Thoughts From Running Games at Cypher Con 2024
By Jason Campbell
This past weekend there was a virtual online collection of TTRPGs run from Friday through Sunday called CypherCon 1.0. The games run all use the Cypher System or other games from Monte Cook Games. More notes later on CypherCon, here's my thoughts from the three games I Game Mastered.
Moving the Spotlight
Where the Dust Lies is an adventure from my upcoming setting/game/adventure currently titled Six-Gun Doomsday. The setting is a combination of weird west + post-apocalypse + gothic horror, it uses a modified version of Monte Cook Games' Cypher system. We had 5 players for this game. The players were all great about bringing their pregen characters to life. Players come in all different types and some players have stronger, more exuberant personalities than others. One of my players was excited by the game and their character and tended to naturally draww more attention than some other players. This is something GMs run into often, and I think I dealt with it with mixed results. The exuberant player was by no means problematic enough that I needed to talk to them, so I dealt with trying to "move the spotlight" by asking the quieter players how their characters react. This is a passive way to deal with it that I thought was appropriate, each GM has to evaluate their own situation.
Changing the Ending - Where the Dust Lies
Each game was played in a 4 hour window, so I always try to wind up with a satisfying ending for the players. The game was written with a way for the player characters to destroy the bid bad demon. Of course I strongly support the philosophy that it's not a good idea to have only one solution to a problem. The players ended up using their characters' abilities and the setting to create a fun and clever alternate solution. I altered the anticipated ending to allow their plan a chance of success (with a significant potential for failure) and the characters did succeed. Rewarding clever play usually results in a satisfactory ending.
Changing the Ending - The Well Traveled Path
The second day I ran another adventure in my Six-Gun Doomsday, this time with 4 players. In this case there's another big bad demon trying to manipulate things behind the scenes to get the characters to enable it to manifest on earth. The players figured out what might be going on early, and instead of having to fight this demon they successfully negotiated with its allies to prevent the demon from manifesting. It's a strange conclusion for a game that leans on horror but it fit the players' styles. They used their characters' abilities and personalities to build a creative solution.
Conclusion
My players had fun in all my games (and others they played over the weekend) and so did I. CypherCon is a weekend of virtual games supported by Monte Cook Games which takes place on the Cypher Unlimited discord server. There are plans to make this a yearly event, expanding beyond online games to panels, AMAs and more. If you want to learn more when this event happens again, I'd suggest subscribing to the Monte Cook email list, joining the Cypher Unlimited discord, and following both on BlueSky and other social media.
What do you think? Did you play at CypherCon this year? Do you have suggestions for online events like this? Let us know in the comments.
