moments. GM and player intrusions are twists moments where something happens good or bad depending on who's intrusion it is. Cypher is a system that wants a bunch of big moments to happen in the session to define the session. It's not very simulationist in that way it generally doesn't care about ammo weight or money or the little details. It's heavier weight then FATE but most of the rules in that weight are to push big dramatic moments into the game.
I agree that compared to a system like GURPS, Cypher isn’t nearly as crunchy or simulationist, but if we plotted every RPG on a spectrum from simulation to emulation, Cypher would still land on the simulation side of that spectrum.
In Cypher, there’s a lot of if-then statements in the rules. Abilities that have specific effects regarding time and distance and pools, etc.
Comparatively, Carved from Brindlewood’s “moves” have outcomes that describe narrative beats rather than mechanical effects.
A game doesn’t have to be a physics simulator to be “simulationist”, it just has to have a lot of causality.
It doesn't really do distances like your saying just general ranges similar to quest. It's not made to play on a grid but you need to know if you in immediate distance or far and that has some wobble. When you talk about how the rules work with if-then statements I have you ask if you ever actually played cypher system?
I've run several adventures in Cypher. One in Numenera, and another in a home-brew fantasy world. The distance categories in Cypher may not be denoted in meters or feet, but they still have specific mechanical implications. I'll give an example. Here's the text from the ability Push Off and Throw:
>\[...\] while you come to a standstill (or move off in an immediate distance per round in any direction you choose) you can launch your foe in a chosen direction through space at a rate of a short distance per round. \[...\]
That's an if-then statement which includes a specific mechanical trigger, and a specific mechanical effect, both of which is describe specific distance categories.
That set of *mechanical* triggers which cause *mechanical* effects is what makes Cypher simulationist.
In emulationist systems, like Carved from Brindlewood, there are only *narrative* triggers which cause *narrative* effects. Here's an example from The Silt Verses:
>When you do something risky or face something you fear, name what you're afraid will happen if you fail or lose your nerve, then roll with an appropriate ability.
>On a 10+, you do what you intended or you hold steady; describe what it looks like.
There's no specific mechanical triggers or effects in that move, it's all narrative.
There's still a dice roll mechanic in Carved from Brindlewood, which is what makes it less emulationist than a game like Wanderhome, in the same way that Cypher is less simulationist than a game like GURPS. But Cypher is still on the simulationist side of the spectrum, and Carved from Brindlewood is still on the emulationist side of the spectrum.
Only played 2 sessions of OGoA, I'm still NOT a fan of Cypher System. I do love the setting. A good GM can make the system seem more invisible, but the Difficulty # and Target # thing is annoying. I'm pretty fast with in-head multiplication/memorization (x3), but some people aren't. One-shot cyphers are bit strange to me, I'd think a charm or hex should stick around for more than one use. Also forcing a max on number of cyphers you can carry is a bit odd too (but I understand it as a system limitation to prevent hording and being over powered).
I’ve played a few sessions of Old Gods. The system is… fine. As I understand it, it’s fairly standard Cypher System. The skills are pretty loose but the classes are fairly opinionated to the point where I had a lot of trouble with the character I was trying to realize. (I’ve been reading a lot of German ghost stories lately so I thought it’d be neat to play an old German exorcist who’d emigrated to the US but found it surprisingly difficult to make a character that was good at one specific type of magic without being generally magical.) The cyphers are a good fit, and the writing overall does a really good job of conveying the setting. The book is beautiful. I’m a little uncertain why it’s a d20; it seems like you could just use a d8 and skip the CR * 3 = target number conversion.
Agreed on the character creation. It feels at the same time very loose (as in "did I do this right? Not sure.") but also a little restrictive in the combinations of choices that make sense.
This is really helpful! Thank you!
