Cypher System vs Ishanekon: World Shapers

Compare Cypher System and Ishanekon: World Shapers side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Cypher System	Ishanekon: World Shapers
Genre	Universal	Universal
Tags	Toolkit, Modular, Character Building, Player-Only Rolls, Theater of the Mind, Low-Prep, Strong GM Support, Narrative	Character Building, Crunchy, Tactical, Toolkit, Hackable, CC-Licensed Rules
Core Mechanic	The GM rates each task from 1 to 10 and multiplies that difficulty by 3 to set the target number. Players roll a d20 and succeed on a result equal to or above the target. Skills, assets, and Effort ease the task before the roll, with Effort paid from the relevant stat Pool after Edge reduces the cost.	Skill Check: roll d10, add your level in the relevant Skill plus half the matching Stat Bonus (a stat's value minus 10), and meet or beat a difficulty from 1 (Very Easy) to 19 (Nearly Impossible). Attacks instead roll d20 plus a weapon's hit bonus against the target's Evasion. Combat runs in rounds where each character spends three Action Points per turn, with an attack costing two and a natural 20 adding bonus damage. The GM awards Narrative Momentum for inventive roleplay, which players spend together with Action Points on Cinematic Actions: freeform stunts resolved at the GM's discretion.
Dice	d20	d4–d20
Complexity	Medium	High
Accessibility	Very High	Very High
Runnability	Very High	High
License	Cypher Open License 2026-07-15	CC BY 4.0
Third-Party Publishing	Commercial publishing allowed — Cypher Open License	Not yet researched
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Cost	Free	Free
Publisher	Monte Cook Games	Blaze Reason
Year	2026	2022
Best For	Groups building genre-spanning campaigns who want broad character customization, player-facing resource decisions, and little mechanical preparation for the GM.	Groups who want maximal character customization in a free, setting-agnostic system: players who enjoy assembling a bespoke concept from a huge option pool and a GM willing to supply the world the rules deliberately leave blank.
Highlights	Player-only rolls keep the GM focused on adjudication and scene management. Descriptor, type, and focus choices support broad customization across multiple genres. One-use cyphers continually rotate situational abilities through play.	Characters are assembled from ten Archetypes, more than 210 Sub-Archetypes, over a thousand Abilities, plus Paths, Talents, and Traits, giving a single concept many independent axes of mechanical customization. Abilities draw on a Willpower pool, and spending extra Willpower upcasts them on the fly (scaling effects like damage, area, targets, or duration up to a per-tier limit), so one ability flexes to the moment instead of being a fixed effect. Every feature carries a complexity rating from 1 to 4, and Beginner Traits, a Cinematic Rules mode, and thirteen alternative-rule modules let a group run the same engine as a rules-light game or a dense tactical one.
Considerations	Players manage Pool spending for abilities and Effort, so pushing a roll competes with other resource uses. Abstract distances and level-based NPCs leave many tactical details to table rulings rather than map procedures. The broad toolkit asks the GM to select genre modules and character options before play.	Character creation draws from over a thousand abilities plus hundreds of talents and traits, so building a character means selecting from a very large catalogue rather than a curated short list. The system is setting-agnostic and ships with no default world, so a group must supply or adapt a setting before the customization options mean anything in play. Skill checks and attacks resolve on separate scales (d10 plus half a Stat Bonus for skills, d20 plus full bonuses against Evasion for attacks), so the two halves of the system use different math players must keep straight.