Uses the Cepheus engine which as you all may know is a kind of open source "Traveller" (only you're not allowed to call it that). It's comparable to 2300AD and maybe Cthulhu Rising. The rules seem more user friendly than the former, and the background more fleshed out than the latter. Could do with a bit more in the way of scenarios and hostile life forms although there are extensive stats for the "Reticulan Parasite" - I'm sure you can guess what that is.
There's also a companion cyberpunk game "Zaibatsu":
Has an interesting Japanese-centric setting, inspired by the opening chapters of Neuromancer. The hacking rules which use a conventional playing card deck also seem like a good way of dispensing with the sheer tedium of the mini-dungeon bash approach of Cyberpunk 2020 and its progeny. Characters are fairly disposable which as a one time Paranoia GM I rather like. Can't see my players going for it though.
"There's a lot of dignity in that, isn't there? Going out like a raspberry ripple."
Linden wrote: ↑Sun May 20, 2018 7:39 am
There's also a companion cyberpunk game "Zaibatsu"...
I really like the look of this... after playing The Sprawl (a Cyberpunk implementation of PbtA) I was a bit burnt on cyberpunk. This seems much more my style, I have to say!
Marcus Bone wrote: ↑Mon May 21, 2018 9:05 am
I really like the look of this... after playing The Sprawl (a Cyberpunk implementation of PbtA) I was a bit burnt on cyberpunk. This seems much more my style, I have to say!
I think it may be the better of the two. Hostile is well done but unashamedly derivative, and needs something more to make it stand out from similar games - a fully fleshed out scenario or two wouldn't come amiss.
Zaibatsu on the other hand feels quite fresh. The Japanese spin is different but makes perfect sense. It's also mercifully free of that rather juvenile, trying-too-hard, would be gonzo style you get in say, CP2020 or Shadowrun (no orcs or elves either which is a bonus). Strikes me as a thoughtful and serious minded treatment of an rpg sub-genre that all too easily slips into gun porn cliches and over-the-top parody. Would love to GM or be a player in a campaign.
I think I'd take issue with the strong recommendation that characters be Japanese. The opening chapters of Neuromancer are mostly about gaijin and their wheeling and dealing.
"There's a lot of dignity in that, isn't there? Going out like a raspberry ripple."
Zozer games also offering a kind of Hostile-Lite as a freebie on their website. It's called the Outworld Authority Sectior and is designed for use with classic black books Traveller although I'm sure it would work perfectly well with other iterations of the game. There's also a Soviet sci-fi influenced supplement entitled Kosmos-68 which edges close to conspiracy horror with a vampire insect alien race, a revived MGB style secret police staffed by psychics (shades of B5's PSI-corps perhaps) and mention of Lovecraft's Great Race of Yith, the giant pyramidal shaped temporal meddlers. Taken together I think they'd make a good Cold War in Space setting. Am planning a campaign on those lines, if I can persuade my group to go for it.
