Have we reached a cyberpunk saturation point yet?

[AppleJax]

taking random jobs as a starship crew in a space opera game,

That is quite possibly the single most boring and one-note description of space opera’s adventure potential that I ever read in the history of human fiction. You deserve an award for summarizing precisely why I never once got interested in Traveller.

 

[CRKrueger]

When taking over for FASA/FanPro, Catalyst had a couple of ways to do it.
1. Do the whole “standing the the shoulders of giants” thing and then expand the universe as you fast forward.
2. Be as obnoxious, dismissive, and insulting as possible to the setting of Shadowrun and pat themselves on the back as being the people who dragged Shadowrun kicking and screaming into the 21st Century.

Hey everybody, lets guess which one they did. Yep, number two because of course they did.

They also decided that the Hacker (not “Decker” ROTFL) had to be present in the room with everyone else and had to be effective as combat like everyone else.

So they made the following changes.
1. You had wireless access to corp buildings no one had networks that weren’t open to Wi-Fi. (Yes, really)
2. All Cyberware had to be accessible wirelessly, (so Hackers could hack people) and if you weren’t wireless, your Cyberware suffered. Apparently part of this “superior new technology” they came up with replaced the 100% secure method of wiring Cyberware into your nervous system and using access ports when necessary, with a zero-security (unless you paid a ridiculous amount on Wi-Fi security) system that lets Hackers hack people.
3. Any weapons you have with higher tech than a AK-47 is…guess what? Yes, that’s right, hackable. You’re getting the idea.
4. You know how FASA Shadowrun had Mages and Shamans and different types of spirits for different practitioners? Yeah, those old mages and shamans were so *adorable* with their misunderstanding of magic weren’t they, ROFL!
5. Technoshamans were a clusterfuck of epic proportions, and don’t even get me started on the multiple sim link thing.
6. They didn’t even attempt to run with many of the earlier plot lines.
7. Shadowland, the servers open to any with the skill or the rep to get access where all the Shadowtalk happened turned into Jackpoint, a p2p VPN service only with handpicked members where the same few people in their own clique.

So, the initial response was, kinda like 4e, targeted at all the people who hated the earlier versions of game, and taking a steaming dump on the ones who did.

They fixed some stuff in different supplements but the Shadowrun 2050 book was the most “insulting your fans” book since the Diablerie adventures, but this time the jokes weren’t private.

They could have made 4e better received, they just made conscious choice after choice not to.

 

[Dyrnwyn]

That is quite possibly the single most boring and one-note description of space opera’s adventure potential that I ever read in the history of human fiction. You deserve an award for summarizing precisely why I never once got interested in Traveller.

Personally, I think there's a lot of adventure potential in that, or other types of sandbox games too, but it's certainly not the only way to do things.

 

[AppleJax]

Personally, I think there's a lot of adventure potential in that, or other types of sandbox games too, but it's certainly not the only way to do things.

There’s also police procedural, government investigators, planetary surveyors… I think there’s better ways to describe the genre’s opportunities than just a starship crew doing “odd jobs”.

(Sorry for sounding abrasive!)

 

[Dyrnwyn]

There’s also police procedural, government investigators, planetary surveyors… I think there’s better ways to describe the genre’s opportunities than just a starship crew doing “odd jobs”.

(Sorry for sounding abrasive!)

Of course there are more possibilities than that. Just saying that some groups are fine with simple campaign structures, and I was using fantasy and space opera as examples, but it can apply to other genres too.

 

[Sloth_in_a_bowl]

On the other hand, the default model for JD games runs counter to the idea of living outside the system and defying authorization - as Judges, it's hard to fight back against the Man because you are the Man.

Given that Shadowrun and Cyberpunk 2020 both had books about playing from a police and corp point of view and that Dredd is the OP gorilla of the Judges in comparison to Judge Average (Dredd seem to intervene at a lot of Judge down incidents), then I am think that a book on playing as the the low lifes of Mega City One would be a fun switch full of the flavour of the comic book stories.

The Judges certainly aren't infallible, and it's not like they're able to stop or prosecute the majority of the crime that occurs around them; if they did, the various flavors of crime lords that are so thick in the JD stories wouldn't have the power base they have. In the Dredd movie, it's stated that the Judges are only able to respond to a very low percentage of reported crimes - something like 5 percent or so, if memory serves.

