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The Sprawl
Glide through the most secure corporate computer networks. Crack the ICE that stands between you and that big score.
Drop your cyberlinked autoshotgun to the floor empty. Flick chrome blades from your fingers. Dive into the midst of that corporate response team to secure your team’s exit.
Turn up your synth-leather jacket against the rain. Watch the back-alley entrance of the club for your target. Tail the armoured limo through the neon-bathed streets.
Cut power to the alarms. Drop over the wall into the compound. Slip past the auto-sentries. Locate and secure the prototype. Escape under the eyes of the rotor-drones.
Whatever your story, you are the extended assets of vast multinational corporations, operating in the criminal underground, and performing the tasks that those multinationals can’t do... or can’t be seen to do. You are deniable, professional and disposable.
The Sprawl is a game of mission-based action in a gritty neon-and-chrome Cyberpunk future for an MC and 2-4 players.
Create your own Sprawl at the nexus of bleeding-edge technology and fragile humanity
Play hardbitten professionals caught between ruthless corporate interests
Win sometimes, lose sometimes and be double-crossed a lot
There are a thousand stories in The Sprawl. What's yours?
Drop your cyberlinked autoshotgun to the floor empty. Flick chrome blades from your fingers. Dive into the midst of that corporate response team to secure your team’s exit.
Turn up your synth-leather jacket against the rain. Watch the back-alley entrance of the club for your target. Tail the armoured limo through the neon-bathed streets.
Cut power to the alarms. Drop over the wall into the compound. Slip past the auto-sentries. Locate and secure the prototype. Escape under the eyes of the rotor-drones.
Whatever your story, you are the extended assets of vast multinational corporations, operating in the criminal underground, and performing the tasks that those multinationals can’t do... or can’t be seen to do. You are deniable, professional and disposable.
The Sprawl is a game of mission-based action in a gritty neon-and-chrome Cyberpunk future for an MC and 2-4 players.
Create your own Sprawl at the nexus of bleeding-edge technology and fragile humanity
Play hardbitten professionals caught between ruthless corporate interests
Win sometimes, lose sometimes and be double-crossed a lot
There are a thousand stories in The Sprawl. What's yours?
250 pages, Hardcover
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39 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
September 8, 2017
I've read a lot of Powered by the Apocalypse books, and I admit I'm not a huge Cyberpunk aficionado. I picked up a copy of this to read to prepare for a game a friend of mine is running for our podcast, Perilous Pretenders. I have played a game of Shadowrun Anarchy, which is supposed to be Shadowrun "Lite", but I still found the mechanics to be quite clunky after being spoiled by the intuitive and story focused mechanics of PBTA games. I thought I was going to be put "off" the cyberpunk genre after that, not that it was the GM's fault, not at all. I just really wasn't sure how to roleplay my character and the clunky mechanics didn't help me feel confident trying more technological and sci-fi roleplaying. I felt a little unsure of how to roleplay in the cybepunk genre and didn't want to invest in a super hard to learn system if I wasn't sure I'd enjoy the subject matter.
Yes, I've watched the Matrix (hated the sequels), and I've read a couple of Philip K. Dick books. Shadowrun is like that mixed with D&D races, and kind of felt a bit off to me. The Sprawl is straight up, 90's cyberpunk without the magical elements; felt more like Blade Runner and A Scanner Darkly (which is a good thing). This books feels kind of like Cyberpunk: For Dummies and breaks it down trope by trope for me, which I found incredibly helpful actually.
There is enough "crunch" here that I feel this might be a good gateway PBTA game for fans of games like Shadowrun or Cyberpunk 2020, but this game would also be a good introduction to the cyberpunk genre as its themes and key elements are explained in great detail in the MC (Master of Cermonies) section.
I really like the different faction clocks that keep track of the pacing and tension of the action in the story. There are clocks for the "mega-corps", legwork, health, etc...so you know where you stand and can plan just how desperate your actions will need to be to get out of the situation in one piece (or how heavily in-debt repairing your cybeware will be if you survive at all). Cyberware is a big part of this game; Everyone who plays must have at least one piece of cyberware and explain why they have it and who they owe (or how unreliable it is being from the black-market). I really like that its required, I feel it creates lots of interesting hooks for the MC and connects the characters more to the technological sprawl of the city.
One issue I can see is if you wanted to play an A.I. character (like in Blade Runner, a key film by Ridley Scott in the genre). For me, Blade Runner is my main reference point, never having read William Gibson's cyberpunk novels (which are the prime inspiration for this game, which named after his Sprawl trilogy). There is a brief paragraph, a bit vague, on leaving all of that up to the MC, so if you want to have different moves or mechanics as an A.I. in an all human campaign, you'd have to work with your MC and/or make your own mechanics. Which doesn't bother me, especially since this is a story-telling, role playing heavy system, but just something to keep in mind.
The artwork is a bit hit or miss for me, I'm afraid. The cover art is beautiful, stunning neons and gives that claustrophobic and impersonal feeling this genre is all about. The illustrations inside, however, appear simply to be stock photos that have were posterized and had the contrast turned up to 11. This tends to be a theme in a lot of indie games, probably because of budget restrictions, but still. I'd rather have less art and one or two well designed pieces to really pull me visually into this world.
Overall, I'm highly impressed and actually excited to play this (unlike Shadowrun). I'd probably give this a 4.5 instead of a 5 for the reasons issues I discussed, but they really are such minor details I'm okay with keeping the rating at a 5. Hell, i think I could even run this out of the gate, even though I'm newer to the genre; the MC advice is that thorough and well presented. Pick this up, especially if you like rules light systems and are looking for something a bit different for your gaming table than typical fantasy tropes.
