Gritty. High Tech. Urban. Dystopic.
All these words can be used to describe some aspect of cyberpunk, and yet none of them can truly capture the mind-blowing enormity of this science fiction genre. Born from the minds of some of the edgiest authors, cyberpunk games have always had a loyal following from the RPG Community.
In March of last year, Gun Metal Games completed a very successful Kickstarter Campaign to bring forth a new cyberpunk RPG setting. Designed for use with the Savage Worlds Deluxe RPG system, Interface Zero 2.0: Full Metal Cyberpunk offers a new vision of a gritty, high tech, urban dystopia of the near future, where the very definitions of humanity have been blurred and even the internet is out to get you!
Interface Zero 2.0: Full Metal Cyberpunk
Interface Zero 2.0: Full Metal Cyberpunk is a role-playing game setting published by Gun Metal Games, and utilizes the Savage Worlds Deluxe RPG system. IZ 2.0 contains information for creating a cyberpunk player-character, complete with rules variations and new content, new racial types, new skills, and new hindrances/edges. This setting sourcebook also contains all new gear appropriate to a cyberpunk genre, including vehicles, robots, and cybertech implants (augments). There is a complete and detailed history and discussion of this near-future setting, and information for game masters on how they can best utilize the content for their IZ 2.0 campaigns.
Production Quality
The production quality of Interface Zero 2.0: Full Metal Cyberpunk is exceptional, offering excellent writing by the authors in a sharp and stylish layout. The content writing is both informative and very entertaining, and engages the reader utilizing internet-style “comments” to offer additional information. The use of font color enhances the content presentation, and makes clear distinctions between sub-topics in a chapter.
The purchase of IZ 2.0 comes in a two PDF package with a full-color version and a second copy that is IPAD/Kindle friendly. The PDF has hotlinks in both the table of contents and index, as well as a full array of bookmarks for easy navigation. Important tables scattered throughout the book are consolidated in a sizable appendix at the end of the sourcebook for quick referencing.
The illustrations in Interface Zero 2.0: Full Metal Cyberpunk are excellent, starting with a stylish and gritty action scene on the cover, to the various full-color illustrations inside the book. To its credit, IZ 2.0 has a decent amount of artwork gracing its pages, including some nice renderings of character archetypes, cityscapes, weapons, and other gear. There were a couple sections in the book with a bit of “wall of text” feel, but overall, the page to illustration ratio was OK.
Welcome to the Future
The rules and setting contents of Interface Zero 2.0: Full Metal Cyberpunk are contained in seven broad chapters, covering character material, game master material, and overall setting information. A copy of the Savage Worlds Deluxe rules is absolutely required for use with this setting material, although there is a considerable amount of new content provided in IZ 2.0 which is quite uniquely different from the base system.
This cyberpunk RPG setting is, literally, an unapologetically adult-themed game setting, as stated in the opening credits by the authors themselves.
Interface Zero 2.0: Full Metal Cyberpunk opens with an Introduction in Chapter 1 that discusses the world in the year 2090, a dystopia of a fractured United States after a Second Civil War, a rising powerful Chinese empire, and dominated by megacorporations controlling governments and resources. In the world of IZ 2.0, nearly every human has a chip to access the internet, and are now susceptible to being hacked into by rogue computer programs and other persons. A few rare individuals have developed psychic powers, and many people possess cyberwear parts in their bodies. Even the definition of humanity is questioned when there are humans, enhanced humans, human-animal hybrids, androids, cyborgs, and vat-grown simulacrum (think Blade Runner replicants here) all living on the same world.
Chapter 2 concentrates on Character Creation, providing all the rules and new content necessary to generate a wide range of player-characters. Generally, character creation is much as expected for a SWD RPG campaign, but the authors add a few new derived stats (like Firewall and Street Cred)and new skills to the ones used in the Savage Worlds Deluxe system. Racial types are quite varied as discussed previously, allowing for considerable variation of human and artificial human possibilities. There are a number of hindrances and edges which do not fit with the IZ 2.0 setting, but new ones are added which are more in line with a cyberpunk world. The authors provide 13 archetype characters that can be found in the year 2090, including a fascinating one called a Cyber Monk which is a master of martial arts techniques and cybertech augmentations. Psychic characters are called zeeks, and are divided into three categories of peeks (telepaths), tweeks (telekinetics), and freeks (odd assortment of flashy powers) – although it should be noted that being a zeek can get you arrested or worse in this setting. Characters can also have an Occupation, and the authors provide more than two dozen possible background jobs to add depth to characters. Overall, the character creation section is incredibly well stocked with options, and players will find it quite easy to generated very unique alter-egos for an IZ 2.0 campaign.
