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Iadace!!

Monte Cook Games products have set a standard for reflecting diverse peoples in their art and words. They recognize the value of inclusion and support it thoughout their works.

As supporters of diversity, we at the CypherCast Network are sad that articles in this magazine haven’t in-cluded works by more diverse Cypher System fans. We know you’re out there!

I implore fans of diverse backgrounds to consider sharing your visions and submit a contribution to this magazine. All contributors share in the proceeds of the sales. You can reach us at cyphercastnetwork@gmail.com.

David Wilson Brown

CREDITS

Publisher & Layout David Wilson Brown

Editors Andrew Cady Jeremy Land

Cover Artist Johnny Gray

Logos & Bannerhead John Scott

Contributors Andrew Cady Ryan Chaddock Chris Fitzgerald Jeremy Land Scott Robinson Jim Ryan Interior Art Reece Ambrose Jacob Atienza Jason Engle Justin MacAuley Don Maitz Guido Kuip Grzegorz Pedrycz Bruce Pennington Mike Perry John Petersen Roberto Pitturru Scott Purdy Cyril Terpent Kieran Yanner

ON THE COVER:

In this image, believed to have been taken by her trusty manservant Hendrick, known explorer and clever jack Valeska is seen moments before she began exploring the floating island of [unpronouncable]. This was the last known image of her.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

MCG Product Preview of No Thank You, Evil! with Shanna Germain ....................................... 4By David Wilson Brown & Andrew Cady

Torment: Tides of Numenera ................................................................................................................... 6An Interview with Colin McComb and Adam Heine of InXile EntertainmentBy Andrew Cady

Leaning on Influences............................................................................................................................... 10By Jim Ryan

Breaking Glass: A Numenera Short Story ..........................................................................................14By Chris Fitzgerald

Setting the Table: Adapting Settings to the Cypher System ..................................................... 24 by Ryan Chaddock

Horizon 770: Prologue ............................................................................................................................. 28 A Cypher System Adventure by Jeremy Land

Using Skills in the Cypher System......................................................................................................... 32 Understanding the Role of Skills in the Cypher System by Scott Robinson

Races in a Cypher System Game .......................................................................................................... 36By Jeremy Land

MCG Fan Relations News & Events .................................................................................................... 38

Numenera and its logo, The Strange and its logo, Cypher System and its logo, and No Thank You, Evil! and its logo are trademarks of Monte Cook Games, LLC in the U.S.A. and other countries. All Monte Cook Games characters and character names, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are trademarks of Monte Cook Games, LLC. Monte Cook Games logos and trademarks, and copyright images and text, are used with permission.CypherCaster contributors retain the rights on their material and any use of their content must be granted approval by the contributors themselves.All other materials and the presentation of this magazine are Copyright 2015 - CypherCast Network.

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We got a chance to talk with Shanna Germain about No Thank You, Evil!, MCG’s new RPG for families. For the sake of those who aren’t in the know already, what is “No Thank You, Evil!” and what was inspiration for producing it?

SG: No Thank You, Evil! (NTYE) is a tabletop game of creative make-believe, adventure, and storytelling. In short, it’s a role-playing game for families.

We came up with the idea because we heard from so many gamers who loved Numenera and were playing it with their families. Which surprised us – the mechanics of Numenera were designed to be simple, but the setting of the Ninth World is dark, dangerous, and scary—not at all designed for kids. So we talked to some of those families about their experience, and learned that it was the system that drew them in and that they were tweaking the setting to be more kid-friendly. And they were having a blast with it.

So we thought, what if we made a game where both the me-chanics and the setting were designed for families? It seemed like it would be a lot of fun to make, and there definitely seemed to be a desire for it, so we decided to Kickstart it. If no one want-ed a family game, we would know right away. Thankfully, the Kickstarter was successful and we got to make the game!

What was the end product to come out of the Kickstarter campaign. Will there be any differences between the backer sets and those released to the public?

SG: The end product is a complete boxed set that has every-thing you need to play No Thank You, Evil! with your family. The

rule book, an adventure book, dice, cards, character sheets, and tokens.

Everything is built to be kid-friendly. We made large, colorful, easy-to-read dice. All of the written materials use a large, clean font that is designed for readers with dyslexia or other reading difficulties. We used colors and symbols to make it the game easier for non-readers and those who are color-blind or visually impaired.

We did make two versions—the regular game and the deluxe version. Both were available during the KS, and the regular game will be available in stores. The deluxe version also has some extra special stuff like a cloth map, write-on/wipe-off character sheets, a story book, and character standups.

You worked on the development of a lot of the Cypher System books and Settings, how different was it to develop something geared towards younger children?

SG: In many ways, it was easy. For the adventures, the charac-ters, and the world, I just channeled my inner six-year-old, who is always bubbling right on the surface anyway, and I let her run.

In other ways, it was hard. I did a lot of research into what makes a game accessible for the widest variety of kids. We wanted this to be a game that welcoming and easy for everyone, but that would also scale as players become more skilled.

This system seems designed to age and grow with the kids playing it, as well as allow different ages groups to coexist in the same game, how did you come up with that concept?

SG: The first thing we realized when we were talking to people who were playing with their families was that they were playing with their whole families. Occasionally it was, “I’m playing with my 12-year-old daughter and all her friends who are the same age” but more often it was, “I’m playing with my 12-year-old daughter, my 6-year-old son, and our 5-year old twins. Plus their grandma and their mom.” So we quickly realized that we couldn’t make a game that was just for one age group. It needed to truly be a family game, which accommodated different ages and experience levels in a single experience.

