I'm starting this thread to post reviews of the Cyberpunk games I own. If you want one reviewed that's not on the list, just leave a reply and I'll see about getting it. As an aside, I will not be reviewing Shadowrun in this thread. If I do review it, it will be in another thread.
Here's what I have:
- Cyberpunk 2020
- Cyberpunk Red
- Neon City Overdrive
- Cities Without Numbers
- Ultra Modern and NeuroSpasta
- Zaibatsu
- DEAL - A Social Combat Roleplaying Game in a Cyberpunk City
- Reboot the Future
- Running Out of Time
- Carbon 2185
- New World
- Neon Blood
- Katana-Ra
- Blade Runner
- Altered Carbon
Before I start going through the games individually, I'd like to talk about the genre of Cyberpunk. I think it's relevant to both the reviews and to those looking to play a Cyberpunk game in general. It's fairly intertwined with political and social issues but I will try to be as factual and unbiased as I can. (Of course I have my own opinions and I'm happy to discus them openly but that would be a distraction from what this thread is about.)
First, I will talk about what the "punk" in "cyberpunk" means. Punk, as it's used to refer to the genre, comes from the British punk counter-culture that started in the 70s.
Today, punk is most remembered for the music style that spawned out if it but of it's time it was more well known for antisocial behavior and generally being offensive. In the early 70s, the British economy was flagging and a number of young people from working class families saw that they didn't have much of an opportunity and much less of an opportunity than their parents had when they were young. From their prospective, the political and business elites had very observably squandered resources and mismanaged the economy so poorly that there was almost no growth in the GDP. Both left leaning and right leaning moral custodians were exposed as hypocrites in public perception. To top it all off, these young people of these working class communities were getting bombarded with messages about how bad the British Empire was and that they had to repent for it, even though they were too young and too powerless to have done anything about it. The result was many disaffected rebelled out of frustration, anger, a sense of being betrayed, and resentment towards authority figures.
Much of punk counter-culture was all about explicitly not fitting in with mainstream culture and not submitting to authority. Punk as a name for this counter-culture comes from the use the term as a pejorative about boys that misbehave. Some punks were just kids looking for a group to belong to when there wasn't place for them in mainstream society. Some were real iconoclasts and maverick living their own life, and some were outright scumbags that could live and hide in the punk groups and places. Some punks embraced a nihilistic hedonism with alcohol, sex, drugs, and anything else they could derive pleasure out of. Some openly engaged in directed anti-authority activities, some merely symbolic activism and some outright criminal (some bordering on terrorism) acts. Still others channeled their time and energy into artistic endeavors; the music is most famous now but it included painting, fashion, writing, sculpture, etc. One of the most well known personalities from early punk is Johnny Rotten, the lead from The Sex Pistols. A little research into Johnny will give you a well informed understanding of punk as a whole.
Many people since then have tried to lay claim to punk pedigree, usually as an ideological base and usually completely wrong. Marxists saw it as an anti-capitalist movement. Some ardent atheists saw it as freeing themselves from structured religious beliefs. It goes on and on. It wasn't a political movement, it wasn't a social movement, and it wasn't an art movement. The core tenets were simply ardent individualism and rejecting authority. The closest thing to it I'm aware of is the outlaw motorcycle culture, also a counter-culture that was misunderstood and that others tried to coop into their ideological movements until bikers rebuffed them harshly. BTW, Johnny Rotten is a US citizen and Trump supporter now. https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/john-lydon-looks-rotten-pro-13412209 (This article made me laugh so hard I blacked out.)
The first use of the term "cyberpunk" comes from the short story Cyberpunk, written by Bruce Bethke and published in 1983. In the story, a group of teens are engaged in a series of escapades, mostly digital graffiti, by hacking and pulling pranks. It ends with one of the teens is recruited by the military to assist with digital warfare. In this particular usage, "punk" was used more in the pejorative sense as an insult to unruly kids rather than a reference to the punk movement.
Cyberpunk is a genre of fiction where an over computerized world becomes bleak by depriving many of opportunity and spawning a punk counter-culture in a high tech world. Johnny Rotten's antics in the 70s and 80s were the inspiration for the archetype of the Rocker Boy in general and specifically the character Johnny Silverhand. Most people tend to think of cyberpunk in terms of heists, hacking and net running. If you take a step back and reevaluate it, you'll see it's about punks. Take 1984 and add bikers and The Sex Pistols and you have cyberpunk.
The background setting of a high tech dystopia wasn't created in the 1980s, it's been around a long time. George Orwell's 1984 (published in 1949) would have solidly been classified as a cyberpunk novel if it had been written in the late 80s. Philip K. Dick is seen by many as the proto-cyberpunk author and several of his books have been turned into movies that are held as cyberpunk movies. (Blade Runner and A Scanner Darkly)
What would be solidly recognized as Cyberpunk today was crystalized by three pieces of media; the movie Blade Runner by Ridley Scott (based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick), Neuromancer by William Gibson, and the RPG Cyberpunk 2013 by Mike Pondsmith. Nearly all of the imagery and storytelling cliches people associate with cyberpunk com from these sources. Philip K. Dick, while not expressly a cyberpunk contributor, is the fourth creative recognized for shaping the genre into what it is.
Cyberpunk, like the punk culture before it, gets co-opted by various political and social movements and ideologies. The four core creatives didn't believe in, and were sometimes openly hostile to, many of these ideologies.
Mike Pondsmith said in a Q&A session once "What is Cyberpunk? It's whatever you say it is." It's a character or characters living their life against the background of a dystopian future and refusing to comply with the oppressive social norms. It's not bending the knee to authoritarianism.
Cyberpunk 2020 was designed by Mike Pondsmith and is published by R. Talsorian games. It was first published in 1990, the second edition of Cyberpunk. (The First was Cyberpunk 2013.) It's very well known in the RPG community and there are many, many reviews and overviews of the game.
After 30+ years, it's still in print and most of the supplements are available too. The physical book is available directly from R. Talsorian Games https://talsorianstore.com/collections/cyberpunk/products/cyberpunk-2020 And PDFs are available through DrivethruRPG https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/50354/Cyberpunk-2020-The-Second-Edition-Version-201?src=hottest_filtered
The reason I am doing a review is two fold; one is to give people who read my reviews a baseline of how I review games and two is to give a reference when reviewing other games in the genre in this thread. I encourage questions and comments.
Mechanics
While not the most complicated system out there, it is rather meaty. The core rules system is called interlock and was distributed as a generic RPG system; it's since been replaced by Fuzion. At it's core it's a D10 + Stat + Skill system. There's a couple of things that make this game stand out amongst the crowd though. The first is that both stats and skills can go to 10, making some potential roll results be north of 3x the max value of the die. This means that a PC that is well endowed for the skill check at hand will automatically pass an easy check and that a low value PC cannot even attempt some more difficult skill checks. This creates a much wider gap between skilled an unskilled PCs than other games. Over all, the rules system is more complex than many modern offerings but it's better designed than many as well.
The system allows for a lot of granularity. There's a lot of numbers to manipulate. The up side is that this give a lot of room for making unique PCs and a lot of room for PC growth. The downside is that it's fertile territory for min-maxing. Oh boy is there potential for serious min-maxing. If you're going to run this game, you really need to lay out your expectations for players and hold them to it. For everyone who's ever played this, there's the story of "that guy" coming to the table with a PC that's basically a T-800 killing machine.
Combat is more complex than some skirmish war games I've played. It also was distributed as a stand alone game product called Friday Night Firefight. While it is a bit dense, it's not obtuse. Most players take a few sessions to get it down. It's fairly smooth running and intuitive once players get the basics down. It's not perfect, fumbles and crits happen too often for many and are extreme in consequences. More than one combat in games I was in opened with multiple characters getting hit with a head shots and put out of the game. Still, with all it's flaws, it's easy to tweak and many have derived many hours of fun just in skirmish sessions alone.
Netrunning, this game's version of hacking, is where a PC uses VR to navigate computer systems. On paper, it's a cool idea. In practice, it splits the party and requires the GM to either focus on just one player for a while or to run two different scenarios simultaneously. This difficulty comes right at a core element of the setting. Very few like this RAW and various tables have come up with different house rules and whole new hacking systems to deal with it. Later, a supplement was created to integrate Netrunner, a CCG, as the way to handle this. It was considered better by many but it was still a bit cumbersome and it's out of print now. To date, I'm not aware of any truly smooth netrunning solution.
The last thing to touch on is the concept of cyberpsychosis. Getting implants and modifications comes at the cost of humanity in the game. Loose too many humanity points and you go insane. It's a strange addition to a game that largely tries to be grounded. Mechanically, it's a system to keep munchkins from min-maxing too hard but one that feels like a poor fit lore wise. This is an element that's frequently handles with house rules.
Over all, it's a solid system and very playable RAW. It's not baby's first RPG though. It's more complex than 5e, WEG D6, or Traveller. It has a somewhat higher learning curve because it is a bit more complex. Mike Pondsmith has talked more than once how he talked to gun fight professionals in an effort to replicate that reality. Once learned though, it is smooth an intuitive and many players have listed it as their favorite game. It's also very customizable. There is a fan created collection of house rules called Interlock Unlimited that smoothly integrates with Interlock and smooths out a lot of things that players over the years found less than desirable. Interlock Unlimited can be found here http://datafortress2020.com/InterlockUnlimited.html
The Setting
As good as the mechanics are, and they are pretty good, the setting is even better. This was as much a passion project from Mike Pondsmith as it was a game product and it shows. World building, locations, factions, and all the little in between bits are well crafted and flow smoothly into each other.
It's a dark future for sure. The world suffered a series of catastrophes, some natural and some man-made, that's cause social order to collapse. Major corporations have stepped in to fill the power vacuum left from government receding. Crime is rampant, life is cheap, and if you have anything nice you either stole it or someone is coming to steal it from you. Despite how in depth it is, the setting doesn't get in your way. Instead, it's a cool toy box for GMs to create a nearly limitless variety of adventures and experiences for players. It draws players in without demanding that they conform to it's standards. It's not Neuromancer or A Scanner Darkly, but those stories could very well happen here and they would fit perfectly.
One of the best parts of the setting is that there aren't clear cut good guys and bad guys. It's all shades of gray. Sure the corps do a lot of things that suck but they are what's keeping the lights on, the water flowing, and delivering food. It does a good job of asking about moral choices without making you choke on them.
While the core book does a pretty good job of giving you a solid understanding of the setting, the supplements and adventures for Cyberpunk 2020 really fill it out. Night City is, in my opinion, the best book ever written for an RPG. Night City details the city both geographically and its denizens to a high degree of detail. A GM could with the core book and Night City alone could run a multi year campaign without having to resort to much adventure design.
There's a lot of assumption that game play will be just as the tagline says, high tech and low life. However, you don't have to be a bunch of antisocial misfits engaged in crimes. You could easily play this as a detective game or straight up as The Expanse.
Layout and Presentation
The core book currently available is revision 2.01. It's a great example of 90s RPG book design. It's attractive and usable, a balance that RPG publishers still struggle with today. It has that deep 90s feel with lots of semiprofessional black and white drawings for interior art. The layout in general makes it easy to follow the material.
As mentioned before, this is a fairly rules heavy system and a lot of the book is dedicated to presenting them. It does a good job of laying them out thoughtfully and giving guidance and example on how they are used. There's very little ambiguity. Even the more dry rules sections are well written and easy to absorb. In the end, it is a rules book more than anything though.
By modern standard, the art can be described as sparse. It's not an art book. What art there is, is used well. More creativity is used in side bars where short one or two paragraph notes flesh out the setting and set the tone.
Odd and Ends
Many source books and many adventure were officially published for Cyberpunk 2020 and nearly all of it is still available new as soft cover books and PDFs. The two most outstanding books are Night City as I mentioned above and Black Hand's Street Weapons, a catalogue of nearly every gun that is available for the game. Chromebooks offer a lot of gear and accessories, Corporation Reports offered detailed information about the business world that ruled over the setting. There were rules expansions for military equipment and space. There's an entire book just for NPCs.
Along with the primary setting, three others were available. Two were single books published by R. Talsorian and one was a high tech vampire setting by Ianus Games. Almost no one remembers them. When Gravity Fails was the only one that I ever had interest in and i couldn't get anyone to play it.
One of the books published by R. Talsorian Games for Cyberpunk 2020 was Listen Up, You Primitive Scewheads. It was the game's version of a GM's handbook. It's one of the best books on running games I've read. It's essentially a series of articles written by various people that work for and with R. Talsorian games all talking about different aspect of being a GM. While not all of the advice lands, over all this book made me a much better GM. One of my favorite things in it was "You paid your $10, play it your way."
Atlas Games produced a few officially licensed adventures for Cyberpunk 2020. Two of them really stand out to me, Chrome Berets and Thicker than Blood. Chrome Berets is a paramilitary sandbox where the PCs are military contractors put in a position to be pivotal in a civil war. Thicker than Blood is an investigation adventure where the players are trying to recover a kidnapped child. In both cases, there's a strong effort to keep the game in the realm of tense, high stakes social encounters rather than a series of combat events. None of these books are still in print but there was enough of them made that they aren't too expensive on the secondary market. These books were of high enough quality that it gave me a higher than deserved opinion of Atlas Games. I still think they publish descent stuff but none of it hits the high water mark I had in my head.
Cyberpunk 2020 as a game ended at the beginning of the millennium. Any material for this game is 20+ years old. There was an adventure, Firestorm, that up ends a lot of the setting and no after event source books were ever made for the 2020 system. All support for this game ended in the early 2000s. In 2005, R. Talsorian Games introduced Cyberpunk V3.0. Fuzion replaced Interlock. It was a jarring transition and many people just dropped Cyberpunk altogether.
Final Thoughts
Cyberpunk 2020 dominated the 90s RPG scene and for good reason. Of all the crunchy RPGs I've been exposed to, this is the best. It was playable, it offered a very different world to play in, and it offered a lot of different kind of experience. It has rough edges but if you're a little careful you won't get cut on them. It's not perfect but it doesn't have to be.
If you're a GM looking for something new or your a game designer looking for examples of excellent games that are different from D&D, this book is worth your time. Some of the fluff is dated now and computer stuff is not in line with modern RL tech. This is a common problem with a lot of older scifi games. The changes are easy if you have a little imagination though.
In a vacuum, the core book is good, with the other materials to go with it, it's great. Over all, I give Cyberpunk 2020 a 9/10. I seriously doubt I'll ever give a higher review score.
Cyberpunk Red is the current version of Cyberpunk being published by R. Talsorian Games. It's similar to Cyberpunk 2020 in a lot of ways so mostly this review is going to be a compare and contrast. It can be had at all the same places that 2020 is for sale.
Mechanics
Cyberpunk Red uses a slightly modified version of Fuzion, the same core mechanics as The Witcher RPG. Fuzion is very similar to Interlock and at 30,00 feet it looks the same. The best way I know how to describe it is that it's a slightly lightened version of Interlock. It's a bit easier to use but it's lost some of the granularity of Interlock. For those familiar with the original, the easiest place to spot the contrast is in the firearms. Because of the granularity of 2020 there were hundreds of guns with just slightly different stats. A lot of players loved this. As per the simplification of RED, the spread of possible gun variants is much smaller. There's a lot of this kind of change throughout the rules.
One of the things that RED does differently is scaling of NPCs. It's not a true mechanical difference but it's something that is done differently for RED over 2020. In 2020 PCs and NPCs were roughly on equal footing and when a fight broke out it was always a fight for your life situation. Usually, the team with the most guns won and almost always a protracted fight resulted in significant casualties on both sides. RED basically has three tiers of NPCs to fight; mooks go down easy, veterans are on par with PCs, and elites are boss fights.