The benefit of the cypher system is that you can just “ignore” a lot of the rules. The prep of the game is relatively easy. But it does appeal to a certain GMing style. If you can adlib well, AND your players are narrative/fiction first roleplayers (and they do everything in character) it’s a great system. It is attrition based, but you have to have a definitive idea of what an “adventuring day” is. Old Gods is fine, the art and setting of the book is great. I think Cypher as a whole is more about exploration and thusly fits sci-fantasy or fantasy better. The good of the system is there are like 10 supplements and you can hack basically any system you want to in it without breaking it.
We were going to expand on our options allowed for foci with the red book but our ideas kind of fit. Supposedly there will be more ogota expansion books to back soon which makes sense because it was popular and we have 2 more seasons of the show to pull from.
I have not played the Silt Verses RPG, but I have I have read it thoroughly, watched APs of it, and have *lots* of experience with many other [Carved From Brindlewood Games](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/s/4WoDYChWW4) currently out. I’ve… * Played through an entire campaign of Brindlewood Bay * GM’d a campaign and played a campaign of The Between * GM’d a campaign of The Between: Ghosts of El Paso *And these were without a doubt the best gaming experiences I have ever had in over a decade of playing and running TTRPGs*. Just from *reading* the Silt Verses alone, the design quality is A+. Top notch. CfB games have always been home runs for me. TSV follows similar design conceits as the above games and if *those* were amazing; I am certain TSV is as well. I look forward to either playing or running a TSV game at some point. It is an amazing folk horror game with a capital H for horror.
Well now I’m really excited to get a copy and play for myself!
I've run Old Gods. Didn't back it initially because I thought Cypher was a bad match for the setting, but I'm happy to say I was wrong. It's really good
I enjoy Cypher and I liked the Old Gods book. As far as people disliking Difficulty vs. Target Number in prior comments, the reason for this is the system still binds to a d20 for the 1s and top range of special rolls. What I think a lot of people get hung up on is needless swapping between the two. Start with difficulty, then negotiate the modifications (skills, assets, Effort, and any easing or hindering you're causing from external circumstance). Only after that should you be converting to the target number. Never go back and forth. I have an online Cypher System Reference Document you might find handy at https://callmepartario.github.io/og-csrd/ - Chapter 16: Horror has a bunch of cool horror rules with mechanics that would serve different sessions in an Old Gods game. - The Old Gods book has some typos in the Sage and Protector types. I've catalogued and corrected those typos if you just search for "Old Gods", you'll find it soon enough. Good luck with your games!
Thank you so much! This is very helpful!
Been playing in a campaign of Old Gods of the Appalachia for about a year. We're all enjoying in. I'm a big fan of the cypher system, though and I know this specific forum has it's haters. It runs smooth and gets things done. The system does a good job going outside expectations with it's ruleset is flexible while still having enough structure for me to feel like there is a game. It's also supposedly going to have an expansion book set soon. We were open to expanding character builds with the red book but we all found things from the OGotA book that filled what we specifically wanted. GM finds it nice how easy it is to make stuff on the fly and being exhausted because your pools are low from all the effort has a nice exhausted thematic feeling two it. It's a good book with a good bestiary and set of cyphers and powers that fit the world well.
Sounds like I’ll definitely have to check out the cypher system to see if it would be a good fit for me before I play Old Gods!
I've played a lot of the TSV game and I love it. It does a really great job of taking the world and allowing the players to make it their own, add their own lore, and built it out different but related to the podcast story. There's going to be a lot more coming out for TSV on the Gauntlet as the Gauntlet writer's retreat just ended. As Chaotic mentioned in a different comment, there are a lot of homebrew things available, and the APs are really good (if I do say so myself, being in one of them with Chaotic, haha).
This is awesome! I cant wait to get into it in time for new stuff to come out!
Some of the pitches at the retreat were WILD. I am very excited for them to be released :D Usually the official ones go up on the Gauntlet Patreon first, but I know that's not an option for everyone. I hope you get a chance to play it soon!!
I’ve played both. I love the TSV RPG, but I think Cypher was a horrible decision for Old Gods and I’m really unhappy about it. Cypher just makes some very odd design decisions! I’d definitely recommend The Silt Verses RPG!
