I forgot to mention a cyberpunk game that I am pretty fond of. Haven't played it in a good while, but there's some interest that has been generated now in my current group.

Etherscope. Victorian Cyberpunk, in the year 1984. It's a little different as far as the setting goes, has an interesting magic system attached to it that can be just as easily downplayed as utilized, and everyone can hack The Scope (Matrix) to some degree - and you can take upload tabs (drop acid, basically) to get online. There are different "races" but they are mostly just offshoots of humans via gene engineering.

One thing about the game to me that pushes it into your realm of possibilities is that it is d20 based. So that "no new systems!" outcry can be quelled out of the gates.

You might want to give Black Code a whirl, it's a bit different, but has cyberpunk roots. No real netruns though, so if you're looking for that, it won't help. Design your own body? Be a robot? Have the biggest, baddest, coolest Gun, Car, Pet, body upgrade imaginable? Making your way through an apocalyptic urban sprawl while sticking it to the man? All possible here. 

It's being run at quite a few UK cons if you want to give a try before buying (assuming you're in the UK, of course!).
#IknowAGuy

Don't know if it's been mentioned yet but The Gaia Complex is a really near cyberpunk game that's focused on a corporate run Europe. Rules don't seem too heavy either.

Quote from: Dropbear on April 03, 2022, 08:08:51 PM
I forgot to mention a cyberpunk game that I am pretty fond of. Haven't played it in a good while, but there's some interest that has been generated now in my current group.

Etherscope. Victorian Cyberpunk, in the year 1984.

I glanced at it on the shelves way back and gave it a pass because for a d20m book it goes out of its way to not say it is a d20m book. And it is not till like page 13 that it said it was Self Contained. But the, I think, quarter page on OGL (which at the time I did not know what was) talked about changes to the system. But not WHAT system and read like you might need this un-named system to play it??? argh.

Interesting setting but could have done without the magic. But easy enough to drop just like Shadowrun or even Nights Edge.

Quote from: RebelSky on April 04, 2022, 07:03:26 PM
Don't know if it's been mentioned yet but The Gaia Complex is a really near cyberpunk game that's focused on a corporate run Europe. Rules don't seem too heavy either.

This and LowLife 2090 are my 2 favorite cyberpunk games.  Both are also rather rules-lite.

Two more obscure ones from TSR.

F.R.E.E. Lancers for Top Secret SI: This is an odd one for TS. Cyberpunk meets Superheroes. Mostly near street level gadget superheroes. But there are a few with powers.

Kromosome for Amazing Engine: This one is another odd one in that it is predominantly a Biopunk setting. Focusing on gene modding, biotech, bodymodding, and other organic manipulations. AE has a pretty simple system and is fairly easy to pick up. Most of the later books did not require the AR core book to run each setting.

CY_BORG PDF just dropped to backers. It's good.

In my experience cyberpunk settings tend to get homogeneous after a while, in a similar fashion to post-Tolkien fantasy. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just an observation. So I haven't developed a preference for any particular cyberpunk game. I'd be more interested in a cyberpunk game with generic rules and the option of multiple settings that do different things with the cyberpunk genre. Such as differences in scale: Earth, Solar system, or interstellar. Or genre combinations like cyberpunk space western, cyberpunk mech war, cyberpunk bug war, cyberpunk space western mech bug war, etc

Cyberpunk tends to be very similar to eachother for the same reason say hard Sci-fi does or victorian era steampunk or planet romance or lone hero swords and sorcery.

They all use a certain frame to work in. Its what you do in the frame that matters.

So CP2020 is generic cyberpunk. Pretty much as baseline as you can get.
Shadowrun mixes in fantasy races and magic.
Nights Edge mixes in horror and the supernatural.
FREE Lancers mixes in superheroes.
Kromesome instead goes biopunk.
Deathnet focuses purely on being trapped in VR.
Aeon/Trinity mixes in Psionics, aliens and a little biopunk to boot and even remnants of superheroes from Aberrant.
Cyberpapacy mixes in the Inquisition and cyberfaith.
Tharkhold mixes in Demons and techno-horror.

They all share certain elements, though sometimes not all. Or focus on one more than the others.

Quote from: Omega on April 17, 2022, 02:30:03 PM
Cyberpunk tends to be very similar to eachother for the same reason say hard Sci-fi does or victorian era steampunk or planet romance or lone hero swords and sorcery.

They all use a certain frame to work in. Its what you do in the frame that matters.

