Hello, backers—

It’s the first afternoon of the campaign, and already you’re knocking out stretch goals. The expansion to the Cypher Character Rulebook is unlocked, and the book is getting bigger and better with more types, species, and other character options!

If you’ve backed one of our recent campaigns (The Magnus Archives: Tangled in the Web, for example, or Invisible Sun: Electric and Indigo), you might recall that sometimes we add a fun extra bonus reward to every stretch goal. We’re excited to be doing that with this campaign, too!

So, as a thank-you for unlocking this first goal, in addition to expanding the Cypher Character Rulebook we’re also giving every backer this vinyl sticker:

It’ll look great on your laptop, water bottle, car, or whatever you like to decorate. And it’s yours, free, as a bonus reward no matter what pledge level you’ve chosen to back.

And it gets better: we’ll add a sticker, as a special thank-you, every time you unlock a stretch goal. More on that below.

Your corebooks aren’t going to be exactly like those that future gamers find in stores or order from Amazon. As a backer of this campaign, helping to bring this new edition of Cypher into being, we’re adding special features to your books that won’t be available to non-backers, giving you an upgraded exclusive edition that won’t be widely available to anyone else!

The first upgrade will be an exclusive deluxe foil finish to the book covers. This premium cover treatment will give the books a lustrous glow. We’ll add the foil to the Cypher Character Rulebook, the Cypher GM’s Guide, and the matching version of the Cypher Bestiary, so they’ll all look fantastic in their slipcase.

Let’s have another bonus reward to go with this stretch goal. Which sticker should we unlock?

See the poll at the bottom of this update. Vote for your choice, and we’ll make a free bonus reward for every backer when we unlock the upgrade!

That’s a tiny glimpse of our next stretch goal. If you’ve been a fan of MCG’s games over the years, maybe that image reminds you of something. If so, it’s time to get excited!

And even if it doesn’t, well, we think you’re going to like what we announce next. We’re pretty hyped about it!

Remember, this campaign’s goals are based on the number of backers that discover and pledge to this campaign. And a crowdfunding campaign soars when—and only when—its backers help spread the word—and that means you! Share these items and help spread the word about Cypher and this campaign:

Just right-click to download, then share the graphic along with a link to mymcg.info/cypher

Thanks for your support!
—Team MCG

Hello, backers—

What a great first day we’re having (and it’s far from over)! Since funding, we have been busy managing the frenetic early hours of the campaign. Now that things are a little less hectic, let’s talk about stretch goals!

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. Most of the backers so far (including, probably, you) are already Cypher players and fans—gamers who know about Cypher and why it’s such a great game system. But if this campaign is really going to soar, we must reach out to gamers who aren’t already in the loop.

Here's one way you can show your support for Cypher—and win some sweet custom character art as well:

In addition to the rules for playing Cypher, the Cypher Character Rulebook delves into a wide range of genres (dungeon fantasy, epic fantasy, swords and sorcery, hard sci-fi, space opera, cyberpunk, gritty postapocalyptic, fantasy postapocalyptic, superheroes, horror, and “real world”), with types, foci, and descriptors for each. Even in the basic form you’ve funded, it’s a hefty book.

But one of the great advantages of the new Cypher is faster, easier, and more immersive character generation. That’s because, for each of the genres, we’re providing a range of types precustomized for the common character types of that style of play. You don’t have to take the Adept and choose options that make it into a wizard, druid, or cleric for your fantasy game—we’ve done that for you. But we’d like to do even more—because who doesn’t love more cool choices?

So for our first goal, we’d like to add even more types (and perhaps a few descriptors and foci as well). The tranche we have in mind will add one or two new types to most of the genres (such as the Witch, Powerstar, and Operative), include a couple of additional species for fantasy and science fiction games (like Hellborn and Delph), and include a few additional items—an expansion of the book by about 24 pages.

We’ll unlock this expansion of the book when we reach 1200 backers! We look forward to more expansions and upgrades to the Cypher Character Rulebook and Cypher GM’s Guide, along with other items and a few surprises, through future stretch goals. 

We hit stretch goals based on the number of backers we bring into this campaign. We’re doing our best to reach as many gamers as we can, but we need your help! Please help spread the word by sharing these graphics on your socials so we can expand the Cypher Character Rulebook and move on to other exciting goals!

Just right-click to download, then share the graphic along with a link to mymcg.info/cypher

Thanks!
—Team MCG 

Thank you, backers!

Monte, Bruce, and Sean have been hard at work on Cypher for the past several months, and thinking and planning for months before then. The rest of us, too, have been immersed in the process—playtesting, working on graphics, building this campaign—for quite some time. We are so excited to take our favorite game and make it even better. And so gratified for your support in bringing it to fruition. The new edition of Cypher is now funded!

This is just the beginning, of course. We have loads of ideas to expand and further improve the Cypher corebooks and other items we’re making through this campaign. And the campaign has weeks yet to bring these ideas into being. We can’t wait to start unlocking stretch goals!

But there’s so much to do in the first hours of a big crowdfunding campaign, and you’ve hit our funding goal amazingly fast. We’re a small team juggling a lot of stuff.

Give us a couple of hours to get our feet under us, and we’ll start rolling out those goals. In the meantime, thank you so much for an incredible launch!

—Team MCG