Hello, backers—

We’re in the final day of this campaign, and what a day it’s turning out to be! You’ve unlocked the Cypher Character Portfolios, which is now an add-on and a reward for every backer at the ALL-IN (print and PDF) pledge level (and in PDF for ALL-IN (PDF only) backers).

And you did it with plenty of time and momentum to hit even more goals!

As we do with every stretch goal, we’re throwing in a free bonus reward for every backer, in the form of a vinyl sticker. Here’s the design you voted for:

One of the benefits of backing this campaign is that your copy of the Cypher Character Rulebook, Cypher GM’s Guide, and Cypher Bestiary will be special: they’ll include premium upgrades like foil covers. In short, you’re getting a deluxe version at the standard price—and it’s an exclusive that won’t be available except through this campaign.

Why stop at the corebooks, though? We unlocked Cypher Character Options this week, and the previously unlocked Predationand The Strange setting books are going to be beautiful, inspiring, and quite hefty. So we’d like to reward the backers of this campaign by making them all as special and limited as the corebooks. We’ll unlock this upgrade when we get to 5250 backers.

In the last update, we talked about how close this campaign is getting to the $1,000,000 mark—a milestone that’s only been hit by a few non-licensed, non-5E RPG campaigns. We remain on track to land very close to that number; in fact, yesterday the campaign raised more than The Magnus Archives: Tangled in the Web did in its second-to-last day. (That campaign topped a million dollars, and Cypher’s trendline has been very similar to it.)

Over on the Cypher Unlimited discord, a few fans have asked if we would release ALL of the bonus stickers—even the designs that didn’t win their polls (many of which still got hundreds of votes). We half-jokingly responded that if the campaign hits a million dollars, we’d make it happen.

Well, why joke? It seems like a milestone worth celebrating! So let’s make it official: Take us over the one-million-dollar mark, and we’ll give every backer every single sticker you’ve seen in this campaign.

Like all of the stickers, this isn’t really a stretch goal per se—more of a little Thank-You treat for every backer for helping make this campaign so successful.

First, make sure you’re following us on the social media platforms of your choice. You can find loads of posts, images, and more to share on our accounts.

Second, go to places where people talk about RPGs, and mention this campaign. Say a word or two about why you like it, and include the link mymcg.info/cypher Or if someone’s already started a conversation, join in and support the campaign. Here are a few places to check out:

Third, share some of this art—cool images catch eyes!

Fourth, like and comment on any posts you see your friends share. This tells the algorithm to keep showing those posts to more people.

We’re already barreling toward this next stretch goal, with new backers jumping in almost by the minute! So when we unlock it, which sticker should we give you as your bonus reward. (Of course, as we said above, if we get all the way to $1,000,000, you’ll get both!)

Vote now. And keep spreading the word!

Thanks for your support!
—Team MCG

Hello, backers—

The final few days of this campaign have really heated up! Thanks to all the buzz backers like you have created for this campaign, Cypher Character Options has been unlocked!

Over the years, several dozen crowdfunding campaigns have topped a million dollars. But if you strip away games based on powerful pre-existing brands—games like MCG’s Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game, or anything for 5E—and the list gets a lot shorter. Only three or four standalone (non-licensed, non-5E) RPGs have ever crowdfunded more than $1M. Doesn’t Cypher deserve to be on that list?

It's not a pipe dream. The track of this campaign almost exactly matches The Magnus Archives: Tangled in the Web, which we crowdfunded early this year for $1,015,475. If our final hours follow Tangled’s pace, we’ll end up very close to that mark.

So, it’s totally doable, but it requires our backers—YOU—to help. Won’t you take just a moment to spread the word about this campaign on social media, on reddit, on ENworld, on RPG.net, in your gaming Discord servers, or wherever you talk about games?

You can give Cypher its rightful place in gaming history!

Unlocking Cypher Character Options also unlocks a free bonus reward for every backer:

A great campaign fosters great characters and great stories. You’ve just unlocked an entire book of additional options for your characters. Now let’s do those characters—and their stories—justice! 

A Cypher character is more than a collection of numbers—they’re the heart of a wondrous tale, driven by compelling motives and interesting backstory. They have friends, adversaries, and character arcs. They go to cool places, face dangerous challenges, and commit amazing feats.

Do you really want to cram all that onto a ratty old laser-printed character sheet?

The Cypher Character Portfolio does everything a standard character sheet does, and more. At 24 pages, it will record not just your character’s pools, abilities, skills, cyphers, wounds, gear, and everything else you find on a regular character sheet. It’ll also give you room for notes, sketches, character arcs, and details about those abilities. You can jot down thoughts about your character’s appearance and mannerisms. There’s plenty of room for details about connections to the other PCs in your party along with people, creatures, objects, and locations you meet in your adventures. You can keep a campaign journal, or make maps and sketches of places you’ve been.

