What is a good, straightforward cyberpunk RPG with simple mechanics?

You'd have to modify it to fit whatever cyberpunk world you're trying to emulate, but Dark Heresy 2e would probably work for what you're describing.
mega.nz/#F!Pl0UgbJa!vDtTXMKnvZ26fUbuw4X9tg

Hm, I did greatly enjoy the first Dark Heresy's system, maybe I should give 2E a try.

Aside from Psyker/Warp stuff, what other fluff-related mechanics are there that I'd have to hack?

My CP2020 heartbreaker is pretty simple and has all the cyberpunk elements you need, although it's a bit more sleek and "future espionage" than cyberpunky.

This looks great, user. Good job!

I'll take a look, "future espionage" is pretty much what I'm looking for anyways.

How much did you iron out the original CP2020 rules? I kinda find them too fiddly for my taste.

Thanks. I dropped a look of superfluous attributes (like Luck and Movement) and simplified the skills and cyberware quite a bit. Took some ideas from various anons to make SP better and completely rejigged the netrunning rules to make them simpler yet not too simple.

My group is having fun with these rules. But it's still an unfinished work, so stay tuned.

Sweet! Is there contact info in the .pdf? If we end up playing it, I'd be glad to send you some feedback.

Sure, give me a shout at >> krypter

bump

>Cyberpunk
>a bit too 80s for our taste
Then you are not going to enjoy cyberpunk at all. At this point you either embrace retro-futurism, or go directly for post-cyberpunk.

>Cyberpunk 2020 is a bit too 80s for our taste, too. Both aesthetically and mechanically.
While I get the complain about mechanics, did you just stated you don't like punk elements in cyberpunk? Because that's literally the only 80s element in those - being punk.
Which is kinda-sorta the whole fucking point, you moron.

And while I fucking hate kids born in late 90s and furiously wanking to 80s (fucking synthwave with entire aesthetics), people who don't want punk in cyberpunk are literally missing the point.
I guess I'm getting too old for this shit

He probably means post-cyberpunk, given his choice of OP image. Post-cyberpunk is almost as cancerous as the variety of other words for cyberpunk that exist though. Are you really going to tell me something like Deus Ex or Syndicate isn't cyberpunk? Or far enough from cyberpunk that they deserve re-classification? It's like the pointless subdivisions of metal.

Way to not know what cyberpunk stands for at all. The punk doesn't stand for "PUNK ROCK", but for the low life aspect of a highly technological advanced society.

Exactly. "post-cyberpunk" is retarded. If it's about extreme social disparity in a near-futuristic setting, it is cyberpunk.

Focus on cultural developments brought about by this social disparity and the clash of financial misery with highly advanced tech is normally what makes something cyberpunk, not leather jackets and pink Mohawks.

Exactly. You won't find heads or tails of pink mohawks or studded leather in Neuromancer or the like. Except maybe in street thugs, who aren't the main characters anyway.

Actually, the street thugs in Gibson's novel look a lot like what thugs in "post-cyberpunk" art normally look like. Shaved heads, lots of piercings and chrome bling, etc.

As someone who's read and tried to run IZ - the setting is full of neato ideas, but honestly the layout and editing of the book leaves a lot to be desired, at least the Polish one, dunno about English - it severely lacks some more generic guns and armors, ammo prices are nowhere to be found, hacking is pretty cool but honestly I found it to be a burden because you literally run two simultaneous games with two rulesets for characters at once when somebody goes "holographic". It might've not helped that I'm not big on cyberpunk myself, but I wasn't very fond of the presentation. Also, one of my players played a simulacrum mascot panda. While the rules allowed it and made a mention of similar characters, I found it a bit too silly.

TL;DR in my experience Interface Zero will require a fair bit of extra work before it's fully usable.

There are the panther moderns though, but they still work today as well. They kinda struck me as militant art students.

I get why you consider it cancerous, but post-cp is a thing. Even if 75% of Veeky Forums doens't understand how it works, while remaining 25% argues furiously about the most autistic definition of it.

Please tell me you are just baiting. Especially with that stupid part about punk rock.

Let me guess - you weren't born until 80s were over and never caught up with the punk subculture, thinking it's some music-related shit?

