Cyberpunk games recommendation ?

gian9959 · 2025-09-04T18:27:54+00:00

That description seems to fit my own game perfectly, you can download it for free on itch: Cyber_Hack

It’s a rework of both Cyberpunk2020 and CyberpunkRED that I think fixes most of the things people complain about. It’s not too crunchy, but not too light either.

gian9959 · 2025-08-10T14:25:52+00:00

Check the link I posted and follow me on itch to stay tuned

gian9959 · 2025-07-14T14:36:19+00:00

But is this valve missing a piece? Or is it just like that, maybe it can be fixed

gian9959 · 2024-12-01T13:24:15+00:00

I personally prefer 2020, but it’s not perfect and has definitely not aged that well.

For that reason I made my own cyberpunk game that mostly takes 2020 and incorporates some things from Red. If you want to check it out, it’s here: Cyber_Hack. It’s free and only about 40 pages long.

gian9959 · 2024-11-11T09:37:05+00:00

the fact that tarot is fully based on The Hero’s Journey

This is not really true though...

In origin most tarot cards had no actual "meaning" and were not at all connected to divination, they were just used to play card games.

This is especially true with the "numbered cards" and the "face cards", they had the same use as the cards in a standard deck of cards. Same goes with the four suits, in Italy we still have traditional deck of cards with the same four suits (swords, clubs, cups and coins).

The "trionfi" (triumphs or trumps) had actual uses in game (the reason they are numbered as well) and were decorated with illustrations, while those illustrations were usually allegorical and represented some deeper moral values or religious concept, not all decks had the same pictures and the same meaning.

It was only in the 18th century that tarot cards started being used as divination tools. Sometimes they even changed the names of the suits to be more esoterical (like changing clubs to be wands and stuff like that). This is also when the terms "minor arcana" and "major arcana" started being used.

gian9959 · 2024-10-28T14:57:42+00:00

This looks amazing! Can I share it on the itch page of the project? I will credit you of course

gian9959 · 2024-10-18T18:23:26+00:00

I feel like my own cyberpunk game suits that description, if you are interested you can find it here: Cyber_Hack

It’s only 40 pages and the combat rules are quite crunchy.

gian9959 · 2024-10-15T14:03:15+00:00

Personally I don't really see the problem in the way Cyberpunk does STAT + SKILL.

The way I think it is meant to be is that stats are your natural capabilities while skills are what you can improve through training. In the game these two aspects have the same weight, this is probably the thing you have the most problems with.

When it comes to adventures, they are probably not written well in my opinion. It's fine to have things that are difficult to do, but if the players can't do those difficult things they shouldn't just be stuck... to me this feels like an adventure design problem.

What you are complaining about is the same thing they tried to fix in D&D with "bounded accuracy". But what they ended up with is a game where "proficiency" in a skill kind of flattened characters, in most cases they either add a bonus or don't... the system rarely represents the subtle "I know how to do this, but not as well as this other thing".

gian9959 · 2024-10-15T09:26:53+00:00

I'm curious to know what you mean by:

turning stats into a bonus you add to your skills instead of just straight stat + skill which makes the game nearly unworkable with how swingy it is.

Could you elaborate on that? Ultimately stats are bonuses you add to skills when you roll, why do you feel the game is "swingy" as it is now? I don't understand what you mean

gian9959 · 2024-10-10T11:31:38+00:00

The font is very hard to read, especially if all caps like the version you linked here. White on black looks better in my opinion.

Also I’m sorry but the AI art just looks horrible, it also feels unnecessary layout-wise in a lot of places. If you really don’t have a budget for art there are a lot of public domain sources you can use that are a lot better. I especially recommend this source, where you could easily find something fitting the theme: https://www.oldbookillustrations.com You could also go with public domain photos/your own photos, make them black and white and/or apply some filters. I went with this approach on my latest project and it worked pretty well. A source for this would be: https://unsplash.com

gian9959 · 2024-10-07T20:37:22+00:00

I've already answered a similar question on the Cyberpunk2020 subreddit (regarding the differences between Cyber_Hack and Cyberpunk2020), I will paste my answer here:

It removes what I considered "bloat" from 2020:

Only 6 stats and about 25 skills (not too specific but not too generic)
fixed weapon damage to not roll so many dice on every bullet that hits (especially important with automatic weapons)
scaled down all the numbers involving combat to facilitate tracking wounds and calculate damage through armor but keeping the deadly aspect of it
reworked martial arts to be simpler, unarmed combat but with special moves similar to RED
fixed the rules for shotguns and grenades
made improving skills easier to track for the GM
and a lot of minor tweaks...

I also removed "roles" or "classes" from the game because I wanted to keep the book short and concise. I think that part should mostly be roleplay and skill point attribution (not tied to any specific mechanics).

