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Hard Wired Island
THE YEAR IS 2020
Humanity has spread to space. GRAND CROSS is a space station orbiting Earth, a high-tech city, and a gateway to the stars. But in this distant future, it's in crisis...
HARD WIRED ISLAND is a retrofuture cyberpunk TTRPG, inspired by 90s anime. This 400-page PDF includes:
An easy-to-learn system where social actions and problem-solving skills are at least as important as hacking and getting into fights.
A shorter player reference document for quick rule access.
An alternate 2020 setting in an O'Neill cylinder near Earth.
Descriptions of the many areas of Grand Cross, from the busy downtown Voyager Ward to the high-tech parkland of Mariposa to the Agriculture Ring that feeds the station.
Seven Occupations, including the Fixer, the Hacker, and the Influencer, along with a plethora of character options.
Over 100 detailed NPC descriptions, from corporate heavyweights to android crime lords to just regular citizens of an Earth-orbit city.
A flexible mission prep system that allows characters to adapt their plans on the fly without wasting their earlier efforts.
A wealth system that tracks the financial burdens placed on you by the capitalist system you live in.
A cybernetics system that doesn't dehumanize you for installing augments.
A lot of great art from a lot of great artists
Humanity has spread to space. GRAND CROSS is a space station orbiting Earth, a high-tech city, and a gateway to the stars. But in this distant future, it's in crisis...
HARD WIRED ISLAND is a retrofuture cyberpunk TTRPG, inspired by 90s anime. This 400-page PDF includes:
An easy-to-learn system where social actions and problem-solving skills are at least as important as hacking and getting into fights.
A shorter player reference document for quick rule access.
An alternate 2020 setting in an O'Neill cylinder near Earth.
Descriptions of the many areas of Grand Cross, from the busy downtown Voyager Ward to the high-tech parkland of Mariposa to the Agriculture Ring that feeds the station.
Seven Occupations, including the Fixer, the Hacker, and the Influencer, along with a plethora of character options.
Over 100 detailed NPC descriptions, from corporate heavyweights to android crime lords to just regular citizens of an Earth-orbit city.
A flexible mission prep system that allows characters to adapt their plans on the fly without wasting their earlier efforts.
A wealth system that tracks the financial burdens placed on you by the capitalist system you live in.
A cybernetics system that doesn't dehumanize you for installing augments.
A lot of great art from a lot of great artists
- GenresRole Playing Games
400 pages, ebook
Published April 23, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
October 26, 2021
Hard Wired Island is a game about being Gay Communist Cyberpunks... in SPAAACE!!! The system has some nice features, with specialized rules for social situations, stealth, hacking, and combat based around "mood" environmental tags, and the quirk that you can't do the same combat action twice in a row. The burden/economic shock system is a great representation of being broke without having to run a budget (hard pass).
But the star of the show is Grand Cross, a city set in a massive O'Neill habitat at Earth-Luna L5. Grand Cross is the new frontier, but it's controlled by exploitative and stupid corporations, full of criminal gangs and prejudiced goons, and facing a consequential election. Rogue artificial intelligences lurk in the station's basements, and the cops are worse than useless.
The art is great, and there are dozens of locations, districts, and NPCs, all dripping with adventure hooks. I have a couple of quibbles: the setting leans into "fans are slans" otaku references, which may not the be to everyone's taste. And for a game which is so upfront about the need to build a political coalition to replace Cartel, and that doing this will require Cool Space Crime, there's not a lot of rules for doing so.
And I'm a little harder on Goodreads than I am on Itch. While there's a lot of content, it's not actually diverse content. There's a parade of cool and helpful bar owners with geek T-shirts, and a carousel of greedy executives and brutal cops, but it's hard to say why you should use one NPC or place over another, a negative strike compared to Blades in the Dark where the NPC gangs all have unique agendas and districts have unique vibes.
The politics is similarly floppy. The basic problem of Grand Cross is that it's a frontier that's outgrowing its first steps. Housing was initially free for the people who built the station, and could be bought Earthside with enough money or a lucky lottery ticket, but space is running short and privatized rent is crushing ordinary people. It's just the homesteader problem with a cyberpunk gloss. And while the game is very clear that capitalism and cops are the problem, it gestures at hoary ideas of being Punk and Authentic and having Solidarity rather than the criminal chaos that a handful of independent psyops can topple a political system, the awful Constitutional moment when violence breaks into the chambers of the legislature, or the transhuman technopolitics of Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix. Unfortunately, this is still form over content.
Still, this is a massive book with a lot to offer for people looking to run a cyberpunk game. I might mod in rules from BitD or W.M. Aker's Comrades, but I'm happy to have this on my shelf.
But the star of the show is Grand Cross, a city set in a massive O'Neill habitat at Earth-Luna L5. Grand Cross is the new frontier, but it's controlled by exploitative and stupid corporations, full of criminal gangs and prejudiced goons, and facing a consequential election. Rogue artificial intelligences lurk in the station's basements, and the cops are worse than useless.
The art is great, and there are dozens of locations, districts, and NPCs, all dripping with adventure hooks. I have a couple of quibbles: the setting leans into "fans are slans" otaku references, which may not the be to everyone's taste. And for a game which is so upfront about the need to build a political coalition to replace Cartel, and that doing this will require Cool Space Crime, there's not a lot of rules for doing so.
And I'm a little harder on Goodreads than I am on Itch. While there's a lot of content, it's not actually diverse content. There's a parade of cool and helpful bar owners with geek T-shirts, and a carousel of greedy executives and brutal cops, but it's hard to say why you should use one NPC or place over another, a negative strike compared to Blades in the Dark where the NPC gangs all have unique agendas and districts have unique vibes.
The politics is similarly floppy. The basic problem of Grand Cross is that it's a frontier that's outgrowing its first steps. Housing was initially free for the people who built the station, and could be bought Earthside with enough money or a lucky lottery ticket, but space is running short and privatized rent is crushing ordinary people. It's just the homesteader problem with a cyberpunk gloss. And while the game is very clear that capitalism and cops are the problem, it gestures at hoary ideas of being Punk and Authentic and having Solidarity rather than the criminal chaos that a handful of independent psyops can topple a political system, the awful Constitutional moment when violence breaks into the chambers of the legislature, or the transhuman technopolitics of Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix. Unfortunately, this is still form over content.
Still, this is a massive book with a lot to offer for people looking to run a cyberpunk game. I might mod in rules from BitD or W.M. Aker's Comrades, but I'm happy to have this on my shelf.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review