But post-cyberpunk doesn't focus on the disparity, wealth inequality, despair or dystopia; instead electing to go speculative on the tech and how people interact with it.

If you're going to be autistic, at least get your shit straight.

I prefer High-Tech, Low Life to describe cyberpunk. It avoids these awkward generational problems and it doesn't let it get hung up on superficial aesthetic differences.

The division is pointless. Cyberpunk can just have a broader definition. High Tech, Low Life is all you need to know about it. Everything within that, even who's perspective you're seeing it from, still fits with the cyberpunk ethos.

Having pissy arguments over definitions does nothing to further actual debate except a smaller group masturbating about how they're in the know relative to the larger group.

They're the ones I was talking about. They struck me as a the techno-tumblr types that we see on more modern cyberpunk settings way more than 80s punk rockers.

How is it a thing? In what way is post-cyberpunk post at all? Just because it's modern? You don't call modern medieval fantasy post-medieval fantasy, even though it has elements that you wouldn't find in earlier fantasy novels.

Just because a genre evolves doesn't mean it turns into a completely other genre.
The themes of modern cyberpunk fiction is still literally the same as they were in the late 60s, we just change minor setting and aesthetic elements.

It literally does.

> the term "postcyberpunk" to label the new works such writers produce. In this view, typical postcyberpunk stories continue the focus on social implications within a post-third industrial-era society, such as a ubiquitous datasphere of computerized information and cybernetic augmentation of the human body, but not necessarily with the assumption of dystopia. It is rather characteristic for postcyberpunk to portray a utopia or to blend elements of both extremes into a more mature (to cyberpunk) societal vision.

It's literally just "cyberpunk, but cleaner". It still focus on topics such as the cultural impacts that a high tech level has in a society that hasn't evolved sociol-politically.

In other words, high-tech, low-life.

Take GiTS for example, the prime "post-cyberpunk" example. Incredibly advanced cybernetics, incredible technology, but the characters are basically just regular cops. They take down drug dealers, terrorists and hackers that are all products of a failed society. We see all the time how this decadent part of society clashes with the tech level of the setting. Kidnappers who literally hack brains to hijack identities, black market cybernetic organ dealing, cybernetic virus plagues.
If that's not cyberpunk than what the fuck is?

Just to sum it up, the only way something could be correctly labeled as post-cyberpunk is when that work actually deconstructs and criticizes cyberpunk, while departing from it.

Something that shows us how all these cybernetic and technological advances actually create a perfect society with no social disparity and the complete eradication of current social problems; now that's post-cyberpunk.

Has to be some law: every cyberpunk thread degenerates into shitflinging about definitions of cyberpunk.

The origin system, but all you'd have to do is swap out things like "feral world" and "adeptus astra telepathica" for origins and careers that are appropriate to your setting. You might also want to tweak the gear and some of the skills.

And Dark Heresy 2e is significantly simpler and more open-ended than 1e, so these tweaks shouldn't be difficult to apply.

Post-cyberpunk is just regular cyberpunk but with a still functioning middle-class and less crazy stuff like body lotto, splatter-punk gangs, poser gangs, furries, etc.

He said 80s, you dimwit. This doesn't mean Mohawks and mirror shades (fashion trends come and go), but rather Xboxhuge cellphones, computers with 2 gigs of RAM and 250 MHz, neon signs, 9mm medium handguns with 12 shot capacity, CRT monitors, cassette players...

>I actually have the M&M 2E book laying around somewhere
>2e
Ew. 3e or bust for me, personally. It shreds out a lot of the bad D&Disms.

I'd also recommend Savage Worlds and specifically interface zero 2.0.
Have you tried interface zero 2.0? I've played it a ton and it's totally unlike your description.

The lore section could use a bit of reformatting but the system is complete and perfectly playable.

>shadowrun is too crunchy!
>Try this encyclopedic bloated mess instead!

GURPS is nothing but a meme.

"GURPS is a meme" is a meme.

I'm not a GURPS fan, far from it, but GURPS is 100 times more digest than Shadowrun 5th Ed. Also GURPS Cyberworld isn't less dated than Cyberpunk 2020.

