Neon City Overdrive

by Nathan Russell

The rain-slick streets gleam like silver on a circuit board and holographic signs paint the metroplexes in a river of neon. The city stretches as far as the eye can see, from the toxic coast to the city limits where the walls keep the wasteland from encroaching. Despite advances in technology most people continue to live as cogs in a machine, distracted from their ineffectual lives by slick consumerism and invasive media.

You are a cyberpunk, a desperate individual with valuable skills, willing to put your life on the line in return for a little cash, reputation or leverage. With a lot of effort and a little luck you may survive the dangerous streets long enough to fulfill your goals and escape this life of violence and trouble.

NEON CITY OVERDRIVE is a fast-playing RPG of cyberpunk action. With a focus on story and action, character creation is fast and the rules are intuitive. Create any kind of cyberpunk character you want and throw them into the action within minutes.

Simple, intuitive D6 dice pool system
Create any kind of cyberpunk you can imagine
Broad sandbox setting and random tables help make the setting your own

Genres: Cyberpunk, Role Playing Games, Games

72 pages, Unknown Binding

Published March 1, 2020

Reviews

[Michael Burnam-Fink · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neon City Overdrive is pretty much exactly what it says on the cover, a light and fast cyberpunk RPG. Make up a crew of runners and hit the dangerous streets. There's a basic d6 mechanic, where positive tags from traits and gear ("I'm an outlaw biker on a magdrive Ninja x7, so I'm going to evade these cops by driving straight up a building for +3d6) are balanced out by negative dice from the danger. Rolls on the danger dice cancel out matching positive rolls, and then it's a 6 for a clear success, 4-5 for a complication, 3 or less for a fail, and the potential for a botch. Players are pretty tough, able to spend Stunt metacurrency to avoid damage. The setting is mashup of cyberpunk tropes, with handy tables to help quickly reference. There's a nod towards long-term play with rules for Drives, a chance to either get out clean or never escape the mean streets, but I think the lightness of this system tilts NCO more towards one-shots or short campaigns, rather than epic marathons.

Neon City Overdrive doesn't really break new ground as a game or setting, and it expects familiarity with the tropes rather than having a full setting, but the presentation is great, and I think I could genuinely run a game with maybe 20 minutes of prep. Even compared to my favorite BitD style games, it's fast. I got a copy as part of a freebie day, but if you've got $10, a hankering to run some cyberpunk missions, and don't want to wade through Shadowrun or deal with the more focused ptbA games like The Sprawl, NCO is a solid choice.

[Krzysztof · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read through and played a single session so far, planning to GM more. It's a rules-light, story-driven system that's a bit more specific than Russell's FU ruleset, which is a good thing for me. I need to play more to figure out the balance between positive and negative dice - the Danger dice seem very swingy in how difficulty might behave. I'm also not crazy about the Drive system which looks like an afterthought.

In general, the game's DNA has FU, Forged in the Dark and Fate in it, and those are all good sources of inspiration to have. I like that it's basically a "Cyberpunk Greatest Hits" kind of system, but with a more modern take - putting "Skins"/sleeves however you want to call them at the forefront of the setting, for example.

[Malum · Rating 3 out of 5]

The rules for this game are a cross between Fate (descriptive tags, hit boxes) and Powered by the Apocalypse (partial successes with consequences).
Some neat ideas here, but I fail to see why I wouldn't just play a cyberpunk game with either of the other two rule sets instead of this mashup.