Cyberpunk: What System?

There's a dearth of game systems out there, each tailored to their own particular style of game. I figure I can work out what I want from a cyberpunk game, and work it back from there.

• Action - it's got to be capable of holding a decently lethal firefight, hand-to-cyberhand combat, and possibly vehicular combat equally well.
• Tactics - with a lethal-ish combat system comes tactical combat - I don't want a miniatures skirmish game, but some level of combat crunch would be nice.
• Gear - you gotta be able to create (or nab) rules for weapons, tech, and chrome. It just wouldn't be cyberpunk without arm-mounted shotguns and subdermal armour.
• Setting - I really like the R. Talorisan Cyberpunk setting. It has just the right mix of Big Evil Corps, military interests, politics, and more "down to earth" stuff like social movements and cool little bits of fluff. However, many people I talk to are more interested in something like Shadowrun (despite being kinda dumb, it manages to have a real sense of fun to it). So I'd preferably like a system that can do both justice.

Hmm...

My normal standby, Risus, is a little bit too rules-lite for my tastes here, so no dice.

Shadowrun seems like a good choice - but its rules are incredibly linked to its setting. Excising the magical content can be done, but then you end up with half a system, and it doesn't seem to be worth the effort.

GURPS covers the first three - it's got rules for everything, after all. But, that's also its problem - there's rules for everything. I guess I can drop a lot of the additional rules, and just use GURPS Lite and add in the bits I need... it's modular enough to take it. Christ, if there's one thing GURPS can't be outshined on, it's modularity. But, in all honesty, I'm not a huge fan of the system. It feels... clunky.

D20 Modern could cover most of those, but it's mostly pants-on-head retarded. Though someone did make up a fantastic Ghost in the Shell conversion document... it ends up dropping a lot of the main problems with the system, such as "Hero Classes", the silly firearms rules, and some of the weird interactions of high-tech and high-levels (the classic level 10 Tough Hero who can be shot in the face and laugh it off). I'm reading through it just now, and I''ll probably post up something about it later...

Savage Worlds is pretty high up on my list. A good level of crunch, easy to learn rules (roll a 4. That's pretty much it), a pre-existing Cyberpunk book, decent lethality, and a lot of customisation value. Looking very good!

BRP is a great system, and it's pretty crunchy, and has sci-fi and cyberpunk resource books... plus, the advancement system is fun (you only advance the skills you use, so no "levelling up" and watching the Wizard learn new spells, get tougher, and somehow learn how to swing a sword better, despite not having picked up any weapon more lethal that a fork for his entire adventuring career). Plus, it means I can build up a huge arc to end up with a Cyberpunk/Call of Cthulhu crossover!

I mean, seriously - how cool would that be?

Roll a d12!

Aah, the d12 - a sadly underused and misunderstood die.

Unless you play a Barbarian weilding a Greataxe. Or you're dicking about with 3.5's Powerful Build (those dirty, dirty Goliaths and Half-Giants).

But, fear no longer, mightiest of polyhedrons!

The Dungeon Dozen is a cool little resource for GMs of every genre (though fantasy/dungeoncrawls seem to be a specialty), where the author creates fantastic little tables for everything from encounters, to moster characteristics, to NPC motivations - all using the humble dodecahedron.

Check it out!

Dwarves of Delraith: Planning

I wanted to give Dwarves, one of the most static fantasy races, a new spin for the Delraith setting. They'll keep some of the traditional flavour, but I wanted to pull a few tweaks here and there. I've got a few rough ideas:

• Dwarves are rare - their civilisation has been in decline for centuries, and the last remaining groups rarely leave their great Fortresses (Stonehalls, in the Dwarven tongue). Many refuse to believe they exist, even though there are some encounters with them.
• Dwarves are magical - none of this old-school "Gimli never cast a spell, so Dwarves hate magic" bullshit - mythological Dwarves weaved magic and engineering, and Delraith's Dwarves do the same.
• Dwarves are varied - no two Stonehalls are alike - not any more. After many generations of privacy and exclusion, the cultures within have diverged and changed from "baseline" Dwarven culture - so much so that such a concept is now a thing of the past.
• Dwarves are powerful - the few remaining Dwarven clans have mastered their mixing of technology and magic to heights only imaginable to other races. Your average Dwarf is armed with bewildering contraptions that could kill a lesser humanoid in seconds, and they wield the terrifying sorceries of the Gods themselves.
• Dwarves are unusual - in that they are one of the few races directly created by a God. Most other life was seeded on the world by Gods, sure, but Dwarves have had a guiding hand from The Earth Spirit - possibly a Dragon, possibly something else.