The authors provide the Malmart 2090 Catalog in Chapter 3 which contains descriptions of a dazzling variety of gear, cyberware, vehicles, and more. There is an overview of the major megacorporations which provide gear for the catalog, with the ubiquitous comments from the “message board”, then lists and descriptions of the various consumer goods available to characters in alphabetical order by type. The authors provide a good assortment of items here, including high tech combat offerings like energy weapons and powered armor, as well as more recreational items such as drugs and entertainment packages. (How about a subscription to the virtual RPG called Dead Lands MMO?) Although discussed later in the book, cyberware that characters can implant is unlimited but each costs a certain amount strain. Exceeding one’s Vigor dice in strain points can have dangerous and even deadly consequences. (Yes, you can kill your own character on the operating table by trying to implant too much cyberware.)
Chapter 4 is a massive and detailed discussion of The World in 2090, taking up nearly half the pages of the PDF! Although long and very descriptive, it is actually a really fascinating read, covering social, political, and religious topics, megacorps, gangs, and a lengthy section on zeeks. Then this chapter goes on to discuss each continent and each major political unit (country, confederation, league, etc.) from around the globe, including factions and institutions which affect life there. The authors make some fascinating predictions in creating their future vision of a cyberpunk world setting, such as China conquering the Ukraine and half of Russia, and the United States dividing itself up into several different countries after a civil war over the issues of fundamentalism and the separation of church and state. (But is anyone really surprised to learn that Texas becomes its own country after seceding from the union?) With so much detail, this chapter allows for a wide range of locales for a campaign, as well as unusual plots involving characters to arise over political and corporate conflicts.
Even the other planets in The Solar System (Chapter 5) are being colonized in the IZ 2.0 setting, and there are politics and megacorporations at work here as on old Terra. While this chapter is fairly short, it does provide enough information for GMs to create a few adventures out to offworld locations, but clearly most of the campaign action is going to take place in some sprawl somewhere on earth.
Setting Rules are important to differentiate the nature of a campaign using the Savage Worlds Deluxe system, and Chapter 6 covers major rules and variants for the IZ 2.0 setting. There are rules here for the grades of cyberware (including the effects of strain and cybertrauma), how street cred is used, lost, and gained in the setting, cost of living expenses, and building customized drones and golemmechs. The authors include an interesting form of resurrection in the setting by using the idea that a characters mind and experiences can be downloaded, and then placed in a cloned body if necessary (or a cyborg, hybrid, or even android body). Finally, this chapter has a set of nifty hacking rules, and for powers that zeeks and cybermonks can create using the powers in the SWD rulebook.
The final chapter, Game Mastering, provides the GM with advice, random generators, and other content to make their campaigns run more smoothly. There’s a nice table on creating reasonable payoffs for missions, depending on the power level of the characters, along with a random adventure generator to get a quick idea for a mission. There is a generator for creating random gangs, and another for creating bio-horrors – creatures designed by altering the DNA of normal animals, gene-spliced monstrosities, and cybered-up things best left undescribed. The authors include some stock bio-horrors for characters to encounter, like toxic roaches and cyber hounds, as well as a selection of enemy sprawl dwellers, robots, and Intrusion Countermeasures (encountered in hacking scenarios).
Overall Score: 4.4 out of 5.0
Conclusions
So it turns out that Interface Zero 2.0: Full Metal Cyberpunk is a really amazing campaign setting, one which draws on a wide range of cyberpunk tropes but brings them together into a fascinating and dark new vision of the future. The writing is top-notch, and the authors did an excellent job of creating and tweaking rules to allow the Savage Worlds Deluxe system to really work well for the setting they created. The setting is highly detailed, interestingly speculative, and provides plenty of the intrigue and action one would expect in a cyberpunk world.
The PDF set of Interface Zero 2.0: Full Metal Cyberpunk is very reasonably priced for such a complete setting – and it’s currently on sale at RPGNow until this weekend. Cyberpunk fans should really consider giving Interface Zero 2.0: Full Metal Cyberpunk a serious look-over for their next campaign setting!
Editorial Note: This Reviewer received a complimentary copy of the product in PDF format from which the review was written.
Grade Card (Ratings 1 to 5)
All these words can be used to describe some aspect of cyberpunk, and yet none of them can truly capture the mind-blowing enormity of this science fiction genre. Born from the minds of some of the edgiest authors, cyberpunk games have always had a loyal following from the RPG Community.
