[CYPHER] Cypher in Darkness - a rules-set for World of Darkness, v0.1.

I love the setting for The World of Darkness. I enjoy just reading the rulebooks.

I hate the rules. They're overcomplicated, annoying, badly written, and poorly balanced.

My usual solution for this is to find a good universal system and adapt it. Did it with Shadowrun and Savage Worlds. So I picked Cypher, for a couple of reasons - most notably that it uses a stat pool system similar to the WoD and its Blood/Gnosis/Rage/Willpower/Glamour/Faith/etc/etc/etc pools.

If you're not familiar with Cypher, it uses three stats (Might, Speed, Intellect) and spends points from them to lower difficulty and for some abilities, refilling them with cyphers. Its character creation is "I am an ADJECTIVE VERB that NOUNS" - so one could make a paladin with "I am a Pious Warrior who Works Miracles" or a barbarian with "I am a Hardy Warrior who Rages."

I wrote this up last week (after thinking on it for months), and tried to make it reasonably balanced among all five major supernatural species - vampires, werewolves, mages, changelings, and fallen. It's still in v0.1, straight untested alpha version, and I don't know WHEN I'll get the chance to test it.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eaJm0Ydls_Nk1X522xQ2r6F5AfqDJ5DXkLuGBR0QzD8/edit?usp=sharing

The main mechanic uniting all the types is a new stat pool, Darkness - it can be added to by some abilities and just plain choosing to make rolls easier, and subtracted from by choosing to make rolls harder. If it reaches 10, Something Bad Happens unique to the species.

I chose to make the Focus (the NOUNS part) the species to allow for normal humans picking normal Foci, and to give greater variety inside the various supernatural communities if some groups wanted to focus on only one species. They could add variety with the Type (class) while still sharing the same rules. I have it in mind to add some sort of thin-blooded Focus for 14th-gen vamps and/or ghouls and/or werewolf relatives, but I'm tapped on inspiration for now.

Lastly, one major lore difference here is in the Fallen stuff - where by one reality they were gods like Beelzebub who were absorbed and made into demons by Yahweh's faith. This is something that happened, so I co-opted it. Which reality is paramount is up to you. I like the idea of asking "Was I Thor, or Amducius?" as a character conflict. Will you be a beaten godling, or a rebellious devil?

I also picked the Changeling The Lost over The Dreaming because it's overall a more interesting and consistent setting.

Any thoughts?