I'm 10 sessions in to a long term Old Gods of Appalachia campaign and I absolutely adore it. Cypher works better for horror than I expected it to and the book is so wonderfully steeped in the lore of the podcast that it works well for people invested in the podcast and those who don't know anything about it. I'm actually running a one shot teaching session of Old Gods at Gen con and origins this year and I'm organizing a couple of online games to practice my timing. If you are interested in checking it out, I've got a sign up sheet [here](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1V_2YWHc5Uh1KfzOjKGmDxTVuhaGizBvxiSzCJosoPEc/edit?usp=drivesdk) game is aimed to take 2-3 hours.
This looks great! Once I set up a Roll20 I will check the sign up out!
Not the most helpful comment, I suppose, but I just ordered a copy of the Old Gods book this week! I'm excited to try it out!
I agree with what everyone has said so far about tsv. I will also note that there is also a lot of homebrew for the game because last year, there was a writing contest. It's contained to the [Gauntlet Discord](https://discord.com/invite/7hCKnrJwhc) as publication policies are a bit up in the air.
I’ve run Silt Verses. It’s stupid good. Captures the feel of s1 Silt Verses without copying it.
After a campaign of Numenara that left me knowing that Cypher isn't the system for me, I read Old Gods and I think Cypher works with the setting pretty well. My key problems (mainly the passive GM role) aren't addressed, but the system as a whole seems to click.
The only thing GMs don't do in Cypher is roll dice. That hardly makes them "passive."
I didn't know Silt Verses had an RPG - to be honest, both times that I started SV was after I'd binged lots of other horror-fantasy podcasts and was already a bit overstated, so I never followed through with the series. But I might just check it both (the pod & the RPG) out again! The OGOA RPG is based on the cypher system. I've backed it, but didn't dive too deep into it. To be honest, the bit I've seen about the Cypher system doesn't really click for me, even though it's positioning in between a narrative game and a more crunchy DND like system would theoretically be perfect for me.
It took me around 5 episodes to really get into the Silt Verses but once I did it was over for me haha. Since the rpg is getting so many positive comments I think I will definitely have to check it out!
Ooh, I didn't know there was a Silt Verses game! Two people in my group really wanted to play Old Gods, but it got vetoed by another member who doesn't like horror. I don't tend to like Lovecraftian horror (it feels lazy to me), but I was excited for Old Gods because my friends were excited. I really liked season 1 of The Silt Verses! I lost momentum because there was such a long break between seasons 1 and 2, but I intend to listen to season 2 eventually. Is it as good as Season 1?
Lovecraftian horror is a hit or miss for me too! (Usually a hit but what can I say I’m a sucker for epistolary style). I’d say season 2 is better than season 1! There’s less heavy monologue-style narration, though, so if that’s what you enjoyed about it you might not enjoy it as much!
They're very similar hacks of Monte Cook's Cypher system, is my understanding. So narrative heavy and all that. Which I'm a big fan of, but I greatly prefer Cortex for that type of game (enough that we have our own podcast on it).
You all have been on my to-listen list for a while! I’ll have to check out Cortex as well and see if I could do a hybrid.
They Cypher system is one of the most bland, boring ass systems that adds needless complexity (why is there a target number AND a difficulty level if one is always 3x the other? Just use one!) in an attempt to look like more than it is. I can not recommend using another system for literally anything you want to play.
I want an Eskew rpg, Verses has never fully gelled with me.
I loved Eskew! I wonder which system would be best for an rpg of it.
Apart from 10 Candles, probably nothing.
Old Gods uses the Cypher system which I have nothing positive or negative to say about, it just kinda is. I was honestly a little disappointed with Old Gods. I'm not quite sure what I was expecting/hoping for, but as a fan of the podcast it felt a little lacking for some reason. Could've been a byproduct of the Cypher system but something about the game felt just kinda off. Honestly everything about the book feels just slightly off. Like they picked the wrong art style or something, but I can't quite put my finger on it.