That does look pretty cool - not read all the way through, and some of the bits in the backstory look a little odd, but overall I like what I'm seeing - the 'ware trees, for example, IDK how balanced they are or anything, but it's a neat idea.

Also pretty amused at the "wait, I know that art" moments from Netrunner. Not that I blame you, it's good shit.

>I never even saw GURPS, but heard it's awful
Veeky Forums, why you are so Veeky Forums?

Just play 'Corporation' by Brutal Games op.

Or Interface Zero for Savage Worlds.

Looks cool and interesting. Would play.

Any change of having a conversion guide from things like Vehicles and shit?

Gotta keep The Man down by rejecting his outdated views on genredefinitions.

If games based on Apocalypse World don't give you rash I could also suggest The Sprawl.
Light on rules and setting it's, by default, structured around Shadowrun like group of operators doing mostly illegal shit for and against megacorporations.

Despite my loathing of PoweredbyApos games, I generally liked the rules of The Sprawl. It really hit the Gibsonian genre emulator button square-on.

Too bad it doesn't have an actual world setting, just rules.

I'm quite fine with systems that lack concrete setting. I like to spew out my own shit, or alternatively, it's easy to steal one from other games.

No you

Alright! Alright! I'll give it another chance. But only because I never want to look at shadowrun 5e ever again.

gotta admit I never played a single metal gear game, but this design does it for me.

Also the promo pictures always have the hands touching her in slightly inappropriate ways.

Whatever do you mean?

When my kids move out, sure. I'm a slow writer, but I am doing something with Maximum Metal. At some point there will be conversion rules or just a straight adoption of the existing ones. My players were asking about it too.

I'm surprised we're not hearing the autistic screeches from the CP2020 fanboys.

Corporation? Except in that you are The Man.

Patience, little choombatter. They will come around.

I like the CP2020 D10 rules mechanics, but I still wouldn't tell everyone that it's the right choice for all things CP. Your "Stop liking what I don't like" is showing...

Not what I said.

Funny, I know a cyberpunk setting with a fair bit of lore, but no RPG...

How adaptable is The Sprawl, and what sort of tech is/isn't there?

There's literally a game called Sprawl.

Aww, man, I wanted to buy that book but it sold out instantly.

The Sprawl is - like many PbtA games - intentionally vague on a lot of technology specifics, so it could be adapted to ANR fairly easily. The game encourages you to make your own corporations and antagonists, and has a very good "mission clock" adventure-building system. Android's visual imagery for cyberspace would be a perfect fit too.

I've always said that ANR really needs a good RPG, but FFG has not wanted to mix their properties.

The Sprawl has few things build in the rules, like that every player character has some cyberware.
Of course, while the game presents that as something, somewhat thematically important it can be hacked away easily, maybe replaced with something else that can make characters to be owned or hunted by different factions.

Amazon my man, that's where I got mine, and for maybe 10, 15 quid off - I still used vouchers for it though, it would be quite hard to justify to myself using "real" money.
Anyway, I'm slowly photographing it to make into a pdf (if my scanner worked it'd be a lot easier), so it will eventually be going up in an /anrg/

Good to know it's adaptable and vague, seems like could be a decent fit.
Though keeping hacking from literally being " play a game of netrunner" would probably be important

One of the many Blades in the Dark variants will be a Cyberpunk game. I'm sure it'll fit perfectly.

My local Amazon has it ridiculously overpriced.

Thanks for the scan, man. I will be a loyal client when it's released.

That game is different from The Sprawl.

Part of me wants to imagine that the arms are still somewhat semi-sentient and just like touching her of their own accord.

Hmmm... Seems you took the armored Skinsuit from my CP "reedition" I had posted some years ago. Thinking about it, I think that the SP value should be enhanced to 4 or 6, in order to protect from fragments and spalling. Leather clothing should have SP 2 at best. Realistically speaking leather clothing should give no protection at all. PS. I really dig your augmentation tree.

>the 'ware trees, for example, IDK how balanced they are or anything, but it's a neat idea.

Not that balanced yet, but it depends somewhat on what skills your PC has. I have to tweak some of the Aug bonuses and update the Aug chart.