For my local force, the West Midlands police (UK), their arrest figures are less than 1% of the reported crime figures and the reported crime figures are way below the actual crime numbers. Many crimes are reported for the need to have a crime report number to process the insurance rather than in any expectation of crime being stopped. Once you add the drop off in arrest to trial and trial to conviction then if you have a similar actual ratio in Mega-city one (worse in some areas known to be lawless) the actual event of a Judge turning up would be pretty much the defining moment of a campaign. If the player group is ready to split and run in such an instance then the odds of a particular PC being cubed are pretty much zero.


I could perceive some form of heat system where biased on the group's activities they could encounter a random but strengthening reaction to the crimes that they commit as they get more noticeable to the Judge's central operations planning. Before that, there will be a whole host of crime gangs, neighbourhood watch, private security and other threats to worry about.

Anyway, thanks for responding to my post.

 

[chuckdee]

Anyway, thanks for responding to my post.

Thank you! This is good stuff for me! I'll probably make a separate thread to track my efforts and tag you two on it if you have any comments.

 

[The Guild]

My problem with cyberpunk is that there are two distinct types or expression of the genre, of which only one holds my interest.

Type 1 cyberpunk is like Neuromancer, Bladerunner and tends to feature detective, mystery or techno-thriller plots, but the real focus is on the way rampant technology has deconstructed society and the many questions this poses about humanity, society, reality, ethics, etc.

Personally, I would be interested in playing in a setting and campaign like that, but I am not sure those literary conventions translate well to a gaming medium.

Type 2 cyberpunk mostly exists within the video gaming and RPG expressions of cyberpunk and is more like GTA. And it can go die in fire as far as I am concerned.

 

[AppleJax]

My problem with cyberpunk is that there are two distinct types or expression of the genre, of which only one holds my interest.

Type 1 cyberpunk is like Neuromancer, Bladerunner and tends to feature detective, mystery or techno-thriller plots, but the real focus is on the way rampant technology has deconstructed society and the many questions this poses about humanity, society, reality, ethics, etc.

Personally, I would be interested in playing in a setting and campaign like that, but I am not sure those literary conventions translate well to a gaming medium.

Type 2 cyberpunk mostly exists within the video gaming and RPG expressions of cyberpunk and is more like GTA. And it can go die in fire as far as I am concerned.

To be fair, high-minded literary concepts probably never translated well to a gaming context. The point of a ttrpg play is for the players to work together to solve whatever problems come up. That doesn't lend itself to the kinds of "drama", "internal struggle" and "social commentary" that punctuates fiction. No matter how much authors have tried to force it.

I'm pretty sure The Forge discussed this problem in detail back when they were live. I wasn't around to witness it, but from what I've heard they had a lot of good points criticizing so-called "storytelling games" as being nothing of the sort and suffering immensely from dissociative mechanics.

 

[Triumvir]

The only place cyberpunk can go is into space. Weirdly, I haven't found any astropunk/spacepunk/starpunk settings aside from TSR's 1998 Star*Drive setting. Alien, Blade Runner, and Outlander (the one with Sean Connery) definitely count, but are conspicuously lacking cyborgs.

There was Deep Space for CP2020. Not sure exactly how you are defining it, but there is Eclipse Phase, Transhuman Space, and River of Heaven. There was a Fate one that covered similar ground a few years ago although I can't remember the name. 2300AD could do it although the game's tone is different (and much more appealing IMHO). Or you could do it in Traveller, especially the Mongoose edition which has more contemporary-SF chrome. Or CWN buffed with stuff from SWN. Beyond games, the Revelation Space series is definitely punk, although whether astro-, space- or star- I leave to those better qualified to say!

Part of the reason cyborgs may not feature that heavily in many space settings is that going into space is probably a bad idea for a cyborg. The radiation and EM fields will mess with cyberwear in unpleasant ways. RL spacecraft electronics have to be hardened for this reason.

To be fair, high-minded literary concepts probably never translated well to a gaming context. The point of a ttrpg play is for the players to work together to solve whatever problems come up. That doesn't lend itself to the kinds of "drama", "internal struggle" and "social commentary" that punctuates fiction. No matter how much authors have tried to force it.