The best part of RED is that they greatly reduced the rate and impact of crits and fumbles. Instakills are now something that is rare, difficult to get, and has to be very intentional.
There's some real effort to make netrunning better for RED but I really don't see it working any differently than it did for 2020. It's still a separate activity that splits the party.
In the end, I like this system well enough and I'd have no issue if I was at a table that preferred RED over 2020 mechanically. As it is though, I still prefer 2020, warts and all.
Setting
While 2020 had source books for much of the world, red is exclusively set in Night City. Mind you, I'm comparing a 2 year old product to a product that was 15 years old when it was dropped in favor of V3.0. Time will tell where RED goes.
What we have of the setting now is a city rebuilding itself 20 years after the events of Firestorm. Broadly, it's not a bad idea. The sticky part for me is that there's a lot of focus on things that players aren't going to be spending a lot of time on. For instance, there's a whole section dedicated to describing the economic system. Directly engaging with this would be a very niche game. I think a brief description and a one page random table would have been sufficient.
One thing I don't like is that the corps have gone from being selfish and greedy but fulfilling a necessity in society by keeping the infrastructure working to straight up Saturday morning cartoon villains. In turn, players are expected to be underdog heroes and antiheroes rather than being the more morally neutral characters portrayed in 2020. This lost nuance is important.
In the end, the setting is no where near as well developed for RED as it was for 2020. It's also clear to me that this was a book written by a group of paid contract writers to get a product out rather than the deeply felt passion that Maximum Mike had for 2020. It's not bad, it's just not focused properly.
Layout and Presentation
This book is clearly a product of the modern RPG industry. It's a full color, art filled, hardbound. Over all it's easy to read and the rules are well explained. It kind of feels like an iPhone.
It's great for giving you a a rules set in a usable format. In this regard, it's far and away better than many RPG books. It gives solid examples of rules in use. It anything, I kind of feel like it hold your hand just a little too long. Not everyone is a Night City veteran though.
Final Thoughts
i like it. I don't like it as much as 2020 though.
RED feels like a modern Toyota. Everything is smooth and rounded and will get you there in easy comfort. 2020 had a lot of rough spots but it was an absolute masterpiece in giving the players that high tension, high risk adventure. It was like a garage built amateur hot rod with duck tape and pipe insulation foam put on the sharp bits to keep you from loosing an eye. 2020 was an open water dive to see sharks in the wild, RED is a visit to the aquarium.
It's a good game but I don't think it would have seen any traction if it wasn't for the success of 2020 in the 90s and the release of Cyberpunk 2077 by CD Projekt Red. Lisa Pondsmith, Mike Pondsmith's daughter in law, is the project lead on RED and it shows that it's not Mike's passion project anymore. I think the failure of V3.0 in the early 2000s deflated him and he's never fully recovered.
I want this game to succeed but it's gotten off to a rocky start. Cyberpunk the genre is as popular in entertainment as it's ever been with multiple tv series that are either fully cyber punk in nature or take strong influences from it. It's a shame that R. Talsorian isn't able to hit it's stride with the flow even with an #1 anime with their name on it and a video game that is seeing solid sales.
I can't help but compare this to 2020. Even as I'm reading through the books I have for it, I keep going back to 2020 and I just don't feel that this is the successor it needs to be. It can be, it's got the potential.
As it is now, I give Cyberpunk RED a 6.5/10. It's got good bones but you're going to have to do a lot of home brew to really get the most out it.
Edit: typos, was tired when I wrote it and went back to clarify some things
Zaibatsu is a Cyberpunk game by Zozer Games and is available in soft cover from Lulu and as a .pdf from DrivethruRPG.
https://www.lulu.com/shop/paul-elliott/zaibatsu/paperback/product-15vd7nkm.html?q=zaibatsu&page=1&pageSize=4
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/234679/Zaibatsu
Mechanics
Zaibatsu uses the Cepheus Engine for it's mechanics.
For those that don't know, Cepheus Engine is an OGL version of Traveller. It's mostly based on Mongoose Traveller 1e but has a few minor tweaks to give it an old school Traveller feel. Zaibatsu makes no changes to the core system, to combat, or any other component except for character creation though it does bolt on a couple of new things. Like most variants of Traveller, it's a 2d6 + Stat + Skill. The complexity is on par with D&D and OSR games though it takes a different approach to a lot of things.
The one major change from standard Cepheus Engine is making a character as mentioned before. After you roll your stats, you pick a starting career and a couple of elective skills and you're done. It does away with the life path system of most other variants of Traveller use.
PC development is done by gaining skills and getting genetic upgrades. Most of it is centered on combat and clandestine operative abilities. It's 100% compatible with Hostile from Zozer games though if you're going to run PCs from both core books, the GM will need to do a little balancing as the Zaibatsu PC will be a little behind in the skills department and OP in combat.
Like so many other cyberpunk games, this one has a VR hacking system. Zozer tries to make it simplified and fast but it still suffers the fate of being a side game played one on one with the hacker while the rest of the players at the table just sit a wait for it to be over.
It seems a little obvious to point out but there's no rules in this book for space combat, ship construction, or the like.
Over all, the system is smooth and functional with a moderate amount of granularity and complexity.
Setting
Zaibatsu is a Japanese word for the corporate conglomerate families that exist in Japan. You know of some of them even if you know nothing of Japanese culture; think Honda and Mitsubishi. Some daimyo and samurai families shifted from military focus to economic focus during the Meiji Reformation in 1868. This resulted in these traditional families outright owning several corporations and running the entire supply chains for products. In the early days, they owned the entire industrial and economic structure for a region. If they had an iron mine, they would build all the foundries and factories necessary to turn their iron into steel and then end product to sell to the consumer. In turn, they built banks and bought all the land in a region and became quasi independent political and economic entities that completely controlled every meaningful aspect of their region. They did this while maintaining their family's culture very close to Edo period high society standards and building their position of being powerful plutocrats. The up side to this was that Japan went from a medieval society to a fully industrial country in a single generation. Post WW2, the zaibatsu families went through a number of major changes, lost a lot of their power, and became less tied to geography. Some of the old zaibatsu families and some new zaibatsu families that formed post war built themselves up again and refocused on international trade to become the economic power houses we recognize today.
The game is about being the private security and operatives for zaibatsu families set 200 years into the future in the larger Hostile setting. You are not part of the family, you are a contractor. You are a valuable asset in that you can do things and reach places that the family cannot be publicly associated with. Do things well and you'll be rewarded with high payouts and genetic modifications. Make a mistake and you'll get burned, maybe you're unemployed and hungry or maybe you retire due to acute cranial lead poisoning. Given enough time, you will make a mistake and you know it. So make side deals and set aside assets and resources for an escape plan or live the high life and burn out rather than fade away.
This is all in the broader context of the Hostile setting. You don't need any of the other books but you can certainly add them to your game. Hostile is Zozer's Cepheus Engine setting inspired by 70s and 80s industrial scifi like Alien, Outland, Blade Runner, and others. Source books, gear, vehicles, weapons, and various other elements drop right in and fit like a glove.
While the book focuses on the whole zaibatsu experience, it's well rounded enough for you to run any cyberpunk experience you want. Doing a Blade Runner campaign is very doable as well as a straight police procedural game or a high tech heist game. It is a full cyberpunk game that's not trying to ride the track in the genre that Neuromancer and Cyberpunk 2020 laid down.
The one downside to the book is that it's so focused on the zaibatsu corporate wars in Japan that you will need other source book or extensive home brew setting material run this game outside of Japan. It's a minor issue as there is already a lot of supplements available.
Layout and Presentation
This book is a hefty 220 pages, it doesn't feel like reading a large core book when using it though. Zozer is a small publishing company; I think only a couple of people and this feels like a small company product. The art is sparse but very evocative of the intended setting; there's about 30 full color images that could be photoshopped photos, AI generated, or painted by a talented artist. There's another 40 black and white and low color images, most of them are maps. It looks kind of like a 90s RPG book having a similar feel to the older Palladium books. It trades the extensive production value of so many modern RPGs for the feel of a product of passion.
In total, the rules are less than 40 pages and very cleanly written. In my opinion, this is one of the best presentations of the mechanics of the Traveller system in print. They are spread out a little as it will present the rules for an aspect of the game and then catalogue available options that use that rule; as an example, ranged combat is followed by the firearms catalogue.
The bulk of the book is focused on the setting. Explanations of the zaibatsu corporate structure, details about yakuza culture, technology and gadgets, daily life in future urban Japan, and the geography of the cities of the setting.
Near the back of the book there are 6 missions, each about 3 pages long. They do a good job of getting a GM in the right headspace for running a game in this setting. They aren't overly complicated and it would be reasonable to expect a table of experienced players to blow through all of them in one or two sessions as written.
In the appendixes is a cheat sheet for PC creation that's useful. I wish they included one for combat covering conditions, bonuses, and complications for modifying the Dc of a roll.
Final Thoughts
In a vacuum, this is a pretty good single volume RPG that's ready for a table to play. The over all experience is going to be deep enough and rich enough for any group of players to get years of use out of it in game play.
To me, the value is greatly increased due to it being compatible with other material made for Cepheus Engine and Traveller. Now you can bring in NPCs, equipment, and other setting locations into your game without having to do any conversion work. It's also a great resource for bringing in PCs and NPCs as assassins, spies, and operatives into your Traveller and Cepheus games.
Japanese megacorps are a staple of cyberpunk storytelling and a lot of modern near-future scifi. No other RPG book has done as deep a dive into the internal workings as this has. Cyberpunk 2020 and Red has Arisaka, Shadowrun has Mitsuhama and Renraku, The Expanse has Protogen. Even if you're not interested in Zaibatsu as a game to play, this would make a great source book for how it presents the Zaibatsu internally with focus on playable content.
My own Cyberpunk game (currently on hiatus) uses Hostile with some home brew setting material and Zaibatsu is a key component for my game. If you're interested in a cyberpunk game but are put off by the idea of learning a heavy rules set, this is my recommendation.
I give Zaibatsu a solid 8/10.
New World is a Cyberpunk game by Michael Brown and is available through DriveThruRPG as a soft cover and PDF.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/371727/New-World-2D6-Adventure-in-a-Cyberpunk-America?src=hottest_filtered
Mechanics
New World uses Cepheus Engine. In contrast to Zaibatsu, where it's a Cepheus Engine derivative, this is Cepheus Engine with the space ship parts taken out and mated up with new careers and setting and then bolted on some new mechanics for hacking. Many of the mechanics here are cut-and-paste directly from the Cepheus Engine SRD. This is perfectly acceptable, that's what the SRD is for and Cepheus Engine is a solid game with lots of flexibility.
PC creation is done the traditional Traveller way with a life path format. New careers specific to cyberpunk are used and skills associated with space travel are removed.
New World has 6 pages dedicated to hacking and netrunning. This comprises almost half of the total pages dedicated to rules and mechanics. The biggest innovation is a network mapping system. As per other cyberpunk games, this one still has hacking as a side game that goes one-on-one between the GM and the hacker.
As mentioned when reviewing Zaibatsu, Cepheus Engine is at it's core a 2d6 + Stat + Skill game. PC development progression is done by increasing skills. It's a system with moderate granularity and moderate complexity. It's easy to learn, easy to run, and with familiarity it runs quickly and smoothly. As a core mechanic, it's one of the oldest used by RPGs; Traveller was first published in the late 70s.
Micheal Brown is known for his spartan writing style and New World is no different. The rules are well presented but there isn't anything in the way of illuminating support for them. You'll need to go to another source if you're having difficulty understanding or interpreting a rule.
Setting
In a nutshell, the setting revolves around a combination of Jan 6 and COVID-19 causing the US to turn into a right wing dictatorship, partially collapse, and then become a soft vassal of China. The EU and several countries broke apart or are going through civil war. The UN has recognized that some megacorps are independent of any single country and their autonomy is formally recognized.
There really isn't much to expound upon as the material is very sparse. There's a timeline going 50 years into the future, a few brief descriptions of some events, conditions, and organizations.
Aside from a POTUS that's clearly a Trump-as-seen-by-leftist analog, there are no individual personalities here. There's no personality to it and there's nothing that makes it feel grounded.
Layout and Presentation
This book is a scant 68 pages but does everything it can to pack it full. This book works well as a quick reference but not great for those trying to learn the game system. If you're already used to Traveller or Cepheus Engine, you can put this book to use immediately and feel right at home. If you're not a veteran of the system, you're going to have to do some google searches and probably watch several youtube videos.
There are several pages of gear for a cyberpunk specific setting ready to use with any Traveller or Cepheus engine game.
The cover actually won an award for best cover for an RPG. It's a nice cover. The rest of the art just looks like stock art. There's two pictures I think really ad flavor, the rest could be removed and I wouldn't even know they were gone. On page 15 there's a picture of a woman using a holographic interface; it's a photo that's been touched up. The model's face has been filtered to the point of being pushing into uncanny valley territory and her shirt reads "I'm allergic to basic." It just irritates me.
Odds and Ends
The setting clearly has a left leaning political bias and a world view informed by MSNBC. Unfortunately, this is product that falls into the category of defining Cyberpunk as the socialist struggle against capitalist oppressors. It even goes so far as to refer to the PCs as the heroes. I have some of the adventures for this and they feature political resistance actions as heroic endeavors. If political messaging in your gaming content puts you off, this is not the product for you.
Final Thoughts
As a stand alone product, it just fails. It's style and format are hostile towards new players so it's really only useful to those already veterans of the Cepheus Engine game system.
For it's size, it's expensive. It's $8 for the PDF and $15 for the soft cover booklet. It's a poor value for most tables.
Some might find the network mapping system useful but I've been playing Cyberpunk games since the early 90s and never felt like this was something that would add to the quality of play. YMMV.
The most damning thing about this is the political ideology that's laced in. It clearly delineates everything into good guys and and bad guys. You can dump the setting material completely but why buy the book to begin with? You can just get the Cepheus Engine SRD for free and dump the space travel.
I give New World a 3/10.
Carbon 2185 is a 5e based cyberpunk game by Dragon Turtle Games. It's available as a hard cover and a .pdf on their website.
https://dragonturtlegamesstore.com/
Mechanics
The first four games I reviewed are pretty harsh in that they have high lethality and once you're dead, you're dead. This is more of an anime cyberpunk style of play. It's still possible to die but you can trade a few more rounds of fire before imminent threat of death. Also, this is a class and level based PC development game rather than the skills based PC development games previously reviewed. If you're looking for a game that's a little more forgiving, this might be your speed.
Straight up, this is D&D 5e all the way to the bone. If you are completely out of the loop on 5e, it's a D20 + Stat with adding a proficiency bonus for skills. If you are a 5e player, there's nothing in here that you're going to find out for place. There are a few things that are different though, most of them bolt on.
The Stats are named a little different. The physical stats are still Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution. The nerd stats are Intelligence, Technology, and People.
5e is well known for PC options and Carbon 2185 is not different. There's six classes, each with sub classes. There's eight backgrounds that give various features, you can think of them like the races in vanilla 5e. Mercifully, this game doesn't have feats but there's a long list of augments that do some of the things that feats do.
Hacker is a class and hacking is a skill in Carbon 2185. There's no netrunning mini game in Carbon 2185. If you're trying to access a system, it's just a skill check. It's a lot like lock picking in vanilla 5e. The hacker class has a lot of electronic warfare abilities for combat, known as exploits and mostly de-buffing enemies. These de-buffs are packaged like spells are in vanilla 5e. Oddly, the hacker is also a party healer along with the Doc class.