In March of last year, Gun Metal Games completed a very successful Kickstarter Campaign to bring forth a new cyberpunk RPG setting. Designed for use with the Savage Worlds Deluxe RPG system, Interface Zero 2.0: Full Metal Cyberpunk offers a new vision of a gritty, high tech, urban dystopia of the near future, where the very definitions of humanity have been blurred and even the internet is out to get you!Interface Zero 2.0: Full Metal Cyberpunk
- Authors: Peter J. Wacks, David Jarvis, Hal Maclean, Matt Conklin Jr., and Patrick Smith
- Illustrators: Aaron Acevedo (cover); Sam Manley, Robert Shields, Jason Rainville, Adam Kuczek, Tomek Tworek, Jason Walton, Alex Drummond, Nick Greenwood, Eduardo Brolo, Carlos Herrera, Paul Bourne, Savage Mojo (interior); Alida Saxon, Keith Curtis (cartography)
- Publisher: Gun Metal Games
- Year: 2014
- Media: PDF (323 pages)
- Price: $14.00 (Regularly $20.00 through from RPGNow – on sale for 30% off until March 15)
Interface Zero 2.0: Full Metal Cyberpunk is a role-playing game setting published by Gun Metal Games, and utilizes the Savage Worlds Deluxe RPG system. IZ 2.0 contains information for creating a cyberpunk player-character, complete with rules variations and new content, new racial types, new skills, and new hindrances/edges. This setting sourcebook also contains all new gear appropriate to a cyberpunk genre, including vehicles, robots, and cybertech implants (augments). There is a complete and detailed history and discussion of this near-future setting, and information for game masters on how they can best utilize the content for their IZ 2.0 campaigns.
Production Quality
The production quality of Interface Zero 2.0: Full Metal Cyberpunk is exceptional, offering excellent writing by the authors in a sharp and stylish layout. The content writing is both informative and very entertaining, and engages the reader utilizing internet-style “comments” to offer additional information. The use of font color enhances the content presentation, and makes clear distinctions between sub-topics in a chapter.
The purchase of IZ 2.0 comes in a two PDF package with a full-color version and a second copy that is IPAD/Kindle friendly. The PDF has hotlinks in both the table of contents and index, as well as a full array of bookmarks for easy navigation. Important tables scattered throughout the book are consolidated in a sizable appendix at the end of the sourcebook for quick referencing.
The illustrations in Interface Zero 2.0: Full Metal Cyberpunk are excellent, starting with a stylish and gritty action scene on the cover, to the various full-color illustrations inside the book. To its credit, IZ 2.0 has a decent amount of artwork gracing its pages, including some nice renderings of character archetypes, cityscapes, weapons, and other gear. There were a couple sections in the book with a bit of “wall of text” feel, but overall, the page to illustration ratio was OK.
Welcome to the Future
The rules and setting contents of Interface Zero 2.0: Full Metal Cyberpunk are contained in seven broad chapters, covering character material, game master material, and overall setting information. A copy of the Savage Worlds Deluxe rules is absolutely required for use with this setting material, although there is a considerable amount of new content provided in IZ 2.0 which is quite uniquely different from the base system.
This cyberpunk RPG setting is, literally, an unapologetically adult-themed game setting, as stated in the opening credits by the authors themselves.
To further enhance the cyberpunk genre in their setting book, the authors of IZ 2.0 use a stylized layout in which much of the contents is written as though coming from a hacker-owned “wikileaks” site of the near future. And further, the information presented is interspersed with comments (in blue text) from fellow hackers and leakers with colorful nicknames like Neon_Bright and ilicit_behavior. These additional comments –sometimes quite rude and irascible - often contain additional information pertaining to the subject at hand, and make reading the book considerably more fun.
Interface Zero 2.0: Full Metal Cyberpunk opens with an Introduction in Chapter 1 that discusses the world in the year 2090, a dystopia of a fractured United States after a Second Civil War, a rising powerful Chinese empire, and dominated by megacorporations controlling governments and resources. In the world of IZ 2.0, nearly every human has a chip to access the internet, and are now susceptible to being hacked into by rogue computer programs and other persons. A few rare individuals have developed psychic powers, and many people possess cyberwear parts in their bodies. Even the definition of humanity is questioned when there are humans, enhanced humans, human-animal hybrids, androids, cyborgs, and vat-grown simulacrum (think Blade Runner replicants here) all living on the same world.
Chapter 2 concentrates on Character Creation, providing all the rules and new content necessary to generate a wide range of player-characters. Generally, character creation is much as expected for a SWD RPG campaign, but the authors add a few new derived stats (like Firewall and Street Cred)and new skills to the ones used in the Savage Worlds Deluxe system. Racial types are quite varied as discussed previously, allowing for considerable variation of human and artificial human possibilities. There are a number of hindrances and edges which do not fit with the IZ 2.0 setting, but new ones are added which are more in line with a cyberpunk world. The authors provide 13 archetype characters that can be found in the year 2090, including a fascinating one called a Cyber Monk which is a master of martial arts techniques and cybertech augmentations. Psychic characters are called zeeks, and are divided into three categories of peeks (telepaths), tweeks (telekinetics), and freeks (odd assortment of flashy powers) – although it should be noted that being a zeek can get you arrested or worse in this setting. Characters can also have an Occupation, and the authors provide more than two dozen possible background jobs to add depth to characters. Overall, the character creation section is incredibly well stocked with options, and players will find it quite easy to generated very unique alter-egos for an IZ 2.0 campaign.