Depends what you mean by drama/social commentary. I am playing in a Mythras campaign right now where our characters' different backgrounds are informing clashing approaches to tackling situations and generating friction (between characters not players). My guy is fairly amoral and regularly runs up against the goody-two-shoes types. War and Peace it ain't, but neither are our PCs just bags of abilities that uncomplicatedly implement the will of the player-group hive-mind. In a nutshell, we roleplay, which sometimes complicates working together to solve problems.

Internal conflict (within a character) has come up to some extent as we've had to decide how much risk we want to take on to achieve our goals - with some of our PCs not entirely buying into those goals. Beyond that, the Mythras passions system is explicitly set up to reflect potentially conflicting priorities facing a character.

 

[AppleJax]

Part of the reason cyborgs may not feature that heavily in many space settings is that going into space is probably a bad idea for a cyborg. The radiation and EM fields will mess with cyberwear in unpleasant ways. RL spacecraft electronics have to be hardened for this reason.

No, it's because the concept of interstellar cyberpunk wasn't popularized by the time the game monopolies were established. These games are mirrors of the times in which they were created, no latter than the 80s, and don't update with the literature of the times due to grognardism.

 

[chuckdee]

There was Deep Space for CP2020. Not sure exactly how you are defining it, but there is Eclipse Phase, Transhuman Space, and River of Heaven. There was a Fate one that covered similar ground a few years ago although I can't remember the name. 2300AD could do it although the game's tone is different (and much more appealing IMHO). Or you could do it in Traveller, especially the Mongoose edition which has more contemporary-SF chrome. Or CWN buffed with stuff from SWN. Beyond games, the Revelation Space series is definitely punk, although whether astro-, space- or star- I leave to those better qualified to say!

Part of the reason cyborgs may not feature that heavily in many space settings is that going into space is probably a bad idea for a cyborg. The radiation and EM fields will mess with cyberwear in unpleasant ways. RL spacecraft electronics have to be hardened for this reason.


Depends what you mean by drama/social commentary. I am playing in a Mythras campaign right now where our characters' different backgrounds are informing clashing approaches to tackling situations and generating friction (between characters not players). My guy is fairly amoral and regularly runs up against the goody-two-shoes types. War and Peace it ain't, but neither are our PCs just bags of abilities that uncomplicatedly implement the will of the player-group hive-mind. In a nutshell, we roleplay, which sometimes complicates working together to solve problems.

Internal conflict (within a character) has come up to some extent as we've had to decide how much risk we want to take on to achieve our goals - with some of our PCs not entirely buying into those goals. Beyond that, the Mythras passions system is explicitly set up to reflect potentially conflicting priorities facing a character.

There's also MoonPunk. I think the lack of Cyberpunk in space is pretty artificial though - many so-called Sci-Fi games are Cyberpunk at their core, IMO. It's just a matter of how you look at it, and using those concepts once the Tech Level increases.

 

[SavAce]

No, it's because the concept of interstellar cyberpunk wasn't popularized by the time the game monopolies were established. These games are mirrors of the times in which they were created, no latter than the 80s, and don't update with the literature of the times due to grognardism.

There are no TTRPG game monopolies. New TTRPGs Kickstart every day. A lot of 'em are like... a guy and a couple/few thousand dollars. It's not some capital intensive life gamble like trying to find a studio to produce your film, or taking out a loan to start your dream restaurant. There is no cabal of shadowy "grognards" in the back offices looking to quash the innovative new RPGs you're looking for. It's just people making what they want to make and people buying what they want to buy.

 

[AppleJax]

There are no TTRPG game monopolies. New TTRPGs Kickstart every day. A lot of 'em are like... a guy and a couple/few thousand dollars. It's not some capital intensive life gamble like trying to find a studio to produce your film, or taking out a loan to start your dream restaurant. There is no cabal of shadowy "grognards" in the back offices looking to quash the innovative new RPGs you're looking for. It's just people making what they want to make and people buying what they want to buy.

Maybe not legally, but each genre and community surrounding it is dominated by one IP dating back to no later than the early 90s. Cyberpunk 2020 dominates the cyberpunk genre, Shadowrun dominates cyberpunk fantasy, and Traveller dominates anything involving space. Due to the networking effect and the sheer chore of learning how to play in the first place, these IPs and their fandoms have de facto monopolies over the genres they're in.