Leveling stops at level 10 rather than level 20. High level play in 5e is a bit of a slog so it's not really a loss IMO. There's no mention of multiclassing in the book. I suppose it would be up to the GM to decide.
An interesting addition to combat is a damage resistance score. This means that even when it's a good hit, damage can be reduced by a target's DR depending on the type of damage. This game also ratchets up the punishment with weapon damage with some capable of 30 points of damage before adding bonuses.
Poisons and toxins are something in the game that's handled very differently than vanilla 5e. There's a whole tracking system similar to exhaustion tracking in vanilla.
There's also a dedicated social status tracking system for tracking your street cred and your business world status.
Setting
It looks to me that they took a lot of inspiration from the Night City source book. It's not as fleshed out as Night City but does a good job with the pages it has dedicated; about 40 pages of setting material and another 6 in the services and transport available.
The core book setting is San Fransisco in the future 150 years. The city is separated in to districts by social class. Each district then holds it's own challenges for the PC and limitations based on the social scores. It takes a common video game trope of security sectors and puts it in the games pretty smoothly. There's a separate book (.pdf only) for other cities; London, Tokyo, and Manhattan.
There's a description of the mega corps in town, local small businesses, street gangs, organized crime, and other cyberpunk parties. There's a hand full of developed NPCs as well. It does that stupid modern thing with Cyberpunk by dividing them into good guys and bad guys but I don't see any layering of ideological slant. It's more the nihilistic "you're the hero because you're the main character" thing. This is mildly annoying to me but easily ignored.
Interstellar travel and off world colonies are discussed but there's no material that even hints at the possibility that this is something the PCs can use.
In the end, it does a pretty good job of doing what I think a good setting should do. I creates a stage with a nice back drop and some background activity to spur on the the adventures the party partakes in.
Layout and Presentation
This is a hefty tome 293 pages. It's also a visually pleasing book with the art direction being pretty solid
Anyone that's ever done character creation with the WOTC 5e player's handbook knows the frustration of flipping back and forth, looking for your info, and trying not to miss a step. I like 5e but the book gets in the way of actually using the system.
Carbon 2185 does a good job with a fairly fiddly character creation system of 5e. It opens the PC generations section with a step by step bullet point guide and then puts all the chapters and sections in order of the guide. Well done, Dragon Turtle Games, very well done.
This is followed up with equipment and augments, then the rules (combat first), setting, a set of monster (nemeses? antagonists? targets?) stats, and finally an introductory adventure.
There are 28 pages of things to buy, it's cyberpunk after all. It's enough to get you really going but it's not exhaustive of the possibilities of a cyberpunk experience. It's 5e though so you can get a lot of developed 3rd party material and home brewing is easy.
Again, WOTC puts all the rules in different places so you need to look up conditions in one place and cover in another place. It's enough to drive a player mad. Carbon 2185 makes a solid attempt to organize all the rules that effect combat next to each other. That simple act alone makes this book more valuable than the vanilla 5e book.
The art... How do I talk about the art... Some of it is just amazing. I have always loved the Japanese cyberpunk aesthetic and this book just drips with it. The problem is that some of the art direction kind of gets in the way of the book. The PDF is already large but every single page has layers of graphic design that taxes a system you're using to read it. Reading the page with graphics filling the margins and blurred behind the text makes it more effort to read.
Odds and Ends
As I've mentioned, there's a handful of supporting books from Dragon Turtle game; a setting expansion, a collection of short adventures, a full volume campaign book, and some maps. The biggest weak spot with the entire Carbon 2185 line is the adventure. They run like D&D 5e Adventure League adventures. It's not bad, it just feels like driving all the way to Las Vegas to eat at a Denny's.
Final Thoughts
If you were looking for an RPG for your Bubblegum Crisis, Akudma Drive, Ghost in the Shell, or Appleseed game, I think this would be an excellent choice. OTOH, if you're looking to do Blade Runner, Johnny Mnemonic, or A Scanner Darkly, I think you'd be better served with Cyberpunk 2020 or Zaibatsu.
This is also a solid choice for younger player or for those that are stuck of 5e but you want to do a new genre and introduce new elements into your game play style.
I give Carbon 2185 an 8/10
UltraModern5 Redux, NeuroSpasta, NeuroSpasta: General Assembly are books from Dias Ex Machina Games. UltraModern is the character classes and features as well as the equipment and vehicles and other options. NeuroSpasta is the setting. Both are available from DrivethruRPG in both .pdf and hardbound formats.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/302992/Ultramodern5-REDUX-5th-Edition?manufacturers_id=2363
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/204048/NeuroSpasta-5E?manufacturers_id=2363
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/117916/NeuroSpasta--General-Assembly?manufacturers_id=2363
These books require the core 5e mechanics that are not included but can be had for free.
https://media.wizards.com/2023/downloads/dnd/SRD_CC_v5.1.pdf
Mechanics
As you can probably already tell, it's build upon the foundation of D&D 5e. If you look at the character sheet, you'll quickly see it is fully compatible with your normal WOTC 5e stuff. 5e is a D20 + Stat with adding a proficiency bonus for skills.
There's a could of bolt-ons for the core rules in Ultramodern and NeuroSpasta adds hacking. There's 10 classes in Ultramodern and one more in NeuroSpasta for a total of 11 class options. Rather than sub classes, Ultramodern offers two other ways to customize your PC, ladders and archetypes; both give bonuses and features as you level and any class can have any one ladder and one archetype.
It's worth pointing out that UltraModern5 is designed to a buffet for the GM to pick and choose what elements to put in his game. It's kind of a build-your-own-pizza thing.
UltraModern has a short section on alternative rules for amping up the risks of combat. Neat but optional.
Setting
If Dragon Turtle Games' take on cyberpunk was anime, the Dias Ex Machina's go at it is the underground comics take. Some of the art actually features a Disposable Assassin droid. I certainly see influence from Jodorowsky.
UltraModern5 itself is designed to facilitate multiple genres and there are several published settings. They are all compatible with each other though if you used everything I could only describe it as Heavy Metal Magazine gone Planescape via Rifts after Kevin has a bad LSD trip. Nobody needs that, put down the shrooms.
Neurospasta is a setting where the entire world had been put under the soft tyranny of a despotic UN. The UN has build a "perfect" city, Archon, from which to administer the unwashed masses of humanity. Everything is clean and glossy as if the entire city was built by Apple and Tesla. The thing is, that's where the money is. Players are part of the underclass in Archon where they can be part of the underworld, be contractors of the ultra-elite, or find their own way of making it in this dream come nightmare city of power and beauty.
NerouSpasta: General assembly Is a setting expansion that add a little to the over all lore and extends the geography to other parts of the world.
It's a fairly unique take on Cyberpunk in RPGs. It has a feel of Aeon Flux and The Hunger Games.
Layout and Presentation
If you told me that these books started out as an art project that got out of hand because of a group of scifi nerds getting tanked on "party favors," I'd believe you. UltraModern5 Redux is a kaleidoscope of gun porn, edgy underground comic villains, and psychedelic sexiness.
You don't really have to worry about the rules with this product and, because Dias Ex Machina knows how to do a table of contents, you can find what you need. Well, you could find what you were looking for if you could remember what it was after stopping for 47th time to look at the hot chick with six arms or the mecha being repaired.
The books aren't the most functional but they do work and they really put out the invitation to come play in their world.
Odds and Ends
What the product lacks in total depth it makes up for in just the sheer amount of toys it has to play with. Gear, set pieces, over-the-top monster robot things to kill, the fun just never stops.
Final Thoughts
If you were running 5e and looking to do your own setting and you needed a lot of help filling it with toys, these are the book for you. If you're looking for a different kind of cyberpunk experience for your players and you're willing to do a lot of extra work to fill it out, then this offers a good place to start.
It's fun, it's inviting, it's shallow.
I give UltraModern5 Redux and NeuroSpasta a 7/10
Cities Without Numbers is a cyberpunk game by Kevin Crawford, published by Sine Nomine Publishing, and available through DrivethruRPG as both a hardcover book and a .pdf.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/449079/Cities-Without-Number
This book has both a free version and a deluxe version. I am reviewing both and will include a section on the difference between the two volumes.
Mechanics
Mechanically, this game can best be described as OSR-like. It's fully compatible with Stars Without Numbers and Worlds Without Numbers but it's not fully compatible with true OSR products. It would be easy enough to make slight alterations in some cases and run as-is in others for OSR products. Along these lines, this is a level based system but with Edges and Foci rather than classes. More on Edges and Foci in a moment.
The core combat mechanic is D20 + combat bonus + weapon bonus. Saves are always a d20 vs your own save threshold. Skill checks are 2d6 + stat + skill, much like Traveller. There are a lot of subsystems for various types of actions a PC can take during combat, making this game quite a bit more complex. You're either going to have your book always open to this section or you're going to make a cheat sheet to keep yourself from going insane.
This game is highly lethal, particular to early PCs. A combat heavy game is likely to result in a number of TPKs.
Character creations is simple enough and the book flows pretty well. Roll your stats, roll on some tables to flesh out your background, and choose your first Edge and Foci. An Edge is a strong bonus to something specific like extra HP, a bonus to social attempts, or an extra oomph to your attack. Foci are a more broad and less intense bonus and they are usually applied to a skill set like driving, martial arts, or leadership.
There is quite a bit of the book dedicated to making weapons and gear customizations.
Hacking in this game is a blend of VR netrunning and meatspace patching. There's more effort in this game to try and blend hacking with the activities of the rest of the party but it's still a bit clunky and will still require some GM/hacker one-on-one time.
Setting
A large portion of this book is dedicated to setting generation tools. While I don't feel that they are adequate to produce a full setting, they are very good for filling up your setting and for sparking your imagination when you do your world building.
The book does include a setting. It's got a lot of the main structure built and is ready to have the GM add the flavor. When I read through the setting, it felt more like a sample of the tables and less like the default setting for a game.
Over all, both the tables and the setting seem like a generic list of 80s and 90s cyberpunk tropes. There's not anything I recognize as unique or innovative. It doesn't even have newer cyberpunk elements from newer entries into the genre. Still, as a tool for filling out a setting, it offers a lot.
Layout and Presentation
The book layout is clearly dedicated to usability. Over all, everything is well organized and easy to search.
The art direction is good and the art pieces that are chosen flow together well. It's obvious to me that the art itself was purchased from a catalogue of stock art; several pieces in this book are in other games as well as other media. The PDFs have a light version that are sans art of any kind for easier viewing on low resource machines. That said, even the full art versions are lighter than some of the 5e products that are over produced and load pretty well on a tablet.
There's a chapter dedicated to using Cities Without Numbers with the other games by Mr. Crawford. As those use classes and Cities without numbers uses Edges and Foci, there needs to be some clarification for those players looking to blend PCs.
One of the things I think this book desperately needs is an appendix with a series of cheat sheets for quick referencing on various parts of the system.
Deluxe vs Free versions
The deluxe version of the book has 34 more pages than the free version in a chapter titled Supplemental Material. This includes rules for genetically modified PCs, some variant rules for cyberware, and a section on magic. The magic part in this is a bit more restrained than what's found in Worlds Without Numbers and is clearly an attempt to give this game a Shadowrun feel.
Odds and Ends
This is the product of one man working mostly solo. There's a focus that comes from that and this clearly is a great example. Mr. Crawford has made a solid entry into the genre of cyberpunk role playing.
The level of customization of everything in this game is astounding. On the front of making a game where both GMs and players can tinker with things, it's sure to satisfy. Even then, the customization system isn't bloated and is easy to use. In this aspect, Mr. Crawford earns the gold.
Final Thoughts
If you're playing Stars Without Numbers already, this book is a must. It will add a lot to your game. If you're an OSR player and you have to have an OSR style game for a cyberpunk campaign, then you should give this book a look.
If a friend wanted to run this game, I'd join as a player. If a table really had their heart set on it, I'd run it. I don't think this will ever be my go to for cyberpunk gaming though. Between having two different mechanics for resolving challenges and having a bunch of subsystems rather than just giving skills for actions in combat, it's too cumbersome. However, I think this makes a great companion volume for running a cyberpunk game for a GM.
I give Cities Without Numbers a 7/10
Altered Carbon is an RPG by Hunters Entertainment and distributed by Renegade Game Studios It is available as a hard cover book from Renegade Games Studios and other book seller and PDF vie DrivethruRPG.
https://renegadegamestudios.com/the-altered-carbon-rpg/
https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/321246/Altered-Carbon-The-Role-Playing-Game--Core-Rules
It is a licensed product based on the novel and TV series of the same name. Skydance Television owns the rights to the IP.
Mechanics
The core mechanic is a roll under dice pool building systems where you select dice based on PC attributes, equipment, and circumstances. The better the value, the smaller the die that's rolled. The player selects the lowest result to use against the challenge. There are some dice that can be rolled in some circumstances to then modify this result.
Combat is done by rolling a number of dice to determine how many actions you get that turn and then rolling each action as described for the core mechanics. It's also run in zones rather than a grid.
PC creation is a point buy system. Points put into primary stats give you points to buy skills and traits. There is a lot of options for PC creation with many branching traits and skill trees.
Over all, the system plays and feels a lot like Modiphius' 2d20 system.
There's a number of fiddly elements to the system. I'd strongly recommend that anyone trying to play this game make up a cheat sheet for all the special conditions and exceptions.
There's one serious flaw with the system and unfortunately it's systemic; the better the dice pool is for success, the more likely a fumble is to happen. A fumble is every time two or more dice are rolled to their max value. Two d4s have a better chance at a low result but has a 1 in 16 chance to max out compared to two d12s that have a 1 in 144 chance. I can't help but think that this is an indicator of an over all poorly designed game.
When I am reviewing a game, I get out my dice and I do a lot of Danger Room testing to see how the game works and flows. Some games take longer than others to get to the point where I can play intuitively but I never got there with Altered Carbon. I consistently needed to look up things in the book. Both 2d20 and interlock got to a place where I could feel confident with the rules in running a skirmish on the table. This honestly feels more like a complicated Euro board game than an RPG.
Setting
Altered Carbon RPG is set in the setting of the TV series. If you've seen it, you're in the know.
Altered Carbon is a novel published in 2000 and the first in a series that follows the adventures of Takeshi Kovacs, an orphan turned soldier turned revolutionary and now in the hire of an ultra wealthy man to solve a murder.
The TV series stays loosely true to the books but takes a lot of liberties with the giving some of the characters more prominent roles. The first season is very compelling and engaging with a strong sense of a 1940s nior film with lots of amoral characters, backstabbing, and sudden and shocking violence.
Humans have colonized other planets and interstellar travel is a real part of life. The technology to decouple the human mind from the body has developed through a series of discoveries and innovations. Now, if you have the money, you can be moved to a better body or travel to another planet by having your mind digitally broadcast via cerebral implants. Both cloning and synthetic bodies are available for those with the means to buy them.
This has resulted in a super upper class that is, for all intents and purposes, immortal. Through their vast monetary resources and their long lives, these upper class people called "meths" are controlling almost everything and seeking ways to get to those few places still outside their grasp. For the bulk of humanity, this has resulted in absolute poverty. For a lucky few, there is a middle class that allows them decent living conditions but often at the cost of having to do the heartless bidding of the meths.
There's lot of neat tech and concepts floated by the series and it's a rich playground for cyberpunk play.
The setting offers a lot of things to explore. What makes a human? Where are the lines between the mind and the brain? How do you handle an extremely limited resource in a moral way?
Layout and Presentation
All in all, this book is cumbersome to use. Give that it's a hefty 330 pages, that's a real problem.
