Cybergeneration: Revolution 2
January 10, 2000 in Reviews
“My parents became Cyberpunks and all they left me was this dark future.”
Cybergeneration, R. Talsorian Games’ followup to their highly successful Cyberpunk 2020 line, puts a somewhat unique spin on the Cyberpunk world. The year is 2027, and the Edgerunners have all but vanished; the Corporations have taken America and the world, and arcologies stand where cities once sprawled. Most adults have been assimilated, and spend their days working dull, soulless jobs and their nights dreaming of the days when they had s real future. A deadly plague sweeps the land, killing most people over 20 who encounter it. The adults have only one chance left, one hope of destroying the Megacorps and returning America to a free state.
Their children.
Cybergeneration is a game not for children, but about children. It concentrates heavily on the works and days of the children of the Edgerunners, forming street gangs and rebelling relentlessly against the evils of the Megacorps. The design of the book reflects this, from the almost attention-deficit organization to the scrawled typeface used throughout the book. (Fortunately, it’s used only for headers and page numbers – else, the book would be unreadable.)
Character creation in Cybergeneration is, unfortunately, mixed in with the introductory story. While this might make for an interesting way to introduce new players to the game, it’s frustrating for more experienced players to have to edit out the adventure in order to make a character – and as there are parts of the adventure which should only be read by the GM, it’s difficult to allow a player who’s in the adventure to look through the book in order to create her character. There is a character creation summary, but it almost requires a player to refer constantly to the regular creation rules due to its extreme brevity.
On the other hand, had the adventure been later in the book, and character creation been more cohesive, it would have been a lot of fun. New characters are guided through generation by an Edgerunner named Morgan Blackhand, and creation is treated as though the character were simply giving information about herself. This tends to create more of a connection with the character, more of a sense of /being/ the character.
For the most part, skills and statistics work the same way in Cybergeneration as they do in Cyberpunk, and indeed, rules are provided for converting Edgerunners to the Cybergeneration world. Add Stat to Skill, then roll 1d10 and add that to the total; if your combined total is higher than the target number, you succeed. Thus, there are always a certain set of activities that a character will almost always be able to do. The exception to this is on a total fumble – a 1 on 1d10, which is an automatic failure. On the other hand, the system is also infinitely open-ended – if you roll 10 on your d10, you roll again and add; another 10 means you roll again, and so on, allowing for spectacular successes on a cinematic scale.
The setting and background is what really makes Cybergeneration, though. Regardless of what system you use with the game, the essence remains the same – you are children, rebelling against an oppressive authority. The wonderful thing about this game is that if you’re playing it dark and gritty, with characters who are all guns and sex, you’re missing a lot of the point. Characters in Cybergeneration are no older than 17, and as such are still idealistic, hopeful youths, many of whom have never actually seen someone die and most of whom aren’t yet out of puberty. Cybergeneration allows the player to relive youth, rebelling against anything as long as it’ll look cool.
The Verdict
High Point: background and setting
Low Point: character creation is poorly organized and jumbled in with the first adventure
Looks: 4 (out of 5)
Concept: 5 (out of 5)
Originality: 4 (out of 5)
Playability: 4 (out of 5)