Kickstarter? Kickstarter ttrpgs are transient fads that come and go. Whatever communities they develop fizzle out after a few months.

If you don't like the reigning IP? You have no other options, not really. I've been spending the last decade looking without success. So I decided to make my own... and wouldn't you know it, nobody gives a crap!

 

[sharps54]

Maybe not legally, but each genre and community surrounding it is dominated by one IP dating back to no later than the early 90s. Cyberpunk 2020 dominates the cyberpunk genre, Shadowrun dominates cyberpunk fantasy, and Traveller dominates anything involving space. Due to the networking effect and the sheer chore of learning how to play in the first place, these IPs and their fandoms have de facto monopolies over the genres they're in.

Kickstarter? Kickstarter ttrpgs are transient fads that come and go. Whatever communities they develop fizzle out after a few months.

If you don't like the reigning IP? You have no other options, not really. I've been spending the last decade looking without success. So I decided to make my own... and wouldn't you know it, nobody gives a crap!

Because you are speaking from your experience not other people’s . I have run or played Double Trouble (buddy cops based on The Dirty Pair), Night of the Ninja (1980’s ninja movies), We Deal in Lead (Stephen King’s The Dark Tower), Hollow Earth Expedition, and other non mainstream games in just the past six months or so.

 

[sharps54]

I am not discounting your experience but mine hasn’t matched it.

 

[Triumvir]

No, it's because the concept of interstellar cyberpunk wasn't popularized by the time the game monopolies were established. These games are mirrors of the times in which they were created, no latter than the 80s, and don't update with the literature of the times due to grognardism.

FWIW, CP2020 had a supplement on taking the game into space (published in 1993, admittedly an expanded 2nd edition of the CP2013 space supplement from 1989).

Anyway, I sympathise with your views on groggery to some extent, but like sharps, in my own experience it is nowhere near as much of a problem as you suggest.

Fresh games seem to pop up fairly regularly. Troika is a recent example. Some of Greg Saunders' stuff too like Summerland or Exilium. Longer ago, EABA had a bunch of cool and innovative settings. I don't follow the market that closely - these are just a few I know.

And just so it's clear I'm not being pass-ag, I'll say up front that the ideas you shared earlier seemed like mash-ups of a bunch of geek tropes that didn't obviously fit together or bring out anything new in each other, and it doesn't take a big grog conspiracy to explain to me why they didn't fly.

But if you're excited about them then that's great, because who cares what some internet random thinks, and I hope you find the right groups to let you explore them and have fun.

By the same token, if somebody wants to play mission-of-the-week in CP2020 or Shadowrun, or raid dungeons playing B/X, good luck to them, and I hope they have fun too. I don't feel any compulsion to re-educate anyone into enjoying daringly innovative crossover settings.

 

[CRKrueger]

To be fair, high-minded literary concepts probably never translated well to a gaming context. The point of a ttrpg play is for the players to work together to solve whatever problems come up. That doesn't lend itself to the kinds of "drama", "internal struggle" and "social commentary" that punctuates fiction. No matter how much authors have tried to force it.

I'm pretty sure The Forge discussed this problem in detail back when they were live. I wasn't around to witness it, but from what I've heard they had a lot of good points criticizing so-called "storytelling games" as being nothing of the sort and suffering immensely from dissociative mechanics.

There was Deep Space for CP2020. Not sure exactly how you are defining it, but there is Eclipse Phase, Transhuman Space, and River of Heaven. There was a Fate one that covered similar ground a few years ago although I can't remember the name. 2300AD could do it although the game's tone is different (and much more appealing IMHO). Or you could do it in Traveller, especially the Mongoose edition which has more contemporary-SF chrome. Or CWN buffed with stuff from SWN. Beyond games, the Revelation Space series is definitely punk, although whether astro-, space- or star- I leave to those better qualified to say!

Part of the reason cyborgs may not feature that heavily in many space settings is that going into space is probably a bad idea for a cyborg. The radiation and EM fields will mess with cyberwear in unpleasant ways. RL spacecraft electronics have to be hardened for this reason.


Depends what you mean by drama/social commentary. I am playing in a Mythras campaign right now where our characters' different backgrounds are informing clashing approaches to tackling situations and generating friction (between characters not players). My guy is fairly amoral and regularly runs up against the goody-two-shoes types. War and Peace it ain't, but neither are our PCs just bags of abilities that uncomplicatedly implement the will of the player-group hive-mind. In a nutshell, we roleplay, which sometimes complicates working together to solve problems.