This book does a poor job of helping a new player get ready to play. There's a lot of sections you'll have to go over a few times to understand while flipping pages to reference other parts of the book to ensure you really got it.
Somewhere, the poor decision was made to use symbols as stand ins for aspects of the PC and then use these symbols rather than words in text for explanations of the rules. Until you memorize these symbols, you'll need to constantly reference the key to follow along what you're reading. These symbols aren't used on dice, cards, on maps, or anything else. All that really does is make it that much harder to read and understand the material.
At no point is there any decent quick reference charts for stats, traits, gear, or vehicles. You have to constantly go to the detailed entry for everything when all you need is a quick number.
The art direction of this book is ok. Most of the art in the book is stills from the first season of the TV show. Many times they have that hazy filter that makes it look like a water color. There's a few generic stock art pieces used as filler as well. The pages themselves have that background artifact thing that too many modern RPGs have as well as several margin lines and doodles that just makes it that much harder to read the book. The pages should have cleaner and the art sharper, IMO.
Odds and Ends
One of the biggest parts of the setting is the ability to change bodies like a suit of clothes. There are aspects of the setting description and the game design that lean into that heavily and I think they do a good job in that aspect.
The overall setting description and the guidance for how to run all kinds of adventures in the setting is done very well. This part of the book drew me in very well so that I really had high hopes for the function of the game.
As I'm finalizing my write up for this game, I noticed that the hard cover book went on sale for less than half price and is now out of stock. This is a strong indication that this game, or at least this iteration of it, is dead.
Final Thoughts
This is a really good idea for a game attached to a bad game system. You could probably homebrew the system until you got it working well but with that effort you could just take the ideas here and use them for a better system. I would think a 2d20 or Cepheus Engine conversion would work really well. Then again, you could also just get the novels by Richard K. Morgan, enjoy them, and have all the material for your setting.
My biggest fear with this game going forward would be the development team over correcting and turning this into some form of Powered by the Apocalypse game.
I bought this book in hard cover when it first came out because I was excited for it. I wanted this game to be the new Cyberpunk 2020 for my table. I didn't want to write a bad review for a game, I wanted to love it.
I give Altered Carbon a 2 out of 10.
Blade Runner The Role Playing Game is a RPG by Free League Publishing and is available as a hard cover and as a .pdf from the publisher and several distributors.
https://freeleaguepublishing.com/en/store/?collection_id=405939749122
Blade Runner is an IP licensed from Alcon Entertainment.
Mechanics
The game mechanics are based on the Year Zero Engine first used in the phenomenal game Mutant: Year Zero. With some variations, this same system is used for Forbidden Lands, Coriolis, Twilight 2000, and the Alien RPG. The basics are that you roll a dice pool based on stats, skills, and equipment suitable for the challenge at hand with the goal of getting a certain amount of successes to come up on the faces. A player need a certain number of successes to pass a particular skill check at certain levels of difficulty. Blade Runner differs from the original YZE in that you roll a successively larger die rather than adding more d6s to the pool. This keeps the total pool size down while still allowing for growth.
One of the big features of the mechanics is that if you don't initially pass a check, you can push your luck by re-rolling some or all of your dice with the risk of causing yourself problems like self inflicted injuries and equipment damage. Skill checks are hard to pass and pushing your roll is common for trying to get a success. When you push a roll, you risk your own stat points. As such, the game is quite dangerous and really stresses good planning and good decision making over being aggressive.
Another key feature of the mechanics is that all of your stats are hit points for different kinds of damage. While one kind of attack may not physically kill a PC, if can render him without the will to live and neutralizing him as effectively as if he'd been killed.
Combat makes use of zones rather than a grid as is becoming more common with modern games. Other than that, combat simply uses skill checks like any other part of the game, though some are opposed rather than against a set difficulty.
Everything about the game is tightly around LAPD hunting rogue androids and having existential crises and the rules are well build for this. There isn't a lot of room for doing any other kind of game play with this as written.
Setting
The setting in the book is largely based on the movie Blade Runner 2049. There's a little fleshed out by using the 1982 film and a few things generated by the game developers to round out the game.
The earth is damaged and anyone that can, has fled for another world. There's a few ultra wealthy that live gilded lives while the rest of humanity breaths poison and despair.
Androids, called replicants, are used to fill the labor shortages to keep things going. Replicants are very sophisticated synthetic humans that are nearly identical to the real thing, so much so that specialized equipment is needed to tell the difference.
The players take the roles LAPD officers tasked with handling replicants that go rogue called Blade Runners. Blade Runners usually handle replicants by destroying them, ie. killing them. It's brutal and bloody work to keep things working as they are.
Layout and Presentation
Free League YZE team really does a good job with it's products. (Fee League is a collection of dev teams that work together for publishing and sharing distribution resources. They are not a monolithic organization under top down leadership like a lot of corporations.) For being the 240 page tome that it is, it feels very approachable.
The lay out for the rules is linear so it's easy to follow the progression of how things fit together. That said, this is a product that's been translated. It's a perfect translation but there are some idiosyncrasies that are peculiar to a different mindset of game design. It's barely noticeable to most people and it won't interfere with your ability to use the book, There will just be some moments where the game concepts will approach you differently, almost like listening to an unfamiliar piece of music.
Like so many modern books from AAA publishers, the book is overproduced with full margins and background artifacts on the page. It's less taxing than other books so the book is easier to read than something like some of the modern D&D books. There's a reason why black letters on white pages in the norm, it improves the reader's ability to absorb the written word.
I like the art. It's clearly Blade Runner art but it's not screen shots or promotional material that's been recycled. I just wish they made it a bit crisper.
Odds and Ends
So I know a lot about firearms. A lot. Deckard's blaster from the first film is called a PK-D 5223 in the book and a LAPD 2019 Blaster, a PKD, or a Steyr Pflager Katsumata Series-D Blaster by a lot of other sources. The original prop was made by combining a Charter Arms Bulldog and a receiver from a Steyr Mannlicher Model SL. The book says this gun is a .44Spl 5 shot with a single shot .222Rem. There's no way in hell this frame is fitting all of this and no way that a .222 is going to be useful in any meaningful way when shot from essentially a ¼ inch barrel. In the original movie, it appeared to be some form of energy weapon. I don't know, I just know that it isn't this in the book. Either call it a .357 (that the Bulldog is) or call it a space gun, but don't tell me you shoved 5 .44 rounds into that poor cylinder. Believe me, .357Magnum is plenty powerful enough to kill replicants.
With this book, you're either playing LAPD Blade Runners or you're doing so much home brew that you're making a whole new game. It's a good premise and there's enough meat on the bones for a lot of adventure but it may be too constricting for some players.
Final Thoughts
Over all, I like this game. I love how the YZE system does a good job of ramping up the pressure as things get hard. I love the fact that every roll is a hard gamble the player is making. Add that to the format of trying to find a synthetic among a crowd of people while dealing with the gray morality of it all, makes this a game where every aspect keeps you on the edge of your seat.
Because of some necessary design choices, it's limited in scope as far as the breadth of game styles you can do with Blade Runner. Add to that, it's a licensed product so there's very little room for expansion on the setting. I feel that this is a one-two punch that will keep this game from being a #1 choice for any table.
Over all, I give Blade Runner a 7/10.
CY_BORG is a psychedelic cyberpunk RPG from Free League Publishing and is available as a hard back on Amazon and a .pdf from DrivethruRPG. It may be available through other retailers soon if not now.
https://www.amazon.com/Free-League-Publishing-CY_Borg-Rulebook/dp/9189143701
https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/393473/CYBORG-Core-Rules
Mechanics
Cy_Borg is a straight forward d20 + stat + bonuses game for core rules. It is very much like a stripped down 5e.
Character creation is a pretty easy and clean process. Roll 3d6 x 4 and reference you stats on the appropriate chart. Then pick a class. Then roll on a couple of random tables to gear up and flesh out your PC. PCs have 4 rather than 6 stats, making this the biggest departure from a more traditional D&D type games.
This game seems to avoid anything resembling an exotic mechanic. This makes it extremely easy to teach and run quickly.
Setting
Cy_Borg takes the generic 90s style cyberpunk setting and dials the noise up to 11. The basic premise of the game is that nanites that were intended to be an environmental repair have started infesting humans and are slowly killing everyone while at the same time giving some people enhanced abilities while it burns them out.
PCs are social outcasts trying to pay off their debts and maybe find some solace from the pain before they are overtaken by any one of several issues they are trying to out run. It's the end of days for the PCs and they are looking for a way out.
At least that's the overt setting. It seems to me that the entire setting should be viewed through the lens that the PCs are nearing the end of a horrific drug addiction and are suffering a psychotic episode full of hallucinations and paranoia. They are too amped up and burned out to see things as they are so everything is a psychedelic nightmare that has them struggling for some sanity while they wreck havoc on the rest of humanity around them. Oh, and blaming Capitalism for all their problems on their way to the grave they dug themselves.
Layout and Presentation
This book looks like a 90s skater magazine or a heavy metal music fan magazine. It's visually striking but it makes it a lot of work to read the book under the art project. Had this been cleaned up and reformatted, the book could probably shed about 30 or more pages.
Once you get past the fact that all the text is also part of the art, it's pretty well written. The bulk of the book is a collection of random tables for all kinds of things to fill out PCs, NPCs, the setting, and adventures.
The writing style is to give as much style and flavor as possible. This pads out the text in the book, sometimes at the expense of ease of reading for clear information.
Odds and Ends
Cyberpunk is style over substance but I think this book takes it too far. There is so much hot art to just stab you in the eye that the game kind of gets lost.
Whether it's supposed to bet earnest or tongue-in-cheak, there is a clear layer of communist revolution against the capitalist pigs. It's a sad departure from what makes cyberpunk work.
Final Thoughts
If you want a rules light Cyberpunk that leans into the darker and more fatalistic aspects, then this may be the right game for you.
There's multiple layers of openings for a creative individual to build off of this game. The system is easy enough to understand so that it doesn't take much effort to home brew for it. There's some solid seeds for plots and campaigns. You just got to get past the dirty needles to get to it.
I give Cy_Borg a 6/10.
Running Out of Time is a Cyberpunk game by Old Skull Publishing and distributed by Exalted Funeral. Is available as a soft cover and .pdf on Exalted Funeral's website.
https://www.exaltedfuneral.com/products/running-out-of-time?_pos=1&_sid=d0ccfe77b&_ss=r
Mechanics
The crux of Running Out of Time is that the economy is based around time. You're paid in time (hours,days, months) and you spend time to buy things. Your balance of time remaining is the amount of time your PC has to live. When your time run out of time, your PC dies.
The core mechanic for resolving challenges is a d20 + stat + bonus. You have three stats, strength, dexterity, and will power.
PC creation is rolling up stats and then rolling on a list of tables to flesh your character out. PC development is mostly at the discretion of the players to spend time that they have on upgrades and gear.
There's not much more to it than that, this is a pretty light weight rules system.
Setting
Aside from the core concept of using time as a currency, there isn't one. There's a lot of tables to roll up aspects of a setting but it really comes down to the GM having a solid idea and doing some world building.
It does remind me of an old scifi short story I ready years ago, "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktock Man. The core concept of time as a currency is one element but I get the feeling that it was an influence in other aspects.
Layout and Presentation
The book is a very tight 44 pages. As such, they get right to the point. Old Skull is very good at being able to spell out the way things work without wasting a letter and this book displays that skill very well.
In the back, Running Out of Time has a one page rules summery cheat sheet. I am such a strong believer in this that I make one for every game I run as part of the player packet. One or two pages to look over for what a GM and the players need to know without flipping furiously through the book is a great way to keep the game flowing.
The bulk of the book is random tables for the GM encompassing tables for settings, factions, jobs, etc. It's a good mix and has some depth to keep things interesting.
Every page is soaked in magenta, hot blue, and neon green in patters that are evocative of circuit card foil runs and city skylines. There's a few photos of people wearing the obligatory 80s style cyberpunk clothes and accessories. I find it fun, but a little tiring for reading.
Final Thoughts
I think the time as a currency gimmick is neat but a bit too niche for most tables. It's a cool idea for an adventure or a short campaign but at some point I think it is going to wear thin.
This would make a great game to run between major campaigns. Running a game one to six sessions long with this would be perfect.
It's a bit too rules light for me. I think that a long running campaign will see PC development come to a stand still very quickly. Bumping up to 6 stats and giving a bit more depth to PC development would have moved this from a neat little game I bought on a whim to making it a real contender for prominence in the genre.
I love the random tables, they really have a lot of things that can come up and add flavor to your game.
Over all I think that Running Out of Time has some good stuff in it but not enough to make much of a recommendation on. I give it a 5/10.
One final caveat, I have occasion to run games for groups of kids with learning disabilities. One of the hardest challenges to on-boarding new players is getting them on the rules. These rules are clean, intuitive even for those never have RPed before, and already condensed to a single page. This game is on my short list when running for tables that need a game to be easy to digest.
Deal – A Social Combat Game in a Cyberpunk City is a Cyberpunk game from Farsight Games and is available as a .pdf at DriveThruRPG.
https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/442030/deal-a-social-combat-roleplaying-game-in-a-cyberpunk-city
Mechanics
I'll just come right out and say it. This is a game in the alpha stage of development and isn't ready for prim time.
The core resolution mechanic is 2d10 + stat. Any bonus or complication is applied to the target number.
Player characters have four stats and start with 9 points in each stat. A player can move up to 5 points to around any way they like.
The book then says that the PC needs a career and hobbies but doesn't expound on that much nor gives them any mechanical effect.
There's rules for vehicles and vehicle combat. They are extremely sparse and the formulae for vehicles results in a four door car that performs significantly worse than a modern Honda Civic.
Setting
The setting is The City of Perfection. It's dangerous and bad things happen here. Guns are now illegal and everyone is forced to work through negotiators.
Yes, this is the setting. Honestly, this is a cartoon premise. Even if we look at a RL situation like the Yakuza, we could smooth this out and make it flow better.
Layout and Presentation
This document is 19 pages long. Every page has margins a mile wide, everything is over sized font and double spaced, and it's all white letters on a black background. (Screw your printer, I guess.) It's easy to read but the whole thing feels like a cheap attempt to get page count.
There is some low res digital art that looks like it could have been pulled from the cinematics of a mid 90s video game. It's not splashed all over everything and looks to be unique originals. I like it. It does give the feel of a high stakes encounter.
There's references to equipment and locations that there is no details on at all that are apparently part of game play. There is a couple of random tables to generate a conflict to be negotiated but it's pretty thin. There's no equipment tables, vehicle tables, or any list of things that could be used to mechanically customize the PC in any way.
Odds and Ends
The idea of playing as a bag man, a consigliere, or a crooked lawyer is a great premise for a game. The idea of walking into a gunfight with nothing more than a pin striped suit and a silver tongue to try and get a positive resolution is compelling. I wish that was the game I had purchased.
There's comments on the sale page that leads me to believe that there may be some further development. If it's done and goes in the right direction, I'm down to take another look.
Final Thoughts
Flat out, this is a really interesting proposal for a game. It looks like the pitch for a project to be developed rather than the final product to the consumer. As it is, I cannot recommend this to anyone.
Jonathan Hicks, if you're reading this, I'm not trying to be mean. I'm just trying to let consumers know what they are getting.
I give Deal – A Social Combat Game in a Cyberpunk City a 0/10.