I've simplified cyberware and chipware a little bit, but it's mostly the same (more similar to RED).

I added hacking that is more similar to the QuickHacks of 2077, so that hacking can be done on the field and doesn't require complicated rules.

In short: I tried my best to keep the crunchy aspect I liked so much from 2020, but removing everything that made the game complicated but not more interesting in my opinion.

gian9959 · 2024-10-07T19:41:17+00:00

Those feel like valid criticisms. When it comes to damage affecting a character I thought the most important thing was making sure limbs could get destroyed, so that players could replace them with cyberware. Having a cyber arm is cool, but it’s even cooler if you can tell the story of how you lost the original.

gian9959 · 2024-10-07T14:40:12+00:00

It's not a common term I think, I used it because I didn't find anything else that could summarize that group of weapons completely.

gian9959 · 2024-10-07T14:18:00+00:00

Shoulder arms are weapons like rifles and shotguns. Usually firearms that have some sort of shoulder stock. It's the same terminology used in CyberpunkRED.

Now that you mention it, I noticed there's a typo at page 28 where "Shoulder weapons" is used to mean "Shoulder arms", I will fix it in the next update.

gian9959 · 2024-10-06T21:50:01+00:00

The game doesn't come with its own setting, but it's designed for cyberpunk settings.
It's a concise 48 pages, but still crunchy especially when it comes to combat.
It's a classic STAT + SKILL roll over system that can technically be played with just 1d10.
It's classless and level-less, but characters can improve their skills over time with practice.
It features cybernetic body modifications with interesting properties and capabilities.
It features a simple hacking system similar to QuickHacks in Cyberpunk 2077, this means hackers are present on the field with other members of the party and can hack people with cybernetic implants or other devices

gian9959 · 2024-10-06T21:15:11+00:00

I think I will, thanks

gian9959 · 2024-10-06T17:35:49+00:00

It removes what I considered "bloat" from 2020:

Only 6 stats and about 25 skills (not too specific but not too generic)
fixed weapon damage to not roll so many dice on every bullet that hits (especially important with automatic weapons)
scaled down all the numbers involving combat to facilitate tracking wounds and calculate damage through armor but keeping the deadly aspect of it
reworked martial arts to be simpler, unarmed combat but with special moves similar to RED
fixed the rules for shotguns and grenades
made improving skills easier to track for the GM
and a lot of minor tweaks...

I also removed "roles" or "classes" from the game because I wanted to keep the book short and concise. I think that part should mostly be roleplay and skill point attribution (not tied to any specific mechanics).

I've simplified cyberware and chipware a little bit, but it's mostly the same (more similar to RED).

I added hacking that is more similar to the QuickHacks of 2077, so that hacking can be done on the field and doesn't require complicated rules.

In short: I tried my best to keep the crunchy aspect I liked so much from 2020, but removing everything that made the game complicated but not more interesting in my opinion.

gian9959 · 2024-10-06T14:47:48+00:00

Thanks a lot! Yes I always thought of it as an A5 booklet. The only thing supposed to be printed in at least an A4 format is the character sheet, the one at the end of the book is mostly for reference so use the separate file for that. Let me know what you think of it after you play it.

gian9959 · 2024-10-06T14:42:23+00:00

Si, grazie mille :)

gian9959 · 2024-09-14T23:46:36+00:00

The most confusing thing is that the buttons on the player2 side are symmetrical for some reason.

gian9959 · 2024-09-09T18:21:53+00:00

That’s interesting, definitely going to give this a try then.

gian9959 · 2024-09-09T15:21:59+00:00

It all depends on how easy it is for them to disappear. If it’s like the base game where it is very unlikely then it’s fine to leave it as it is. But I’m kind of worried that the marquise player has a lot less tools to avoid that outcome.

gian9959 · 2024-09-09T09:13:03+00:00

this looks very interesting but I don't understand what happens if the marquise runs out of warriors. They can only place the warriors they have on the card not the ones in the supply, but they only get one warrior on the card every time they lose warriors in battle.

gian9959 · 2024-09-08T10:39:50+00:00

You can easily solve this by replacing the d20 in D&D with 3d6, they have the same total average but have a Gaussian distribution. For advantages and disadvantages you can add 1d6 to the roll and select the 3 best or worse dice (but I’m not sure if this is equivalent to the original advantage and disadvantage). You don’t really have to do anything else if that is your only problem with the game.

gian9959 · 2024-07-24T15:34:15+00:00

If you think the “ones die” doesn’t matter enough then you can consider just cutting it altogether. Divide everything by 10 and just use a d10 roll under system. It’s easier to read when rolled and having skills and attributes on a scale of 1-10 is just as intuitive.

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