How to OCR, Part I: Nice Assets

    At the risk of sounding like an old man yelling at a cloud, I gotta say that one thing is that we lost during the rise of the new school is the art of playing tactically— and I don't mean going through dungeons like you're playing Rainbow Six, but making decisions based on the environment before the character sheet. Ironically, as games went further out of the way to empower the characters, they seem to have done so at the expense of the players.  As characters gained more options, they choked out the player, and the character sheet shifted from A glass to break in case of emergency to a comprehensive guide to what your character can and cannot do. That is where, in Cypher System at least, the asset comes in (or the bonus die in Call go Cthulhu, or advantage in Dungeons and Dragons,… you get the idea)

What's an asset, anyway?

    An asset is a situational bonus of sorts that, like skills and effort, can lower some difficulty of a task by one step (hereafter referred to as easing). By the rules, you can have up to 2. In theory, assets are rewarded when players find a way to make a task easier, whether it's by having the right tool or utilizing the environment. In practice, all this is true, except like D&D's Inspiration, they do not get used often enough… by the players. Keeping the inspiration analogy going for a minute, Cypher gamemasters treat assets the way Dungeon Masters would treat Inspiration  on Opposite Day.  So much like peace, assets sell, but who's buying?

So for the players, here are some tips to get some of these free shins:

• Ask the GM extra questions.  Maybe there would be something in the environment that the GM intended for you to use.  In some cases; you might get them to consider something they hadn't before
• Don't be afraid to go off-sheet.  Remember, the character sheet is just the the tortilla in the proverbial burrito: the filling is brought by the player and their roleplay.  Don't worry, your powers will still be there if/when you need them.  And to that Mensa member playing a barbarian, remember that your character is only as dumb as you make them.
• GMs, get ready to flash dem assets!  Players will optimize the fun out of a game given half a chance, and assets are a check against that.  It also incentivizes creativity and lateral thinking.
  
  
  
  
  
    And so the OCR begins.  Stay tuned for more OCR content, musings, and the occasional character build.  And make sure you share and give feedback, comrade!
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