I’ve played a lot of Cypher one shots now, and the PCs are all pretty hollow. The mechanics focus entirely on powers, and in the games I’ve been in, intrusions have come up fairly rarely. I can’t really say I’ve created a character that I care about yet, which I suppose isn’t something I can say of all one-shots with other RPGs.

I’m enjoying the games and the people who GM, so it’s not that either. Maybe I just either need to run it or play in a campaign.

One really good thing about the system is that it accommodates large tables fairly well. The wheels don’t start falling off as they do with Fate and PbtA games if you have more than five players.

As far as Numenera and The Strange’s respective settings go, they are pretty derivative – but still lack depth. Gene Wolfe + Roadside Picnic, for one; ever other planar game you’ve played already, plus Torg for the other. Not bad influences, mind you, and everybody appropriates the Strugatskys right and left now (their survivors live in another country FFS, so no legal worries), but even so…