Neon City Overdrive is a Cyberpunk game by Peril Planet game studio and is available as a hard cover, a soft cover, and a .pdf at DriveThruRPG.
https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/307995/Neon-City-Overdrive
Mechanics
Neon City Overdrive is a d6 system where a pool of d6 dice are rolled in an attempt to get a 6 on the face for a success or a 4 or 5 for a partial success. You always get at least one die for your roll but the pool will build with boons and banes. For each boon you get an additional die to help with your roll and banes give one that will negate a corresponding boon die. If after all the other dice are matched and cleared you are left with a 1, then you have a critical failure.
The PC doesn't get stats. Instead, they get various attributes and gear that add boons and banes. Some will be broad and cover a lot of types of challenges and some will more narrowly focused.
It's a simpler system that is about middle of the road for granularity and moderately lethal. It's also got a few things that are a bit loose, giving in to a little too much GM fiat IMO. It's pretty good over all and does have a decent amount of PC development and customization to keep a campaign going for a while.
There's no rules for net running in the core book but there's a supplement called The Grid that covers various aspects of hacking and net running. The one thing I really like about his is that net running is set up to be a whole party activity rather than splitting the party like so many other systems.
Setting
There really isn't much of a fleshed out setting but what is here hints at the "generic" cyberpunk setting. There's almost nothing in the main book or the supplements that's not geared directly to game play. The seems to be a lot of implied suggestion hat the GM make his own setting.
There is a four page frame of a setting called Tokyo Shields on the Peril Planet website that's a free download. It's clearly a 90s anime cyberpunk setting and even references a handful of specific ones as a source of inspiration. It's a good premise but there's not much meat here.
Layout and Presentation
The core book is 77 pages long. It's pretty well written though I think a little more clarity explaining the core mechanics would go a long way. It's not obtuse or hostile like some other RPG books but I had to read through a couple of times to really make sure I understood.
It has several random tables to fill in for making a setting, npcs, and events though I feel that this is pretty weak and a GM would do well to either have a setting and adventures prepackaged, DIY, or find another source of random tables.
It's dripping with the obligatory magenta, blue, and purple artwork of indie cyberpunk games. Peril Planet did a good job of keeping the art from making the book hard to read. There's a few pictures in the books that set an appropriate mood. This is one more book that's buying stock art from the same image clearing house as I recognize art from other products
Supplements
Neon City Overdrive has three supplements I feel should have been included as part of the core book.
The first, Psions, adds psionic powers as an option for both PCs and NPCs. It keeps it a bit more restrained than some of the full on superhero stuff I see in other games and well clear of magic. It offers a few different ways to introduce psionics into the game and even provides a bit of a framework for a setting that reminds me of the movie Push. Not bad and it stretches the cyberpunk genre in a new direction.
Second is Skinjobs and this covers biosynthetic androids (think Bladerunner), trans-humanism and remote consciousness (think Altered Carbon), trans-human transference (think Ghost in the Shell). It covers things well and does a good job of integrating the concepts into the core game.
And finally, there's The Grid, as I mentioned before. It covers AI, AR overlay, and various forms of hacking. I feel this is the best of the bunch by really looking at Cyberpunk tropes of the internet in a way that hasn't really been explored by other RPGs.
Odds and Ends
At the beginning of the book there's a section on game safety and the use of the X card. Given the book was published in 2020, it doesn't really surprise me but it is disappointing that yet another product sees the need to preach at gamers for being mean.
There's a little bit of language in the body of the work that hints at a somewhat left leaning viewpoint politically but only the most astute or politically sensitive will notice it.
Final Thoughts
Over all it's a good product. It's easy to play, easy to understand, and easy to reference quickly. The system is versatile enough that you can quickly adapt it to all kinds of gameplay.
It has a few quirks that GMs and players will quickly pick up on and adapt to. It's a bit lighter on the rules side but not like a One Page rules set. I'd put it on par with Black Star or ICRPG for complexity.
For an indie product, it's really good for a small developer team. It's clear here that the author loves games and has tested this system.
I give Neon City Overdrive a 7.5/10
Wetwired is a cyberpunk/fantasy mash-up RPG from Fire Ruby Designs and is available through DrivetruRPG.
https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/444344/wetwired
Mechanics
Wetwire has a straight forward d20+ skills mechanic where your DC is always 20. This system makes success rates lower than a good number of other systems until you have rather high skills.
It has a rather unique PC generation and development system. You pick an occupation and it gives you a few occupation specific skills. Once you level up your skills enough, you can then select another occupation. The second time around, you choose an advanced occupation that gives you some fairly powerful unique skills.
Combat is done with each attack being an opposed roll. This makes the challenge of success easier than that of other skill checks. The rules for combat are 20 pages long with lots of different combat situations and how to resolve them. Over all, it does seem to flow together well.
It's not a bad system, it'll just frustrate players with less developed PCs with all the fails they will be getting.
Setting
The setting is fairly thin, I believe so that the GM can do a lot of world building to flesh it out. What little there is just describes the typical 80s and 90s dystopia future cliches.
There's actually a lot of setting that comes out of the available PC options through being able to play fantasy races, magic, and and some jobs like tribal shaman and gang leader.
This book lacks any random tables to roll on for fleshing things out so be prepared to do your own homebrew setting or take one from somewhere else.
I won't beat around the bush. This feels a lot like an alternative system to be used with Shadowrun. Everything lines up well enough though you'd still have to kind of wiggle it in place.
Layout and Presentation
Over all, the book is fairly easy to digest. The writing is smooth an most things are well explained. It's also nice to see black letters on a white background.
It has a few well placed original B&W art piece throughout the book. It's a nice change of pace with many other cyberpunk and dark scifi systems buying their art all from the same art vendors. The whole thing gives a nice 90s throwback feel.
Final thoughts
The only thing I really thing this book makes a mistake on is that it has a fixed DC. I think is really hamstrings the ability of this game to get into more hands. Most GMs know that a series of frustrating failures is likely to put players of a game very quickly. Sadly, I have to take points away for this.
For someone willing to homebrew this part and is looking for a Shadowrun alternative, this might make the right game for you.
I give Wetwired 6/10.
Reboot the Future is a space colony cyberpunk game by D101 games and is available as a hardcover and a .pdf at DrivethruRPG.
https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/415519/reboot-the-future
Mechanics
At it's core, Reboot the Future is a 2d6 + skill system. Any roll where there would be an adversary is an opposed roll. It's similar to Traveller or Cepheus Engine but it isn't compatible.
PC creation is a point buy system with skills, traits, gear, cybernetics, and a couple of miscellaneous stats all having point pools.
The system makes a lot of assumption that the PCs would be part of larger gang and there are several rules for how to leverage that in game play. There are also assumptions that each PC will have their own social contacts and this comes into play as well.
There's a couple of mechanics for allowing the player to manipulate the world. One is a flashback where the player can make up a part of the PC backstory and use that to re-roll a failed skill check up to three times a session. Another is a style check.
One interesting mechanic is that one of the ways that PCs can gain experience is to have a critical failure. In a game where the difference between a very skilled player and a novice character isn't too far apart, this idea is neat.
This is by far the least lethal game I've reviewed in the cyberpunk genre. While it's not impossible for a PC to die, there are so many things in place to save them that it's unlikely to ever be much of an issue.
The game tackles netrunning as a whole party VR experience and generally just runs like meatspace adventuring.
Setting
The setting is based on the idea that megacorps pushed colonization onto various planets and receded, leaving the colonies to fend for themselves, when an inter-corp war broke out. Now that the dust is settled, the megacorps are going back out to their abandoned colonies and asserting authority. The table is supposed to collectively create their planet and it's culture.
This game has a lot of messaging that corporations and capitalism are the cause of human suffering and pure evil. The PCs, as punks, represent anarcho-communist revolutionary heroes making a valiant underdog effort to fend off the evil corp coming to dominate their world.
This isn't inferred, it's spelled out. The NPCs are all very good or cartoonishly evil. In many ways, I feel that the setting is more fear mongering propaganda than an effort to make a well rounded and playable world.
Remember kids, when the first step in getting your utopia is mass murder, it's a death cult and not a virtuous ideology.
Layout and Presentation
This is one of the better books I've reviewed recently for being able to read it. It's black letter on a white background without all the watermarks, margin clutter, and general visual noise that I've been looking at a lot lately.
PC creation is a little fiddly but the book lays it out in an easy to follow format so you don't get lost. Other parts of the rules aren't as well laid out but a little looking and you'll find what you're looking for. They do add a cheat sheet for the rules so you don't need to keep flipping pages in most cases.
There's several pieces of black and white art that are very reminiscent of those late 80s and 90s RPGs. As far as I can tell, it's all original art to this book. Most of it is clearly common cyberpunk themed pieces but there's a few that are very much depicting AntiFa.
There's a section on gangs and one entry is "hate gangs." Here's the entry:
Hate Gangs
There's a lot of frustration in the Consortium. Most citizens will just lead their lives simmering a way, distracted by the control mechanisms that the Consortium put in place for them. But a small minority will form groups with like minded individuals and launch vicious attacks on those who are the subject of their hate.
Style: Either very overt symbolism which alienates them further from mainstream society, such as open displays of Nazi symbols, or a covert ordinary look to stay under the radar of both their victims and the authorities.
Rackets: Books on their beliefs, and almost anything else to pay for the equipment they need to launch their attacks.
Yeah... This is an AntiFa RPG. No nuance, no gray zones, no exploring of different views. Just rebel activists against all the evil corpos and normies
Odds and Ends
Given how gear heavy cyberpunk setting usually are and how it's implied in the text, this book is really light on things like tools and variants of weapons. A good selection of equipment and weapons is necessary for any RPG but critical for a cyberpunk game.
Final Thoughts
In the end, this is a whole lot of political on top of a mid game engine. It's a pure no go for me.
I give Reboot the Future a 3/10.
Katana-Ra is a high tech Edo period Japan themed Cyberpunk fantasy game by W.R.K.S Games and is available as a hard cover book, a soft cover book, and a .pdf on DriveThruRPG.
https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/441892/katana-ra-core-rule-book
Mechanics
Katana-Ra is a d10 + substat based game. As I read through it and tested it, I got the distinct impression that the author was trying to replicate the Interlock system but avoiding trying to appear to be copying it by borrowing some elements of 5e. It's a mess and I don't like it. They are also not very well explained nor demonstrated in the 8 pages dedicated to them.
PC creation is a multi-tier point buy system. You pick your class and you get points to put in your stats with some already predetermined. The you figure out your sub stats by putting your stats into a formula and assign them. Then you get point pools for general skills and class specific skills. All in all, there's 20 pages dedicated to character generation versus 6 pages to the actual mechanics of the game.
There is no included character sheet. Usually, when I'm figuring out a a system, I use the character sheet as a guide to first make a character or two and then using the characters to test out some of the other mechanics. The lack of a PC sheet made this review take a lot longer. I am deducting a whole point from the final evaluation for this.
Combat is a messy set of special skill challenges with each type of attack or action it's own set of parameters. I know that Interlock and Poenix Command do this but they have a logical flow based on real world studies. Whenever I run into a more modern game that tries to do this, it just comes out as a mess.
Combat is clearly meant to be played on a grid and there's some pretty specific rules on how to do it.
In the end, it doesn't play smoothly and things don't seem to be well balanced. There's no rules or guidance for of PC development offered except buying cybernetics, which goes against some character types. Mechanically, this game is a broken mess that will take extensive homebrew to fix. A GM would be better off starting with a system they know and grafting the setting onto that.
Speaking of Phoenix Command, I think this game would have been a lot better off mechanically if W.R.K.S. Games had just licensed PC and did a few tweaks. It may be table heavy and crunchy but it's not more complicated than what Katana-Ra is trying to do.
Setting
Katana-Ra is as I described above, a cyberpunk fantasy setting that blends traditional Japanese mysticism and mythology, Japanese historical culture of the Edo and Sengoku periods, and 10 minutes from tomorrow technology. There's 34 pages dedicated to world building and setting explanation to get it all across.
It's clear the setting development was a project of passion. It's well presented and rich with all kinds of factions and world set pieces. It's very evocative and inviting, offering adventure and challenges of blood oaths, revenge plots, social strata, and brief moments of extreme violence.
A little research into the Sengoku period and the Meiji Restoration by a GM would give years of material for game play. Japanese history is full of extreme situations and fascinating figures and much of it will work as inspiration for a GM, even one that struggles with the creative side of running a game.
One little neat touch for western gamers is a section on Shinto magic. While not exhaustive by any means, it's nice to see something based on magic ideas outside the normal tropes.
Layout and Presentation
The book is beautiful but the .pdf makes me want to shoot the guy who published it. It's done as spreads so that unless you're viewing it on a large screen, it's difficult to read. If you set it up so that it's zoomed in to fit the screen edge to edge, it's still only about a font size 6. This is done to preserve the art spreads but it's not worth it.
At 148 pages, this runs in the middle of the pack for games I've reviewed here. It's still a pretty heavyweight .pdf due to the art.
Honestly, It's hard to say the layout isn't right when the actual writing for the rules themselves is so poor. As far as it goes, the rest of the book reads easily and it's easy to get back to a part to read.
When describing the game mechanics, the author chose to use Romanji Japanese words for various aspects of the PC and game play. This means until you learn the word, you have to keep looking up what the English translation is for that word.
I like the art and the art direction over all. There's pieces that are modern skylines and modern living mixed in with a traditional look and feel of Japanese rural spaces. The over all effect is much richer than most game art direction for almost any game I've ever seen. There's a few pieces that bug me, some for being more Wuxia than samurai but a few for what appears to be tattoos that would most definitely had a person shunned in either historical Japan or now.
Final Thoughts
This is an expensive book. At $60 for the hard cover, $50 for the soft cover, and $25 for the .pdf, it's hard to see this as the right buy for anyone.
A broken system means that this will mostly be a curiosity buy for most and will probably never see game play anywhere. This one goes on my stack of games I lusted after only to be deeply disappointed.
I give Katana-Ra a 2/10.
Katana-Ra is not simply broken, it's dangerously close to be an actual scam. 2 out 10 is 3 points too much for this thing.
Let me add a couple of juicy details about the "system"...
- You can fail a successful roll. In this absurdist masterpiece if you roll high enough to match the difficulty of an action you then roll another unmodified d10 and if you roll 2 or less the action fails. On a 1, you fail so bad that your skill decrease by 1 (but don't worry, roll a 10 on this die and your skill will rise). This random roll is the only way to change skill levels after character creation, leading to the paradoxical situation where if you're good enough to succeed at most rolls...you'll probably won't be able to do it for very long
- The only way to change your character is through gear: there's no experience or character development system save for the random ebbing of skills bake into the resolution system. It's practically a loot based Diablo-like videogame ported to paper.
Quote from: NotFromAroundHere on December 05, 2023, 03:47:13 PM
Katana-Ra is not simply broken, it's dangerously close to be an actual scam. 2 out 10 is 3 points too much for this thing.
Let me add a couple of juicy details about the "system"...
- You can fail a successful roll. In this absurdist masterpiece if you roll high enough to match the difficulty of an action you then roll another unmodified d10 and if you roll 2 or less the action fails. On a 1, you fail so bad that your skill decrease by 1 (but don't worry, roll a 10 on this die and your skill will rise). This random roll is the only way to change skill levels after character creation, leading to the paradoxical situation where if you're good enough to succeed at most rolls...you'll probably won't be able to do it for very long
- The only way to change your character is through gear: there's no experience or character development system save for the random ebbing of skills bake into the resolution system. It's practically a loot based Diablo-like videogame ported to paper.
Yeah, this is the third game I've covered with abysmal rules that are too broken to believe they've been play tested at all. Altered Carbon was the other one in this thread with the increase in the chance for a critical failure as your skills improve. This kind of game design sucks. It's a real shame because both this and Altered Carbon are beautiful books with great settings. But a setting doesn't make the game work, the mechanics do.