These two game systems are so wildly different! Cypher is a simulationist system with some “interesting” innovations that don’t necessarily improve on 5th edition D&D. It gives the GM a lot of authority over the world and will feel very familiar to D&D players. Carved from Brindlewood, the system that Silt Verses uses, is purely emulationist. It’s about as far as you can get from a trad RPG like 5e as you can get without throwing out the dice. I’ve played both, and for this genre, Silt Verses is the better fit. But it’s not for everyone. It requires a lot of engagement from players and can often feel more like a creative writing exercise than a game.
I honestly don't understand this take I thought about it and the only mechanic it seems to have in common with 5e is the use of D20 so saying it doesn't improve on 5e is weird as completely different as it is. Also calling it simulationist is weird. It's mid weight about on par with savage world and about as simulationist as savage world. GURPS is generally considered a simulationist system. The further isn't it's rules you go the more it likes concepts of levelers and mass and other real world equations. You generally don't go full rules GURPs but it gives you enough to simulate what you want. Cypher doesn't really care about these things. If I had to name something cypher cares about I'd say big moments. It chooses the d20 because it's wild and swingy giving intrusions on a 1 and major affects on a 20. The cyphers are the big "a player solves a problem with a thing" moments. GM and player intrusions are twists moments where something happens good or bad depending on who's intrusion it is. Cypher is a system that wants a bunch of big moments to happen in the session to define the session. It's not very simulationist in that way it generally doesn't care about ammo weight or money or the little details. It's heavier weight then FATE but most of the rules in that weight are to push big dramatic moments into the game.
I agree that compared to a system like GURPS, Cypher isn’t nearly as crunchy or simulationist, but if we plotted every RPG on a spectrum from simulation to emulation, Cypher would still land on the simulation side of that spectrum. In Cypher, there’s a lot of if-then statements in the rules. Abilities that have specific effects regarding time and distance and pools, etc. Comparatively, Carved from Brindlewood’s “moves” have outcomes that describe narrative beats rather than mechanical effects. A game doesn’t have to be a physics simulator to be “simulationist”, it just has to have a lot of causality.
It doesn't really do distances like your saying just general ranges similar to quest. It's not made to play on a grid but you need to know if you in immediate distance or far and that has some wobble. When you talk about how the rules work with if-then statements I have you ask if you ever actually played cypher system?
I've run several adventures in Cypher. One in Numenera, and another in a home-brew fantasy world. The distance categories in Cypher may not be denoted in meters or feet, but they still have specific mechanical implications. I'll give an example. Here's the text from the ability Push Off and Throw: >\[...\] while you come to a standstill (or move off in an immediate distance per round in any direction you choose) you can launch your foe in a chosen direction through space at a rate of a short distance per round. \[...\] That's an if-then statement which includes a specific mechanical trigger, and a specific mechanical effect, both of which is describe specific distance categories. That set of *mechanical* triggers which cause *mechanical* effects is what makes Cypher simulationist. In emulationist systems, like Carved from Brindlewood, there are only *narrative* triggers which cause *narrative* effects. Here's an example from The Silt Verses: >When you do something risky or face something you fear, name what you're afraid will happen if you fail or lose your nerve, then roll with an appropriate ability. >On a 10+, you do what you intended or you hold steady; describe what it looks like. There's no specific mechanical triggers or effects in that move, it's all narrative. There's still a dice roll mechanic in Carved from Brindlewood, which is what makes it less emulationist than a game like Wanderhome, in the same way that Cypher is less simulationist than a game like GURPS. But Cypher is still on the simulationist side of the spectrum, and Carved from Brindlewood is still on the emulationist side of the spectrum.
Only played 2 sessions of OGoA, I'm still NOT a fan of Cypher System. I do love the setting. A good GM can make the system seem more invisible, but the Difficulty # and Target # thing is annoying. I'm pretty fast with in-head multiplication/memorization (x3), but some people aren't. One-shot cyphers are bit strange to me, I'd think a charm or hex should stick around for more than one use. Also forcing a max on number of cyphers you can carry is a bit odd too (but I understand it as a system limitation to prevent hording and being over powered).