CY_BORG Converted Me: A Fantasy GM's Cyberpunk Awakening

CY_BORG was the BORG game I was least enthusiastic to review. Nothing against cyberpunk - I’ve enjoyed cyberpunk games - but it always felt like a leap too far. Learning an entire subgenre AND a game system? That was until I read this book.

This book is freaking awesome. Where it really shines is if you’re a fantasy GM who wants to try something new. It feels super familiar yet completely different at the same time. Particularly when you get to the apps and powers - it just makes so much sense.

I read it once, really liked it. Read it twice, liked it more. Every time I’ve got more out of this book.

The World Is Ending (But Not Like MÖRK BORG)

The earth is messed up. Poisonous space rocks, nuclear war, the corps have won and control everyone. Pandemic, tsunamis, everybody hooked into the net. And there’s bacteria from outer space hijacking nano robots and causing mayhem.

But this isn’t as apocalyptic as MÖRK BORG. There’s maybe not hope, but it’s definitely a game you could run for longer.

“Everybody is interfaced, injected, infected, infested with something. Everybody wants something from somebody else. Everybody is a liar, a cheat, and everyone wants more creds.”

The City of CY

The map is a hot mess and I hated it at first. Now I kind of really like it. The red is actually water - the city is a bunch of islands connected by bridges. Once you realize that, it makes much more sense.

Central - Corporate offices, cubicle zombies, crazy expensive. Ten lifetimes to buy a coffin apartment here.

Go - The middle where the meteor hit. Post-apocalyptic quagmire kept in quarantine by massive walls, auto turrets, and drones. You’re not meant to get in, but you can. Scrapheads looking for stuff, radioactive areas, space dust, murder cults.

The Slums - Putrid stuff leaking in from Go. No questions asked repperox clinics that may fix you up or harvest your organs. Gangs like the Vipers dealing drugs, the Heirs of Kergoz cult.

The Hills - Where the rich live. Fortress-like villas, parks, no crime. Getting in is going to be really, really hard.

The Net - This is put here on purpose because it’s a location. A fractal amalgamation of AR, VR, old internet and cyberspace. An omnipresent deity. Always trying to sell you something, keep you scared, hack your behavior.

The Classes Tell Stories

Every class has world-building baked in. You might be:

• Shunned Nanomancer - Infested with alien bacteria nanodes, you have powers and everybody hates you
• Burned-Out Hacker - You know that two AIs have merged into a two-headed sentience, and you’ve created an app
• Discharged Corp Killer - You used to kill for the corps, stole something when you left, know a part of the city really well
• Gear Head - A pilot with a quadbot, flying drone, or armored van. Your mentor disappeared into Go looking for an advanced lab.

Immediately in seconds you create a character, boom, you’ve got history, and you’re injected into the fiction.

What Sold Me: Apps and Powers

This is my favourite part. This is the bit where I realized I wanted to run this game.

If you’re a hacker, you have a cyber deck with cartridge slots for apps. Apps let you do stuff like:

• Knock - Opens a nearby locked door
• Cut - Copy the latest 10 minutes from any recording device

It feels like magic to me but doesn’t sound like magic. I immediately know how to run this because of what it is.

But here’s the elegance: each time you use an app, you add one to the risk of fumbling. So the more you use apps in a day, the bigger chance of a fumble.

And the fumbles create campaign fodder:

• A SecCorp activates a Ghost targeting you. It arrives in D4 minutes.
• You are ID’d by a hacker collective. They want D10K in 72 hours or they post real or fabricated incriminating data.
• D4 sleeper doppels are activated targeting you. They will strike in hours, days, or weeks.

The more players use their abilities, the more campaign story is generated - not just from succeeding, but from failing. Which is freaking amazing.

Creds Drive Everything

There’s no XP. Going out and getting creds means your characters upgrade themselves. Getting stuff means they can get more cybertech, more apps, different gear.

You start with debt and you roll who you owe money to. This is the fuel that drives the campaign. People are after their money. So there’s this constant balance of you having to go out again and again and involve yourself in this world.

It’s natural and simple and beautiful.

The Campaign Clock

Different from MÖRK BORG. These headlines are less catastrophic. You roll at the end of every day - on a one, a headline appears.

When you get to the seventh, it’s always: “We are living in a simulation. The world is going to reset in 12 hours.”

But the book gives you options:

• Ignore it and keep going
• Restart with fresh characters
• Restart with the same characters, and now seeds of the simulation are starting to sink in - like Neo in the Matrix

I love the flexibility.

Mission Generation

Roll on the tables and you immediately put together a story:

• Approached by a known fence
• For a strange cult
• Offering a vehicle
• To kidnap a hacker
• From a medical facility or the set of the next holo-flick
• In Lily Pond in the slums
• Protected by a Road Runner clan
• It’s a trap

That’s an entire session at least. You can riff off it, build more. The game just generates content.

My Verdict

CY_BORG is my favourite cyberpunk game I’ve read. One of my favourite non-fantasy games. One of the games I’ve found most easy to know straight away I could run fast.

I like to be surprised about what’s happening. I like to feel like a player in my games and riff off what everybody else does. This just gives you the option to do that.

This is approaching the very top of my list for what I want to run next.

Get it. CY_BORG on Free League