Neon Blood is a cyberpunk game by The Rune^Forge and is available as a hard cover book, a soft cover book, and a .pdf on DrivethrRPG.
https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/315727/neon-blood-cyberpunk-roleplaying
Mechanics
Neon Blood is billed as an OSR product. It has the standard d20 + stat + skill for resolution. It has some OSR features and some more modern features. It borrows the advantage and disadvantage system from 5e. Over all, a D&D player should be able to pick this up very quickly. As per the publisher in an online discussion on DTRPG: "The game is not a re-skin of any OSR system."
Neon Blood takes the modern approach to distances with ranges marked out at close, near, far, and very far. I prefer things be done in absolute measurements rather than abstract.
This game isn't quite as lethal as Cyberpunk 2020 but as lethal or more than any of the other games I've covered so far. It's not quite save-or-die but it takes a lot if you fail your first check. Hot heads will be replaced quickly in Neon Blood.
There's a few different variants of character generation, all of them some form of point buy. In essence, they don't make stronger or weaker characters but instead focus their development in different ways.
Character advancement is innovative. Once a PC hits 13xp, they can pick one Advancement from a list. They are similar to feats in D&D games and are PC bonuses that cannot just be bought with money. Other than that, a player can buy various upgrades from equipment to genetic mods to cybernetics with the money they earn from jobs.
Weapons, gear, and implants all have upkeep costs and make for cash sinks. This means your players don't have to worry about what to do with their money but now they have to make sure to earn enough cash to keep going. On the other hand, the economy is managed by a wealth level rather than an actual dollar count.
There's decent vehicle and drone combat rules. There's a class in Shadowrun called a Rigger that's a robotics and mechanics expert that can jury rig things and build new equipment out of parts. There's a solid attempt to import that kind of game play with a class called Jockey that's both a driver and mechanic type class.
Setting
There's very little setting done for this game. Most of the setting is implied through descriptions of various game play elements. It takes a heavy influence from the 80s and 90s style urban dystopia scifi and cyberpunk stories.
What is excellent about it is that you can rearrange the setting or completely drop in your own without breaking anything.
Layout and Presentation
Neon Blood is a little dense ans would be a bit difficult for a new player to digest. In several cases, it's just assumed you understand the subtext of the subject being discussed. That said, it's not hostile to the reader and the author takes time to give more detailed descriptions of more obscure elements as well as ample examples of concepts in use.
A lot of the art is acquired from a stock art clearing house and I recognize most of the pieces. The covers for some of the Neon City Overdrive books are splash art in Neon Blood. It's good pieces, they are just getting used everywhere. There's a few unique pieces, including the cover. The cover is more techno body horror than cyberpunk in my opinion though.
The text is white letters on a black background so it's easy enough to read. It still has a lot of neon colors splashed around so there is some reading fatigue with it.
It's not a stand out book nor is it bad in any way. It's a solid book for it's intended use but no one will want it as a coffee table book.
Odds and Ends
While I don't think it's OSR nor is it 5e, it's core mechanics make it such that material for either will be easily adapted or drop right in as written.
This is definitely a bring-your-own-setting system but you don't need one to get started. If you're a green GM looking to run this game, I recommend you take lots of notes on the things you introduce into your game like NPCs and locations because that will be your world.
The Rune^Forge clearly sees this as a game that other creators can make content for and intentionally leaves the door open for it. A direct quote from the book: "Uses OGL Content and is free rein for your OGL use. Enjoy, Glitches." As per all legal advice from the internet, don't believe me, reach out the the publisher for licensing rights and reach out to a lawyer for clarification of terms.
The Rune^Forge has produced a number of supplements for Neon Blood. Some are PC options, some are rules expansions (there's one for space), and some are adventures. It seems there's a plan to support this game for a while more.
Final Thoughts
This is the closest product I have seen that's a spiritual sequel to Cyberpunk 2020. It's a bit crunchy but built on a rock solid and simple mechanics set. I absolutely love what they've done with the base d20 system here.
While I do have a nit pick here and there, over all this is a solid entry and it does some things I really like.
I give Neon Blood a 8/10.
Just wanted to chime in and say thanks for all the work on reviewing these systems.
Quote from: zircher on December 05, 2023, 08:35:32 PM
Just wanted to chime in and say thanks for all the work on reviewing these systems.
Thank you. It's nice to know that someone is getting something out of this. I am just hoping to help a few guys find their next game armed with a little more insight than I did during some of my own game hunting.
I have four more in the chute, maybe five. I'll continue to add to this thread as long as there are reasonable entries to make. If anyone has a suggestion for this thread, I'm all ears.
For my reviews to have any merit, they have to be factual and honest. If I find that I messed up in any part, I want to get it right. In that spirit, I need to update my review of Cyberpunk Red.
1. My overall review stands as it is with my public opinion unchanged. It has the promise of being a good game but needs some work. I hope, with time, that it becomes a great game remembered decades from now with the same fondness I have for Cyberpunk 2020. Still 6/10.
2. I have no special insight into the development or production of any product from R, Talsorian Games. I was incorrect about what personality was involved with what aspects of Cyberpunk Red as a product. My apologies to all parties.
3. Tenbones corrected me and let me know that Lisa Pondsmith is in fact Mike Pondsmith's wife. My error in the regard is an embarrassment to me. My deep apology to the Pondsmith family. I have no direct connection to the Pondsmith family at all and hope they never find out about this mistake.
4. When reviewing Cyberpunk Red, I read though all the available material, supplements and downloads, at the time of the review in preparation. There was a point of fact I represented as being in the core book that was actually in one of the supplements. Again, I don't feel that this mistake changes the review over all but if you happen to be looking at my review and compare it to your book, I know and I'm sorry. Hopefully no one else catches it, it was small.
If anyone sees that I have made in error, please let me know. I want consumers to work with the best information available.
Thanks for posting that. It shows your sincerity for accuracy and that is appreciated.
Quote from: zircher on December 07, 2023, 10:22:57 AM
Thanks for posting that. It shows your sincerity for accuracy and that is appreciated.
Thanks.
It's still embarrassing though. :-[
Neurocity is a dystopian scifi game by Gavriel Quiroga and is available on DrivetruRPG as a .pdf.
https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/318907/neurocity
System
Neurocity uses a 2d6 roll under system. It's simple and clean with enough granularity for the intended form of play.
Game play is more about navigating daily life in an overly regimented society and the rules play into very well. A core elements is Tension, the buildup of stress the PC is under. When it's built up to higher levels, it can provide some significant benefits but it can also lead to the PC's downfall.
Combat is a simple affair and is more narrative than tactical. It's more for the function of providing violence that adds to the PC's Tension. A PC can die during combat but it's a very low likelihood. You're far more likely to have your PC "killed" through violating the rigid social structure's rules and being disciplined for it.
The rules take up 30 pages and this is with a number of very good examples of how to use them.
Setting
Neurocity is very similar to Paranoia but played straight. The influence of George Orwell, Philip K. Dick, and Aldous Huxley is down right palpable.
A super computer is running a "perfect" society that is callous and inflexible. It's orders are being carried out by fallible and corrupt people who are also feeding the computer false information, causing even more dystopian orders. As such, things aren't working well and everything is slowly decaying. The players take the roles of regular citizens and it's up to them how they choose to approach the issues they are faced with.
While it's not explicit, it's obvious that the intended way for the game to play out is that there is a growing pressure on the PCs that eventually causes them to break from being cogs in the machine to try to either fix the broken system or escape it.
Layout and Presentation
This book is hands down a piece of art. Anyone looking to do an RPG book should use this one as a reference on how to do it right. Neurocity succeeds in doing what Mork Borg tried to do and did it very well.
It's clear and easy to read. Finding what you're looking for is as good as it will ever get for a rules book. The text is easy to read with most pages being black letters on a white sheet. The writing style is so good that it's down right fun to read.
The images are mostly monochromatic but do a very good job of blending with the text and setting the over all mood. The over all art direction is excellent.
The one thing I wish had been done is a rules cheat sheet and a PC creation cheat sheet.
Odds and Ends
If there's any negative to this game it's that it's very bleak and very serious. It's going to be a hard sell to most tables, even ones that are well into cyberpunk and similar genres.
Final Thoughts
If you have a group that's looking for a smart, difficult game with a serious tone, I don't think you can do better. Sadly, I think this is going to be one of those games that is a critical success but a functional failure due to not being used. I would love to run it or play it but I'm not holding my breath.
I give Neurocity a 9/10
Quote from: BadApple on December 22, 2023, 08:19:11 PM
Neurocity is a dystopian scifi game by Gavriel Quiroga and is available on DrivetruRPG as a .pdf.
https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/318907/neurocity
This sounds right up my alley. Thanks for the review!
Quote from: Thornhammer on December 27, 2023, 10:17:27 PM
Quote from: BadApple on December 22, 2023, 08:19:11 PM
Neurocity is a dystopian scifi game by Gavriel Quiroga and is available on DrivetruRPG as a .pdf.
https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/318907/neurocity
This sounds right up my alley. Thanks for the review!
You're welcome. I'm happy to hear my reviews have value.
If you run a game of Neurocity, I'd love to hear about it. It's got a solid concept and I can see this being a truly sublime RP experience for the right table. (Sadly, it's too serious and cerebral for my players.)
I just found this thread today, after reading your post in the What is your RPG resolution for 2024? thread. I'm looking to try out a Cyberpunk game this year, and the reviews here have been invaluable reading.
I'm mainly interested in more rules-lite games these days. Something no more complex than D&D 5e or D&D B/X is about my comfort level of game complexity.
A few days ago I learned that there was a Kickstarter for a new game called Tiny Cyberpunk, from the makers of Tiny Dungeon. I probably would have backed this Kickstarter if it hadn't ended before I found out about it. I have the Tiny Dungeon PDF, and while the mechanics may be a bit too simple, I really didn't know a whole lot about what other Cyberpunk games are out there. Until I found this thread!
Based on your reviews here, the following games have caught my interest:
CY_Borg
Carbon 2185
Neon City Overdrive
Neon Blood
Ziabatsu
I may go ahead and purchase the CY_Borg Hardcover on Amazon, even though I strongly dislike Mork Borg. For fantasy RPGs, I like classic Tolkien heroic fantasy, and I can't stand the edgy death metal look of Mork Borg. The actual game mechanics seem nice and simple though. And while I don't like Mork Borg, I do have the PDF of Pirate Borg, and that I like. I don't mind edgy and over the top visual design in other genres, I just don't want it in my heroic medieval fantasy games. I grew up on early TSR D&D and AD&D art, and that's what I like for fantasy. But other genres can be more experimental.
Since the mechanics of Pirate Borg and CY_Borg are similar, that's another reason I'm looking at CY_Borg, as I would just need to learn one new system, rather than two.
The other game systems mentioned above also look very nice, though! I want fairly rules-lite mechanics, a fairly detailed and flavorful setting, and published adventures, if possible. I'm going to continue to research these other games before I pull the trigger on CY_Borg. So thank you for the very informative thread!
Quote from: Crusader X on January 01, 2024, 02:58:00 PM
I just found this thread today, after reading your post in the What is your RPG resolution for 2024? thread. I'm looking to try out a Cyberpunk game this year, and the reviews here have been invaluable reading.
I'm mainly interested in more rules-lite games these days. Something no more complex than D&D 5e or D&D B/X is about my comfort level of game complexity.
A few days ago I learned that there was a Kickstarter for a new game called Tiny Cyberpunk, from the makers of Tiny Dungeon. I probably would have backed this Kickstarter if it hadn't ended before I found out about it. I have the Tiny Dungeon PDF, and while the mechanics may be a bit too simple, I really didn't know a whole lot about what other Cyberpunk games are out there. Until I found this thread!
Based on your reviews here, the following games have caught my interest:
CY_Borg
Carbon 2185
Neon City Overdrive
Neon Blood
Ziabatsu
I may go ahead and purchase the CY_Borg Hardcover on Amazon, even though I strongly dislike Mork Borg. For fantasy RPGs, I like classic Tolkien heroic fantasy, and I can't stand the edgy death metal look of Mork Borg. The actual game mechanics seem nice and simple though. And while I don't like Mork Borg, I do have the PDF of Pirate Borg, and that I like. I don't mind edgy and over the top visual design in other genres, I just don't want it in my heroic medieval fantasy games. I grew up on early TSR D&D and AD&D art, and that's what I like for fantasy. But other genres can be more experimental.
Since the mechanics of Pirate Borg and CY_Borg are similar, that's another reason I'm looking at CY_Borg, as I would just need to learn one new system, rather than two.
The other game systems mentioned above also look very nice, though! I want fairly rules-lite mechanics, a fairly detailed and flavorful setting, and published adventures, if possible. I'm going to continue to research these other games before I pull the trigger on CY_Borg. So thank you for the very informative thread!
I'm glad you found my list and I'm glad you found it informative. Ultimately, I just want guys to get products that actually are what they thought they were buying.
The games you list i would personally put them in this order:
Zaibatsu
Neon Blood
Carbon 2185
Neon City Overdrive
Cy_Borg
Zaibatsu, Neon Blood, and Carbon 2185 are all "rules medium" and are on par or slightly easier than 5e. Carbon 2185 is 5e so if your players are already good to go then it's a great drop-in game.
Neon Blood will play very familiar to 5e players with some slight differences. It's one of the best game to play cyberpunk with IMO.
Zaibatsu is a Traveller based game and it's deceptively deep and rich mechanically while being clean and easy to use. Traveller and Cepheus Engine have a lot going for them so getting and learning this game is a gateway to a wonderful collection of games and adventures.
While Cy_Borg is a pretty good game overall, it's anchored down by a layout that makes the book hard to use and a community content list that's more art projects than well laid out game material. You're going to need a lot of personal motivation to create or find and adapt material for it.
BadApple, do you know much about the Cyberpunk Edgerunners Mission Kit (https://cyberpunk.fandom.com/wiki/Cyberpunk:_Edgerunners_Mission_Kit)? I'm wondering if this might be a good place to start with Cyberpunk rpgs. I do like boxed starter sets, and I'm an anime fan so I like the style of Edgerunners. I just don't know if this starter kit will be too simplistic and limited. The info that I've read so far mentions the inclusion of pre-generated characters, but I haven't seen any mention of character creation rules, so I'm not even sure if this set will allow you to create your own PCs.
The release date of this starter set is supposedly the first half of 2024, and I'm anxious to learn more. If this set has fairly robust rules, I might just pick it up. But if it doesn't contain rules to create your own characters and expects you to just play the pre-gens, I'll pass.
It isn't out yet. I am not an insider so I don't have a copy. I can't tell you what's in it but...
It is Cyberpunk Red so it's using Fuzion, the same mechanics as The Witcher RPG. I reviewed Red in this thread and there was a discussion in the main TTRPG sub about The Witcher. From what I can tell, it's a themed starter set for RED in the same vein of the Rick and Morty D&D 5e boxed set; it's using the core rules from RED with mixing characters and tech from the anime. Red isn't bad per se but it isn't great either. Nor is it rules light and the only other games that use the system are either commonly maligned (like The Witcher) or obscure.
I have all the material for RED: the core book, the starter set, Tales from the Red, Black Chrome, The Danger Gals Dossier. and several two page .pdfs they have released. I wan this to be a good game but it keeps going in the wrong direction. I may be foolish but I keep hoping there will be a "wake up and smell the coffee" moment at R. Talsorian and the game development will get corrected.
