Neo-Cyberpunk game: Very rough draft.

The system needs some more tweaking, I need to come up with better loadout system for on the fly gear customization in play.

Cold Chrome Knights

Nothing? Nada. Ah well

Quote from: Silverlion;341228Nothing? Nada. Ah well

I skimmed it. I like some of the ideas. Didn't pay attention to the mechanics.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;341324I skimmed it. I like some of the ideas. Didn't pay attention to the mechanics.

Seanchai

Well, thanks for that. I still have a LONG way to go. (Finish date is end of next year, with luck.)

At first (very) quick look, I liked it - the lending of dice jumped out at me as particularly nice.  I'll take a deeper look this weekend.

Quote from: VectorSigma;341423At first (very) quick look, I liked it - the lending of dice jumped out at me as particularly nice.  I'll take a deeper look this weekend.

Any news? I know it needs a lot of work but I'd like more impressions..

Quote from: Silverlion;342746Any news? I know it needs a lot of work but I'd like more impressions..

I just downloaded it.  I will post some thoughts soon.

I went to go take another look at Cold Chrome Knights, and it was gone from rapidshare.  Tim?

Rapidshare only holds it for a short time. Let me do some finagling.

Here ya go: Try these:

Cold Chrome Knights

Derelict Delvers


I know I've got a lot of editing, rewriting and general cleanup to do, just so busy with life stuff. Let me know what you think!

Derelict Delvers (after a quick read-thru) looks like fun - I could totally see running this as a con game, because the basics are things everyone knows.  I like the humorous sidebars as the start (fourth edition, etc) - if that can be kept up throughout the text, the game will be a joy to read.  Very easy to use old D&D modules as adventures, obviously, with a sci-fi spin added (which could easily be impromptu as the DM went along).  

Cold Chrome Knights (longer read-thru, as was warranted by a wholly new engine)...I think I need to see the dice-pool mechanic in play, but it looks solid, I like the focus on the traits over the stats.  Like the challenges, as well, and especially the willpower-based-self-nanite-hacking as an in-game way to explain 'pushing' actions.  Setting-wise, I think you can probably keep it distinctive enough with the Arthurian blend, so it's not just another cyber/postapoc deal.  But of course, only a little of the setting was present in that sampling.  If you came up with the name 'warewolves' (brilliant), then I have faith you could make the setting really sing.

Perhaps-obvious question re CCK - why did you decide to go with a homebrew engine rather than, say, doing up the setting as a Pendragon supplement (or similar)?  Which came first, the setting inspiration, or the mechanic? <-- just curiosity on that one

Quote from: VectorSigma;354897Perhaps-obvious question re CCK - why did you decide to go with a homebrew engine rather than, say, doing up the setting as a Pendragon supplement (or similar)?  Which came first, the setting inspiration, or the mechanic? <-- just curiosity on that one

I've loved cyberpunk as a genre. I've read it for years. One of the things that was lacking was the somewhat "Change the world" element of some settings carried over into the games. (Ex: Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams.)

I was playing around one day with a random "name" generator over at Seventh Sanctum and got  "nanoburn." While I was fiddling around with what nanoburn meant and was randomly throwing out cyberpunk-esque ideas I hit upon the phrase Cold Chrome Knights. Which clicked.

 I started building the setting from there. It does have lots of post-apocalyptic aspects, but most of that is for the bottom of society. The rich and wealthy have whatever they want--engineered, freshly vat-grown, flown in, whatever.    

The similarity between the power of feudal lords and corporate execs in some cyberpunk stories and games aren't all that different. With "Knights" and demi-feudal lords in my head, along with the wandering gunslingers of old westerns,  which draw from several Samurai/wandering swordsman stories, it all sort of clicked. Especially since early netslinger were called "cowboys" or 'samurais' in the fiction. Drawing that parallel back to knights was easy. I also like the whole "Return of King Arthur" element in games set in the tragic future. Not necessarily a real King Arthur, but the ideal of Christian knights from the French poems/songs defending the land and sacrificing themselves for greater good.



I'd been working on a game which centered around the somewhat "pun" aspect of Mettle, as well as Chrome (being a good word for "glitz" or glam as well) and it made me realize that the die pool system I have in High Valor is very flexible. If I define what the die pools mean and focus on the game around utilizing those three pools, I can shift what in game tests mean, and how they work to help emphasize the style of game they're used within. In High Valor you have Will, Faith, and Valor. In CCK you have Chrome (Glitz, glam, charm), Steel (Cyberbrawn and brawn), and Mettle (Will and Courage.)  It makes personality, technology, and inner self matter.

I've spent a lot of time trying to get High Valor written and finished before I dug into CCK heavily. (It is still in layout, sigh.) Yet much of the base mechanics are written already, they just need some shifts in meaning and feat types. (Which may be while their are some legacy elements of the text I need to clean up.) I threw the playtest together for a friend who loves cyberpunk, but was unhappy with the direction of the current "on market" games in that field. Since then I've been cleaning and adding more things to the playtest document as I can.

Not much has been done since October, sadly. Mostly because of life and trying to get DD finished. (I'm still trying to get a good balance of use for HP, there and HP uses both as luck and as "save your tail" points like D&D says they are.)

The system came first, but only by a very small margin of time. (I was using a very different system for High Valor and had just shifted to the current one when I hit upon CCK.)

What cyberpunk was, and what it will be in CCK may differ. I've had inspirations from the TV shows Dark Angel, Leverage, Mission Impossible (TV Series), Ghost in the Shell: SAC, Appleseed, the growing fear of terrorism and loss of freedoms in the U.S,  and books like Star Risk, Ltd (sf "Leverage" type scoundrels.)

I'm also working on an idea of "Cultural Shift" aspects. I may steel a bit from FATE but apply it to communities, much like underground did. You can change the neighborhood, you can change the world, in time. Yet what will the repercussions be? That sort of refers to Knight's Gamble, and Knight's Reward things that I've not yet written.

Thanks for the look behind the curtain!

I confess the part of CCK which intrigues me most is the 'knight' angle, but that's probably because I've played and run a metric ton of Cyberpunk 2020 in my day, so it's the fresh angle that's most intriguing.  Guess that's only natural.

Quote from: VectorSigma;355028Thanks for the look behind the curtain!

I confess the part of CCK which intrigues me most is the 'knight' angle, but that's probably because I've played and run a metric ton of Cyberpunk 2020 in my day, so it's the fresh angle that's most intriguing.  Guess that's only natural.

I want to make it important. I'm often fascinated by the power of myth to shape our future. The "Waiting" Champion from Ogier the Dane, King Arthur and so on, is a powerful icon, and in many ways the iconography and belief is what will shape our future where ideas can be bought and sold. Where entire identities can be remade by shifting data.