Best Sci-Fi/Cyberpunk PnP?

[Fallen Seraph]

I am in the mood lately for a PnP game that wasn't fantasy, or modern, or steampunk.

So anyone know any good Cyberpunk/Sci-Fi PnPs. I am looking for the type where it is still bullets, metal, etc. but with the ocassional cybernetic and robotics/mechs thrown in and some very basic solar-system travel.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Traveller? Of course, its infancy...

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Transhuman Space would be a good fit. The technology is very realistic, and there are plenty of robots around - though space travel is possibly a bit more advanced than you had in mind. There are a couple of significant colonies scattered around the solar system - the most significant one on Mars has about three million inhabitants.

The technology is also a bit more advanced than in your average cyberpunk setting - it's what the future of a cyperpunk setting might look like if technology was actually able to solve many of humanity's problems (though of course creating a few new ones in the process). But you can solve that by either running a game a bit earlier in the timeline (the default setting is set in 2100) or running adventures in the poorer nations.

 

[B4cchus]

I agree that ths is a great setting for sci-fi games but don't get tht cyberpunk vibe with it. I still use cyberpunk 2020 from Talsorian when I want to go all Gibson

 

[Aus_Snow]

Cyberpunk 2020 would probably still be my first option. There are even supplements around for 'very basic solar-system travel' and certainly for 'robotics/mechs'.

It's a fine and rather elegant system that has weathered some considerable years quite well, setting be damned.

Plenty of great house rules and variants everywhere you turn, too. Personally, I'm of the mind that it benefits greatly from some tinkering, but then I'm also a notorious tinkerer, system be damned.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I agree that ths is a great setting for sci-fi games but don't get tht cyberpunk vibe with it. I still use cyberpunk 2020 from Talsorian when I want to go all Gibson

Transhuman Space: Broken Dreams helps a lot with that - it details the region of Earth which have been "left behind" by the overall prosperity of the planet. There the technology is either outdated or highly experimental, the government corrupt and inefficient, and the corporations are using these places as their personal play- and battlegrounds - in other ways, perfect for evoking the cyberpunk atmosphere.

And if that's not sufficient, then going back a few decades - to the time of the Pacific War, or even the 2050s - will work well.

(Note, however, that no version of the setting has cinematic computer hacking - no cyberbattles with ICE that will give you control over a computer system in an instant.)

 

[DM_Jeff]

I'd suggest Alternity.

It even still has a thriving community at www.alternityrpg.net.

-DM Jeff

 

[Jack of Shadows]

Well,

I would highly recommend Cthulutech. Normally I wouldn't have given this book a second glance on the shelved but a friend gave it to me as a gift while I was in hospital. I'm really happy he did because it was not at all what I expected. The rule set is very simple but elegant in how it hands combat difference between humans and war machines. The world is very bleak and the Cthulu elements are mixed in tropes borrowed from the Evangelion and Guyver animes.

If haven't already I highly recommend picking it up.

Jack.

 

[ephemeron]

I've never gotten to try it out, and it's probably hard to find since the Guardians of Order went out of business a year and a half ago, but Ex Machina looks promising. Instead of being built around a specific setting, it has suggestions for building your own setting and several very interesting sample settings that take the core themes of cyberpunk and apply them to contemporary, rather than '80s, concerns.

If you want the '80s retro-SF approach, though, Cyberpunk 2020 is a good way to go. Reread Gibson, rewatch Max Headroom (the link is to streaming video of a few episodes; as far as I know, there's no DVD of the series) and Blade Runner, and jump in.

 

[Cage-Rattler]

I whole-heartedly recommend Cyberpunk 2020, as well. I love it so much, I would have its babies (impossible as that is for so many reasons).

I'm actually somewhat surprised no one's mentioned Shadowrun yet.