Internal conflict (within a character) has come up to some extent as we've had to decide how much risk we want to take on to achieve our goals - with some of our PCs not entirely buying into those goals. Beyond that, the Mythras passions system is explicitly set up to reflect potentially conflicting priorities facing a character.

Really there's only two ways to address the kind of stuff the Forge talked about - Roleplaying it, or using mechanics initiated by the player not the character. These things might be related TO the character but you have to generally do a lot of rationalization to not see it as being the decision of the character to invoke the mechanic.

 

[AppleJax]

And just so it's clear I'm not being pass-ag, I'll say up front that the ideas you shared earlier seemed like mash-ups of a bunch of geek tropes that didn't obviously fit together or bring out anything new in each other, and it doesn't take a big grog conspiracy to explain to me why they didn't fly.

I don’t think that’s the case. My pitch for alternate history urban fantasy Victoriana wasn’t any stranger than Stokerverse (think League of Extraordinary Gentlemen meets Cthulhu by Gaslight) and that seems fairly successful. I think it’s all down to presentation. If I produced a short vid on youtube narrating the high concept pitch to pretty artwork then it would probably seem more attractive and impressive.

(Sorry for sounding abrasive, again. I’ve had allergies, colds and covid all month and the brain fog is horrible.)

 

[chuckdee]

Anyway, thanks for responding to my post.

Tulpa Girl Sloth_in_a_bowl feel free to comment as I go along if you have ideas

Sakharya - The Shattered Remnant

I've started to work on my campaign, and have my first stab at it. I'm putting down my thoughts, to actually get somewhere with it and get the ideas out to my players sooner than I would otherwise. Rough Timeline (no years stubbed in yet) 1. Technological Advances lead to humanity discovering...

www.rpgpub.com

 

[chuckdee]

Maybe not legally, but each genre and community surrounding it is dominated by one IP dating back to no later than the early 90s. Cyberpunk 2020 dominates the cyberpunk genre, Shadowrun dominates cyberpunk fantasy, and Traveller dominates anything involving space. Due to the networking effect and the sheer chore of learning how to play in the first place, these IPs and their fandoms have de facto monopolies over the genres they're in.

Kickstarter? Kickstarter ttrpgs are transient fads that come and go. Whatever communities they develop fizzle out after a few months.

If you don't like the reigning IP? You have no other options, not really. I've been spending the last decade looking without success. So I decided to make my own... and wouldn't you know it, nobody gives a crap!

I guess it depends on your need/want. I just want things to play with the few people that I play with, and be able to work off of and find material that can feed it. I don't dwell on a 'community' or what the current rage is amongst gamers. When a TTRPG comes up that I like on Kickstarter, I support it and get it. Any material that comes after is gravy. And no matter if it fades from sight, I still have it.

One of my favorites in that category is still going- if not strong, then at least going - Eclipse Phase. It's not like for one TTRPG to succeed relative to the hobby another one has to fall. Support what you want, play what you will, and ignore the rest is my motto.

 

[Parkaboy]

Really there's only two ways to address the kind of stuff the Forge talked about - Roleplaying it, or using mechanics initiated by the player not the character. These things might be related TO the character but you have to generally do a lot of rationalization to not see it as being the decision of the character to invoke the mechanic.

Or, and I'm just spitballing here, we could ignore the Forge like designers do.

 

[Triumvir]

...(Sorry for sounding abrasive, again. I’ve had allergies, colds and covid all month and the brain fog is horrible.)

Eesh, sounds rough - have a pint, if it won't mess with any meds you're taking!

If you ever get round to doing those vids, let us know.

 

[Fenris-77]

Or, and I'm just spitballing here, we could ignore the Forge like designers do.

The Forge earned it's eminent forgetableness. It was never really the theory, which was, mmm, somewhat ok, but more the rhetoric and shrill backing of obviously political positions in the hobby. IMO anyway.

 

[AsenRG]

Maybe not legally, but each genre and community surrounding it is dominated by one IP dating back to no later than the early 90s. Cyberpunk 2020 dominates the cyberpunk genre, Shadowrun dominates cyberpunk fantasy, and Traveller dominates anything involving space. Due to the networking effect and the sheer chore of learning how to play in the first place, these IPs and their fandoms have de facto monopolies over the genres they're in.