>"wait, I know that art" moments from Netrunner. Not that I blame you, it's good shit.

It is. But if FFG comes out with an Android RPG I'll have to get some other art.

>... Seems you took the armored Skinsuit from my CP "reedition" I had posted some years ago.

Maybe? I don't remember, but I've had skinsuits in my games since, like 1994. I might have gotten it from the GITS conversion on DataFortress 2020. Mostly I just copy and update to more modern terminology and some new tech like shear-gel armors.

Interface Zero 2.0: This is a quite good Savage Worlds Cyberpunk Setting. I would recommend using the core book and picking up the 1st edition core book for world background.

Also. you should check out Interlock Unlimited. It's a fan-remake of the Interlock system from Cyberpunk 2020.

Why two books? The 2.0 version has all the world info too.

It does, but it doesn't have any of the historical background for how the world got so f-ed up in the first place.

Chimera stats when?

>hard sci-fi campaign
>MGS and Mass Effect

Technoir is more of the crime side than the cyber side, but it is very simple.

GURPS mechanics are involved and complicated. Unless your group already knows GURPS, it's a bad fit.

If your group does know GURPS, it's very easy to start a cyberpunk game.

Seems to me like this might actually all call for a more freeform system like FATE, and this is coming from somebody that generally dislikes FATE.

I ran a game of Technoir for my group's last session before we were all scattered by travel and seasonal obligations, and I'm smitten. Won't be everyone's cup of tea but if it sounds good to you you should see about giving it a whirl.

Additionally GURPS Cyberpunk is so cyberpunk that the secret service raided steve jackson games and seized it during development.

... seriously?

Did he google some inappropriate stuff? I mean, for research purposes obviously.

Interlock Unlimited is absolute dog shit. The guy who made it, took the worst from Cyberpunk 2013 and 2020, blended it together and called it Interlock Unlimited.

They got raided because they had contacts with hacker groups. They didn't get raided because the book is "so realistic".

Lloyd Blankenship communicated with actual hackers while writing it.

..

And what did the secret service expect to get from seizing the game? Becoming updated on hacker lingo?

They thought it was a 'manual for computer crime'.

On one hand, I always find secret services, the people who are in charge of knowing things being so out of touch with reality.

On the other hand, I can see how one can consider it a similar naming convention to "Anarchist's Cookbook"

He did. Which means nothing because the book still uses the old cyberspace paradigm and makes up shit left, right and center.

If you want outdated hacking circa 1989 (complete with "4 Mega-Bytes of Memory"), go ahead and use GURPS Cyberpunk. I own the book and find it almost completely worthless.

>how dare a book written in 1989/90 to help you make a campaign set in this literary genre read like a book written in 1989/90 to help you make a campaign set in this literary genre

Remember Tomorrow and Ex Machina are two other cyberpunk games that might be interesting. Anyone has ever tried them. There's also Wyred, but the crappy 3D art is almost as bad as Cyberpunk V.3's.

>space marine fashion designer

Remember Tomorrow and Ex Machina are two other cyberpunk games that might be interesting. Anyone has ever tried them. There's also Wyred, but the crappy 3D art is almost as bad as Cyberpunk V.3's.

Remember Tomorrow is collaborative storytelling, with a lot of tags, some ways similar to the more recent Powered by the Apocalypse or FATE games.

Ex Machina is mostly just 4 rather cliche cyberpunk settings. Very little in the way of rules, and those only for the now-defunct Big Eyes Small Mouth RPG. It has some good ideas for mining but each world is built around 1 gimmick and is too narrow for a complete campaign world.

The main issue with Ex Machina, is that cyberware is not really listed. If you make a super strong character you have to explain why. It's kind of too much freedom for me. The short world's description isn't such a problem. In CP2020 sourcebook's the background is rather meager, too. Didn't prevent me from running kickass campaigns.

>Hard Sci-Fi
>Mass Effect
I might not understand what Hard Sci-Fi means anymore.

Assuming its out, the Inifinity RPG might be a place to look.

>I might not understand what Hard Sci-Fi means anymore.
Remember, it's always user that's wrong, not you.

And in this case I'm not even joking, Mass Effect is definitely Space Opera, not hard Sci-Fi.