Adapting the System
Sy's System is a generic engine. The core rules — the 1–10 scale, the eight stats, freeform skills, and growth through use — are setting-agnostic. The default example content happens to be modern/cyberpunk (a street-runner character, urban gear, hacking and driving skills), but that's a sample of one possible game, not a commitment. Games are built around the core. This chapter is how you build one.
Start from the core, add the setting
The core gives you the engine: eight stats, freeform skills, the 1–10 scale, storytelling-first resolution, and the growth asymmetry. Everything else is a game decision. Pick a setting — cyberpunk, modern crime, fantasy, space — then decide what that setting needs on top of the core.
The eight stats are a decent default
Power, Speed, Brains, Social, Willpower, Senses, Heart, and Luck cover the human and near-human range cleanly. You can rename or swap them for tone without losing the scale — rename Heart to Cool or Empathy for a harder cyberpunk game, Lore for fantasy, Nerve for military. Whatever you rename, keep the number of stats modest and the bands intact: 1–2 terrible, 3 poor, 4–5 normal, 6 capable, 7 skilled, 8 exceptional, 9 elite, 10 extraordinary. The names are flavor; the scale is the system.
Change the skills freely
Skills are the most replaceable part. Swap the whole vocabulary for your genre — "Hacking," "Driving," and "Streetwise" for cyberpunk; "Swordsmanship," "Riding," and "Herbalism" for fantasy. Skills have no fixed list by design; they exist to point a stat at the problems your setting actually presents. Keep each entry { name, score } and keep scores on the scale. Skills represent repeated experience — don't hand out a skill for a one-off event.
Genre fields live on the game, not the core
The core character sheet stays generic. Genre-specific mechanics — cyberware, mutations, spells, blessings — are added by the game, either as extra fields on the character or as new file types, not baked into the engine. The generic augments list on the core sheet is the place a game can hang permanent modifications (chrome, mutations, blessings) without touching the core.
Keep the three pillars
Three things are not optional, because they're what make the system itself:
- One shared 1–10 scale for every rating — no second system, no bonuses.
- Storytelling-first resolution — scores set the baseline, the GM decides when to roll.
- The growth asymmetry — the party grows through use; the world doesn't, except the player-connected.
If you change the genre, change the color, not the load-bearing walls.
Adding new content
If you add a compendium type (factions, corps, gear, districts, mysteries), give each a name and description at minimum, and where a field is a rating, put it on the 1–10 scale with the same band language. New content should read like it belongs to your game's world — concrete, story-first, with numbers that mean something.