Cepheus Engine has many settings that aren't the Third Imperium.

DriveThruRPG

preview.drivethrurpg.com

DriveThruRPG

preview.drivethrurpg.com

And then there's stuff that's not related to those, like Frontier Space and Coriolis.

DriveThruRPG

preview.drivethrurpg.com

Coriolis - Fria Ligan

freeleaguepublishing.com

You can easily cyberpunk up any of the above. In fact, I'd argue that Clement Sector and Coriolis are already there to a large degree.

If you don't like the reigning IP? You have no other options, not really. I've been spending the last decade looking without success. So I decided to make my own... and wouldn't you know it, nobody gives a crap!

Sorry, man, I'm with Sharps here. If you don't like the "reigning IPs", take a hard stance that you won't run them, then run something else!

Games exist because of GMs, not the other way around.
But way too many people today forget the benefits of the hard stance!

Because you are speaking from your experience not other people’s . I have run or played Double Trouble (buddy cops based on The Dirty Pair), Night of the Ninja (1980’s ninja movies), We Deal in Lead (Stephen King’s The Dark Tower), Hollow Earth Expedition, and other non mainstream games in just the past six months or so.

Same here, really, except for the titles.

...except my list since the start of the year consists of Honor+Intrigue, Sigil and Shadow, Art of Wuxia, Destined, Mythras: Thennla, Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate: Sons of Lady 87, Righteous Blood Ruthless Blades, Zaibatsu and a scenario for Les Chroniques de l'Etrange which I adapted for d6.

I don’t think that’s the case. My pitch for alternate history urban fantasy Victoriana wasn’t any stranger than Stokerverse (think League of Extraordinary Gentlemen meets Cthulhu by Gaslight) and that seems fairly successful. I think it’s all down to presentation. If I produced a short vid on youtube narrating the high concept pitch to pretty artwork then it would probably seem more attractive and impressive.

(Sorry for sounding abrasive, again. I’ve had allergies, colds and covid all month and the brain fog is horrible.)

So the question becomes: why don't you produce such a video?!? Seriously, man, you know how to attract interest already, I was litterally going to tell you to produce some YouTube videos.

Why don't you use the path you're already seeing?

Or, and I'm just spitballing here, we could ignore the Forge like designers do.

I'd sign for that option!

The Forge earned it's eminent forgetableness. It was never really the theory, which was, mmm, somewhat ok, but more the rhetoric and shrill backing of obviously political positions in the hobby. IMO anyway.

And I concur, FWIW.

 

[Parkaboy]

The Forge earned it's eminent forgetableness. It was never really the theory, which was, mmm, somewhat ok, but more the rhetoric and shrill backing of obviously political positions in the hobby. IMO anyway.

Yep.

 

[Voros]

Anyone mentioned Cryptomancer yet? For me the biggest issue with most cyberpunk games are the uninspired hacking rules.



Cryptomancer is all about the hacking. My only reservation about it, is it's a fantasy cyberpunk setting whereas I would have preferred a 'straight' sf setting.

Cryptomancer RPG · Cryptomancer RPG

cryptorpg.com

 

[AsenRG]

Anyone mentioned Crtpyomancer yet? For me the biggest issue with most cyberpunk games are the uninspired hacking rules.

View attachment 70639

Crytomancer is all about the hacking. My only reservation about it, is it's a fantasy cyberpunk setting whereas I would have preferred a 'straight' sf setting.

Cryptomancer RPG · Cryptomancer RPG

cryptorpg.com

Yeah, it's actually quite good. I'm planning to get it in deadtree...


My other notable examples of "hacking done well" are Zaibatsu by Paul Elliott (Zozer games) and Fates Worse Than Death.

 

[Triumvir]

Crytomancer is all about the hacking. My only reservation about it, is it's a fantasy cyberpunk setting whereas I would have preferred a 'straight' sf setting.

Cryptomancer RPG · Cryptomancer RPG

cryptorpg.com

Hearing about it for the first time. How easy would it be to strip out the fantasy elements?

 

[VisionStorm]

Anyone mentioned Crtpyomancer yet? For me the biggest issue with most cyberpunk games are the uninspired hacking rules.