The authors provide the Malmart 2090 Catalog in Chapter 3 which contains descriptions of a dazzling variety of gear, cyberware, vehicles, and more. There is an overview of the major megacorporations which provide gear for the catalog, with the ubiquitous comments from the “message board”, then lists and descriptions of the various consumer goods available to characters in alphabetical order by type. The authors provide a good assortment of items here, including high tech combat offerings like energy weapons and powered armor, as well as more recreational items such as drugs and entertainment packages. (How about a subscription to the virtual RPG called Dead Lands MMO?) Although discussed later in the book, cyberware that characters can implant is unlimited but each costs a certain amount strain. Exceeding one’s Vigor dice in strain points can have dangerous and even deadly consequences. (Yes, you can kill your own character on the operating table by trying to implant too much cyberware.)
Chapter 4 is a massive and detailed discussion of The World in 2090, taking up nearly half the pages of the PDF! Although long and very descriptive, it is actually a really fascinating read, covering social, political, and religious topics, megacorps, gangs, and a lengthy section on zeeks. Then this chapter goes on to discuss each continent and each major political unit (country, confederation, league, etc.) from around the globe, including factions and institutions which affect life there. The authors make some fascinating predictions in creating their future vision of a cyberpunk world setting, such as China conquering the Ukraine and half of Russia, and the United States dividing itself up into several different countries after a civil war over the issues of fundamentalism and the separation of church and state. (But is anyone really surprised to learn that Texas becomes its own country after seceding from the union?) With so much detail, this chapter allows for a wide range of locales for a campaign, as well as unusual plots involving characters to arise over political and corporate conflicts.
Even the other planets in The Solar System (Chapter 5) are being colonized in the IZ 2.0 setting, and there are politics and megacorporations at work here as on old Terra. While this chapter is fairly short, it does provide enough information for GMs to create a few adventures out to offworld locations, but clearly most of the campaign action is going to take place in some sprawl somewhere on earth.
Setting Rules are important to differentiate the nature of a campaign using the Savage Worlds Deluxe system, and Chapter 6 covers major rules and variants for the IZ 2.0 setting. There are rules here for the grades of cyberware (including the effects of strain and cybertrauma), how street cred is used, lost, and gained in the setting, cost of living expenses, and building customized drones and golemmechs. The authors include an interesting form of resurrection in the setting by using the idea that a characters mind and experiences can be downloaded, and then placed in a cloned body if necessary (or a cyborg, hybrid, or even android body). Finally, this chapter has a set of nifty hacking rules, and for powers that zeeks and cybermonks can create using the powers in the SWD rulebook.
The final chapter, Game Mastering, provides the GM with advice, random generators, and other content to make their campaigns run more smoothly. There’s a nice table on creating reasonable payoffs for missions, depending on the power level of the characters, along with a random adventure generator to get a quick idea for a mission. There is a generator for creating random gangs, and another for creating bio-horrors – creatures designed by altering the DNA of normal animals, gene-spliced monstrosities, and cybered-up things best left undescribed. The authors include some stock bio-horrors for characters to encounter, like toxic roaches and cyber hounds, as well as a selection of enemy sprawl dwellers, robots, and Intrusion Countermeasures (encountered in hacking scenarios).
Overall Score: 4.4 out of 5.0
Conclusions
So it turns out that Interface Zero 2.0: Full Metal Cyberpunk is a really amazing campaign setting, one which draws on a wide range of cyberpunk tropes but brings them together into a fascinating and dark new vision of the future. The writing is top-notch, and the authors did an excellent job of creating and tweaking rules to allow the Savage Worlds Deluxe system to really work well for the setting they created. The setting is highly detailed, interestingly speculative, and provides plenty of the intrigue and action one would expect in a cyberpunk world.
The PDF set of Interface Zero 2.0: Full Metal Cyberpunk is very reasonably priced for such a complete setting – and it’s currently on sale at RPGNow until this weekend. Cyberpunk fans should really consider giving Interface Zero 2.0: Full Metal Cyberpunk a serious look-over for their next campaign setting!
Editorial Note: This Reviewer received a complimentary copy of the product in PDF format from which the review was written.
Grade Card (Ratings 1 to 5)
- Presentation: 4.0
- - Design: 4.5 (Exemplary writing; cool layout)
- - Illustrations: 3.5 (Cool cover and illustrations; would like to see more)
- Content: 4.75
- - Crunch: 4.5 (Awesome adaptation of SWD rules!)
- - Fluff: 5.0 (Massive and detailed cyberpunk world setting!)
- Value: 4.5 (It’s a steal at the sale price this week!)