More to come...

Cyberpunk 2020 - Why Do I Want To Run This?

The system's a clusterfuck of strange rules, heavy mathematics and "justified" brokeness ("Solos", the settings Fighter equivalent, always go first in combat. It's their special rule. And, as a rule, have the hugest weapons. Hello, Rocket Tag...)

But I love the bizzaro future-failures. Full-body cyborg prosthetics are available, but there's no wireless internet? Mobile phones cost $3000, and can't even text! And, apparently, Great Britain is the only country which still makes print newspapers. On average, they cost £3. But, for the princely sum of £6, you can have it faxed to you.

Read that again - faxed.

Oh, wow.

I'm eyeing up the setting, and trying to find a good system to run it... lethal, tactical, and fun - it might be Unknown Armies time.

Gender in Gaming: Some Thoughts

So, it's not something that come up too often in the games I play, but there are obvious issues within the community about it.

(See the D&D Next poll where "Gender-based stat differences" was put forward as something players might want to see. Players, as we all know, are douchebags, and voted this one through the roof, most likely to show WotC that their "open source" approach had some problems).

It was first raised in the good old days of 1st Edition D&D, where rules were given regarding the maximum Strength stat of females of different races. I want to say I can see where they're coming from - D&D is simulationist at heart, and there is an average difference in relative strength and muscle mass between males and females due to the basics of biological sexual dimorphism.

But why the fuck would that level of realism matter in a game of heroic exploits and punching orcs?

It's kinda ridiculous - there are plenty of fictional women who are just as strong as their male counterparts (though, admittedly, most of these are from after this little nugget of wisdom), and in real life, there are plenty of women who could bench-press a car. Even with the relative "grit" of older editions of D&D, there is still a lot of room for such things. It's something that modern games go out of their way to avoid, like White Wolf's overuse of feminine pronouns in their books, or the fact that the statistically best starting character you can make in GURPS is a black woman (both free options - being black lets you reduce your chances of heatstroke, being a male means you get extra Stun/Shock damage when hit in the nuts, a weakness women don't share, apparently...).

I mean, we get it - games are for girls too. This isn't a shock by now.

But, really? It's mostly men who play them. Not that we should exclusively pander to men, but that, really, we don't need to go nutso overboard to cater to women. If they like a game, they like it - no amount of "her and she" will change that.

But, I'll admit it - there is a reason for this little rant. Some minor, ingrained sexism on my part.

My partner was talking about arranging an all-girl gaming group. Seems fine to me! But, I had a thought that I couldn't stop from blurting out - in a lot of settings, you're gonna have to stretch vermilisitude to bring together a whole band of women. Like your average D&D-like setting - female adventurers are the exception, rather than the rule. Historically, you had Joan of Arc et al, but for the most part, such games are inspired by the fiction that spawned them - and women either take a more servile role, or play supporting characters.

For modern games, it's no biggie at all - but go back even 50 years, it starts to look odd. Take Call of Cthulhu - one of the possible games she might run. In 20's America, a large group of women investigating the occult seems... out of place. Guys, sure, they dick about with that shit all the time - but it feels kinda out of place with women. Unless they're a cult/coven/whatever, there would seem to be less of a reason to be doing such things.

But, my partner put forward a good point - a group of men needs little or no reason to get together. Why does a group of women need any more than them?

...It's a good point, man.

And one that probably has its answer deep-seated in our culture's patriarchal roots, and really, that's too deep for a blog about pretending to be pretty Elf princesses to be digging.