Some research and playtesting were done to maximize the accessibility of the game to kids of different ages and capa-bilities. Can you tell us what you found and how the game handles the things necessary to deliver on those goals?

SG: There was so much information—and so much of it was conflicting. Which font is good for dyslexia? Depends on who you ask. How can we make the game more accessible for chil-dren with autism? It depends on the child and their particular experience and skills. So we realized early on that there wasn’t one right answer. Instead, we made ALL of the answers right answers. If you’re a player and it’s your turn to take an action, you can draw that action, write it, act it out, sing about it, or just talk about it. That allows players to play their way—and to utilize their unique set of skills.

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Product Preview - No Thank You, Evil!What were some of your favorite feedback from the play-testing?

SG: It’s always great to hear the excitement from young players. We got a lot of pictures of character drawings and really fantas-tic, original character sheets. And tons of stories. We also had some friends who playtested the game in India—we wanted to see if the game and the setting made room for lots of different cultures—and the creative ideas that came back in terms of sto-ries, characters, and situations was amazing.

RPG’s have been criticized in the past for their simulated violence. When designing a game for children how con-science were you to make sure that there were nonviolent solutions to problems?

SG: In all of our games, we make sure that there are always solutions that don’t involve violence. In this game in particular, we wanted to reward creativity. Sometimes creativity means bonking one of the Knights of the Sound table on the head with his guitar. Other times, it means singing him a lullaby so he falls asleep. Or inviting him to be part of your band so that he becomes your friend. All of the creatures in the game also have a Quirk – a thing that you can learn about them that isn’t com-bat-related at all. For example, there’s a robotic dinosaur called the dinomatron. His quirk is that he really likes other dinosaurs, so if you pull your arms into your sleeves and go RAWR! he’ll see you as a friend and won’t attack you.

The phrase “No Thank You, Evil!” is more than just the prod-uct’s title, it’s a game mechanic. Can you explain how that works in game and why it’s integral to the game?

SG: The name comes from Oliva, the daughter of MCG Staff Charles and Tammie Ryan. When she was about a year old, her daycare was trying to teach all of the kids manners. So rather than screaming, “No!” at each other, the kids were encouraged to say, “No thank you.” Which, of course, resulting in the kids screaming “NO THANK YOU!” at the top of their lungs every time a disagreement arose.

While Charles and Olivia were out shopping one day, they saw a bunch of TVs showing a trailer for the X-Men movie. Olivia asked what the man on TV was doing, and Charles was trying to figure out how to explain superheros, secret identities, and mutant powers to a one-year-old. Finally he just said, “They’re fight-ing evil.” At which point, Olivia raised a pointed finger, shook it sternly at the nearest TV, and with all her gravity told it, “NO THANK YOU, EVIL!”

So, the whole idea that you can say “No thank you” to evil is an important element of the game. We wanted to make sure that everyone at the table felt comfortable and safe. If the game gets too intense or scary for a player, they can say, “No Thank You, Evil!” Then the person running the game can decide what to do—maybe take a break, or bring down the scary level a little bit, or add some humor. Whatever helps the player feel more comfortable.

The art and assets you have teased so far have been amaz-ingly creative and cute. Can you talk about Cathy Wilkins involvement and finding the other artists involved?

SG: Cathy’s just fantastic. She’d done some work for us on other projects, and really had such a wide range of skills and styles. Mostly, she leans toward dark and dangerous elements, but I wanted to see if she could bring that scary down a notch and bring up the cute. And she did a great job.

Our other lead artist is Michael Startzman. He did the great size comparison posters in our bestiary’s, and he just has this really wonderful whimsical sensibility. We brought him on early to do the logo and icons for things like cards and tokens. He also did the map, which I think is incredibly fun.

We always try to use artists who are already doing great things for us, so we also have art from Brandon Leach, Patrick McEvoy, Michael Phillippi, Lee Smith, Kim Sokol, Tiffany Turrill, and Alina Pete in the books.

Let’s talk about the adventures included- What are their titles and basic descriptions?

SG: There are three complete adventures (and a lot of adven-ture seeds sprinkled throughout). The adventures are: Lost in Dragonsnot Falls, Race Against Time, and The Curse of Adven-ture Kingdom. I don’t want to give away too much, but I will say that there’s a giant dragon head and you climb into its nostrils, there’s a malfunctioning time machine with dinosaurs, robots, and futuristic pirates, and there’s an amusement park shrouded in a horrible curse.

Knowing how well MCG games build a sandbox for GM’s to work in, how did you adapt those tools for potential kid GMs?

SG: For the mechanics, we basically took an already simple con-cept—that everything has a level and that’s all you really need to know about that thing—and made it even simpler by using a d6 instead of a d20. The game’s levels are 1-8, so there’s no math involved. If the level of something is 1 and your player rolls a 2, then you know they made it.

We also made a world where anything goes. Storia has four main areas, and each one has a general theme. Out the Window, for example, can be thought of as the world “beyond.” So anything that’s underwater, on another planet, in space, or in the past or the future, can be found here, things like aliens, space ships, submarines, race cars, time machines, and rockets. While Into the Closet has a more mythical, fairy tale feel. It’s full of things like princesses, witches, knights, magic potions, and ogres. If GMs want to create an adventure that retells their favorite TV show, movie, or book, they can do so easily.

(For the record, we did ask about NTYE becoming a product line and received a “no comment at this time”. Let’s hope!)

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