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Sinless: Chrome & Sorcery Table Top Role Playing Game
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August 27, 2025
"I need guns. Lots of guns."
Sinless is a cyberpunk RPG with magic, a heartbreaker for the other cyberpunk RPG with magic. The year is 2090, about 50 years after magic returned and 10 years after the entire Grid crashed, taking every piece of digital information with it, and was rebuilt by an Archduke-class AI named Metatron. You are SINless, outcastes without the System Identification Numbers everyone else uses who do odd missions for bigger players. The objective is to survive until you can earn one billion Zuzu (a cryptocurrency based on the visage of a charismatic dog), at which point you can buy into the top-level accords as a sovereign corporate player. There is no possible way by the rules to earn that much money.
My overall sense on a read is that this system is unevenly baked, with parts that are great and parts that are clunky. There are tons of guns and spells and cyberware, a giant old school shopping list, as well as entire subsystem for managing your gang's control over a sector and its businesses and key NPCs. This is definitely not a game for those intimidated by rules. There are full subsystems for hacking, vehicle operation, martial arts, and three versions of magic.
The core system is pretty simple: You have 4 pools; Brawn, Finesse, Resolve, and Focus, with a cap that refresh each round. Taking an action allows you to roll Skill+Gear+Bonus-Penalty d6 from your pool. Anything above a 4 is a success (5 for Professional runs, 6 for Prime runs). For example, Finesse is used for both shooting and dodging, so if you expect to take fire, don't spend all your Finesse on attacking.
But the details are messy. Shooting an enemy and dealing damage takes a full page to describe, including damage mechanisms. A professional assassin with a really good pistol (6d skill, 3d weapon) can fire 9d. Every extra bullet fired is +1d6, so a chummer magdumping an SMG is making that same attack at 21d6! And only spending one from their focus pool to do so. I have to guess that spellcasting isn't that hard, but I'd have to go back because I have no idea how Zeotic score, channeling, and focus all work together to describe melting someone's mind with magic.
Conversely, the heat in mission system is an elegant anti-death spiral. At an alert, target numbers drop by one. At heavy response, everybody gets an extra action each turn. This is nice mechanical support for being more badass as things get more desperate.
The ton is similarly uneven. Part of this game is seriously about the evils of hypercapitalism and survival in a grim future. But also there are talking rabbits, Chicago was wrecked by a kaiju-sized demon, and rolling all 1s and no successes results in an Argle Bargle Froofargle, where something extra terrible happens.
I can't say I'm particular inspired to run this game, as a matter of exhaustion and it not being my tastes, but it's definitely a work of art.
Sinless is a cyberpunk RPG with magic, a heartbreaker for the other cyberpunk RPG with magic. The year is 2090, about 50 years after magic returned and 10 years after the entire Grid crashed, taking every piece of digital information with it, and was rebuilt by an Archduke-class AI named Metatron. You are SINless, outcastes without the System Identification Numbers everyone else uses who do odd missions for bigger players. The objective is to survive until you can earn one billion Zuzu (a cryptocurrency based on the visage of a charismatic dog), at which point you can buy into the top-level accords as a sovereign corporate player. There is no possible way by the rules to earn that much money.
My overall sense on a read is that this system is unevenly baked, with parts that are great and parts that are clunky. There are tons of guns and spells and cyberware, a giant old school shopping list, as well as entire subsystem for managing your gang's control over a sector and its businesses and key NPCs. This is definitely not a game for those intimidated by rules. There are full subsystems for hacking, vehicle operation, martial arts, and three versions of magic.
The core system is pretty simple: You have 4 pools; Brawn, Finesse, Resolve, and Focus, with a cap that refresh each round. Taking an action allows you to roll Skill+Gear+Bonus-Penalty d6 from your pool. Anything above a 4 is a success (5 for Professional runs, 6 for Prime runs). For example, Finesse is used for both shooting and dodging, so if you expect to take fire, don't spend all your Finesse on attacking.
But the details are messy. Shooting an enemy and dealing damage takes a full page to describe, including damage mechanisms. A professional assassin with a really good pistol (6d skill, 3d weapon) can fire 9d. Every extra bullet fired is +1d6, so a chummer magdumping an SMG is making that same attack at 21d6! And only spending one from their focus pool to do so. I have to guess that spellcasting isn't that hard, but I'd have to go back because I have no idea how Zeotic score, channeling, and focus all work together to describe melting someone's mind with magic.
Conversely, the heat in mission system is an elegant anti-death spiral. At an alert, target numbers drop by one. At heavy response, everybody gets an extra action each turn. This is nice mechanical support for being more badass as things get more desperate.
The ton is similarly uneven. Part of this game is seriously about the evils of hypercapitalism and survival in a grim future. But also there are talking rabbits, Chicago was wrecked by a kaiju-sized demon, and rolling all 1s and no successes results in an Argle Bargle Froofargle, where something extra terrible happens.
I can't say I'm particular inspired to run this game, as a matter of exhaustion and it not being my tastes, but it's definitely a work of art.
Displaying 1 of 1 review