[Not sure] Sprawl, Cyberpunk

[IonDragon]

For those of you who are not familiar, the Sprawl trilogy is written by William Gibson, a very talented author, entirely unlike myself. These are widely to be considered the birth of the Cyberpunk genre.

I have a great interest in these stories. I just love them. I love reading them, I love explaining them, and I like to play in games that have the same feel. On a related note, Ghost in the Shell is my favorite TV show. Only one of my friends that I game with has read the books.

Now, my friends don't like to run games. It's like pulling teeth, getting a game set up. I've run several and come up with an idea that I thought was brilliant and spent a lot of time and effort developing that they are not interesting in playing. That's not what this post is about.

I'm wondering, for those of you who've had more extensive experience with variant rules systems, what systems would be good for a strong, story driven Dark Cyberpunk game like Neuromancer?

I tried one system, here is the story:

Spoiler

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I've used a homebrew rule system, that worked fairly well (it was written by someone I don't game with any more), but after a great deal of playtesting it has been found to be about as broken as last years cat. We simply can not use it anymore without a ban list consisting of about half of the book.

We no longer game with the author because when we pointed out the problems with his system in a playtest game, he requested that we do not return.

[The Glyphstone]

Well, Shadowrun is cyberpunk/urban fantasy, it's usually pretty good at the genre. There's also GURPS Cyberpunk - can't go wrong with GURPS in most cases.

[Kaun]

why is last years cat broken?

[IonDragon]

A 40d4+40 laser gun in a system where the HP = Con score + (BAB/2), which you can start with at level 2.

Also, neigh indestructible Powered Armor (Like in Starship Troopers the book) that is destroyed by that large of a weapon outright, or completely ignores anything shy of a .50 Cal emplacement gun.

[comicshorse]

"Cyberpunk 2020 " perhaps.

[Irreverent Fool]

"Cyberpunk 2020 " perhaps.

This. Cyberpunk 2020 2e models it pretty well, I think. Combat is quick and messy and generally something you want to avoid, even though it tends to happen anyway. The skill system models the sorts of thing you'd want a cyberpunk character to do and each 'class' has a unique skill that I feel does a pretty good job of reflecting the sorts of specialists you'd run into in a cyberpunk story, while keeping individual people based more on where they've focused their skill rather than what class they chose.

2020 has some holes which are patched up in some supplements. The cores book, for example, tells you nothing about how grenades or other explosives work. In spite of this, the combat system is the main thing that draws me to the game. A single shot can often take a character out of combat due to system shock. There's no way to miss someone in a narrow hall when firing a shotgun. Cybernetics tend to be powerful, but you can limit this by making them harder to acquire (limbs especially, due to the fact that you have no chance to be knocked out of combat when you are shot in a cyber limb).

I've heard pretty good things about Shadowrun, although I don't care for it personally for cyberpunk stuff mostly because of the fantasy element. It's worth taking a look at, but I can't tell you much that would be constructive.

I dislike GURPS Cyberpunk, because I feel the system is poorly suited to modeling the kind of combat you'd want.

Generally, I think straight-HP systems should be avoided for this stuff. You might try Mutants & Masterminds as well, though you will of course need to limit what powers are available.

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