For getting into the Cyberpunk feel as a GM not matter what system you're running, I can recommend the Night City source book and Tales from the Forlorn Hope. Both of these are books for Cyberpunk 2020 and are available on DriveThruRPG as .pdfs or as soft covers directly from R. Talsorian. Night City is literally a travel guide for the city with listings for almost anything you'd want as a GM or a player. It could make a campaign al by itself. Tales from the Forlorn Hope is a series of short adventures for new edge runners that features a wide variety of activities that an edge runner might get into. Both are light on stat blocks and heavy on creating the experience.
For anyone wanting to get into the genre I would say get one of these three game. Cyberpunk 2020 if you want the authentic 80s and 90s Cyberpunk role play experience. Neon Blood if you want the best of the new systems and are used to playing either 5e or 3e/3.5/Pathfinder. Zaibatsu if want the best of the new systems and you are familiar with Traveller and Cepheus Engine or want to be and you're willing to port over material from other sources.
If you really want to go full on anime, then Carbon 2185 is an excellent choice. It's not as hard edged as the above games. The written adventures for it suck so you'll want to explore other material. Night City and Forlorn hope will still work here.
Fragged Cyberpunk is a cyberpunk game by Design Ministries and is available on DriveThruRPG as a .pdf.
https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/340831/fragged-cyberpunk
Mechanics
Fragged Cyberpunk is a 3d6 + stat + skill based game. It has a layered complexity, with each layer being removable and modular. It can be a light weight game or it can be fairly crunchy depending on the desired depth. The book has guidance for how to adjust the crunch level.
It's worth noting that this is not just a re-skinned version of Fragged Empire. They share the same core mechanic but there's a number of places where there's a significant change. It should be a smooth transition for Fragged Empire players and the changes will feel natural to the setting.
PC development is done with improving skills and getting augmentations. The augmentation list is pretty complete for the style of game play but there's plenty of room for a creative GM to homebrew.
Fragged Empire is known for it's multiple meta currencies but Fragged Cyberpunk only has one, spare time. This mechanic replaces downtime activities as a straight meta currency for purchasing things that would be acquired through time and effort between mission such as new skills or social connections. This has a very gamey feel to it. This will appeal or repel players, depending on their taste.
Grid combat is one of the optional layers of complexity. It's pretty deep but no where near as deep as Friday Night Fire Fight. It could be used for quick skirmish games all on it's own.
Fragged Cyberpunk isn't very lethal as there's a lot of opportunity to save once you're down. It's on par with 5e in that regard.
Setting
The setting is the prequal to Fragged Empire, focusing on the last few generations of humanity. If you're familiar with Fragged Empire, then you have a good idea of how bleak the setting is.
Humanity expanded to cover large swaths of the universe with colonies everywhere they went. To deal with the rigors of space travel and to reduce the cost and effort of terraforming, genetic manipulation was used to adapt people to new environments. This has had the the devastating effect of genetic erosion and population collapse. The vast majority of humans are sterile now and the few that can reproduce are likely to have sterile offspring.
Humanity has condensed itself in a few megacities throughout the universe, largely through the pressure of a handful of powerful elites. This has created massive slums with a few gilded palace type towers housing the most privileged rising from the decay.
These cities are not self sufficient and rely on a series of farm colonies and industrial outposts. Synthetic beings are used to man and operate these as human are banned from leaving the cities as hey may take precious DNA with them.
Players are denizens of one of these megacities trying to eek out a living. Whether the goal is to climb the social ladder to a place of comfort, escape the totalitarian hellscape, or get revenge for the destruction of humanity is up to the player.
The setting is framed well but not fleshed out. A GM is going to need to do a lot of work, particularly populating the world with NPCs.
It's my opinion that a good cyberpunk setting should be shades of gray with difficult moral quandaries that aren't easily settled. The setting for Fragged Cyberpunk is very black and white. I do like the fact that it doesn't try to shoehorn a PC into a particular play style or role but it's a bit of a cartoonish backdrop of a cyberpunk setting.
Layout and Presentation
The book is a scant 104 pages, about half the size or less than many of the books I've reviewed here. That said, it doesn't feel as if anything is missing.
The rules are rather heavy, being a crunchy system that's modular, but it reads well enough and the author worked very hard to be clear. It reads well and very little in depth explanation or example is needed. I think it could use a bit more in the examples category.
It's well organized and it is easy to find what you're looking for. An oft frequent complaint of mine applies here; I wish they would have provided quick reference cheat sheets for PC creation and combat as an appendix addition.
Most of the pages are black letters on white backgrounds. After reading and reviewing several books were they try to cram art and style on every page, I've learned to appreciate this tremendously. Where art is used, it's excellent. Maps share the page with text frequently but all the theme image plates are their own pages. The images work really well with the setting.
All in all, I feel that this book does a good job of being a usable game book.
Odds and Ends
I like the system, it plays fairly intuitively. I can't help but notice that it always feels like I'm playing a game though. I think that it will take a long time before the mechanics of this game fade into the background enough for a truly immersive feel.
If I were to use this book, I would probably dump the setting altogether and house rule a few things. I would definitely like to turn up the lethality.
Final Thoughts
If you're already playing a Fragged game and looking to have a cyberpunk experience or you have a group of teenage boys you're looking to graduate from 5e, this is a pretty solid game.
My chief complaint is that the game system will get in the way of immersion for some time until you really get to know the rules. It's not bad but it will make it a difficult game to embrace for some tables.
This is a fun game. It's easy to lean into the action and forget how bleak the setting is.
I give Fragged Cyberpunk a 7 out of 10.
Details at a Glance
Rules:
Complexity – Medium
Usability - Very good
Immersion - Poor
Lethality - Low
Setting:
Tone - Bleak
Depth - Somewhat Shallow
Detail - Low
Factions - Several but low details
This is a new section. Let me know if you like it or if there's something I can do to make it better.
(https://d1vzi28wh99zvq.cloudfront.net/images/6910/340831.jpg)
Xianta – CyberWuxia RPG is a rules light cyberpunk fantasy game by TLHP Games and is available on DriveThruRPG as a .pdf.
https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/442197/xianta-cyber-wuxia-rpg
Mechanics
Xianta is based on Lasers and Feelings. There's a single stat that you roll above for magic based actions and below for tech based actions. This core stat is a number between 2 and 5 and you roll a d6 for checks.
The GM gives a player Karma point for doing things that are good and Dharma points for doing bad things. If you fill up your Karma meter, the GM gives you some form of perk. If you fill up your Dharma meter, your PC is now evil and becomes a villain NPC.
There's a list of classes that have no mechanical attributes listed.
Setting
The setting is 1980s Hong Kong with high tech cybernetics and magic. There's some descriptions of a few locations that give the setting some unique flavor.
There's a handful of factions that are mentioned. None are given more than a couple of sentences and none of them are given any NPCs.
Xianta is supposedly an independent city-state but it's also part of the Neon Empire and subject to it's rule.
There's some neat ideas but none of them are fleshed out to the level of being ready to play.
Layout and Presentation
The book is 78 pages of neon colors and tumblr level wuxia art. It's neat to scroll through once but it's not good enough to keep you interested for very long.
Making up for the distracting and eye stabbing hot colors is the text being a font to be read from across the room and double spaced. All in all, you can read the entire thing in just a few minutes.
Final Thoughts
I think the idea is excellent for a game, I just wish it was made into one. Honestly, what's here isn't even worth the bandwidth to pirate it.
I give Xianta a 0 out of 10.
Details at a Glance
System:
Complexity - None
Usability - Very poor
Immersion - Very poor
Lethality - GM fiat
Setting:
Tone - Bright and shiny Shaw Brothers
Depth - Very shallow
Detail - None
Factions - Not detailed at all
(https://d1vzi28wh99zvq.cloudfront.net/images/20009/442197.jpg)
Given that it is a Lasers and Feeling hack, would Xianta work for something like a one shot convention game? Perhaps giving it 1/10?
What about Kuro? It's at least a bit cyberpunk.
Quote from: zircher on January 06, 2024, 02:02:27 AM
Given that it is a Lasers and Feeling hack, would Xianta work for something like a one shot convention game? Perhaps giving it 1/10?
It gets a 0 due to being an incomplete system, not for being a rules light system. The classes should have had mechanical functions. What is the HP? How does combat work? The staggering level of "it's just GM fiat" is what cripples it. This is an improv exercise with a single check mechanic and a basic framework of a setting. I don't want to give bad reviews but this isn't a game, it's the idea of a game that's going to need someone to do 99% of the construction on it.
The other half of why it got a 0 is that it's an empty setting. There's no NPCs, there's no clear motivations, there's no history, there's no nuance. It's like getting one of those house-in-a-box kits that's a stack of pre-cut lumber and a set of drawings.
If a game is playable but I really hate it, it gets a 4. Below that, it's broken in some way. A 3 is broken but there's an easy fix, a 2 is broken but it can run on another system with a little conversion or a moderate amount of house rules, a 1 is very broken but there's enough to figure out what the designer was trying to do so that a really ambitious GM could do something with it.
If the game gets a revision, I'm willing to revisit. As is, it's just an art project and a few ideas.
Quote from: yosemitemike on January 06, 2024, 03:06:06 AM
What about Kuro? It's at least a bit cyberpunk.
This one flew under my radar, thanks for bringing it to my attention. It'll be a while before I get to it, I have several more in the chute now.
As always, I'm open to feedback and suggestions.
Nice Reviews, and thank you for your work. I´m propably checking Zaibatsu out, although for my Cyberpunk fetish i have Shadowrun and Gurps. But i really like the Hostile Setting from Zozer games.
Shadowrun is Cyberpunk, with elves. Though I know alot of folk who play it without the fantasy elements.
And very worth a look is Nights Edge which is a supernatural cuberpunk setting for CP2020. Actually petty good and mostly delves into the technohorror aspects.
Another worth a glance is the original Cyberpapacy setting book for the original Torg. Odd little CP setting where the inquisition and church control the godnet.
Weird one. FREE Lancers was a 2nd ed Top Secret setting mixing Cyberpunk and pseudo-superheroes.
Also there was Chromsome for Amazing Engine. A bio-punk setting where biotech eclipsed cybernetics.
Another weird one is Gamma World for 3e/d20 Modern put out by White Wolf. Its a mix of primarily Nanotech and a little cyberpunk and bio-punk in a post apoc setting. The rules are broke and the writers didnt bother to write some rules because "The players will write that for us." Still, it has an actually really well written DMG with advice useful to more that just GW.
Dominion was an RPG using I think the FUSION system? Cyberpunk setting based on the anime. Nominally in the same setting as Apleseed which is even more cyberpunk a setting.
Quote from: Omega on January 08, 2024, 03:46:19 AM
Shadowrun is Cyberpunk, with elves. Though I know alot of folk who play it without the fantasy elements.
And very worth a look is Nights Edge which is a supernatural cuberpunk setting for CP2020. Actually petty good and mostly delves into the technohorror aspects.
Another worth a glance is the original Cyberpapacy setting book for the original Torg. Odd little CP setting where the inquisition and church control the godnet.
Weird one. FREE Lancers was a 2nd ed Top Secret setting mixing Cyberpunk and pseudo-superheroes.
Also there was Chromsome for Amazing Engine. A bio-punk setting where biotech eclipsed cybernetics.
Another weird one is Gamma World for 3e/d20 Modern put out by White Wolf. Its a mix of primarily Nanotech and a little cyberpunk and bio-punk in a post apoc setting. The rules are broke and the writers didnt bother to write some rules because "The players will write that for us." Still, it has an actually really well written DMG with advice useful to more that just GW.
Dominion was an RPG using I think the FUSION system? Cyberpunk setting based on the anime. Nominally in the same setting as Apleseed which is even more cyberpunk a setting.
Shadowrun is most definitely cyberpunk fantasy. I love the lore and have several books. However, my reviews are to help people choose what they are going to buy and I'm afraid I'm not the right guy to do that with Shadowrun. Also, I find that people that are into Shadowrun are into Shadowrun, not cyberpunk "but I like this version." There's 8 versions of the game now and I'm not even sure how I would approach it. In a way, it is it's own genre and at a minimum I think I would have to review each edition in that light. Much of this isn't readily available on the market now so it would be shitty for me to spin someone up to buy 4e only for them to spend four years trying to get a copy.
As for Night's Edge, I didn't like it at all. I'm not really reviewing settings, my goal is to cover the game. A setting is important because it helps a GM get a sense of the frame of the game, what the designer was thinking, and what kind of experience is intended to be had by the system. By all means, if a particular alt setting that just doesn't do it for me is good for someone else, then that's what they should have.
I'm keeping my eyes open for cyberpunk material so I can keep adding to this. Thanks for the suggestions, I'll look for them.
It's kind of funny but I'm not trying to be "the cyberpunk guy." I want to review space opera and pulp games too. I just started with this one because a few of the books I had were right there on top.
Quote from: CookieMonster on January 06, 2024, 08:16:49 AM
Nice Reviews, and thank you for your work. I´m propably checking Zaibatsu out, although for my Cyberpunk fetish i have Shadowrun and Gurps. But i really like the Hostile Setting from Zozer games.
Thanks!
Would Underground be considered a cyberpunk rpg? I'm actually not sure.
Quote from: yosemitemike on January 08, 2024, 08:37:57 AM
Would Underground be considered a cyberpunk rpg? I'm actually not sure.
I always thought it was more of a super hero game. That said, I've already covered games that blend genres. I'm fully on board with the idea that not everything needs to be in convenient boxes. (I was the guy who started a firestorm with the idea of running a cyberpunk game in the Star Trek universe.)
Quote from: BadApple on January 08, 2024, 08:42:17 AM
Quote from: yosemitemike on January 08, 2024, 08:37:57 AM
Would Underground be considered a cyberpunk rpg? I'm actually not sure.
I always thought it was more of a super hero game. That said, I've already covered games that blend genres. I'm fully on board with the idea that not everything needs to be in convenient boxes. (I was the guy who started a firestorm with the idea of running a cyberpunk game in the Star Trek universe.)
It has a lot cyberpunk tropes. It has the corporations as sovereign countries fighting ciorporate wars thing. The characters are genetically modified soldiers created for corporate wars. They are taught to use their powers in a vr sim that depicts them as superheroes in an ultraviolent comic book world. They come out believing that is their actual past. A fast food chain genetically engineered stupid people who are genetically designed to only be able to eat their food. There's a bunch of stuff like that in it.
Quote from: yosemitemike on January 08, 2024, 08:47:16 AM
Quote from: BadApple on January 08, 2024, 08:42:17 AM
Quote from: yosemitemike on January 08, 2024, 08:37:57 AM
Would Underground be considered a cyberpunk rpg? I'm actually not sure.
I always thought it was more of a super hero game. That said, I've already covered games that blend genres. I'm fully on board with the idea that not everything needs to be in convenient boxes. (I was the guy who started a firestorm with the idea of running a cyberpunk game in the Star Trek universe.)
It has a lot cyberpunk tropes. It has the corporations as sovereign countries fighting ciorporate wars thing. The characters are genetically modified soldiers created for corporate wars. They are taught to use their powers in a vr sim that depicts them as superheroes in an ultraviolent comic book world. They come out believing that is their actual past. A fast food chain genetically engineered stupid people who are genetically designed to only be able to eat their food. There's a bunch of stuff like that in it.
Oh, totally. It definitely blends the old comic book feel with the Philip K Dick setting for sure. I fully recognize it as a mash up genre game. I just thought of more of a superhero game in the sense that "you're a super hero and now you're in a shitty world." I didn't think of it in terms of cyberpunk, but many of the main themes are there.
