I'm almost certain there's no system for this, but...

[Trekkin]

I'm trying to put together a campaign for my usual gaming group, and for once I don't have a cute idea or a grand overarching concept to look for a system around; I'm just trying to play to my strengths and come up with something I can run well. It turns out that's cyberpunk, to judge from my player feedback. Apparently they like how I present that sort of story.

The trouble is, I'm not very well acquainted with cyberpunk systems/settings. I know Shadowrun, but that has magic as a fairly integral part of the setting. I can stretch my definition of cyberpunk to include Dark Heresy in a very broad sense and keep the psykers away from the PCs, but that runs into my other problem: I don't like class/level systems. My players end up pigeonholing themselves fairly narrowly and we end up with gaps and bored specialists.

There's also the issue of character lifetime. I'd like a system where characters have a reasonable chance of living from one end of the campaign to the other, and most of the cyberpunk systems I know tend to be meatgrinders.

Also my players are all enthusiastic engineers, so a system with a robust crafting mechanic would be lovely.

So is there a system out there
1. with cybernetics and virtual reality and all that other cyberpunk goodness
2. that isn't class/level
3. where characters can last a while
4. that includes a way to make genuinely new things?

Just to preempt the inevitable, I already know GURPS has a relevant supplement. I'm looking for alternatives to it, just to see everything out there.

Failing a system that takes all that into account, what parts of systems could I try to cobble into a working whole?

[erikun]

Are you familiar with Eclipse Phase?

The setting is characters living in space, long after the Earth became uninhabitable. Characters are capable of creating "backups" of their minds and downloading themselves into different bodies, and so death rarely stops a character (unless they are unable to pay for the next backup, of course.) Travel assumes just the Solar System, although the different factions are really well detailed. It is based on skill points, no levels, and has pre-created archtypes much like you found in the Shadowrun book. There isn't magic in the system. (There is Psi, although it is quite hazardous to be a Psi user and the Psi system can be disallowed entirely without a problem.)

I haven't played they system myself, though, and I have heard some faults about it - the biggest complaints seem to be the large skill list and the complexity in creating characters.

[Trekkin]

I've run games in it before. Its technology can be a bit bewildering; I was hoping for something a little closer to the present.

[NoldorForce]

I'm uncertain if it's quite as cyberpunk as you say you're looking for, but Eclipse Phase is an interesting (if fiddly) transhuman/postcyberpunk RPG. Having seen Shadowrun 4E I'd say its design is similar if less wonky on the magic/cyber divide. "Psi" exists in the game, but as an unsettling and often alien thing for anyone who's spent for the powers. As for your concerns...

1. Yes, there are most certainly cybernetics. Unless you're a bioconservative, by default your body will have "basic mesh inserts" - cranial computer, medical sensors, and radio. And that's just the start.
2. It's a skill-based game with percentile rolling.
3. True character death is almost impossible. See, backup insurance is cheap enough to the point where just about anyone can (and does) have a copy of their mind stored/encrypted on some server in the case of their body's death. One drawback is that your new body won't have all the mods of the old one unless you pay for them again; the other is that you very likely will have some existential crises along the lines of the Ship of Theseus.
4. What exactly are you asking here? Without some clarification I'm not sure which TRPGs would do this better than others, and I've played quite a few in the past year-and-a-half.

Edit: Oh hey!

[Trekkin]

4 is, I agree, nebulous; I'm still looking for a system to use as a counterexample. anything that satisfies 1-3 will probably work well enough.

EDIT: On reflection, I suppose I mean that if a player decides they want to make something, I have at least a partial ruleset to work with them on defining the costs and difficulty of making something with the traits they want.

Eclipse Phase is very good, though. My problem with it is mostly that it's asking a lot of the players to keep up with everything; when I ran it, there was a lot of "I had no idea that existed/we could do that". I'd rather go with something that I can describe as "basically now but with X" rather than "okay, so a sentient octopus, a solar whale, and an anarchist living in a robot swarm beam copies of their brains into a virtual bar..."

[erikun]

Then sorry, I don't have anything to recommend. If I were to run something like this, I'd likely use a generic system (HeroQuest, Fate, Fudge, Gurps) and take the plot and setting from another system.

[Arbane]

Cyberpunk 2020, or is that one of the 'meatgrinders' you mentioned?

[Trekkin]

I don't honestly know. How bad is Cyberpunk 2020 at letting characters die from one or two hits?

EDIT: Welp, looks like I'm kitbashing a system together again. It's amazing how useful L5R is for this, systemically...

[Arbane]

I don't honestly know. How bad is Cyberpunk 2020 at letting characters die from one or two hits?

It's been a LONG time since I played it, but ISTR with a high Body score and armor (and ALL clothing can be armored in CP), characters can survive a few shots.

Good luck with the homebrew.

[Nepenthe]

How about Hero System? JAGS could probably do it as well, but I haven't actually played that yet.

[tensai_oni]

You mentioned Shadowrun, you played Eclipse Phase. Cyberpunk 2020 has good fluff/mood, but the actual mechanics are just... bad, so terrible and bad.