I’m very proud to announce that next summer I will be releasing a brand new roleplaying game called Numenera. The game system behind Numenera, the Cypher System, is designed to be very simple to play and in particular to run as a GM, allowing the focus to be on role-playing, action, stories, and ideas. Numenera will be released under the Monte Cook Games banner.

Numenera’s setting is Earth, a billion years in the future, after eight great civilizations have risen and fallen. Thus, the setting is also called the Ninth World. The PCs are part of a new civilization rising in the Ninth World, hoping to forge its own destiny. But they must do so amid the remnants of a remarkable and in many ways unknowable past. The ancient peoples of prior eras mastered nanotechnology, interstellar travel, cosmic engineering, genetic engineering, and far stranger things. If the people of the Ninth World think of such things as magic, who are we to blame them?

Player characters explore this world of mystery and danger to find these leftover artifacts of the past, not to dwell upon the old ways, but to help forge their new destinies, utilizing the so-called “magic” of the past to create a promising future.

The game system itself is designed to be quick and easy for beginners, while offering additional complexity for those who desire it. Character creation is intuitive and fast, involves making just basic choices. The three features you choose combine to create a unique, well-rounded character. Players wanting the ability to configure their character more completely have that option as well.

Numenera gameplay involves a simple d20 roll that determines success or failure for any kind of action. To avoid a lot of cumbersome math at the game table, there aren’t a lot of modifiers to this roll. Instead, skills and other assets reduce the difficulty of a task. More importantly, players can choose tasks to focus upon, using a limited resource called effort to further lower the difficulty of the actions really important to them.

To learn more, please check out the new Numenera site we’ve created. Or watch this video from my panel at GenCon.

Numenera will be released as a full-color rulebook/setting book as well as an ebook. Numenera will be supported with a character generator tool as an app for phones and tablets, and an app that will contain all of the rules for easy reference. It will be followed by a series of adventures, a bestiary, a technology book, and much more.

To fund this endeavor, I launched a Kickstarter campaign. Backers can get an incredible deal on a lot of products, as well as access to some very special rewards that won’t be available elsewhere.

This is an exciting new journey for me. I hope you’ll come along for the ride.