It gets even better. The portfolio will be perfectly sized to give you plenty of space within, but without taking up too much space on the gaming table. It’ll be printed in full color on heavy matte paper that takes pencil and eraser easily. Even the cover will be easy to write and draw on, making every player’s Character Portfolio unique from the outside in.

Or maybe you manage your character digitally? The PDF version will be as thoughtfully designed as the print portfolio: we’ll give you two versions, one optimized for printing and the other in a form-fillable format perfect for using on a tablet, phone, or laptop. No promises (there are some technical hurdles), but we’re also looking at making it possible to import a character created in Cypher Tools directly into the form-fillable PDF portfolio.

In print, the Cypher Character Portfolio will come in a pack of five—enough for the whole party. We’ll add that bundle of five, and the PDF version, to the rewards of all backers at the ALL-IN (print and PDF) pledge level (and the PDF for backers at the ALL-IN (PDF only) level)—and, of course, make it available as an add-on. We’ll unlock the Cypher Character Portfolio if we get to 4850 backers!

The final day is usually one of a campaign’s best, and we’ve sometimes unlocked two, three, or even more stretch goals as the campaign closes. If we follow past trends, we may well have more stretch goals to go.

But only with your help spreading the word!

Post! Tweet! Shout! Tell the world why you're backing this campaign! If you aren't feeling creative, go to MCG's social media and pick a post you like to share—see the links below. Or grab any of these graphics (right-click to download) and share it, along with a link to mymcg.info/cypher.

As always, we’ll give every backer a free bonus reward if we unlock the Cypher Character Portfolios. Which sticker should we make next?

Vote now. And keep helping us reach the thousands of gamers who have not yet discovered Cypher!

Thanks for your support!
—Team MCG

Our friends over at Vault comics are up to something preeetttty cool, and we’re really looking forward to it!

Hello, backers—

That didn’t take long! The closing week of a crowdfunding campaign always gets exciting, and this one is no exception. You’ve unlocked the expansion to Predation!

You’ve unlocked so many goals over this campaign—but we are not out of ideas! Could we unlock another book? With your help, we might! More on stretch goals in a minute, but first:

With every stretch goal we throw in a free, bonus reward as a thank you to every backer, regardless of pledge level. We’re really building up quite the collection of stickers!

You’ve really made this campaign soar—and it’s not over yet! We have several more goals we’d like to unlock, and the exciting final days of a campaign often hit multiple goals.

Your help spreading the word and keeping the buzz going is what has unlocked a string of new books and other products, as well as upgrading and expanding the initial offering. Please spread the word to keep it up!

There are thousands and thousands of gamers who haven’t yet heard of Cypher—or haven’t heard about this campaign—or don’t realize time to back is running out (we’re down to about 48 hours). Help us reach them! Post something about why you’re excited. Share a few posts other people have made. Like and comment on them, so the algorithm shows them to more gamers.

Not feeling creative? Here are some sharable images. Right-click to download them, then share with a link to mymcg.info/cypher (You can find more sharable graphics in yesterday's update.)

Another new book! Another new book? ANOTHER NEW BOOK!

Early in this campaign you expanded the Cypher Character Rulebook with more types, descriptors, foci, and other character options. It’s become quite the hefty tome: our current estimate puts it north of 300 pages!

But—and this is no surprise to anyone who knows them—Monte, Sean, and Bruce have even more ideas they’d like to bring to you and your characters. Too much to stuff into this book without making it unwieldy. So, they propose another book: Cypher Character Options.

This title will give you even more ways to bring your cool character concept to life, exploring a wide range of subgenres, character archetypes, and abilities.

As we do with all new products you unlock, we’ll add Cypher Character Options to the rewards of all backers at the ALL-IN (print and PDF) pledge level (and the PDF for backers at the ALL-IN (PDF only) level). We’ll also make it available as an add-on, but honestly, if you want this or any of the other new products we’ve unlocked through this amazing campaign, you really should just upgrade to an ALL-IN pledge level—it has become an amazing deal!

As always, the next goal will unlock not just a new book, but also a bonus reward for every backer. Which sticker should we make next?

Vote for your favorite in the poll below! And SHARE THIS CAMPAIGN if you want to unlock this goal and more!

 Thanks for your support!
—Team MCG

Hello, backers—

Wow! In just a day and a half you’ve unlocked yet another stretch goal, and added another product to your rewards! We will now make the new Cypher XP Deck, and add it to the rewards for every backer at the ALL-IN (print and PDF) pledge level (in PDF for ALL-IN (PDF only) backers). It’s also now available as an add-on. 

