Carbon 2185: cyberpunk on d&d 5e

[CubicsRube]

Hi!

I am in no way affiliated with this program, but I haven't seen any mention of it on the forums.

There is a kickstarter for an established producer at the following link:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dragonturtlegames/carbon-2185-a-cyberpunk-rpg/description

I'm a big fan of seeing what can be done with the 5e ogl after seeing cubicle 7s efforts with Adventures in Middle Earth.

What are people's opinions of this project?

 

[Alexander Kalinowski]

5E is by it's nature not gritty enough for cyberpunk. The big elephant in the room is: how to modify to not be another D20 Modern?

 

[CubicsRube]

No but it could be.

Adventures in middle earth defines new classes and adds journey, sanctuary, corruption and audience rules to make the 5e ogl give off quite a good middle earth vibe.

Journeying can be very dangerous if the party can't take a long rest, they are travelling through corrupted lands, they've taken a few levels of exhaustion and then a party pf orcs attack.

The core 5e ogl rules while limited in scope is still actually quite malleable.

If they add detailed rules for hacking, equipment and augmentations (which looks like are in the works), then it might be a great way to get gamers who only play d&d to try out the cyberpunk genre.

 

[Alexander Kalinowski]

Yeah, it could be! But I think that is the main point, rules-wise, that the designers have to address in making their pitch to would-be backers.

 

[CubicsRube]

Didn't want to bump this, but does nobody have thoughts on this? It's from a somewhat established company and has 1,500 backers so there is some interest.

It definately intends to keep along with d&d 5e goals of streamlined play it seems and i quite like that.

Examples:
lindfiring around cover imposing disadvantage on the attack in exchange for cover.
Automatic weapons that can fire a burst like a cone template spell.
Ballistic vests that provide ac to all attacks, and minor DR to bullets.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I would bet WotC has got its own plans about a d20 Modern 2.0. and to be used for other franchises, for example transformers, superheroes and G.I.Joe (and maybe Fortnite), but the d20 System isn't ready yet for the modern age. Why? In a survival horror a crazy psico-killer with only a knife can be a nightmare for unnarmed civilians PCs but cannon fodder for soldiers PCs wearing the exosuit from Call of Duty: Black Ops. With a RPG(rocket propelled grenadier) you can kill an elephant, dinosaur or creature with huge size. Driving a truck could be enough to rune over a horde of zombies. How should be the XPs reward when there is extra help?

* Sci-fi is a genre what get old very soon. New generations miss last technology what doesn't work in the previous sci-fi works. Now they want suits by spider silk, riot shields by graphene or electric stepways for their PCs, do you understand me?

* Sooner of later you should notice Eclipse Phase has changed the sci-fi RPGs because now players miss the mind transfer and digital inmortality in other titles.

* Cyberpunk talks about our society in the real life, but now the point of view is changing. People are noticing the closest one in our reality to the norsefire party from "V of Vendetta" self-proclaims to be our freedom defenders and we can't trust every body who tell megacorporations are the evil empire, and closest one to real-life cyberpunk dystopy isn't USA but other countries as Venezuela or Eritrea.

 

[Cherno]

I like 5E and I love CP2020, so I am glad to see that there is an attempt to combine those too (yes, I know it's not CP2020, but seems rather close with it's straight approach to the genre as opposed to settings that stray too far into the Sci-Fi genre for my tastes).

 

[MarkB]

I'll be interested to see how this works out. I did back a similar cyberpunk reimagining of D&D about a year ago called code::2050, which unfortunately failed to get funded. They had a very good approach of just overlaying their game elements onto the standard D&D ruleset without trying to change anything - no new classes, just new subclasses, very similar weapon stats to the base game, etc.

That was fine for the more Shadowrun-style setting they were going for, but making a purely Cyberpunk setting without the fantasy elements would of course require a different approach. It'll be interesting to see what this one does differently, and how well it works.

 

[CubicsRube]

I asked and magic is definately not on the cards. I suspect more tech will take its place.

They are revealing bits and pieces as the campaign goes on, but there is what looks to be a simple hacking system which looks like it'll be skill rolls to debuff enemies and their items mostly, and a rigger style character that can use a drone similar to a rangers animal companion.

As someone who loves shadowrun but hates the crunch, this approach makes my heart sing. I'm much more theme than mechanics oriented, and if they keep a streamlined approach it'll work really well for me.

 

[Derren]

5E simply would not work. The skills are too shallow, the HP bloat makes combat too melee focused and the entire system is geared towards teh PCs wading through hordes of enemies which simply doesn't fit with cyberpunk.