So CP2020 is generic cyberpunk. Pretty much as baseline as you can get.
Shadowrun mixes in fantasy races and magic.
Nights Edge mixes in horror and the supernatural.
FREE Lancers mixes in superheroes.
Kromesome instead goes biopunk.
Deathnet focuses purely on being trapped in VR.
Aeon/Trinity mixes in Psionics, aliens and a little biopunk to boot and even remnants of superheroes from Aberrant.
Cyberpapacy mixes in the Inquisition and cyberfaith.
Tharkhold mixes in Demons and techno-horror.

They all share certain elements, though sometimes not all. Or focus on one more than the others.

It should be noted that Night's Edge is a modular add-on to Cyberpunk 2020. It is not a stand alone game.

Just discovered Lowlife 2090. Very good cyberpunk with fantasy trappings. Much better than Shadowrun IMO. I have to try it as a human-only game to assess it compared to our usual Cyberpunk. Cool design though.

Quote from: jeff37923 on April 17, 2022, 05:50:36 PM
It should be noted that Night's Edge is a modular add-on to Cyberpunk 2020. It is not a stand alone game.

Right. Which I mentioned earlier in the thread even. But it is its own setting more-or-less. My point was not about individual standalone game systems.
FREE Lancers is of Top Secret SI, Kromsome for Amazing Engine, Cyberpapacy and Tharkhold are for Torg, and so on.

And adding to the list.
CP2020 Doll Edition mixes in Theme Park kingdoms... no... really... (honestly I wish they'd expanded on the idea properly as it has some potential for its own setting even.)

Quote from: Omega on April 17, 2022, 02:30:03 PM
Cyberpunk tends to be very similar to eachother for the same reason say hard Sci-fi does or victorian era steampunk or planet romance or lone hero swords and sorcery.

They all use a certain frame to work in. Its what you do in the frame that matters.

So CP2020 is generic cyberpunk. Pretty much as baseline as you can get.
Shadowrun mixes in fantasy races and magic.
Nights Edge mixes in horror and the supernatural.
FREE Lancers mixes in superheroes.
Kromesome instead goes biopunk.
Deathnet focuses purely on being trapped in VR.
Aeon/Trinity mixes in Psionics, aliens and a little biopunk to boot and even remnants of superheroes from Aberrant.
Cyberpapacy mixes in the Inquisition and cyberfaith.
Tharkhold mixes in Demons and techno-horror.

They all share certain elements, though sometimes not all. Or focus on one more than the others.

Wish there was a list like that for other genres

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 18, 2022, 04:03:40 PM
Wish there was a list like that for other genres

TSR alone has at some point covered alot of combinations.

Blackmoor mixes in alien invaders.
Mystara is the original Isekai setting. Well ok, Greyhawk is. But not as much as Mystara.
Spelljammer mixes in space travel.
Night of the Comet (not sure on the title as its been decades) mixes in alien Terminators.
Red Steel mixes in practically spagetti-western style spanish and italian western themes as well as swashbuckling.
Dark sun mixes in post-apoc elements.
Other RPGs have come at it from all sorts of angles.
TFT steals a few pages from GOR.
Warhammer mixed in the dark ages and Elric and Newhon and... well you get the idea...
Tunnels & Trolls is a hard one to pin down as it doesnt quite fit any pattern. It is not very tolkeinesque, is though a bit conanesque in a few adventures. And the Citybook seeries, least from what I have paints a setting that is surprisingly not derivative.
Talislantia is one have not yet had a chance to look at. Same for Runequest. The starter box I got was very low on setting details.
Palladium is another one that is more its own thing than copying other settings. In some ways it feels like what Warhammer should have been.

and so on.

But for cyberpunk settings I think FREE Lancers and Nights Edge are my personal favourites followed closely 1st ed Shadowrun.

I guess another system you could try if you want to veer more towards the light side that would be in a similar vein to The Sprawl would be Neon City Overdrive. Made by the same people that made Freeform Universal RPG, works kinda like a mix of Fate-style aspects and dice pools but looks pretty decent. Fairly cheap too.

Due to revelations brought up in the woke list thread, I am still a little skeptical on Cy_Borg. Asked about it on discord and the response I got was basically that characters similar to the Exec class don't really fit with the theme of Cy_Borg, similar to the Fixer and the Lawman classes; although taking this with a grain of salt.

Another thing you could do too is go back to the roots and run Shadowrun 1e, since it is still for sale digitally