SibirPunk is a gopnik cyberpunk game by Red Square Games and is available as a .pdf on DrivethruRPG.
https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/465104/sibirpunk-english-edition
Mechanics
Sibirpunk uses a d6 pool system where a check is done by rolling for a number of successes. The pool size is determined by stats and the face value needed for a success is determined by skills.
PC creation is a multi tiered point buy system. Generally speaking, I'm not a fan of this method but it works out pretty well here. It's hard to min-max and even then it really leaves you with fatal weaknesses.
PC development is done by buying upgrades and improvements with in game money and meta-currency. There's a lot to get so there's a lot of room for growth.
Combat is well done and about as lethal as Traveller. Aside from the somewhat novel check mechanic, combat feels and flows like many mainstream RPGs.
There's a fair bit of coverage on the subject of chases and fleeing. It's expected that PC will run up against foes that will be much stronger than they are and they will need to get away and run up against targets that realize that they can't win and run. A lot of RPG books and rules sets don't even lay that out as an option so it's nice to see some time spent on it.
The book also covers the fact that combat need not end with death or fleeing but often times result in negotiations and a truce. Given that most, if not all, opponents are human then it only stands to reason that violence can cease in many ways,
Finally, in PC creation, a lot of emphasis is put on the players being part of a group, a brigada. You start play as loyal teammates and friends.
The book spends 75 pages on the rules, mechanics, and general guidance on how the game is meant to run. It's well done, straight to the point, and assumes you know what and RPG is but have never played one before. I have a lot of appreciation for game developers that make an effort to communicate their rules well. My hat off to you, Red Square Games.
Setting
SibirPunk is a series of books previously unknown to me by Michał Gołkowski, a Polish author. It's worth noting that this game is a translation from polish as well. Everything I know of the setting comes from this RPG book.
Sibirpunk is modern gopnik fatalism and blends it with high tech elements in what is clearly the present day Russian Federation. The primary location is a fictional industrial city of Neosibirsk, a fictionalized version of Novosibirsk in Siberia.
There's 112 pages to get you and your players filled in on all the important aspects of the setting. It's not quite as fleshed out as the Night City source book but it comes close.
The setting is as much a critique of modern Russia as it is a constructed dystopia. There's barely enough to go around and due to poor handling by those in authority, many don't get a shot at getting what they need. Law enforcement is arbitrary and neighbors are potential allies, enemies, and prey. Everything is a facade and posturing until it isn't. Life is cheap until you want to keep yours. To survive, many people form groups that is tight-knit called brigada. If you don't have any friends or you don't have enough friends then you're just roadkill that doesn't know it's dead yet.
It has some of the common cyberpunk tropes with netrunning, cybernetics, and electronic toys. It actually is tucked in rather neatly to the setting. You might be able to get your cybernetic leg but still not be able to get enough food. If anything, the high tech elements do a very good job of laying into the weave of the more mundane elements of daily life in the setting. It feels less fantastic and more like just another aspect of modern life.
Players take on PCs that are gopnik and can be straight up a criminal gang, guys from the neighborhood just trying to get by, or ideologues who will get themselves killed in due time. It's expected that the PC will have to at a minimum take up a life of petty crime to get by. It's clear that play is intended to be at the street level throughout.
The setting is so well done that it would be easy for a GM to read it and adapt it to their favorite game system, regardless of the included rules.
There is still plenty of room for source books to include all kinds of material from factions, to more locations, to a catalog of more stuff to acquire. As it is, it's a solid base from which to run games from. A decent GM would need little more to run a campaign for years.
Layout and Presentation
At 318 pages, this is a hefty tome for a core book. It covers a lot but it does so in manageable pieces and all with a dry, gallows humor that keeps it tonally correct but fun. As this was originally done in Polish, the translation team was very, very good.
The order of the book is very well done. It flows from a brief description of the setting into generating a PC and then into the main rules very smoothly. The rules themselves are organized in a way that makes sense and easy to parse to find that obscure element you remember.
Most of the text is black on light grey background so it's easy to read and not get fatigued. There is some artifacts and background graphics but it's a lot more subdued so that it doesn't interfere with using the book.
The art is clearly original to the setting, most of it featuring cybergopniks or underclass Russian citizens going about their lives. Some of it is really nice and some is a bit too cartoonish for my taste. Most of it looks like digital work intended to look like pastels. It's not bad and it definitely sets SibirPunk apart from so many generic games in the genre.
Final Thoughts
I find the system to be a bit clunky. The meaning of the roll results varies from situation to situation so it slows the game down a bit.
While it does include rules for fleeing and pursuit, they don't seem to work well, in my opinion. They are serviceable but they don't seem to work to build up the tension that a good chase scene needs. That said, I haven't seen a set of rules yet that does it well.
With that, it seems that most conflicts will end with a couple of shots fired and one side running for the hills. There's a lot of incentives not to get into a last stand so it's all the more important that other options work well.
These are just minor complaints, over all it's a solid system and with a couple of session in a table will use them intuitively. There's not glaring broken parts or need for homebrew rules. In fact, I believe that being able to pinpoint specific rubs is a testament to the game's overall good design.
Even if you weren't interested in using this book to run this game, it would make a solid source book for someone wanting to include Russia and former Soviet countries into their own game world.
I enjoyed reading the book. I feel that a table looking for high tension street level play would find this a very attractive game.
I give SibirPunk an 8 out of 10.
(https://d1vzi28wh99zvq.cloudfront.net/images/20919/465104.jpg)
Quote from: BadApple on October 21, 2023, 06:15:07 PM
Before I start going through the games individually, I'd like to talk about the genre of Cyberpunk. I think it's relevant to both the reviews and to those looking to play a Cyberpunk game in general. It's fairly intertwined with political and social issues but I will try to be as factual and unbiased as I can. (Of course I have my own opinions and I'm happy to discus them openly but that would be a distraction from what this thread is about.)
First, I will talk about what the "punk" in "cyberpunk" means. Punk, as it's used to refer to the genre, comes from the British punk counter-culture that started in the 70s.
Today, punk is most remembered for the music style that spawned out if it but of it's time it was more well known for antisocial behavior and generally being offensive. In the early 70s, the British economy was flagging and a number of young people from working class families saw that they didn't have much of an opportunity and much less of an opportunity than their parents had when they were young. From their prospective, the political and business elites had very observably squandered resources and mismanaged the economy so poorly that there was almost no growth in the GDP. Both left leaning and right leaning moral custodians were exposed as hypocrites in public perception. To top it all off, these young people of these working class communities were getting bombarded with messages about how bad the British Empire was and that they had to repent for it, even though they were too young and too powerless to have done anything about it. The result was many disaffected rebelled out of frustration, anger, a sense of being betrayed, and resentment towards authority figures.
Much of punk counter-culture was all about explicitly not fitting in with mainstream culture and not submitting to authority. Punk as a name for this counter-culture comes from the use the term as a pejorative about boys that misbehave. Some punks were just kids looking for a group to belong to when there wasn't place for them in mainstream society. Some were real iconoclasts and maverick living their own life, and some were outright scumbags that could live and hide in the punk groups and places. Some punks embraced a nihilistic hedonism with alcohol, sex, drugs, and anything else they could derive pleasure out of. Some openly engaged in directed anti-authority activities, some merely symbolic activism and some outright criminal (some bordering on terrorism) acts. Still others channeled their time and energy into artistic endeavors; the music is most famous now but it included painting, fashion, writing, sculpture, etc. One of the most well known personalities from early punk is Johnny Rotten, the lead from The Sex Pistols. A little research into Johnny will give you a well informed understanding of punk as a whole.
Many people since then have tried to lay claim to punk pedigree, usually as an ideological base and usually completely wrong. Marxists saw it as an anti-capitalist movement. Some ardent atheists saw it as freeing themselves from structured religious beliefs. It goes on and on. It wasn't a political movement, it wasn't a social movement, and it wasn't an art movement. The core tenets were simply ardent individualism and rejecting authority. The closest thing to it I'm aware of is the outlaw motorcycle culture, also a counter-culture that was misunderstood and that others tried to coop into their ideological movements until bikers rebuffed them harshly. BTW, Johnny Rotten is a US citizen and Trump supporter now. https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/john-lydon-looks-rotten-pro-13412209 (This article made me laugh so hard I blacked out.)
The first use of the term "cyberpunk" comes from the short story Cyberpunk, written by Bruce Bethke and published in 1983. In the story, a group of teens are engaged in a series of escapades, mostly digital graffiti, by hacking and pulling pranks. It ends with one of the teens is recruited by the military to assist with digital warfare. In this particular usage, "punk" was used more in the pejorative sense as an insult to unruly kids rather than a reference to the punk movement.
Cyberpunk is a genre of fiction where an over computerized world becomes bleak by depriving many of opportunity and spawning a punk counter-culture in a high tech world. Johnny Rotten's antics in the 70s and 80s were the inspiration for the archetype of the Rocker Boy in general and specifically the character Johnny Silverhand. Most people tend to think of cyberpunk in terms of heists, hacking and net running. If you take a step back and reevaluate it, you'll see it's about punks. Take 1984 and add bikers and The Sex Pistols and you have cyberpunk.
The background setting of a high tech dystopia wasn't created in the 1980s, it's been around a long time. George Orwell's 1984 (published in 1949) would have solidly been classified as a cyberpunk novel if it had been written in the late 80s. Philip K. Dick is seen by many as the proto-cyberpunk author and several of his books have been turned into movies that are held as cyberpunk movies. (Blade Runner and A Scanner Darkly)
What would be solidly recognized as Cyberpunk today was crystalized by three pieces of media; the movie Blade Runner by Ridley Scott (based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick), Neuromancer by William Gibson, and the RPG Cyberpunk 2013 by Mike Pondsmith. Nearly all of the imagery and storytelling cliches people associate with cyberpunk com from these sources. Philip K. Dick, while not expressly a cyberpunk contributor, is the fourth creative recognized for shaping the genre into what it is.
Cyberpunk, like the punk culture before it, gets co-opted by various political and social movements and ideologies. The four core creatives didn't believe in, and were sometimes openly hostile to, many of these ideologies.
Mike Pondsmith said in a Q&A session once "What is Cyberpunk? It's whatever you say it is." It's a character or characters living their life against the background of a dystopian future and refusing to comply with the oppressive social norms. It's not bending the knee to authoritarianism.
Thanks for all your work on this! This post in particular was great.
I've been running Cyberpunk Red for the past few weeks and I have a much more positive opinion of the game. I think the core engine is great, it streamlines CP 2020 very nicely at exactly the right crunch level for me, whereas I found 2020's combat rules pretty well indecipherable. Red's problems tend to be around the presentation/layout, with a bunch of core material relegated to the late section "The New Street Economy". The obtuse titling of chapters, intended to be cool & edgy, makes for a terrible reference work. But as I've got used to this, the game has been fantastic in play. I'm running a sandbox set in my own timeline, mashing up Red & 2020 materials for the feel I want. Using Roll20, the work put into the Roll20 conversions has been very impressive to me, used to the lazy half-assed WotC way of doing things. Eg all the tables get input as actual rollable Macros, where WotC just gives you the same text you probably already paid for in print. All the vehicles from Black Chrome can be dragged & dropped from the Compendium. I've started using Danger Gal Dossier and its hundreds of detailed NPCs have been great, too.
Edit: Would you be ok if I reposted the above essay of yours to the Cyberpunk Red Facebook group?
THANK YOU FOR THIS AWESOME THREAD!!!
Could you please do a review of apocalypse world, if you haven't already? It's very beloved in some circles but I personally don't see the appeal.
First, I just want to say that I'm happy people are enjoying this thread and getting something out of it.
Second, I haven't abandoned this thread. I have more titles to add and probably next week I'll post another review here.
S'mon, I'm glad you are enjoying your CPRed game. My personal opinion being expressed about a game should never be construed as me imposing my view on others. (I will, of course, try to steer a person to what I think are the better games. I am still a human.)
The purpose for this thread is for me to share honest reviews of games so that a purchaser can have a realistic understanding of an available product. I try to keep the objective observations and my opinions distinct and clear in an attempt to give a well rounded review; games have an inherent subjective and emotional element to them so opinions are needed. I openly encourage anyone to give their feedback, opinions, reviews, and observations here even when (especially when) they contradict mine. My opinion isn't concrete truth nor is it important compared to anyone else's. More than one perspective can only be more useful to someone on the fence about buying a game so your input only increases the value of my review. I don't want to be a lone prophet in the wilderness but one of a chorus of voices helping GMs and players find their next favorite game.
You can repost anything I put in this thread. I humbly ask that you credit me by my handle here and give a link to this thread. It would be kind of nice, ya know... :">
Spinachcat, YOU'RE WELCOME!!! i'M GLAD YOU'RE HAVING A GOOD TIME!!! :)
Crazy_Blue_Haired_Chick, I have purposely avoided Apocalypse World and its derivatives in my reviews. I picked up and read the book years ago when I was first aware of it in gaming circles. I was switched off hard. At first read through, it just seemed like an incomplete system. After some followup and some forum reading, I came to realize that the game wasn't an RPG as I understood it but a game where all the players at the table are "collaboratively creating a story." What I initially saw as a weakness of mechanics was actually a feature for the table to improv and to allow the story to be molded by the will of the players. I feel it is too outside my frame of gaming to give a meaningful review.
Quote from: BadApple on April 05, 2024, 07:52:00 PM
First, I just want to say that I'm happy people are enjoying this thread and getting something out of it.
Second, I haven't abandoned this thread. I have more titles to add and probably next week I'll post another review here.
S'mon, I'm glad you are enjoying your CPRed game. My personal opinion being expressed about a game should never be construed as me imposing my view on others. (I will, of course, try to steer a person to what I think are the better games. I am still a human.)
The purpose for this thread is for me to share honest reviews of games so that a purchaser can have a realistic understanding of an available product. I try to keep the objective observations and my opinions distinct and clear in an attempt to give a well rounded review; games have an inherent subjective and emotional element to them so opinions are needed. I openly encourage anyone to give their feedback, opinions, reviews, and observations here even when (especially when) they contradict mine. My opinion isn't concrete truth nor is it important compared to anyone else's. More than one perspective can only be more useful to someone on the fence about buying a game so your input only increases the value of my review. I don't want to be a lone prophet in the wilderness but one of a chorus of voices helping GMs and players find their next favorite game.
You can repost anything I put in this thread. I humbly ask that you credit me by my handle here and give a link to this thread. It would be kind of nice, ya know... :">
Spinachcat, YOU'RE WELCOME!!! i'M GLAD YOU'RE HAVING A GOOD TIME!!! :)
Crazy_Blue_Haired_Chick, I have purposely avoided Apocalypse World and its derivatives in my reviews. I picked up and read the book years ago when I was first aware of it in gaming circles. I was switched off hard. At first read through, it just seemed like an incomplete system. After some followup and some forum reading, I came to realize that the game wasn't an RPG as I understood it but a game where all the players at the table are "collaboratively creating a story." What I initially saw as a weakness of mechanics was actually a feature for the table to improv and to allow the story to be molded by the will of the players. I feel it is too outside my frame of gaming to give a meaningful review.
Ah that is OK! I just wanted to ask to make sure what you thought about it.
For sheer curiosity I propose adding to list The Veil by SJK Publishing.
Oooops, Wrong thread!
DELETED
Quote from: Wrath of God on April 25, 2024, 04:24:04 AMFor sheer curiosity I propose adding to list The Veil by SJK Publishing.
This one?
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/199467/The-Veil-Cyberpunk-Roleplaying-Powered-by-the-Apocalypse
Correct.