View attachment 70639

Crytomancer is all about the hacking. My only reservation about it, is it's a fantasy cyberpunk setting whereas I would have preferred a 'straight' sf setting.

Cryptomancer RPG · Cryptomancer RPG

cryptorpg.com

That cover alone looks pretty awesome! And I don't mind the fantasy elements. I might have to check this out when I have the chance.

 

[AppleJax]

I would like a universal toolkit that supports multiple genres (classical cyberpunk, cyberpunk in space, cyberpunk fantasy, cyberpunk space fantasy, etc), but I don’t think the modern market is large enough to support that. Unlike D&D and it’s bazillion fantasy settings, or GURPS in general (though since the 90s market crunch GURPS is a pale shadow of itself), there’s no cyberpunk game with a variety of campaign settings. I really feel that lack of variety hamstrings ttrpgs.

 

[sharps54]

I would like a universal toolkit that supports multiple genres (classical cyberpunk, cyberpunk in space, cyberpunk fantasy, cyberpunk space fantasy, etc), but I don’t think the modern market is large enough to support that. Unlike D&D and it’s bazillion fantasy settings, or GURPS in general (though since the 90s market crunch GURPS is a pale shadow of itself), there’s no cyberpunk game with a variety of campaign settings. I really feel that lack of variety hamstrings ttrpgs.

I haven’t explored the options but it feel that Traveller / Cepheus has to do this already.

 

[sharps54]

I own fantasy, old west and noir games based on Cepheus, it couldn’t be that hard to kitbash something together. I feel there have to be cyberpunk type options out there.

 

[chuckdee]

I own fantasy, old west and noir games based on Cepheus, it couldn’t be that hard to kitbash something together. I feel there have to be cyberpunk type options out there.

You might look at Sprawl goons- Upgraded. It's not Cepheus, but it is 2d6 and simple enough that it wouldn't be hard to extrapolate.

There's also New World: 2D6 Adventure in a Cyberpunk America and Zaibatsu which is in the Hostile universe.

 

[sharps54]

This popped up on a quick Google (yes I’m a bad person for using it) search

DriveThruRPG

preview.drivethrurpg.com

Michael Brown’s New World, a Cepheus based cyberpunk adventure.

 

[AppleJax]

I haven’t explored the options but it feel that Traveller / Cepheus has to do this already.

I own fantasy, old west and noir games based on Cepheus, it couldn’t be that hard to kitbash something together. I feel there have to be cyberpunk type options out there.

In general I feel like ttrpgs have become much sparser. I don’t get the same level of detail and immersion reading those, compared to books from the 80s, 90s and 00s.

For example, newer games don’t have the interesting factions and species options I saw in TSR rpgs. Gamma World had the cryptic alliances, Star*Drive had the stellar nations, d20 Future recounted various aliens from Star Frontiers and Alternity… d20 Cyberscape had a lot of options for cyberware, including bioware and magical bionics like necrografts.

But Mutant Future, Stars Without Number, Cepheus… I haven’t found any of that from them. I just get more regurgitations of regular old mutations, bioware, psychic powers… but no social, economic, and political context to use them with. Basically, their settings suck.

 

[chuckdee]

This popped up on a quick Google (yes I’m a bad person for using it) search

DriveThruRPG

preview.drivethrurpg.com

Michael Brown’s New World, a Cepheus based cyberpunk adventure.

Yeah, I was editing my post adding options and got that one in there after you'd looked at it. Also Zaibatsu.

 

[Voros]

Hearing about it for the first time. How easy would it be to strip out the fantasy elements?

Do-able as the core mechanics are based on RW hacking to a degree so there's a magical version of the internet, etc. but it would be a bit of work still.

 

[CRKrueger]

Anyone mentioned Cryptomancer yet? For me the biggest issue with most cyberpunk games are the uninspired hacking rules.

View attachment 70639

Cryptomancer is all about the hacking. My only reservation about it, is it's a fantasy cyberpunk setting whereas I would have preferred a 'straight' sf setting.

Cryptomancer RPG · Cryptomancer RPG

cryptorpg.com

How transferable are the mechanics from Elven Crystal Hacking to Human Computer Hacking would you say?

 

[Silverlion]

Can anyone explain the hacking mechanics of Cryptomancer?