That took a day and a half. There are four days left in this campaign, and they’re only going to get faster-paced. With your continued help, we can unlock several more stretch goals—and we still have more new products we’d like to make! Your help spreading the word will unlock these goals!

As with every goal we hit, we have a bonus reward to thank every backer for helping us unlock the Cypher XP Deck: 

Early in this campaign you unlocked The Strange, a cool dimension-hopping setting that, in its original edition, was one of the first games powered by Cypher. Through later goals, you expanded it, and we now anticipate it will be the largest campaign setting book for Cypher we’ve ever published—heftier than books such as Gods of the Fall, Gunslinger Knights, and the original Predation.

We’d like to do the same thing for the new edition of Predation. We’re bursting with ideas to further explore the Cretaceous-era world of Grevakc, giving you more dinosaurs and other creatures, and offering more character options, equipment, and cyphers.

When you unlocked Predation last week, we envisioned a book similar in scope to the original 192-page campaign setting. With this goal, it will grow substantially, making Predation, along with The Strange among the heftiest campaign settings we’ve ever published. We’ll unlock this expansion when we reach 4250 backers!

Every time we unlock a goal, we give ever backer a free bonus gift: a vinyl sticker. Which design should we add as your bonus for unlocking the Predation expansion?

Vote for your favorite in the poll below. And remember:

This campaign is soaring because backers like you keep spreading the word. Keep it up! You can find loads of great sharable posts on MCG’s social media (links below). Or share one of these images (right-click to download)—be sure to include a link to mymcg.info/cypher

Vote for your favorite sticker, and then give the campaign a quick shout-out. With your help we’ll unlock this goal quickly and move on to several more in this exciting final week!

Thanks for your support!
—Team MCG

Hello, backers—

You've done it! You have unlocked one of our favorite campaign settings in the form of a whole new product, which is now added to the rewards for every backer at the ALL-IN (print and PDF) pledge level (in PDF for ALL-IN (PDF only) backers). It’s also available as an add-on.

What a great way to head into the final week of this campaign! If history is any guide, it’s likely to get very exciting as we close in on the end, anticipation builds, and more and more backers jump in before it’s too late—meaning more and more stretch goals as well!

If you’re new to Grevakc, the Cretaceous, and the very compelling Predation campaign setting, you can learn more in this recent update.

As we do with each stretch goal, we’re throwing in a bonus reward for every backer, no matter your pledge level:

We’ll have a new sticker with our next stretch goal, too. More on that below. But first, speaking of stretch goals:

Characters in Cypher earn XP through exploration, risk, meeting adventure goals, and pursuing their own narrative arcs. They’re also the reward for GM intrusions—when the GM throws a little wrench into the works, complicates a situation, or introduces a surprise twist to a scene or adventure. Players might rack up XP between sessions, but it’s common to receive experience points during play. And XP is useful in both the short- and long-term: spend 1 XP to reroll for yourself (or a friend), or save them up for character advancement!

Because they’re often gained and spent during play (and even passed from player to player), it’s handy to have a set of physical tokens to represent them. Cards work well—they’re easily handled and kept track of, and you can tuck them into your Cypher Character Rulebook or character portfolio between sessions. We’ve produced XP decks for the original edition of Cypher (and for several of our other games), and they work great!

This deck will consist of 30 XP cards, each with unique and compelling Cypher art. In addition, we’ll include five reference cards, each with helpful info for the players. Cypher isn’t complicated, but a little reminder of how to apply Effort, use a player intrusion, shake off wounds, recover Pool points, spend resource points, and things like that can be a boon (especially those new to the game). If you’re playing Cypher for the first time (or teaching new players), these reference cards will be handy!

We’ll add this new XP Deck to the rewards of all backers at the ALL-IN (print and PDF) pledge level (and in PDF at the ALL-IN (PDF only) level), and it’ll be available as an add-on. We’ll unlock the Cypher XP Deck at 4100 backers. And then we'll move on to who knows how many more goals in the exciting final week of the campaign?

Every crowdfunding campaign lives or dies by the enthusiasm its backers bring to it. If you’re excited about Cypher, sharing that excitement is the best way to help us reach stretch goals. In fact, it’s the only way. For this campaign to soar in this final week, we need you to reach out to gamers who aren’t aware of it or of Cypher. Be sure to include this link: mymcg.info/cypher.

We like to thank every backer each time you unlock a stretch goal. If we unlock the XP Deck, every backer will get another vinyl sticker as a bonus reward. We’ve held a poll with each goal, letting you choose the sticker designs. But just because a sticker didn’t win doesn’t mean you didn’t like it. So here are two designs that fared well, but didn’t win their polls. Which one should be our next sticker?

Vote for your favorite, then help spread the word about this campaign—and let’s unlock another book!

Thanks for your support!
—Team MCG