Cybernet settings

Razuur

Mongoose
I just picked up the OGL Cybernet book and I love it. I am not surprised as I have been a fan of August Hahn's work since the B5 Minbari Factbook.

My question is, while it is a great collection of rules, what are people doing with them. This is really my first contact with Cyberpunk...

What is everybody doing? What companies are coming out with settings and such for the game?

Razuur
 
Razuur,

1) You're making me blush again. Quit it. :) :oops:

2) If you liked the Minbari Fackbook, I really hope you'll enjoy Centauri and Narn. I took the lessons I learned from writing Minbari and applied them to the other two races. They came out really nicely... IMHO.

3) The only licenced product that I know of right now is Stratos' excellent soundtrack. I think the setting pretty much screams for some new material, but Mongoose has be Lone Wolfing right now so hard, I've not got time to do it. You should check out next month's Signs and Portents, though. I have an article in there that should make any fan of Full-Conversion Borgs very happy... :)

Take care,
-August
 
You know I can come down there with a cricket bat and make some of the staff see that more cybernet material can only be a good thing...
 
Zethnar said:
You know I can come down there with a cricket bat and make some of the staff see that more cybernet material can only be a good thing...
this is a pay-per-view event for sure!

:)
 
So are most people using an old Cyberpunk 2020 setting?

I've never played Shadowrun, but it works?

I am toying with running agame set in the Matrix universe. In one of the previous reality contstructs to Neo... Need to work out the actual Matrix rules though...

But kind of a neat concept. Kind of a Net withing the Matrix thing with a dark futuristic world that is all Matrix.

Any other ideas?

Razuur
 
Right now the old 2020 settings, however, I convert and run old Shadowrun adventures. In the end I think they are more 'punk than the written punk adventures. Just drop out the magic and bam.

As far as shadowrun working . . . yeah, the D20 system, allows an almost rift like game anymore. Bring your character from where ever and your set. I almost thought about having my wizards in the D20 Fantasy campaign I am running stepping through a portal and ending up on the top of a Skyscraper in the Cybernet world. Still might :)

PsyJack
 
I had been working on my own Cyberpunk D20 ruleset, when my brother and I spotted a copy of Cybernet in a game store. What we had planned on doing was using the large city we live near as a setting, and just advancing time(and trying to estimate what might happen).

That way, everyone in our gaming group from the area already has some idea of where stuff. is. It also helps fight the nightmare of extremely detailed maps(which players seem to ask for a lot).

I was glad to see that they didn't include a lot of 'fluff' with the Cybernet rules, as I always changed the history of the stuff anyway to suit my own needs and tastes. This way, you can make up your own history, and rulebook lawyers can't wag a finger and say 'That's not what it says in the -book-'.
 
It's going to be awhile before I actually run a game but the setting I'll use will be Los Angeles 15-20 years from now. I live in San Diego, been to LA enough times to have a "feel" for the city. I'll pick up an LA Thomas Bros. street guide (thats a big book of street maps), a little research on the web will round it out.

A few basic concepts:

San Francisco was nuked by a terrorist bomb on a cargo ship, all of the shipping and banking formerely done there has shifted to LA.

"The Big One" will have hit a few years before the game, areas like South Central, Compton, and Watts will be under the firm control of gangs that took over in the lawless period that ensued after the quake.

The classic cyberpunk love for the media thrives, and Hollywood is bigger than ever.

San Diego will have a bunch of exclusive, some walled communities. The cybernetics/biotech industry will be big there. America's Finest City will have one of the highest concentrations of wealth in North America. The way our housing costs are rising this isn't entirely unrealistic.
:x

The only adventure idea I've come up with concerns a corporate defector who needs to be put on a plane to...wherever .Opposition will be a rival corps. security and once the airport is reached the TSA (Transportation Security Agency) will have to be dealt with.

And I guess it would have been easier to say "I'm building my own setting". :) Killing some time before th little woman comes home so I can go blow my paycheck for Valantines Day.
 
How about something similar to the future proposed in I, Robot?

Not many people with cyberware, but lots of hi-tech stuff about as alternatives.
 
Thanks August (once again) for the props on the CyberNet Official RPG Soundtrack that released this past May and is currently available thru the OGL portion of Mongoose's regular website (end plug #1).

(begin plug #2)... As many of you know, I am currently writing a licensed CyberNet campaign setting called 2087 for Kiln Publications. This book was originally scheduled for November 2004 release... with at least 6 follow-up releases. However, due to time and money constraints, we have decided to combine most of the material into just two books... the 2087 (TM) Campaign Setting and the Mechana Manual (TM) - our arms & equipment guide (of sorts... chock full of cybernetics, vehicles, gear, mecha, etc.). 2087 will release in April 2005 at the Pittsburgh Comic Con and I'm hoping to have the Mechana Manual release at either Origins or GenCon 2005.

Hope this helps some. As August said... be sure to check out all the fantastic articles in Signs & Portents! There have been several great CyberNet enhancements in the monthly mag (many of which will be collected in the 2087 Campaign Setting under our Miscellania chapter).

Cheers!

- Stratos
 
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