Yes, I've watched the Matrix (hated the sequels), and I've read a couple of Philip K. Dick books. Shadowrun is like that mixed with D&D races, and kind of felt a bit off to me. The Sprawl is straight up, 90's cyberpunk without the magical elements; felt more like Blade Runner and A Scanner Darkly (which is a good thing). This books feels kind of like Cyberpunk: For Dummies and breaks it down trope by trope for me, which I found incredibly helpful actually.
There is enough "crunch" here that I feel this might be a good gateway PBTA game for fans of games like Shadowrun or Cyberpunk 2020, but this game would also be a good introduction to the cyberpunk genre as its themes and key elements are explained in great detail in the MC (Master of Cermonies) section.
I really like the different faction clocks that keep track of the pacing and tension of the action in the story. There are clocks for the "mega-corps", legwork, health, etc...so you know where you stand and can plan just how desperate your actions will need to be to get out of the situation in one piece (or how heavily in-debt repairing your cybeware will be if you survive at all). Cyberware is a big part of this game; Everyone who plays must have at least one piece of cyberware and explain why they have it and who they owe (or how unreliable it is being from the black-market). I really like that its required, I feel it creates lots of interesting hooks for the MC and connects the characters more to the technological sprawl of the city.
One issue I can see is if you wanted to play an A.I. character (like in Blade Runner, a key film by Ridley Scott in the genre). For me, Blade Runner is my main reference point, never having read William Gibson's cyberpunk novels (which are the prime inspiration for this game, which named after his Sprawl trilogy). There is a brief paragraph, a bit vague, on leaving all of that up to the MC, so if you want to have different moves or mechanics as an A.I. in an all human campaign, you'd have to work with your MC and/or make your own mechanics. Which doesn't bother me, especially since this is a story-telling, role playing heavy system, but just something to keep in mind.
The artwork is a bit hit or miss for me, I'm afraid. The cover art is beautiful, stunning neons and gives that claustrophobic and impersonal feeling this genre is all about. The illustrations inside, however, appear simply to be stock photos that have were posterized and had the contrast turned up to 11. This tends to be a theme in a lot of indie games, probably because of budget restrictions, but still. I'd rather have less art and one or two well designed pieces to really pull me visually into this world.
Overall, I'm highly impressed and actually excited to play this (unlike Shadowrun). I'd probably give this a 4.5 instead of a 5 for the reasons issues I discussed, but they really are such minor details I'm okay with keeping the rating at a 5. Hell, i think I could even run this out of the gate, even though I'm newer to the genre; the MC advice is that thorough and well presented. Pick this up, especially if you like rules light systems and are looking for something a bit different for your gaming table than typical fantasy tropes.
May 13, 2025
I only recently learned about the "Powered by the Apocalypse" rules framework and The Sprawl is my first contact with it, and I have to say it seems both like one of the best systems I have ever encountered and an amazing execution of it. The Sprawl perfectly captures the essence of cyberpunk's narrative and sensual appeal and puts great care into laying out what is and isn't important if you want to play in the space. I hope I get to put this into practice soon.
August 1, 2024
Cyberpunk roleplaying powered by the apocalypse (that's using the Apocalypse World engine as its core rules). The game seems to be based more on the mission based play of Shadowrun than on cyberpunk literature, which I think is a plus given how successful that style of play has been over the years. Unlike Shadowrun, there are no fantasy elements involved (although the author is apparently working on a supplement to add those in).
The game does not have an established setting, instead the players cooperatively establish the setting in play.
The book makes me really want to run or play this game.
Edit: I have ran and played this game over multiple campaigns since first writing this review, and it remains one of my all-time favorite RPGs.
The game does not have an established setting, instead the players cooperatively establish the setting in play.
The book makes me really want to run or play this game.
Edit: I have ran and played this game over multiple campaigns since first writing this review, and it remains one of my all-time favorite RPGs.
December 11, 2017
Une excellente découverte que The Sprawl. Je ne suis pas très à l'aise avec le cyberpunk, mais la façon dont le genre est abordé ici permet de vraiment s'approprier le setting au fur et à mesure, en modulant selon les aspirations de la table.
Surtout, le système propose des mécanismes très intéressants et une belle mise en oeuvre du modèle Apocalypse. Il y a clairement des idées à reprendre là-dedans pour intégrer dans d'autres systèmes.
Une belle réussite.
Surtout, le système propose des mécanismes très intéressants et une belle mise en oeuvre du modèle Apocalypse. Il y a clairement des idées à reprendre là-dedans pour intégrer dans d'autres systèmes.
Une belle réussite.
January 8, 2018
Excellent! If you want to do mission-based cyberpunk table top role playing, this is the system for you!
June 3, 2017
Для игры в стиле киберпанк удивительно мало внимания уделено вопросу "расширяющих сознание" веществ. Как будто этой проблемы просто нет.
Второй момент, который не дал поставить максимальную оценку - излишняя жестокость по отношению к игрокам в завершающей стадии миссий. Сплошные подставы... Не знаю, хоть какой-то шанс на полную победу дали бы.
В остальном - качественная книга, как и все прочитанные до сих пор игры pbta.
Второй момент, который не дал поставить максимальную оценку - излишняя жестокость по отношению к игрокам в завершающей стадии миссий. Сплошные подставы... Не знаю, хоть какой-то шанс на полную победу дали бы.
В остальном - качественная книга, как и все прочитанные до сих пор игры pbta.
April 9, 2023
This is a great powered-by-the-apocalypse roleplaying game. The rules are well thought out and evocative of a cyberpunk setting, it has a good index and table of contents. There are a handful of rules that could have used some clarification as a first-time player of a PbtA system. It was easy to find the answers online by watching an actual play on YouTube and by asking in the very friendly subreddit though.
May 14, 2018
Good game, excellent setting, well written.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews