I’m definitely interested.

2400 is on itch. It’s by Jason Tocci. There are free community copies available.

In reply to InQueli (msg # 1):

I'm certainly willing to read a thousand word description. :)

Thanks for the interest everyone! It's really encouraging :D


Something like... "Try to do stuff. It can go wrong? Then Roll d6, d8 or d10 depending on your skill. 5+? Win. 3-4? Win, *but*. 1-2? Epic fail, bad shit happens."

Longer, officialer version:



Like I said, very lite. I'd like to make things as intuitive, plug-and-play as possible. For cyberware and all that stuff, we can just agree on what those augs or that DNA tweak does, and roll with it, instead of going through pages of pages of specs.

In reply to pdboddy (msg # 9):

Pretty much. The central idea is that human conscience/mind/identity/whatever you like to call it is digitized in a cortical stack in the back of your head. You can plug it in and out of bodies, send it as a digital download to another world to be resleeved into another body, or plug it into a virtual environment. Now think of all the awful, cruel applications of that. Yeah. That's it.

In reply to Alcuin (msg # 10):

Paraphrasing the woman, "sleeve into another ruleset like a new glove, burn your fingers again" (apocryphal)

In reply to InQueli (msg # 13):

Sounds like a rules-set a Newbie could quickly learn to love. :)

In reply to pdboddy (msg # 12):

Might take you up on that buddy :)

In reply to Tancred (msg # 16):

That was what I liked about them. I have a pile of PCs that took more time to create than the actual playtime I got out of them.

In reply to InQueli (msg # 18):

LOL. I hear you, brother. I hate it when that happens. :)

In reply to InQueli (msg # 18):

Ooof, I feel ya, been there before.

If you havent heard of it then Eclipse Phase might be the perfect system if not a setting that you're looking for. It's been a really long time since I dug into it, but the system never stuck me as mechanically dense as Shadowrun (for example).

General Overview Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKvqXmQK6Co

Official Site:
https://www.eclipsephase.com/

In reply to serrasin (msg # 21):

Yeah, I mentioned a bit up the stream.  It's a great game.

How do you feel about The Sprawl?

Fate Core is also pretty flexible and intuitive.

However, I suspect the most important question is: what game system does the GM like the most?

As long as the GM is happy to deal with game mechanics "behind the screen", then the players can focus on roleplaying instead of rollplaying, and leave the innards of the game mechanics black box in the GM's capable hands... :)

In reply to steelsmiter (msg # 23) and OakMaster (msg # 24):

I haven't used either of them, what are their strenghts? Considering I'd prefer something lite, not so much because of me but for players' sake.

I'm considering Headspace as well, which is a little more serious in tone and less tongue-in-cheek than what 2400 suggests. Still quite lite, since it's PbtA, but it's more focused on PCs sharing this mind connection (kinda Sense8 style) so they can share information but also one individual's trauma and frustrations bleed into the others. I was in a game once which was looking very neat but it never took off.

If I used Headspace I think I'd expedite the first bit, which is coming up with explanation for the feelings attached to skills (means players have to start by coming up with anecdotes for how their characters came to associate, say, Rage with Engineering, "remember that time I had to hotwire a drone and it blew in my face?", etc.). Neat if you can make it work, but takes a lot of frontloading commitment from players.
This message was last edited by the user at 20:02, Wed 18 May 2022.

Dunno that The Sprawl has one beyond being a PBTA game, and the fact that I already had the book. Personal bias admitted, I've been trying to play a game in it for years.


I'd have to get a new book for either of those, but if you get a full team elsewise I don't mind.


I love frontloading! You set up assumptions and expectations from the get go and require a lot less further effort.

The more I think about it, the more I want to use the Headspace rules. More complex than 2400 (anything is), but I like the idea of a team of mentally linked cyberpunk spies/black ops. I'm going to see how this melds with the transhumanist/exchangeable bodies element in Altered Carbon.

Thanks to everyone in this thread for their enthusiasm, I am already much more convinced to run this game. Just to gauge enthusiasm in each element:

1. How interested are you in the transhumanist/body swapping element? If I drop it entirely, would that make you not-interested in the game?

2. How much frontloading do you like on character creation? Do you love it, like steelsmiter above, or do you prefer to jump straight into the action? I would hate to do all the heavy lifting of set-up and character creation only for people to drop off because it's taking too much time/effort (btw: I'm looking for committed players! No need to know the system, happy to go step by step and explain things, but I am going to ask players to collaborate, not just with other players, but also in creating the fiction, so be advised).
This message was last edited by the user at 10:48, Fri 20 May 2022.

#1. Absolutely non-essential. I'm tempted to say I'd be happier playing without those elements.

#2. I'm a big fan of PBtA and working out character connections pre-game, so frontloading is absolutely okay with me. I definitely appreciate having a better sense of character dynamics and how we fit into the world in any scenario where the PCs aren't new to working with each other. Makes it much easier start to out understanding each others' expectations and to play into them.

Eclipse Phase would fit this idea wonderfully.  :)

In reply to InQueli (msg # 27):

1. I'll line up with Dr. Schadenfreude on this one. I had never even heard of the body-swapping stuff until I started reading this thread, so I could easily do without it.

2. I'm fine with front-loading my character (assuming that by that you mean crafting a fairly detailed backstory). I enjoy doing that with my D&D characters. For me to be comfortable with it, however, I will need to have a pretty good understanding of the setting (it's tough for me to write about stuff that I am in the dark about, so to speak).

Cheers,
~T.

Not really interested in actual body swapping as such, so its exclusion won't put me out... but neither will its inclusion. The only thing that will really put me out is if I can't obtain the system.
This message was last edited by the user at 15:14, Fri 20 May 2022.

+1.  :)

Free and legal rules are interesting to me.

A black box treatment where the players don't know the rules and the GM deals with all rule-related stuff behind the screens is OK.

Paying money for Yet Another RPG or pirating stuff is not interesting to me.

BTW, what is the rating?  For me, general is best, mature is OK, and adult is not interesting...
This message was last edited by the user at 15:56, Fri 20 May 2022.

Thanks everyone for your answers, I'm a bit swamped at the moment but I definitely have a clearer idea of the game I want to run now, and it's neat to know y'all would be interested in playing :)

In reply to Tancred (msg # 30):

I got the Headspace rules from Drivethroughrpg and as far as I know they're stilla available there. Having said that, I won't make it a requirement for players to own the book, I'm fine with explaining things (since I'm newbie-friendly, as I said).

To be honest I haven't thought much about the rating, but I'd probably go for Adult straight away. Not because I anticipate loads of sexual content, that's not the focus of the game, but because a story about cyberpunk commandos fighting corporations definitely has all the potential for violence, not just the physical variety of. Capitalism is inherently violent, after all. And also Americans are so touchy about sex, I don't want to end up in RPOL jail if there's some occasional nudity :P

I'm definitely interested in a cyberpunk game that doesn't mess it up by scraping off the punk :D. To me there's very little worse than some <any>punk game where the characters can't be punk-ish in a variety of ways that include a "down with the man" attitude that features language, violence, graphic depictions, and being somewhat bohemian without going full on into "adopted family of bisexual disaster kleptomaniacs" territory.


Definitely a huge plus for me :D

With this many posts in the thread, it should be clear by now whether, or not, there is sufficient in this game proposal to warrant moving forward to the game itself.

Please save all further discussion for that game, created by InQueli, and linked to in the post immediately following this one.

Thank you.