Hi, mates:
I’d like to run a campaing based on Masamune Shirow’s Ghost in the Shell, Appleseed and similar backgrouds. I mean cyberpunk with a lot of high tech personal combat armors but far away from Matrix and the netrunners stuff.
Do you know any hack I can use for this?
Thanks in advance.
There’s a PbtA game called The Sprawl that should give you what you want!
Thank you Alberto, but The Sprawl seems too close to the old rpg Cyberpunk, and I’m looking for somethig different, less focussed in netrunning and infiltration and more cyberpolice action scenario, just like Shirow’s stories.
Anyway, good recommedation. I think it’s a good update to that classic so I take note of it.
I haven’t read much of it, sorry if it isn’t what you’re looking for! Maybe that would be a better base for a hack than AW itself?
I’d look into Headspace. I’d have to go digging into it to see where it stands on powered armor and such, but it’s a cyberpunk game about standing up to corporate corruption and making the world a better place while jacked into the minds of your 3 to 5 partners. It wouldn’t take much effort to flip the script and make you a police force hounding criminals and corrupt institutions.
I don’t know, I’m really new to PbtA games, but I found out it’s a very good system for running those games that would be quite cumbersome to do with other systems. I love rpgs a lot but I hate wasting my time writing down characteristics, skills, advantages and disadvantages, powers… for NPCs when there are many of them appearing in the adventure. I love the way PbtA games deals with NPCs on their creation process and on running them in a combat.
That’s the reason I’m looking for this kind of hack.
And again, thank you.
Sorry Alfred, didn’t read your post before writing mine.
Maybe Headspace it’s the game I need!!
Thank you!
No worries!
Have you seen the show Sense8? Headspace looks a lot like that, in a cyberpunk setting of ubiquitous future tech and corrupt institutions. The members of your crew are all linked by the titular headspace cybernetics, and you can trade skills amongst one another to get the job done. But, when things go wrong and crew members get upset, angry, afraid, or overconfident, those emotions bleed over into the headspace and start affecting everyone.
Your heavy-hitter gets into a bloody violent brawl with a corporate heavy and a few bad rolls later she starts getting angry… which bleeds over into your crew’s sneaky cyber-ninja who is supposed to be skulking around the corporate headquarters — but now she wants to crack some damn skulls.
It’s a pretty cool framework; not exactly what you’re looking for, but definitely workable.
Just want to jump in as someone who has run The Sprawl for a session. I think as long as you agreed on a premise with the players, you could definitely do GitS style stories. For example, if no one chooses the hacker playbook, you’ve pretty much already removed that “netrunning” aspect.
The default unit of story in The Sprawl is a “mission” which could easily be a police/investigation mission, as opposed to a shadowrun type op.
The “megacorps” are just a way of tracking the world’s reaction to the players. They could be the corrupt government bureaus of GitS, criminal orgs, etc.
I actually modeled the Major in The Sprawl for fun.
You might want to add or edit some custom moves, but I think it is closer than you believe.
Just watched GitS again last night. So good..
If you want to riff on the psychological / philisophical elements of the genre as being more important that the technological themes, Tremulus might work with a reskinning of the playbooks. You’ll have to house rule tech, but the game has that moody noir tone baked in quite nicely.
Check out Uncharted worlds, it’s a sci fi PbtA hack that would fit the bill nicely. Check it out.
Many thanks to everybody!
Since a friend of mine discoverd Worlds in Peril and showed it to me, I feel like I’ve just entered a new dimension in rpgs.
I’m an old rpg gamer (I’m 42 now), but I stopped playing for a few years while we raised our two children, and now I’m rediscovering this world again.
Apocalypse World system is a total revolution, though the kind of thing I’ve been looking for.
I have zero actual play experience with any PbtA games but I am prepping for The Sprawl game.
The mission approach in The Sprawl should work very well in “ShirowPunk” setting no matter if the opposition is a bunch of criminals or larger entities.
Maybe I would hack Legwork and Action clocks a bit to use a single mission clock as investigation would be integral part of many missions. [Intel] holds would work pretty well as clues in more investigation heavy missions.
Getting Job/Getting Paid moves might have to be modified a bit as characters are part of the government organization after all but there are a lot of powerplays that might be triggered by the result of these moves.
Even Matrix part would work as that has some uses in GitS. Perhaps remove the Hacker playbook and export some of the moves to basic moves? After all Major is a pretty good hacker in addition to all else 🙂
As stated in this thread and also in The Sprawl rulebook the corporations represent any large organisation that PCs are likely going to make angry 🙂
The hardest part would be to model powered armor/mecha in this very light system. Someone has modelled them vehicles
Joey Mullins Why Uncharted Worlds ?
