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!