That's the good shit.
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...figure out on the fly what happens next, and so will the players. That’s not ruining things— that’s what is supposed to happen. Players surprising the GM is part of the game. Cyphers just make those surprises more frequent, and in ways as interesting as you’re willing to allow.
We’ll look at designing encounters later, but for now, remember this point: no single encounter is so important that you ever have to worry about the players “ruining” it. You hear those kinds of complaints all the time. “Their telepathic power totally ruined that interaction,” or “The players came up with a great ambush and killed the main villain in one round, ruining the final encounter.”
No. No, no, no. See the forest for the trees. Don’t think about the game in terms of encounters. Think about it in terms of the adventure or the campaign. If a PC used a potent cypher to easily kill a powerful and important opponent, remember these three things:
- They don’t have that cypher anymore.
- There will be more bad guys.
- Combat’s not the point of the game—it’s merely an obstacle.
If the players discover a way to overcome an obstacle more quickly than you expected, there’s nothing wrong with that. They’re not cheating, and the game’s not broken. Just keep the story going. What happens next? What are the implications of what just happened?