Someone above mentioned Uncharted Worlds. I can see that, I think. Hacking is a basic move available to everyone; you can pretty easily build powered armor.
The major thing missing is that the game has no cyberware to speak of, at this point… cybernetics will be covered in the forthcoming Far Beyond Humanity supplement, but until then there’s nothing. That said, I did write some simple cybernetics rules for Uncharted Worlds: “treat armor, weapons, or kits as cybernetics by increasing their Class by 1; a character can have, max, two implants in this way.”
Using UW could get a little weird, since its a space opera RPG. You’d probably want to strip out the space-related origins and careers. Characters are going to wind up looking very similar if they’re all cops, gravitating towards the same career choices. It could work though, maybe.
Yann Herpe what Alfred Rudzki said.
On top of that the way characters are built has a ton of variety. With background and paths players could all be cops with different backgrounds and different paths leading to a lot of possible combinations. And UW vehicle rules could easily be powered armor, I know people already using it that way.
Just play AW? Maybe limit a few of the playbooks (no waterbearer or child-thing) and re-flavor a few others slightly. But it should work pretty much RAW. Gunlugger, battlebabe, driver, angel, chopper (maybe with a networked crew of synthetics instead of a “gang”), heck even maestro d’ works.
My brother wrote a cyberpunk AW game and I’m actually gearing up to publish it for him pretty soon here. If you’re interested, I can get you the documents we’ve been using to playtest 🙂
I’d look at “Always/Never/Now” too. It’s not a PbtA game, but it does have the same kind of streamlined play and simple characters that makes AW appeal to you.
Wow! This is a lot of information to begin with. I appreciate all the advice and as far as I know, being a newcomer to AW world, perhaps The Sprawl with those moves about investigation, hacking and tech from others games, would suit very well to my needs.
And of course, Kyle, I’d like to take a look to your brother’s project too.
I better prepare my budget for some extra shopping this month… 😉
Hah! It’s still fairly rough, I’m going through doing development and copy editing now so not nearly as polished as a finished game yet, but here’s the link if you want to check it out: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1jkcrokodisqoum/AACvWpHnVy_a1BXYI_ve5XBOa?dl=0
Depending on my schedule, I might be able to do a playtest for you guys when you’ve got something more final, Kyle Simons. Always love me some cyberpunk.
Cool! It’s actually pretty final – we’ve been playtesting it 3 times a week for 6 months now, so I think it’s pretty solid. It’s mostly just working on the text so that it’s as clear as possible right now, and copy editing that I’m doing. There are playbooks and reference sheets that we’ve been using for playtesting in that folder too if you want to check it out. A couple even have some of artwork we commissioned 🙂
Ho, cool! Good on you guys, man. Looks slick. I like the negative tags on cybernetics, and the emotional states seem intriguing. I will try to get a game together, if I get a chance. (Baby controls my schedule nowadays though…)
Sounds good! Wife’s due in two months here, so I’m trying to enjoy a full night’s sleep as much as possible while I can!
Wow, man, it is nearly finished, right?
It looks great, but will have to read it very carefully to understand it well.
Please correct me if I’m wrong but, is it a cyberpunk setting with a mystical background?
Seibei It’s basically done, yeah. I just finish the structural and line editing. Like most AW games, it’s still a pretty soft setting, but there are some assumptions the game makes – like augmented reality, cybernetics. There are some mystical-sounding concepts in there, but mostly just for a couple of the playbooks. There is one playbook that is seeking enlightenment; another that is a machine looking for an identity, and to maybe be more human.
Sounds very interesting, Kyle. Thank you for sharing it with us.
I downloaded the document and I will read it carefully.
I have also bought the pdf version of Apocalypse World in Spanish, to start doing things right from the beginning.
I think I’ll be a bit busy these days …
No problem! I’m still editing it for clarity really, so you may even want to hold off until all the edits are done.
Oh, cool. I hadn’t seen this until now. The kickstarter is now up Seibei, if you want to check it out. And if you have any questions drop me a line. It’ll help too, any questions you might have I’ll need to make sure is incorporated into the main document as well.
Hi Fraser, nice to meet you.
I’ve taken a first look at the documents, mainly the quick guide; but I’m still processing the information. It is written in a high level of English and I’m reading too slow. It is not a complaint, it is my lack of proficiency in your language.
Also, I just landed in the world of PbtA and I’m dealing at the same time with Apocalypse World, Worlds in Peril, Dungeon World and some hacks more as The Regiment or Dark Age. And we have not even started playing! XD
Nice to meet you, too! Thanks for having an interest in The Veil!
No worries, as you work through it, feel free to ask me anything. Running stuff like Ghost in the Shell is what I had in mind when I was designing the game! Love it!